Movie Quotes: "The Hudsucker Proxy"

Christmas time has a tendency to compel critics to recall and talk about their favorite Christmas films, yet I've never come across a movie reviewer do the same for New Years. Maybe it's because they're so close together. There are plenty of films to choose from with important New Years moments in them. "When Harry Met Sally..." comes to mind as one. But my favorite, and a review will be posted tomorrow, is "The Hudsucker Proxy". At the beginning, we see a view among New York's skyscrapers during a snow fall. The camera moves closer and closer to one building and a man that is posed to jump from a ledge. During all of this, we hear the narration of Moses the Clock Man (Bill Cobbs) as he fills us in on the time and place of our story.

Moses: "That's right. New York. It's 1958, anyway for a few more minutes it is. Come midnight, it's going to be 1959, a whole 'nother feeling, the New Year. Yeah, old daddy earth's fixin' to take one more ride around the sun. Everyone's hopin' that this time it will be a little more giddy, a little more gay. All over town champagne corks is a poppin. Over in the Waldorf, the big shots are dancing to the strings of Guy Lombardo. Down at Times Square, the little folks is a watchin' and waiting for that big ball to drop, trying to catch hold of one moment of time. Right now, this is it, i've got it. Of course by then it will be past. But they all happy, everybody having a good time. Well, almost everybody. There's a few lost souls floating around out there. Now if y'all aren't from the city, we've got something here called the rat race. Got a way of chewing folks up so that don't want no celebrating, don't want no cheering up, don't care about no New Years. Out of hope, out of rope, out of time. This here is Norville Barnes. That office he's steppin out of, it's the office of the president of Hudsucker Industries. It's his office. How did he get so high, and why is he feeling so low? Is he really going to do it? Is he really going to jelly up the sidewalk? Well, the future, that's something you can never tell about. But the past, that's another story."