Those scenes in movies where someone in a bar starts a fight, and all of a sudden everyone in the place starts to beat up each other for no proper reason at all. Classic or dud?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

I love them scenes, even a bad movie always gets a few extra points for including one.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Saturday, 8 July 2006 16:01 (nineteen years ago)

I think these scenes carry a subtext of nihilism: that human beings are violent animals, and they'll start fighting each other for the tiniest of excuse.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Saturday, 8 July 2006 16:03 (nineteen years ago)

If the chairs break easily, then its all good. Swinging from a chandalier? definite classic.

― The Ultimate Conclusion (lokar), Saturday, 8 July 2006 16:04 (nineteen years ago)

Even more classic is the dudes getting tossed through windows bits of these.

― ALLAH FROG (Mingus Dew), Saturday, 8 July 2006 16:07 (nineteen years ago)

It's even better when the protagonist yells them to stop, so that everyone freezes in their positions, and he then holds a speech for friendship and solidarity, so that the guys who were up on each other's throats just a minutes ago end up hugging each other.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Saturday, 8 July 2006 16:08 (nineteen years ago)

...which of course reverses the subtext of nihilism mentioned above. I think most directors could be categorized as either cynics or idealists depending on how they handle these scenes.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Saturday, 8 July 2006 16:09 (nineteen years ago)

double classic when it happens in real life.

― gbx (skowly), Saturday, 8 July 2006 16:18 (nineteen years ago)

Yes! I have only seen something happen like this once though.

― ALLAH FROG (Mingus Dew), Saturday, 8 July 2006 16:19 (nineteen years ago)

I SMELL A THESIS!!! KUDOS :D

― Machibuse '80 (ex machina), Saturday, 8 July 2006 16:31 (nineteen years ago)

It's great when they're in some period western saloon and when the fists start flying the cabaret entertainer lady has to jump up on the bar and you get to see her garters...

― Abbott (Abbott), Saturday, 8 July 2006 16:32 (nineteen years ago)

Roadhouse contains the defining moment of this, surely. (Actually, several moments.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 8 July 2006 16:33 (nineteen years ago)

suppory your local sheriff/gunfighter to thread

― Jimmy Mod: NOIZE BOARD GRIL COMPARISON ANALYST (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Saturday, 8 July 2006 17:10 (nineteen years ago)

We did one of these for our Entertainer's badge in Cub Scouts ca. 1990. I was the pianist. We practiced stunt fighting for weeks, but during the performance itself the guy I was fighting with actually punched me in the face. It remains the best punch I've ever received. My teeth hurt for days.

― caek (caek), Saturday, 8 July 2006 19:37 (nineteen years ago)

Classic if a troupe of Busby Berkeley dancers pile in.

― Toad Roundgrin (noodle vague), Saturday, 8 July 2006 19:40 (nineteen years ago)

I was gonna say, this is maybe half the screen time in Roadhouse!

― Jesus Dan (Dan Perry), Saturday, 8 July 2006 19:41 (nineteen years ago)

It would be so cool if hillbilly throwdown music really started playing out of nowhere when IRL bar fights broke out.

― choinklate (nickalicious), Saturday, 8 July 2006 19:44 (nineteen years ago)

I've seen a couple of real life bar fights that were almost like the movies. I think it's a Hull thing.

― Toad Roundgrin (noodle vague), Saturday, 8 July 2006 19:44 (nineteen years ago)

i saw this happen in real life a couple moths ago except it was with high school girls outside my building. one of them got thrown on the hood of the cop car as it pulled up.

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Saturday, 8 July 2006 19:49 (nineteen years ago)

i actually saw this happen a few months ago when all these people spilled out of a bar across the street... seriously, my friend videotaped it, it totally looks like one of those scenes. shirts being pulled over guys' heads, etc.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 8 July 2006 20:14 (nineteen years ago)

Sounds like a good hockey game.

― jim wentworth (wench), Sunday, 9 July 2006 00:13 (nineteen years ago)

Isn't it usually two factions who are barely keeping peace and then something sets two of 'em off so everybody jumps in? Not always, sure, but usually?

― 100% CHAMPS with a Yes! Attitude. (Austin, Still), Sunday, 9 July 2006 00:33 (nineteen years ago)

I can really identify with the guy cowering under a table, usually clutching a bottle.

― nicky lo-fi (nicky lo-fi), Sunday, 9 July 2006 07:35 (nineteen years ago)

I always love those scenes. I remember when I was small getting all excited whenever a western would cut to a bar, because it was only a matter of minutes before a swedgeathon would start.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Sunday, 9 July 2006 09:16 (nineteen years ago)

Isn't it usually two factions who are barely keeping peace and then something sets two of 'em off so everybody jumps in? Not always, sure, but usually?

No, I think it's more common that people just start whacking each other for no apparent reason. That's part of the joke.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 9 July 2006 12:33 (nineteen years ago)

What about the origins of these scenes? Westerns probably popularized them, but they must have their roots in slapstick, Laurel & Hardy pie fights etc, right?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 9 July 2006 12:35 (nineteen years ago)

Those scenes just make me anxious about what a mess they're making, and how someone's going to have to clean it up and buy all new furniture.

