Movie Moments

[Maine-iac]

Sweet Charity was on one of the classic channels yesterday afternoon.

Shirley McClaine to roommates:

"I met a really nice guy."
"What's he do?"
"He's a . . . reactionary!"
"He's a reactionary?"
"Yeah, he calculates odds."
"He's an oddball?"
"No, he works for an insurance company."

Great actuarial moments on film.

[Skippy]

That's priceless!
Reactionary applies to quite a few actuaries I've known.

[Happy Skunk]

Classic actuarial moment. I have been looking for this for 3 years....

Barton Keyes : You know, you, uh, oughta take a look at the statistics on suicide some time. You might learn a little something about the insurance business.
Edward S. Norton : Mister Keyes, I was RAISED in the insurance business.
Barton Keyes : Yeah, in the front office. Come now, you've never read an actuarial table in your life, have you? Why they've got ten volumes on suicide alone. Suicide by race, by color, by occupation, by sex, by seasons of the year, by time of day. Suicide, how committed: by poison, by firearms, by drowning, by leaps. Suicide by poison, subdivided by TYPES of poison, such as corrosive, irritant, systemic, gaseous, narcotic, alkaloid, protein, and so forth. Suicide by leaps, subdivided by leaps from high places, under the wheels of trains, under the wheels of trucks, under the feet of horses, from STEAMBOATS. But, Mr. Norton: Of all the cases on record, there's not one single case of suicide by leap from the rear end of a moving train. And you know how fast that train was going at the point where the body was found? Fifteen miles an hour. Now how can anybody jump off a slow-moving train like that with any kind of expectation that he would kill himself? No, no soap, Mr. Norton. We're sunk, and we'll have to pay through the nose, and you know it.

[jets fan]

Classic actuarial moment. I have been looking for this for 3 years....

Barton Keyes : You know, you, uh, oughta take a look at the statistics on suicide some time. You might learn a little something about the insurance business.
Edward S. Norton : Mister Keyes, I was RAISED in the insurance business.
Barton Keyes : Yeah, in the front office. Come now, you've never read an actuarial table in your life, have you? Why they've got ten volumes on suicide alone. Suicide by race, by color, by occupation, by sex, by seasons of the year, by time of day. Suicide, how committed: by poison, by firearms, by drowning, by leaps. Suicide by poison, subdivided by TYPES of poison, such as corrosive, irritant, systemic, gaseous, narcotic, alkaloid, protein, and so forth. Suicide by leaps, subdivided by leaps from high places, under the wheels of trains, under the wheels of trucks, under the feet of horses, from STEAMBOATS. But, Mr. Norton: Of all the cases on record, there's not one single case of suicide by leap from the rear end of a moving train. And you know how fast that train was going at the point where the body was found? Fifteen miles an hour. Now how can anybody jump off a slow-moving train like that with any kind of expectation that he would kill himself? No, no soap, Mr. Norton. We're
sunk, and we'll have to pay through the nose, and you know it.

That movie was definitely a classic. Well worth being on the AFI's list!

[frummie]

I remember the movie Class Action with Gene Hackman, someone was investigating if the car could explode if hit on the left taillight while it was blinking. The CEO told someone they realized it, but the odds were so small and they figured the number of people who could be hurt and estimated that they could settle each case for less than it would take to recall the car and fix the flaw. He finished his explanation with the following words:

"Simple actuarial mathematics."

A friend I was with yelled out, "Actuarial, isn't that what you do, frummie?" I sunk down in my chair!

[8down]

FLETCH: Do you happen to have a picture of Alan and his wife?

VELMA: Oh, we've got lots of pictures. Let me show you some.

FLETCH: And they're still married...Alan and Sally Ann.

MARVIN: Of course they are.

VELMA: She's cute as a button.

FLETCH: How long have they been married?

MARVIN: Lets see, it was before he moved to L.A...four years April.

FLETCH: Mrs. Stanwyk, may I borrow this picture. I promise to send it back to you. It's routine, really. The actuarial people need to...

VELMA: Oh, that's all right, I've got lots more. Want to see the
reception?

FLETCH: No, thank you.

[8down]

And from the movie Tron:

FLYNN: What were you,.. you know,.. before?

RAM: Oh, I was an actuarial program... worked at a big insurance company. It really gives you a great feeling, helping folks plan for their future needs -- and of course, if you look at the payments as an annuity, over the years, the cost is really...

FLYNN: Yeah, yeah, that's great.

[Real American Hero]

If you have kids (especially girls) between 6 and 10 you might recognize this one:

Ron's dad to Ron, “I'm an actuary; I can work anywhere people attach a dollar value to human life.”

[DeepPurple]

If you have kids (especially girls) between 6 and 10 you might recognize this one:

Ron's dad to Ron, “I'm an actuary; I can work anywhere people attach a dollar value to human life.”


I have an 8 y/o girl. I recognize this as a father on Kim Possible, an actuary, and he was referring to working on the Moon.

[Patience]

I believe Ned had an actuarial reference in Groundhog Day

[Travis]

this seems far to actuarial to be in non-actuarial

[asdfasdf]

I believe Ned had an actuarial reference in Groundhog Day

The Insurance salesman that got punched in the face said that he lived by the actuarial tables, or something along those lines.

