On 2007-07-19, blake murphy > wrote:

> the greatest movie fight scenes of all time, a one-armed spencer tracy
> whips the shit out of ernest borgnine.

I wouldn't go so far as to say "greatest". Actually, I thought it was
pretty silly. I remember it vividly because Tracy used that tired old
50's cliche, the "judo chop". Open handed blow delivered with edge of
hand to back of neck. No spin kicks, no head butts, no crouched
ritual stance, just the lone judo chop delivered in a single deft flat
footed motion. The judo chop was a deadly blow oringinating in the
mysterious East and could kill or at least render helpless any foe
that was unlucky enough to suffer it. This was all the rage in so
many films both on tv and the movies of that era and preceded real
martial arts in American film fiction. Even little kids, I being one
at the time, regularly included it in their make-believe repertoire.
But, after years of Lee's and Li's and other sophisticated martial
arts chop-socky, this silly old bit was long forgotten by me until I
saw that movie about 3 yrs ago. I was stunned by the memory of it.
Whatta hoot. Other than that, I agree, it was a good movie.

nb