Ask Movie Irv: Have You Ever Walked Out on a Movie?

12.23.11 | and

Taking offense; an unexpected emergency; sheer boredom…all reasons someone might give for walking out on a movie. It’s safe to say we’ve probably all done it at one time or another. When the exodus is not forced upon you—that is to say, when it’s a matter of you making the choice to abandon the film you just plunked down some hard-earned cash to see—that’s when it becomes an interesting story about the relationship between you and the cinema.

Movie Irv has seen many, many, many movies. Has he ever walked out on one? If so, why? Was he overwhelmed by the sugary content of The Sound of Music? Did he feel the shame of a city in the midst of the murky 3-D of The Last Airbender? Perhaps A Serbian Film sent him into the men’s room as he lost his lunch? It’s time to Ask Movie Irv:

So ends Irv’s confession. He’s already taken on How You Shop for a Movie Collector and Do You Read the Book Before Seeing the Movie, and now he needs a few more questions. If you want to know when such-and-such is coming out on DVD or Blu-ray, go ask Irv on the DVD Beat and TV Tip Sheet posts. Got a trivia nugget you think will stump us? Ask MovieFanFare or visit our Facebook page. In this arena, we seek the movie-related inquiries that are unusual or challenging. Go for it in the comments:

  • marshall

    I wish I had walked out of “Avatar.” That’s one really awful film! But I was with my wife and I didn’t think that I should leave her alone in the theatre!

  • goarmy

    Twice : Marlon Brando singing in Guys and Dolls and Clint Eastwood singing in Paint Your Wagon. Both beyond human endurance.

    • http://www.facebook.com/thomas.e.leek Thomas Leek

      you are crazy those are both classic films.

  • John George

    The only reason I didn’t walk out on the insipid and anachronistic story of “Titanic” was that I wanted to see the ship sink and the sensational special effects that were used to create it.

  • frankiedc

    I wanted desperately to walk out of the original “Alien” because the tension in it was almost unbearable. I saw it the first weekend it was released and people were leaving in droves because of the atmosphere of genuine terror the film engendered while the astronauts were searching the ship for the alien. My companion insisted on staying, so I had to sweat it out.I was a nervous wreck, but I survived. I can now watch it on tv or dvd without any apprehension because I know the outcome, but back then I was in a cold sweat all the way through.

  • JSG

    I walked out of “Reservoir Dogs”. I just don’t want that kind of feeling in me. The film maker did his work well.

  • DIRK

    This is one of those questions that make you confess you walked out on a great film: mine was A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, during the prison torture scenes, however on my behalf it wasn’t because of anything objectionable, but because I was at a Film Festival Weekend and Otto Preminger’s LAURA was about to start in the next auditorium. I Love LAURA to this day and alas, have never seen the end of Stanley Kubricks movie.

  • mickey

    My wife and I walked out of “Urban Cowboy”. After sitting through at least an hour of it, maybe more. We couldn’t understand why that movie was made. We saw it was on TV the other night and started laughing.
    I would have walked out on the first “Twilight” movie. I tried it on DVD and gave up after 45 minutes of boredom. I’ll take “30 Days of Night” instead, or better yet “Let Me In”. Now those are vampire movies!

  • Nick

    I would have walked out on Avatar but after spending $15 of my hard earned cash, I managed to stick it out until the credits. What a crappy movie!

  • Kai Ferano

    I don’t remember ever walking out on a movie, but there were two movies that I did witness a few people walk out on: “The Exorcist,” probably because of its diabolical theme and — oh, I forgot the name — the blockbuster movie about Vietnam, the one that Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep were in. I saw two African-American men leave in a hurry when that scene in the middle of the movie where a young Black soldier was sitting by a window, crying, was shown. I think I got that right.

  • pianodoc

    I never do well in crowds, but the effect the movie “Woodstock” had on me was unexpected. It triggered a full-fledged claustrophobic attack. I sat in the lobby until my friend came out to tell me I could watch the rest of the movie in relative safety. That was in 1970 and I don’t remember walking out of any other theater film.

  • http://www.moviesunlimited.com George D. Allen

    Kai, the ‘Nam movie to which you refer is “The Deer Hunter.” As for “The Exorcist,” I was just waiting for that one to be mentioned. I am poring over the book “Shock Value” by Jason Zinoman (a most welcome Christmas present this year!), which details the visceral reactions viewers had upon the movie’s release.

  • Daver

    i dont go to the theater..i know..shame on me..but im glad i dont…id walk out often…after all the hype over avitar..i bought it on bluray…sat down with popcorn and a soda,,cat on my lap…..and was bored sensless in a very short time,sure its “pretty”,,great CGI and all..but its a terrible movie..in my opinion..avitar is a good example of “hollywood” at its best when it comes to “whos who”…i believe it won all the awards and got all the hype not because of what it was..but because of who made it..the new movie warhorse is going to be the same….stupid premise..follow a horse as it takes part in a war cause he “loves a horse’?..but it will win big for all its pretty color and “acting” because its spielburg…..but the new tom hanks movie looks better

  • Brian Lilly

    I love the old classic horror movies and went to “The Exorcist” with an open mind. My mind was fine but my stomach wasn’t prepared for the pea soup vomit scene. Yes, I left the theatre. Now I can’t believe I ever reacted that way as I have watched the movie several times since.

