SPACE COAST WRITERS' GUILD

Topic: Valerie Allen's "I Wish I had Said That"

Athena Sasso - 7/4/2007 8:07:45 AM I read and enjoyed Valerie's article in the Advice section of this forum. I note that these one-liners all came from movies and I wonder if that's why they have stuck so successfully. I saw the author of "Cool Hand Luke" at a conference in Ft. Lauderdale a few years ago and learned that it was a screenwriter, and not he, who wrote the most memorable line from that movie: "What we have here is a failure to communicate." Congratulations to the screenwriters, who have a better chance at immortality than novelists. (Of course, Tolstoy and Jane Austen remain the exceptions who prove the rule.)

7/6/2007 8:13:45 PM - Valerie Allen Glad you enjoyed the famous lines. Point is we often recall a tag line, but can't remember the movie or the book from which it came. More and more movies are being made from books. This is very encouraging for writers. A really good book on famous last lines from movies is by our very own member, Donna Chesher, called, "The End: Closing Lines of Over 3000 Theatrically Released American Films." It is used in many MFA college programs throughout the US.