10 Improvised Movie Moments That Made The Film Much Better
9. "Herrrrrrrrre's Johnny!"
Stanley Kubrick was known for skipping around with genres and making totally different films with each new project, but there's a lot of connective tissue between seemingly unrelated films like A Clockwork Orange and his horrifying Stephen King adaptation The Shining. Besides the fact that he tortured these actors too and Shelly DuVall considered quitting. But then there's also the propensity to quote pure and innocent things from popular culture, re-contextualising them into something horrifying. Signin' In The Rain is a delightful song-and-dance number... until you watch A Clockwork Orange, in a rape scene, and it becomes associated with something awful. Meanwhile, when Jack Nicholson's possessed psycho starts cutting down that bathroom door with a fire axe whilst his wife cowers in the corner whilst yelling Here's Johnny!, he's quoting a catchphrase used by the titular host of The Johnny Carson Show. And Nicholson improvised that line, so Kubrick's two-for-two in unscripted darkenings of friendly things in popular culture.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