[what the !@#$]

there was same made for tv movie about 6 or 7 years ago. the murderer was an actuary.

[Will Durant]

Wasn't an actuary the murderer in a recent L&O:CI episode?

[8down]

I seem to remember there being a villain in Batman comics called "The Actuary". He was a dorky guy who wore a bow-tie. This was back in the mid-nineties. The only way I knew about it was a blurb in "The Future Actuary".

[Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer.]

Classic actuarial moment. I have been looking for this for 3 years....

Barton Keyes : You know, you, uh, oughta take a look at the statistics on suicide some time. You might learn a little something about the insurance business.
Edward S. Norton : Mister Keyes, I was RAISED in the insurance business.
Barton Keyes : Yeah, in the front office. Come now, you've never read an actuarial table in your life, have you? Why they've got ten volumes on suicide alone. Suicide by race, by color, by occupation, by sex, by seasons of the year, by time of day. Suicide, how committed: by poison, by firearms, by drowning, by leaps. Suicide by poison, subdivided by TYPES of poison, such as corrosive, irritant, systemic, gaseous, narcotic, alkaloid, protein, and so forth. Suicide by leaps, subdivided by leaps from high places, under the wheels of trains, under the wheels of trucks, under the feet of horses, from STEAMBOATS. But, Mr. Norton: Of all the cases on record, there's not one single case of suicide by leap from the rear end of a moving train. And you know how fast that train was going at the point where the body was found? Fifteen miles an hour. Now how can anybody jump off a slow-moving train like that with any kind of expectation that he would kill himself? No, no soap, Mr. Norton. We're sunk, and we'll have to pay through the nose, and you know it.


3 years? are you retarded or something? for the last 3 years you could have foud it in lees than 4 seconds.

[Jables]

I believe Ned had an actuarial reference in Groundhog Day

The Insurance salesman that got punched in the face said that he lived by the actuarial tables, or something along those lines.

BING!!

[Actuarius]

There was an episode of "According to Jim" where Jim had to go to career day at his daughter's school, but all of the kids thought his job was boring and his daughter was embarrassed by him. He said, "The only person I felt worse for was the actuary's kid."

[8down]

I never saw it but someone told me there was an episode of "That 70's Show" where one of the kids fathers was an actuary. Maybe Kelso? I think it had something to do with a "Take Your Kid to Work Day" type of deal and the guy just kept talking about mortality tables and distributions and bored the kid to tears.

[Patience]

I seem to remember there being a villain in Batman comics called "The Actuary". He was a dorky guy who wore a bow-tie. This was back in the mid-nineties. The only way I knew about it was a blurb in "The Future Actuary".

that sounds like the Bookworm, played by Roddy McDowell

[ACCtuary]

I believe Ned had an actuarial reference in Groundhog Day

The Insurance salesman that got punched in the face said that he lived by the actuarial tables, or something along those lines.

He said ' some people live by the actuarial tables but I think it's pretty much a crap shoot'

Or something closer to that

[8down]

I seem to remember there being a villain in Batman comics called "The Actuary". He was a dorky guy who wore a bow-tie. This was back in the mid-nineties. The only way I knew about it was a blurb in "The Future Actuary".
that sounds like the Bookworm, played by Roddy McDowell

According to http://www.batmanuk.freeserve.co.uk/batmanuk/villains.htm, there was a villain named "Actuary" described as "Odds genius whose skills were utilized by the Penguin to pull off a robbery without interference from Batman. Failed. Miserably".

And according to http://www.batmanytb.150m.com/bios/vill/actuarybio.htm,
"The Actuary is an ingenious mathematician, whose special preference statistics applies. On behalf of the penguin he plans impossible crimes without interference from Batman. First he examines, in which areas Batman particularly and frequently into feature steps."

[Patience]

You were talking comics and I was thinking the original TV show.

sorry, nevermind

[DeepPurple]

there was same made for tv movie about 6 or 7 years ago. the murderer was an actuary.




It is called "Escape Clause" with Andrew McCarthy and Paul Sorvino.

Here is a link:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116224/

Tangent: What are the odds that such a fine specimen as Mira Sorvino would spring forth from Paul Sorvino?

[8down]

You were talking comics and I was thinking the original TV show.
I was thinking comics, you were thinking TV and yet we were both in a thread about movies. What a sad and beautiful world we live in.

[Patience]

so lets take it to radio

Heard a commercial the other day for Delta Dental using a Dating Game set-up

Woman asks guy 1 what he does (illegal question on the original show by the way), he is a car mechanic

she asks guy 2 the same question and he runs off a list of many various occupations including actuary.

[Butters]

I seem to remember there being a villain in Batman comics called "The Actuary". He was a dorky guy who wore a bow-tie. This was back in the mid-nineties. The only way I knew about it was a blurb in "The Future Actuary".

A friend of mine bought a few copies of those comics and he gave me a set (he appeared in two consecutive comics). I still have them somewhere.

[Robert Terwilliger]

I remember an episode of Night Court where Christine was going to marry this really boring guy who was an actuary.

[Maine-iac]

Didn't he end up dumping her because she was too dull and then run off to be a stand-up comic?