  • dave castellarin

    they call this movie a classic . EASY RIDER, what a most boring piece of garbage. many times i wanted to leave but since i paid my money thought better of it. sorry people, but that really was a stupid movie

  • Gord

    I’ve walked out on a number of films but two stand out in my mind. The first one, “The Wizard of Oz” I was thoroughly enjoying, but my younger brother definitely was not. Halfway in he was wanting to leave, and by the time we got to Dorothy and the tumbling sands in the hourglass, there was no pacifying him. I was not amused but, happily, I was able to go and re-see it on my own. “I’m not taking him with me,” I defiantly told all and sundry, which was fine with my brother because he wasn’t interested anyway.

    The other film, and I only lasted fifteen minutes, was Anthony Mann’s “El Cid” with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren. (Mann’s film noirs and adult westerns with James Stewart, on the other hand have always commanded my undivided attention.) Right from the beginning I was bored out of my mind, the prescence of Charlton Heston being the main reason. For me, he was always an actor of very limited range whose only notable performances are “Will Penny”, “Number One” and Khartoum.”

    There are other films I would love to have left behind (like Samuel Bronston’s lugubrious monstrosity, “55 Days at Peking”) but I was with at least one other person so I somehow stuck them out.

  • John Small

    I’ve never actually walked out of a movie. I did, however, fall asleep about 10 minutes into “The Neverending Story” and missed the rest of it. To this day I’ve never even tried to see the rest of the film, because I figure any movie that bores me that much is best left alone.

  • Susan Johnston

    I pretty much watch everything and I can usually find redeeming and/or artistic value in even the most bleak of films. Modern comedies are far too puerile (Potty humor I haven’t appreciated since I was 5. Grow up, already!) and the old romantic comedies are often way too sappy for me, so let’s not go there. However, years ago when my husband and I were dating he took me to a double feature of Peckinpaugh’s “The Wild Bunch” followed by Clint Eastwood in Leone’s “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” We were dating and the point was being together, but by the time this holocaust was over, I was ready for two or four extra-strength Excedrin and bed. I never was able to appreciate Peckinpaugh with the extreme violence, gratuitous or not, it is literally overkill; and the intensity of the soundtrack was overpowering. I later on tried again on “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” and the masterful music of Ennio Morricone won me over and saved the day! I still enjoy that film greatly even today. Too bad it was not the first feature! The only other film (rented) that I have been too disgusted with to see to the end was Scorcese’s “Gangs of New York.” Mind you, Scorcese is a very skilled filmmaker (I really liked “The Last Temptation of Christ,” for example) but I couldn’t do “gangs” or the same moral “nausee” portrayed in Wild Bunch. People need work, to be sure, but, as bad as they can be, I have always thought that redemption was possible and that people at some level have a spark of good even though they may choose to be violent and that the violence is a lapse or response to threat, not a way of life.

  • Geneva P

    I love mostly all of the Titanic movies, my favorite being Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck. However, after all of the hype I went to see Titanic with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DeCaprio. Everyone came to work telling about how they cried and how the movie was beautiful and sad. However the C.Webb Titanic makes me cry EVERY TIME I see it. However, the recent Titanic movie did not move me. I loved the fashions, beautiful ship, etc, but did not like the “love story” or the OVERDONE special effects. The older movie left much to the imagination which evoked much emotion. However, in the new Titanic we did not need to see all of those people bouncing around off the furniture, etc, and Leonardo DiCaprio being chased by someone with a gun on a sinking ship was almost comedic. No one leaves anything to the imagination anymore. That is what I regret most.

  • ed

    not only have i walked out on a movie but been thrown out of a few too

  • http://www.moviesunlimited.com George D. Allen

    Susan J, glad to read about how you were won over by the greatness of the Leone; similarly happy to learn of your apppreciation for the Scorsese Jesus picture, which just happens to be my favorite http://www.moviefanfare.com/staff-notes/jesus-christ-movie-star/

    That makes me all the more surprised you were not a fan of “Gangs of New York.” But I have had more than one involved debate about that one.

    ed– that second part of your comment rather begs for some elaboration. :)

  • richard finn

    The crowd reaction I recall as most memorable was in the movie “Star Wars VI”. When Darth Vader grabbed the emperor (who was in the process of killing Luke slowly and painfully) and threw him into the ship’s reactor, the entire theater reacted with a cheer. Everyone else with whom I spoke about the film said the same reaction occurred when they had attanded the film. I have never walked out of a movie, but I did rent “Scary Movie” and after about 20 minutes stopped it and took it back to the video rental store. And years ago, while watching “Dr. Zhivago” I fell sound asleeep beside my then fiancee`, now my wife. I have tried to watch it since with the same result. Lastly as far as theater incidents, when I went to see “The Thing From Another World” in 1951 (I was around 13) my pal Chuck went up behind another boy about our same age and put his hands in front of the boy’s face and gave a growling sound. Immediately the kid got up and left the theater. We couldn’t figure it out, but concluded that this kid must have done something in his pants. As bad a movie as “The Thing” was by today’s standards, it is still one of my favorites!

