6. Leave The F***ing Cat!
Its the clichéd question that film journalists always trot out: when did you know that the film was going to be a success? When interviewed for the documentary The Beast Within, the films cinematographer Derek Vanlint recalled seeing the film complete for the first time in Los Angeles around two weeks into its original run. He was sitting in a packed theatre just behind a seven-foot tall African-American with huge muscles, who didnt look as though he could be scared by anything. They came to the point where Ripley is the last living crew member, and she leaves the escape pod to go back onto the Nostromo to get Jones the cat. At that precise moment, the African-American half-whispered, half-screamed: LEAVE THE F***KING CAT!. And with that, Vanlint knew that they had a hit on their hands.