The finest wines available to Humanity

I was re-watching “Withnail and I”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094336/ recently. In the ‘making of’ bonus feature one of the producers remarks that it is “the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid of the 1980s.” That sent a light bulb off in my head — in terms of fans, followers, and plot, it is actually the British Big Lebowski. Or maybe the feature-length version of the “The Young Ones”? But it’s missing the ska soundtrack.

I forgot how much I liked the film, as well as what a following it had. Some good soul has put “the entire script”:http://www.nasastooge.fsnet.co.uk/withnail/withnail-index.html on-line with audio from key quotes as well (the full script with stage directions is “here”:http://corky.net/scripts/withnail.html.)

“Balls. We want the finest wine available to humanity. We want them here, and we want them _now_!”:http://www.nasastooge.fsnet.co.uk/withnail/sounds/finewine.wav

My favorite line is actually:

Withnail:
At some point or another I want to stop and get hold of a child.

Marwood:
What do you want a child for?

Withnail:
To tutor it in the ways of righteousness and procure some uncontaminated urine.

But they didn’t have a .wav for that one.

  1. Dr. Sanders’s avatar

    Sweet–this goes in the Netflix cue! Do they have Netflix in Hawaii?

  2. SEB’s avatar

    Of course they have Netflix out here and thank goodness for it too — we can’t watch surfing documentaries and Korean soap operas *every* night.

  3. Thomas McCullough’s avatar

    To my chagrin I had never heard of this movie. After reading your post I did see it and am deeply thankful. It was a transfixing experience and I have become a different man. (A fairly common event, actually.)

    The funniest moment in the movie is Policeman #2′s “Get in the back of the van.” (You had to be there.)