  • cbedell3

    The only movie I ever walked out from was Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein. That was the most disgusting excuse for a movie I have ever seen.

  • Bill

    I have walked out on a couple of flicks, or have stopped them and sent the DVD back before the ending. The one I remember most was “Weekend At Beries.” IT JUST WAS NOT FUNNY, PERIOD!

  • Barry Baxter

    I walked out of “Descendants” last week. I don’t go to movies to get depressed. I walked out of “A Room with a View”", Boring, I walked out on a Hobbit movie, Asinine.

  • Tom K.

    I did not walk out on “The Exorcist” but there were some that RAN out, some through the emergency fire exits. The 17 year old kid that was with us did not say one word during the 100 mile drive home; not that’s scarey. ( Bad Joke: What happens if you do not pay your exorcist ? You get Repossessed ! )

  • Gord

    Geneva P., if you haven’t seen the British version of the Titanic disaster, “A Night to Remember”, I would highly recommend it. I have seen them all, have “Night” in my collection, definitely considering it the best of the three films on the subject.

  • Groover

    Movies are generally so awful that I haven’t gone to a theater in many years. I’ve turned off numerous films that were overly gross in an attempt to be funny, utterly joyless, or those which were bereft of likable characters however. The most recent Hollywood bomb I happily zilched was 2011′s “Mechanic.” Switching off tiresomely bad movies in the privacy of my own home is much more comfortable than walking out of a theater.

  • C. B. umphlette

    A small twist on the subject, ever have a date walk out of a movie? I was seeing the 81 Mephisto with a date, a woman I had been seeing for a few months, and she walked out. ( at least a good character flaw detector I might not have found till much later) and a new date walked out while we were watching Bladerunner, I saw the movie again later and still love it but was never sure why the date left. We never dated again. Maybe that was a time saver too.

  • http://www.moviesunlimited.com George D. Allen

    Love the twist. My date didn’t walk about, but closed her eyes for a very long time during “Barton Fink”—a story I recount whilst playing The Movie IFs Game http://www.moviefanfare.com/staff-notes/playing-the-movie-ifs-game/

    As I recall, the same thing happened when we attended a screening of Tetsuo: The Iron Man. We went our separate ways too, but I can’t blame the movies. :)

  • KarenG

    I walked out on Mighty Aphrodite. I usually love Woody Allen films, but I just couldn’t take Mira Sorvino’s voice, plus the subject matter wasn’t to my taste.

    I also walked out on the Avengers film with Uma Thurman & I believe Ralph Fiennes. I just didn’t like it.

  • Paul M. Boos

    Around 1969, I walked out on a film called “Husbands” by the worst filmaker of all time, John Cassavetes! It supposedly showed four men’s reactions to the death of a friend. The men were in the late 30′s to early 40′s age bracket as I remember and went around whining and partying like a bunch of lost teenagers…totally non-realistic and an awful waste of time….

  • Alexander M. Foundoukis

    I didn;t walk out but fell asleep during the most boring film, 2001 by Kubrick. I have since tried seeing it several times and find it increasingly BORING!

  • Jack Jones

    ed, tell us more.

  • Dana Rich

    I generally love Godzilla films. I was very excited to find that Godzilla Vs. King Kong was playing at my local theatre. It was a small town, single-screen theatre and evidently they were breaking in a new projectionist. The second reel of the flim started and it was running backwards. After about 5 minutes of this the management refunded everyone’s money, apologized as asked us all to leave. So I guess that EVERYONE walked out in the middle of the film.

  • Randy

    I walked out and a few. LET IT BE 1970 because I thought it was gonna be like the other Beatles films. And THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL. Sat thru almost two hours of that junk and finally said to heck with it and left.

  • Publius

    I susally never walk out on a movie; the only time I wanted to, was when I went with a group of freinds to see “Rubie” with Stockard Channing. the cast was so lame, the story so stupid, the camera shots so awful, that the movie was booed by the audience, and we laughed all the way through it. I kept closing my eyes through boredom, but I couldn’t leave because my friend had the car. At the end of the whole picture, the whole audience went “ohhhhhh.” As in, “HOw Terrible!” IN ’79 when I went to see “Breaking Away” I noticed that there were lines and lines of people waiting to see a horror film about the “possessed house.” As the people had just seen the picture coming out the side entrance they were yelling to us, “It stinks!” “Don’t waste your money!” I think it starred Charles Bronson and Rod Steiger. Later when I saw it on TV I laughed through the whole first 30 minutes and turned it off. “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” I could only stomach 10 minutes and switched to Laurel and Hardy again.

