Staying Fit
The Godfather
The scene: “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” That most famous of all movie lines is the primary Corleone negotiation strategy damn if it doesn’t work wonders. When sleazy lounge crooner (and Vito Corleone godson) Johnny Fontane gets KO’ed for a star-making movie role, consigliore Tom Hagan (Robert Duval) talks turkey to the hostile studio head, calmly offering up fair trade. “You’ve got some labor trouble coming up,” he tells him. “My client promises to make that trouble disappear. You have a top star who just graduated from marijuana to heroin....” When the dude refuses to take the bait—and drops a few crude anti-Italian slurs to boot—he learns the true meaning of the phrase “from the horse’s mouth.” In his bed! Covered in blood! Sorry Khartoum. (That’s the horse.)
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Teachable moment: “How you say something is often as important as what you say. Your tone and demeanor convey a lot about you as a person.”
Tommy Lee Jones makes a speech as Rep. Thaddeus Stevens in the 2012 film "Lincoln." Jones character criticizes his opponent personally, something that should be avoided. Lack of respect is a relationship killer.
David James/20thCentFox/Everett Collection
Lincoln
The scene: The movie is built entirely around the monumental political negotiations that led to the passing of the 12th Amendment and the Constitutional abolishment of slavery. In a key moment, Rep. Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) scorches the earth while debating a pro-slavery adversary on the floor of the Congress: “How can I hold that all men are treated equal, when here before me stands the stinking moral carcass of the gentleman from Ohio…. Proof that some are inferior, endowed by their maker with dim wit, impermeable to reason, with cold pallid slime in their veins instead of hot red blood.” What a charmer.
Teachable moment: “Always avoid demeaning or belittling the person you are dealing with. A display of your sarcasm or lack of respect is a relationship killer.” Oh well. The bill passed anyway.
Chris Farley, left, and David Spade in a scene from the 1995 movie "Tommy Boy." Quickly offering a solution to a problem tends to show you haven't taken time to fully understand the issues and concerns being expressed.
Paramount Pictures/Everett Collection
Tommy Boy
The scene: Goofy dimwit Tommy Callahan (Chris Farley) is trying to save his family’s auto parts company. When a must-have client turns him down flat, Tommy pulls out the stops, improvising a rambling, borderline insane sales pitch about the reliability of products that come with a guarantee, including a tangent about the how “the guarantee fairy might leave a quarter under your pillow” but will ultimately sniff some glue, steal cash off your dresser and impregnate your daughter. “I’ve seen it a hundred times,” he insists. Weirdly enough, he wins the business.
