Traditional folders in Film and TV

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What famous appearances do traditional knives make in film and TV?

I could think of a couple of roles knives play in older films. The knife James Coburn throws in "The Magnificent Seven" and the knife of the child murderer in "M" both turn out to be switchblades.

I'm sure there are other roles played by other styles of knife. Can you name them?
 
Harrison Ford carries an interesting folder in Raider of the Lost Ark. Only really noticeable in the scene where he finds Karren Allen tied up in the bad guy tent.
 
The kid from Let Me In purchases (and practices on a tree) a stockman model of some sort
then tries to practice stabbing it into a tree, i suspect as a bullied kid he planned on using it as some sort of weapon :/
 
The kid from Let Me In purchases (and practices on a tree) a stockman model of some sort
then tries to practice stabbing it into a tree, i suspect as a bullied kid he planned on using it as some sort of weapon :/

In the original Swedish version, he uses a Mora knife. At least they made the proper translation to an American knife.
 
Indys knife was a stag handled single blade of German manufacture. Hubertus still makes them, probably others as well.

indy.jpg


Sydney Greenstreet scapes frantically at the statue with his pen knife in the closing moments of The Maltese Falcon.

John Wayne carried what looks like a large single blade trapper in a lot of his westerns, you can see it pretty well in Rio Bravo when he cuts Dean Martin loose.

Lots of older movies, especially cowboy flicks had some sort of knives.
The Alan Ladd movie Iron Mistress featured a large bowie knife in the title role.
 
Josie Wales carried a slip joint in his jacket. He used it several times to cut a chew from his plug tobacco.

Travis, from the movie "Old Yeller", used what appeared to be a large "toothpick" to castrate and mark hogs. Later in "Savage Sam" , Lisbeth fished the knife out of his back pocket and used it to cut he ropes he was tied with,by the indians.

In "Magnum Force" Dirty Harry carves a .357 slug from a door frame with a slip joint. He must have left his switchblade in his desk that day.
 
The Edge,A.Hopkins gets nice lockback for birthday.(Brian Lyttle knife)
 
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and of course, LOTS of knives in The Walking Dead
lots of gerbers especially, some other stuff too though

in the beginning of the show the black guy (morgan) with the kid toted a buck 110 (maybe it was a 112)
thats pretty traditional at least :P
 
I think it was Chinatown where Jack Nicholson had his nose sliced with a switchblade.

In Big Jake, John Wayne threw a large slipjoint into a tree next to the bad guy to get his attention. Good looking knife.
 
The best display of traditional cutlery I ever saw on TV was in a documentary. It was a bunch of history buffs up in Canada that were into doing re-creations of the old fur trade era French canoe voyages. They had huge 20 some foot canoes with 8 to 10 man crews and were tracing the old trade routes along the Lake Superior area. Camping out, living like the original voyages, they all used what seemed like plain old style butcher knives in simple sheaths, and around camp I saw a number of French style folders in use.

As far as fiction goes, the old Gunsmoke series had Festus with a pocket knife that looked like a Case Texas jack pattern in his vest pocket. In the movie Connager, Sam Elliott is sitting on the front porch of a cabin sharpening what looks like a stockman's clip blade on a pocket size stone.

If you can find a copy of an old movie called "The Pride and the passion" there's a ton of very large Navaja's used, including a knife fight between the main character played by Cary Grant, and a Spanish partisan guy. It actually was a pretty decent movie even if they have a young Frank Sinatra playing a Spanish guy. Or maybe just Sophia Loren in those low cut peasant dresses made it interesting enough. :D

Pappion had some older style knives that looked like wood handle sodbusters.

Carl.
 
In "The Shawshank Redemption," Brooks Hatlen (played by James Whitmore) uses a Barlow to carve "Brooks was here" into a ceiling rafter before hanging himself.
 
I just watched an episode of M*A*S*H where Father Mulcahy used his "Tom Mix pocket knife" to do a tracheotomy.
 
In the Mamet film The Spanish Prisoner, Campbell Scott uses a large coke bottle for some household tasks. It is later used as a murder weapon.
 
In "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" Angela Landsberry has a slipjoint pulled on her by the bad guy's #2 henchman. I believe it was a toothpick but can't remember that well. I was surprised to see a traditional used in an aggressive manner.
Hank Hill puts up a fight to give his son a camping knife and doesn't panic after he cuts himself like we all did- its a cartoon but I think King of the Hill was the only 'modern' show to appropriately show responsible knife use.
 
In "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" Angela Landsberry has a slipjoint pulled on her by the bad guy's #2 henchman. I believe it was a toothpick but can't remember that well. I was surprised to see a traditional used in an aggressive manner.
Hank Hill puts up a fight to give his son a camping knife and doesn't panic after he cuts himself like we all did- its a cartoon but I think King of the Hill was the only 'modern' show to appropriately show responsible knife use.
Yup, I don't think it was a toothpick though. But plenty dumb. ;)
 
In No Country for Old Men, the main character, Llewelyn Moss, uses one of those metal handled USGI scout/camp knives (Camillus?) a couple times.
 
One on of the episodes of "Little House On The Prairie" I saw the Charles caracter whittling with what looked like a big Trapper and on another I saw the dokter pry open a case with some sort of Jackknife.

On Mythbusters they used an Opinel to cut some foam.
 
In Grumpier Old Men II, Sophia Loren was still hot!

Carl, those big butcher knives didn't resemble the Hudson Bay camp knife, did they? One of my favorite patterns...

My favorite John Wayne movie is Big Jake (narrowly beating Hatari), and I love that scene with the "sheep rustlers".

Something else to add, not exactly traditional, but still, along with the knife John Wayne throws in the tree, the big guy, Richard Boone's brother in the movie, carries a machete.
 
There was some TV show in the late 80s to early 90s with some guy with a mullet that used a Swiss Army Knife quite often.

Uma Thurman put a Buck 112 to good use in "Kill Bill".
 
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