  • Phyllis Sanborn

    I walked out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail after 7 minutes. I found it less than one percent funny and the rest just gory and cruel.

  • Richard

    The only picture I ever remember walking out on was a movie called “Defcon 4″ there was an almost non existant plot and too much gratuitous violence. I was there with a friend who swore he would never walk out of a movie, but he did.

  • Bill Ameen

    It’s amazing how different people’s tastes are. (I’ve seen THE HOLY GRAIL dozens of times.) However, I left Oliver Stone’s NATURAL BORN KILLERS to take a leak near the end and, realizing what a piece of junk the movie was, kept on going.

  • Ray

    Harem Scarem – worst movie in history.

  • P.J.-The Movie Guy

    I used to review movies for Base Newspapers while serving in the USAF. I have walked out on Three Movie 1, Harum Scarm”Elvis Presley’s Worst ever Movie, 2. The Misfits Monroe & Gable….Terrible waste of talent , Film & Time. 3. Do not even recall the name of the film that John Cassavetes made where he trys to return to the Womb of a 400LB Women….Just Horrible.

  • Michelle Malkin

    I wish I had walked out on “Apocolypse Now” When I
    left the theater, I was literally in shock. When
    I’m on a train, I usually read a book. This time I
    didn’t want to remember anything about this movie.
    I just stared into space, keeping my mind blank and unable to even concentrate on my book. I never
    watched that movie again, but it certainly got its point across.

  • David R.

    Home Alone. Absolutely hated it! Too violent to be funny. It made me nauseous – I just had to leave.

  • rogerzdodger

    I was ready to walk out of Dream Girls when Jennifer Hudson started screaming instead of singing. I completely lost any sympathy for her character and couldn’t have cared less what happened after that. Only stayed because my wife wanted to. Haven’t been able to listen to Jennifer Hudson since.

  • Alfie

    Once I walked – out of a movie called “Labyrinth.” Boring. Cold theater didn’t help.

    About Avatar comments: No one saw Avatar for its great plot, and those who saw it on anything other than the giant screen, missed the awesome special effects – those were outstanding and the point of going to see it. My son warned me not to see it on anything other than the huge screen. Turns out it was terrific advice. Everyone who saw it on smaller screens missed out.

  • John Thomas

    I’m glad to hear that people walked out of big time movies like Avatar and Alien. I walked out of The Deer Hunter. I was 19 years old and it was just too much for me. Thats the only one. I was with some friends and we saw Excalibur and everybody wanted to leave. I kept telling everybody it would get better. It never did.

  • Barry Monush

    Only when they were free (screenings, sneak-ins): JEKYLL & HYDE … TOGETHER AGAIN, HONKYTONK MAN, BAD BOYS (Will Smith), THE CHANGE-UP. Something compels me to stay to the bitter end otherwise, even for the stiffs.

  • Dan

    “Reds” with Warren Beatty was probably the worst and most boring movie I ever saw. I wanted to walk out, but my girlfriend at the time wanted to see it.

  • Rachel

    I walked out on Count Yorga, Vampire. The scene where the vampire ate a live squealing rat cured me of ever wanting to see another horror movie! It left nothing to the imagination and fed my nightmares for weeks

  • Frederick

    The only movie I, ever walked out of (or on) was “The Birdcage” my Wife to be and I, went on a movie rampage from 10 am till midnight and theought that would be the highlight movie of the day. How could it go wrong? Gene Hackman and Robin Williams together, WOW….That movie sucked and halfway thru we couldn’t take it anymore. I, love Gene Hackman and Robin Williams and have never seen anything else they performed that I, didn’t like but, that movie was just too much.
    In 51 years of life thats the only movie I, ever remember walking out of and didn’t even try to get a refund for either of us.

  • http://www.moviesunlimited.com George D. Allen

    This is quite the cinematic smorgasbord of titles that people have walked out on. And the additional fun is that many of you have named some of my favorite movies in the process :)

    The only time I ever remember actually leaving a theater was during “Very Bad Things” while on a friendly date. At the moment I can’t recall if it was because of projection problems or that the content was objectionable to the girl with me.

    Came close two other times: during Alex Cox’s “Straight to Hell,” with two friends who were as stupefied by it as I was; and very recently, during a “Movie Tavern” screening of “Captain America” — because the experience of the “Movie Tavern” itself, which we had never tried, was so obnoxiously intrusive it made focusing on the movie a near-impossibility.

    I suspect Publius is referring to “The Amityville Horror” when he mentions the film about the “possessed house.” Steiger is in the film, but it lacks the great Bronson (perhaps you are confusing him with James Brolin). Now, an Amityville movie with Charles Bronson? THAT I would like to have seen.

