Siskel & Ebert (TV Series)

The Last of the Mohicans/Innocent Blood/Mr. Saturday Night/Glengarry Glen Ross/Laws of Gravity (1992)

Gene Siskel: Self - Host

Quotes 

• Roger Ebert - Host : The title of "Glengarry Glen Ross" is inspired by two mythical real estate developments that these guys are trying to move. And the play was a great success on the stage in the mid 1980s, when times were good. Now, when the economy is not so hot, it plays even better. It's rare to see ensemble acting on this scale and with this skill in a movie, because every one of the actors is at the top of his form, and Jack Lemmon has a scene here where he goes out in the rain and knocks on a prospect's door, and this guy doesn't want to buy ANY real estate, and it's one of the best single scenes this great actor has ever appeared in. Of course, the Mamet dialogue is filled with four letter words. It always is. You've gotta bleep every other word in some scenes, but here, the words are like music or like punctuation, and they really work.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Uh, I liked the film a lot, I LOVED the play, this is one of my favorite plays.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Yeah.

  Gene Siskel - Host : And, um, I think there are times when I heard the words and, and the action seemed a little stagey for me. But at the same time, at the end of this, I was so wired up that I took some notes, and one of the things I wrote down as I walked out of this movie is, if a salesman were to call me in the next hour, I would have picked up the phone and shouted an obscenity into the phone and slammed it down. Because I was so pumped up, and I... okay, I'm empathetic toward their situation...

  Roger Ebert - Host : Are you- if, if a salesman had called ME, I might have even listened.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Oh no, I would not.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Because I empathize with these guys. No?

  Gene Siskel - Host : No, this thing got me tense, and I just... hated to see the manipulation there. Um... I empathize a little bit with them, but they're trying to steal people's dreams.

  Roger Ebert - Host : No, see, we saw- we both liked this movie, and we saw a different movie, because what I sympathize with...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Yes.

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...Was that, here are guys who are broke.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Of course.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Lemmon has his wife in the hospital, the others can't put food on the table.

  Gene Siskel - Host : I understand that.

  Roger Ebert - Host : They can't feed their families. They've got worthless leads, they're on the phone calling people that don't want to hear from them.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Yes.

  Roger Ebert - Host : It's pathetic!

  Gene Siskel - Host : It IS pathetic.

  Roger Ebert - Host : It's the situation that people are in, because they need money to support themselves, so I didn't hate them, I felt sorry for them.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Uh... I felt sorrier for their victims than I felt for them.

  [Roger chuckles] 

  Gene Siskel - Host : On, on stage, I think I had more your reaction. In this film, I- I didn't like them.