Here's a real one:

My husband witnessed a giant brawl at the local dive (the Ritz Tavern in Oak Bluffs) between a group of local drunks and a group of visiting golfers. Something to do with one of them putting a quarter on the edge of the pool table to reserve the next game and the other people pocketing the quarter. The golfers kicked the locals' butts, then gathered up their golf clubs and left. One of the locals went to the door and yelled "YA FUCKING GOLFERS!!!!" at their backs.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Sunday, 9 July 2006 14:26 (nineteen years ago)

Name some good ones. The first movies that come to mind for me aren't westerns but Hal Needham/Burt Reynolds flicks: Hooper and the Cannonball Run.

Hooper is better.

― shookout (shookout), Sunday, 9 July 2006 14:36 (nineteen years ago)

One of the locals went to the door and yelled "YA FUCKING GOLFERS!!!!" at their backs.

that is the best thing i've heard all day.

― gbx (skowly), Sunday, 9 July 2006 15:16 (nineteen years ago)

lol both classic and dud depends on the scene
eg dukes of hazard the new jess simpson movie dud
where as the original classic depends on how its done either way funny as all hell

― panda may (panda_may), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 02:08 (nineteen years ago)

The bar brawl in Peckinpah's Junior Bonner is unbeatable.

― Hatch (Hatch), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 02:09 (nineteen years ago)

What confuses me is when there's a situation that's neither one clearly defined social grouping vs. another (frat boys vs. townies, ninjas vs. pirates, IT guys vs. sales) nor completely random (everybody vs. anybody and everybody). Some guy will bump into someone else and the fists start flying, and then the whole bar sides out with no apparent way of differentiating between who's fighting on who's side, but they're going at it anyway. Like, the whole bar is either a Brad supporter or a Darryl supporter, and all the partisans on one side instinctively know whom to back up and whom to beat on amongst the entire bar clientele.

I could swear I've seen this in movies but maybe I'm retroactively imagining this.

― slugbuggy (slugbuggy), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 04:31 (nineteen years ago)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a spectacularly terrible/wonderful cinematic instance of this appeared courtesy of MST3K -- in one of the Master Ninja episodes, there's a scene in a seafood-themed restaurant where union-busting creeps try to beat the hell out of the towering masculinity that is Timothy Van Patten while Crystal Bernard looks on despairingly. As it were.

Anyway, the expected nearly-everyone-fights-everyone else follow-on leads to a moment where some goof runs into/is flung towards a woman on a pay phone in the bar. She expertly clocks the guy on top of the head and smiles back at the guy who she's been standing and talking with (but she was on the phone...), receiver to her ear. The true pain, however, comes when you realize that there's a terrible overdub of a woman's voice, presumably mean to be her, ORDERING PIZZA.

Joel and the bots don't even comment on this, probably because it defies the natural law of the universe and therefore cannot easily be grasped.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 04:40 (nineteen years ago)

The way Firefly did these was always k-classic. I mentioned the other day the fite scene in one of the early eps where someone even sails thru a window - only the window is holographic, so it just fuzzes out. Brilliant!

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 04:51 (nineteen years ago)

These scenes are classic.
This happens in Oceans 11 - (the original, Sinatra version). A guy running a burlesque house takes offence at someone yelling enthusiastically at his girl who is dancing onstage. I don't understand why he gets so upset, surely it happens alot. Next thing everyone is randomly pummelling each other.

I'm sure this isn't the best example, but I just saw this the other day so it's the first thing to come to mind.

― Bn1 (Bn1), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 05:44 (nineteen years ago)

This is a definate standby from the earliest days of film. Laurel and Hardy's 'You're darn tooting' has a fantastic brawl where the objective is for all the brawlers to rip each other's trousers off, marvellous.

People being thrown along the bar breaking bottles and glasses = classic.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 07:18 (nineteen years ago)

There's a good one in Bugsy Malone, but with pies instead of bottles.

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 07:51 (nineteen years ago)

The climax to Blazing Saddles must be the motherlode of bar fights.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 07:57 (nineteen years ago)

my dad has an anecdote about being in one of these fights.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 08:45 (nineteen years ago)

Is your dad Mel Brooks?

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 10:23 (nineteen years ago)

I was going to say, classic if it involves splurge guns.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 10:37 (nineteen years ago)

SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL TO THREAD

“Have you met my friend Harvey Wallbanger?”

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 11:09 (nineteen years ago)

The actual story about my dad - back in the 1950s or 1960s he is with my mother in some awful Irish dance hall near the Elephant & Castle. This hard nut is blatantly spoiling for a fight, and the way he does it is he goes up to women who are obviously with a man, and he asks them to dance. If the ladies say "no thanks, maybe later", then no problem. This is what my mother says. But when the first bloke says "wait a minute pal, she's with me", the hard nut punches him in the face, and then almost immediately everyone in the place is breaking chairs over each other.

Deadly buzz.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 21:21 (nineteen years ago)

Another classic bar/club fight scene: Tokyo Drifter

― Chairman Doinel (Charles McCain), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 21:41 (nineteen years ago)

there's a scene in SINGIN' IN THE RAIN that makes good hay of this, IIRC.

re. ROADHOUSE, this does seem a staple of a certain kind of urban or modern-dress action movie of the 70s and 80s. in fact the conventionality of it seems even more naked in those films than in the westerns that the trope seems to call to mind first. i think what we're actually thinking of is less actual westerns than parodies of westerns a la BLAZING SADDLES etc.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 12 July 2006 00:52 (nineteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.