    Meanwhile, I suspect many of us are hoping ed returns to explain how and why he was booted out of movies in the past. What a tease! :)

  • John Thomas

    I walked out on Warren Beatty’s “McCabe and Mrs. Miller.” Westerns are my favorite genre, but this
    thing was boring me beyond hope.

  • Mark Ridge

    I can remember walking out on two films : Three Men and a Baby suddenly became a film about drugs, so I left. Boogie Nights became a film about a man with a large ________, so I left.

  • Kathy

    If I’d seen it alone, I would have walked out on “Looking For Mr. Goodbar”, and I did walk out on “Pulp Fiction”.

  • Blanche

    I stopped walking out, and opted to just stay home. Movies aren’t made very well today in my opinion. Just as the first page of a really great book will draw me in, capture all my attention as the story progresses, or the plot thickens. The leaves me laughing or crying out loud at the end. Movies today don’t do this IMHO. In the first five minutes you know all there is to the movies is Tit’s, Ass, Drugs, Blow up……and then it’s over. No real movie star’s either, just stupid no talent celebrities & unknowns.

  • Barbara

    This is fun!
    I haven’t actually walked out, but I remember curling up in the seat, yearning for sleep, during “The Go-Between”, which told about some folks’ boring life in what felt like real time (I stayed,waiting for the promised “hot lovin’” scenes), and also during the already-mentioned DiCaprio “Titanic”, where I stayed waiting to be made to cry (never happened).
    Re: dating: this makes me remember one strange date, where the guy I was dating surprised me by bringing along his male friend, and then my date fell asleep and fell out of his seat into the aisle. Can’t remember what movie it was, though…

  • Pat

    “The English Patient”. I was never so bored by a movie in my life. I can remember checking my watch thinking it was almost over only to discover there was stil an hour left. The worst popular movie of all time. As Elaine Benis said, “.Just die already!”

  • Susan

    2001. I’ve always regretted that I couldn’t follow it. It seems that every person on the planet loved it but me. I stayed longer than might have because the space photography was spectacular, but I slinked out a side door and let all the “cool” people enjoy. Most titles & bad trailers are fair warnings. My husband sits through a lot of chick flicks for me. My hero.

  • Harry Lyme

    Wife and I took in 20 minutes of Dreamgirls on DVD (a gift from stepson) before turning it off. Back when people smoked, my late first wife would get up and have a smoke no matter where in the film, and sometimes would not return because she was bored……then she watched LA Confidential and never moved, shouting at the end, ‘Kill ‘em, shoot ‘em.’

  • Johnny Sherman

    I walked out of the screen debut of “Birth of a Nation”; my grandson was enjoying it, but de Mille was never one of my favorites.

  • Patrick

    Only film I can remember actually walking out on was Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, and that was after sitting through about two-thirds of the movie. The huffing and puffing of the actors as they try to game up this dreadful story was painful to watch. And I don’t like films that strike a hip and ironic pose toward their subject matter while still feeding us the same old tired crap they allege to be mocking. Ugh!

  • Ranny Nella

    My family walked out on ‘Flower Drum Song’ due to a masher who sat down next to my mom and put his hand on her leg. She stood up and screamed and we all piled out to the lobby in haste. My dad informed the manager who made an attempt to find the creep but he fled the theatre. Our money was refunded and we were given complimentary free passes to a future feature of our choosing. I forget which movie we used them for.

    Years later I went to a matinee of a Hammer Film production called ‘The Vampire Lovers’. A young mother brought her two young sons to the same showing and they sat in front of me. At one point in the film the vampire woman stood up in a small bathtub and revealed her bare rump. Instantly, the young mother stood up, grabbed her two boys and announced they were leaving. I heard the older boy say ‘Oh man, we never get to do anything’ and away they went.

  • Lenore Salinger

    ‘KING KONG’ Dino De Laurentis’s remake fiasco

    ‘DRACULA’ Universal Pictures’ insipid vampire remake with Frank Langella

    ‘THERE WILL BE BLOOD’ a depressing mess of a film

    ‘THE TWILIGHT SAGA’ films – non-scary monsters and stupid plots

    ‘FLASH GORDON’ another De Laurentis fiasco – an idiot’s version of a beloved SF hero

    They’re all stinkers and ‘walk-out worthy’

  • Bob

    While stationed with the USASA in Northern Japan in the early 60′s, I saw (and left) a movie (title and “stars” unremembered) in which the principal character kept appologizing (“I’m so sorry”, etc) over and over. The whole thing quickly got to be rediculous. I long ago stopped going to the movie theaters. As a rule, it’s too much for too little.

  • Helen

    I walked out on Sorcerer, a 1977 movie with Roy Scheider. It was just too violent.

  • Ted Chihara

    I walked out of a movie about spies or espionage or something similar which starred George Clooney and, I thini, J Lo. The acting, especially by Clooney, was pathetic. Clooney has probably improved since then.

