Tuesday's Flashback

I was playing along, replying to a thread on another blog, when the subject turned to the film Steel Magnolias. This is one of my favorite movies ever and the character of Ouiser is perhaps one of the silver screen's, not to mention Shirley MacClaine's, finest performances. Shirley absolutely owned this role and Ouiser is the most quoted of the film's heroines. Her acidic, witty, sometimes downright mean comments stole the show from everybody else in the movie. What's more, it looks to me like Ms. MacClaine was having a blast and enjoying every second of being Ouiser. Of course, deep down, Ouiser had a heart of gold and she would, as Claree so eloquently put it, "give your dog a kidney if he needed one."

This put me in the mood to recall my favorite Ouiser scene from the film and hands down it has to be "This Is Football!" Claree has brought Ouiser along to watch her weekly radio broadcast from the Devil's locker room after a football game where they evidently won. It's a classic example of Ouiser at her best, trumping every other line in the scene, and taking it down the field for a touchdown all her own. I love it!

So here it is, taken from You Tube, and it still makes me laugh as loudly today as it did when I saw it in theater for the first time almost twenty years ago.

C