  • Barbara

    I now remember a couple more stinkers: “Short Circuit” and “Beetlejuice”. These were recommended and loaned to me by friends, so I sort of had to watch them, so I just let them run while I did some housework in/around that room, and tried really hard to find something positive to say when I returned the videos.

  • Gord

    “The English Patient” – One loooonnnngggg slog with which I could not be patient.

    “Pulp Fiction” – Too predictable and boring. Walkoutsville!

    “”Bladerunner” – had to sit through that one (had tried many times on vhs/dvd but always shut it off) because of a film course I was taking. The fx, set and art direction were brilliant, but I found Ford his usual boring self and Sean Young incredibly irritating.

    “Holy Grail” – an unholy, gory mess. We flew out of this one.

    All of the above said, when I first started in the business, managers, assistant managers and trainees were encouraged, if you were working close by, to see pre-release showings in the company screening room. Being the film lover I am, I naturally attended every opportunity I got. However, my tastes can be decidedly different than many, it reaching the point that one of the film bookers got to commenting every time I left, “well, there goes Gord. I guess we have a hit on our hands.” Of course, if Gord stayed (as in a pre-screening of “The Swimmer” to identify but one title) then chances were good that commercially, we were in trouble. But it was fun to go except (a) if one of our upper management types was there and we were screening one of HIS favourites. That happened twice that I can remember, both times in the early seventies. The first film, “Face Off” was a quintessentially Canadian love-of-hockey/love-of-girl story, and the second, “The Secret of Santa Vittoria” with Anthony Quinn and Anna Magnani, a charming comedy about a small Italian town hiding its fine wine during the Nazi occupation of WWII. The first one was a monontinous, stulifyingly boring opus that went on to crash at the boxoffice, the second a fine film that I sensed was being sold as another “Zorba the Greek”, which it wasn’t. Still, when your company general manager has a bee in his bonnet about a movie and starts soliciting ideas immediately upon the lights coming on, you know you are in trouble when you view one as a stinker and the other as a potential commercial misfire due to a poorly thought-out ad campaign which more than hints at a lack of support for a film from the distributing company. Still, there is that general manager and his notions of our breathlessly panting public!

    Ah, the joys of ‘officially’ seeing movies. Reminds one, doesn’t it of the insecure but ego-driven Samuel Goldwyn’s immortal question to all and sundry at a post-screening premiere party – “Tell me, how much did you love my picture?”

  • Bruce

    While in high school my friend and I walked out on the “Killing of Sister George.” Two women kissing, yuck!

    • demonchild

      And now they get married to each other.

  • BDavis Fan

    “Glengarry Glenross” – the extreme profanity constantly pelting the audience would make a longshoreman blush! Blot out the cursing and the script would resemble a game of charades!

  • Harry Lyme

    My late brother-in-law would hold movie nights after we would have dinner. He was wonderful at finding films for ‘walking out.’ The Coen’s The Ladykillers sent us fleeing to our cars. Tom Hanks talked into his lapel making his words unintelligible, Irma Hall did a Saphire Steven impersonation and one of the Wayans played Marine, with his every other word being four syllables and beginning with ‘mother.’ Being a fan of the original, I wanted to cry.

  • Randy Dannenfelser

    I’ve never walked out on a movie I had to pay to get in to see; but I did fall asleep on two (as a self-protective mechanism, I guess): Far from the Madding Crowd and Boom!.

  • Dennis

    I walked out of “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, “Diary of a Mad Housewife”…the theater had a very lax “R” restricted film policy…and I was just too young to understand these films. Glenda Jackson is one of my favorite actors. I walked out of “Megaforce” (1982) a stinker with Barry Bostwick. I ran out of “Popeye” (1980) with Robin Williams. I love Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall was perfectly cast as Olive Oil…but I just couldn’t take it anymore. I love movies and even managed a few movie theaters…I’ve seen alot of crappy movies but the above are the only ones I walked/ran out of. I can usually find at least one redeeming quality about a film.

  • Lorraine

    I couldn’t take “Cruising” on any level. Like we weren’t starting to have enough problems already.

  • Wayne

    Walked out on:

    Magnolia – completely boring
    and
    Knocked Up – To say this was a juvenile movie is insulting all other juvenile movies. I should have sued the studio for completely wasting my time.

  • Geneva P

    Dear Gord.

    I never knew “A Night to Remember” existed until a few years ago. I did see it and I agree with you. It was a great movie I rate it right up there with my #1 favorite. Both movies were older black and white versions and were made at a time when they were still making REAL movies and did not need all of these over-the-top special effects. Thank you for commenting.

  • Jay

    Movie Irv, what about THE LORDS OF FLATBUSH?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1063274681 Irv Slifkin

    Jay:
    You are absoltutely correct. I forgot about that slog through Nostalgiaville with Sly Stallone that was double billed with the concert film “Let the Good Times Roll.” I also recall walking out on the Charles Bronson film “The Evil That Men Do” (nasty torture scene) and “A Fine Mess” (not funny desecration of Laurel & Hardy from Blake Edwards). thnaks–or no thanks–for jarring my memory.

  • http://www.facebook.com/chouxfleur Amy Austin

    i walked out of chariots of fire. yawn.

  • chris

    Harlem Nights, I liked everything about the movie, wardrobe, sets, actors and story. But! toooooo much bad language, even for Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor. The language was unnecessary and overdone. I wasn’t the only one who walked out. I enjoy the movie when shown on tv and 90% of the cuss’n is taken out.

  • Watt Hyer

    I, too, am surprised at some of the titles I am reading here, although some of the walkouts are understandable. Some of these films are among my favorites. Since I spent so much time in the movie theatre business, I’ve quit watching many, many films before I got through the whole thing, but they weren’t films I would have gone to see anyway. However, I do want to add the one film that I walked out on that is probably on many peoples’ all-time favorite list: Beverly Hills Cop.
    I found the very premise on which the whole film is based to be absurdly preposterous: that insipid white couple who were murdered were really Eddie Murphy’s Best Friends??? REALLY?? On top of that, the juxtaposition of “comedy” and violent murdering throughout the film left me very offended.
    No one should wonder why our society is so violent, and we seem so inured to it, when one considers how popular this piece of “entertainment” is. I could go on and on about how much I hate this movie. I’ve only met one other person who hated it as much as I, and he was from South America. I do remember Rex Reed hating it, too.
    The gal I took to Ken Russell’s The Devils had to wait for me in the lobby. (When, when, when is that movie going to come out on DVD???)
    Other “great” films I’ve fallen asleep in:
    Kramer vs Kramer
    Chariots of Fire
    All That Jazz
    Ordinary People
    Horse Whisperer
    Another “great film” I would have walked out of if the climax had come any earlier: Silence Of The Lambs!
    When the bad guy got killed using one of the oldest cliched gimmicks of film, I was immediately insulted and offended that I had taken the movie so seriously up to that point. And we are really supposed to believe that this perverted criminal mastermind who has eluded the top agents of the country for, like, forever, forgets to cock his gun before his prey enters his trap?? Really? And why is he using a single action pistol anyway? But, I don’t hate SOTL, I just don’t think its Best Picture caliber. Its a fun Horror Show, and Hannibal is even better.
    I do believe in second chances, however since there are two films I walked out of that I subsequently returned to enjoy: To Live And Die In L.A. and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
    I thought the former was digressing into a standard Good Cop, Bad Guy cliche so I walked. Then someone told me the cop gets killed! I immediately re-watched the whole film and really enjoyed it. I thought the latter was digressing to another mindless Gorefest (I confess to sitting through a couple of those!) almost immediately, but later, a friend urged me to give it another try. Once I realized its actually a comedy, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and now consider it a masterpiece. The second one is funny as hell, too.
    Writing this must jog the memory; I just remembered I didn’t make it through Rambo I. Had to leave after he jumped off the cliff into the tree and only got a bad cut… really. Too bad it isn’t a comedy.

  • http://www.moviesunlimited.com George D. Allen

    Rambo isn’t a comedy? :)

    Rex Reed’s disapproval of any movie automatically makes me more certain I will enjoy it. But I wholly admit to enjoying his overly catty dismissals of films he despises.

    “The Devils” on DVD remains one of those most-asked-for titles, and the answer also remains: Who the &^@%$! knows? I regret not downloading it instantly when it was mistakenly made available online by Warners a while back and then hastily withdrawn. I guess if I get in the mood for blasphemy I’m gonna have to go the Jodorowsky route for now…

  • Barbara

    I remember that my mother walked out on “Chariots of Fire”. She told me about it, shaking her head in amazement that other people did NOT walk out: “It was just a bunch of guys running!”

  • Gil

    “The Fly” with Jeff Goldblum. I don’t know where my head was at that time (1986) but all I know is that I could not stomach that movie. I’ve never tried to watch it again since then – I can’t get past the nausea that still comes over me when that movie is mentioned. I love Jeff Goldblum but not as a fly.

  • Fred Wedel

    Back during my collegiate days a group of us decided to go see Deep Throat. None of us had ever seen an X-rated film before, much less in a theater, such as it turned out to be. After about eight or 9 min., we looked at each other and read each other’s faces, most of which said , “Boy, what a waste of money. This is a complete turkey!” In a few more minutes , most of us finally got up and left, although a couple of our group wanted to stay and see the climax. We weren’t offended by the film-it was just so bad I couldn’t handle any more. However, in fairness to the director, we agreed we would go see the sequel when it came out. The name? Why, Shallow Tonsil, of course!

  • http://www.moviesunlimited.com George D. Allen

    When you say some members of your group wanted to “stay to see the climax,” does that mean…oh, never mind. :) Thanks for sharing a fine story.

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  • Jerry Semro

    Walked out on this piece of trash. CRUISING

  • ChasMichaelP

    “Forrest Gump.” It only took 15 minutes to figure out where this box of chocolate coated Horse Sh_t was going, so I was able to successfully confronted the theater manager for a full refund.

  • Michele

    I have never walked out on a movie because I can’t judge a movie unless I sit through the whole thing. I do have two instances where I saw people walk out though. One was DAWN OF THE DEAD
    John Waters’ A DIRTY SHAME during the Hokey Pokey scene.

  • http://www.facebook.com/nazario.grace Nazario N Grace Jimenez

    I walked out on UP THE SANDBOX, LET IT BE, FANTASIA, THE GREAT SCOUT AND CATHOUSE THURSDAY, THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL.

  • Norma

    “Funny People”, is the worst movie ever. Six of us walked out. I thought it would be “funny”, but instead it was just filth. Can’t imagine why anyone would enjoy it. Not even obscene, but not even funny.

  • demonchild

    I’ve walked out of one movie but it was so bad an disgusting I do not remember it. Does that count???

  • jknows

    I walked out on the first Blade movie-after tickets for 2 and snack and asked for my money back and got it and 2 free passes! AS for av shold be tar-I fell a sleep 4 times on a plance with it becasue I couldn’t walk out

  • Jeffrey Lawrence

    Director Andy Davis directed a string of violent action movies with Norris, Seagal, etc. and then decided to make a movie completely devoid of violence or action called ‘Steal Big Steal Little’ starring Andy Garcia. I don’t know why I bought a ticket to this turkey.

  • Rhill3850

    How do I subscribe to you?
    (rhill3850@yahoo.com)

    • George D. Allen

      You click on that big rectangle at the bottom of the post that says “Click Here to Get MovieFanFare delivered to your inbox” and fill in your email address. Job done. :)

  • Rick

    You bet I have, it was ‘ STAND BY ME ‘
    Watching as much as I could take, explains why the young have no respect.     

  • Ken Roche

    ….Sure did “Caligula”  ’80 (Penthouse trash)  along with all of Steve Seagal’s ugly, brain dead hokum.
    Many more I should have walked out on, but like Michele, I tend to suffer through most, just to see how much worse they can get ~ these would fill the page unfortunatly.

  • Katherineferg

    The only movie I walked out on was called “Cry Uncle” starring Allen Garfield.  It was the second flim in a double feature and was so low budget and bad that my husband and I left about 15 minutes in and never looked back.

  • Pbody27

    Worst movie EVER…I Heart Huckabee….WTF???? What a Piece of CRAP!!!! DID not make any sense at ALL!!!!!!

  • Tom

    “Zardoz”, with Sean Connery.
    Boy!  He must have been in real financial straits to make this turkey!
    A complete “stinker”!

  • Mountrath

    Forrest Gump, It’s A Wonderful Life & West Side Story

    • Ken Roche

      I do feel sorry for you Mountrath, what you must miss out on!
      (sounds like you may not have learnt how to ‘read’ a film)
      Still, it takes all kinds….

      I’ll add ‘Harlem Nights’ and a few other trashy, completly unmemorable,
      Murphy stinkers 

  • Devaultmc

    I walked out of “The Last Time I Saw Paris” because I just could not take one more instant of Van Johnson’s pain-filled countenance. 
    I went to sleep in “The Sword and the Stone” although I generally like Arthurian legend stories.
    I had enough sense to avoid Forrest Gump because I had heard what the general point was.

  • Elizabeth J. Y.

    Barbarella (seemed inane), American Werewolf in London (too graphically frightening), Cape Fear (Scorsese version–disgusting gratuitous violence), and Time Bandits (unbearably boring). 

    • KenR

      Good selection to walk out on Elizabeth.
      And I agree with you, Scorsese (as usual) turned Cape Fear into yet another of  his overindulged films for morons.  

  • Elizabeth J. Y.

    And one I should have walked out on:  Rachel Getting Married.  The handheld camera made me nauseous throughout the movie, and most of it was pretentious garbage, except for about 30 minutes of very compelling stuff.  Weird.

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  • Tallman2055 Ray Holeman

    My date and me couldn’t stand the movie (Killers) w/woody hairelson The movie was just too cross with way to much unessary  cursing and nudity. 

    • KenR

      Ray (Tallman) well chosen, this one (Nat. Killers) was so bad I forgot to even mention it.
      Easilly one of the industries worst of all time. Sick. Good to see there are thinking people, capable of seeing through the veneer of feeble minded filmakers.

  • http://www.facebook.com/LoneWolf632 Mike Sanders

    I’ve only walked out of one movie in my time and that was Kevin Costner’s Open Range. It was just too boring. I’ve fallen asleep in only one movie and that was the last Austin Powers movie. Beyonce may be a multi-platinum diva but her acting is the absolute pits. Dream Girls? Nope. Jennifer Hudson stole the show there.