traditional knives in movies

[btb01]

Here's one from an episode of the show Mad Men. You don't get a great look at it, but it looks to me like an Imperial scout knife (maybe a Kamp King or Forest Master?). In the show, it's being used by a kid working at a Christmas tree lot.

 

[btb01]

Spotted this slim SAK while watching The Royal Tenenbaums today.

 

[boy&hisdogs]

It's not a traditional pocket knife, but probably one of the oldest designs in this thread.

In the movie Yojimbo (Samurai movie that Fistful of Dollars copied) the hero learns that his friend has been captured and is about to be killed. Having just escaped capture himself, he is without his sword. He tucks the only blade he has into his belt, which is a deba (fish knife). "You're going to fight with THAT?" the other character asks. "I'll make sashimi out of them!" as he storms off.

 

[jackknife]

Spotted this slim SAK while watching The Royal Tenenbaums today.

The most ubiquitous knife on the planet. :thumbup:

 

[screened porch]

It's not a traditional pocket knife, but probably one of the oldest designs in this thread.

In the movie Yojimbo (Samurai movie that Fistful of Dollars copied) the hero learns that his friend has been captured and is about to be killed. Having just escaped capture himself, he is without his sword. He tucks the only blade he has into his belt, which is a deba (fish knife). "You're going to fight with THAT?" the other character asks. "I'll make sashimi out of them!" as he storms off.

If I recall rightly, Kurosawa said he couldn't sue rippers-off of Yojimbo because Kurosawa had ripped it off from Dashiel Hammet's Red Harvest.

 

[Jack Black]

Well spotted gents :thumbup:

 

[meako]

Human sashimi.?.....eeeuuuurgh.

 

[btb01]

A while back, I posted some knives that appeared in the movie Tremors. Well, now it's time for Tremors 2: Aftershocks!

Everyone's favorite firearms-enthusiast Burt uses this traditional fixed blade knife a few times in the movie. You get a pretty good look at it in this scene, where he uses the high-polished blade as a mirror to look over the edge of the bulldozer bucket he's hiding in to see what the recently-mutated Shriekers are up to.

When the blade is shown from the other side, you can see that there's something engraved or stamped on it, presumably a brand name, although you can't make it out what it says.

That's the only traditional knife that appears in the movie, but I noticed something else that I though worthy of noting here, since this item is a favorite companion tool of many Porch regulars. Cab-driver-turned-assistant-graboid-hunter Grady wears a P-38 can opener on a chain around his neck throughout the movie. I wonder if he has a Peanut in his pocket and a Craftsman 4-way screwdriver on his keyring?

 

[Jack Black]

Well done (again) Barrett :thumbup: I've still not seen either film o), but that knife is a Tramontina :thumbup:

This is a pic I've just filched off the net :thumbup:

How I knew that when I've never owned one, and only ever saw them in ads 25 years ago, and then just on a page with a load of other knives (old Scalemead ad if any of our British posters remember them), when I couldn't think of the name of one of my neighbours today, is one of the mysteries of old age!

 

[btb01]

Nice spot, Jack! I haven't seen that knife before, but I hoped someone might recognize it with its somewhat unique-looking guard and the placement and look of that stamp.

As for the movies, the first one is great (in my opinion, at least), but they go downhill quickly from there.

 

[James Y]

The other day I watched Code of Silence (1985, starring Chuck Norris) for the first time in about 30 years, and near the beginning, I spotted two traditional pocketknives. One is used during a drug deal; looked like a yellow-handled pocketknife. Then not long after, another traditional-looking pocketknife is used by a member of a crew of shooters targeting the drug deal. This time, the knife was used to cut a curtain(?) or something so they could get a better view of their targets.

Jim

 

[Jack Black]

Nice spot, Jack! I haven't seen that knife before, but I hoped someone might recognize it with its somewhat unique-looking guard and the placement and look of that stamp.

As for the movies, the first one is great (in my opinion, at least), but they go downhill quickly from there.

Thanks Barrett, it was definitely the guard that gave it away Thanks for sharing all these great pics with us :thumbup:

 

[btb01]

The most ubiquitous knife on the planet.

Ubiquitous indeed. Sometimes even a Ghostbuster needs a Swiss Army Knife.

 

[Jack Black]

You are the Star of this thread Barrett :thumbup:

 

[r redden]

I don't go to the movies often as in once every few years. I also don't watch TV very much aside from the local news so I'm not much help in this thread however awhile back a new remake of the MacGyver TV show from the 80's came on and the few episodes I have saw MacGyver always whips out a SAK of some kind.

 

[btb01]

Thanks, Jack! It's definitely one of my favorite threads to contribute to.

Randy, I haven't seen the new MacGyver (to be honest, I didn't know there was a new MacGyver), and don't think I've seen an episode the old one since I was a kid, but MacGyver definitely seems like the kind of guy who would carry an SAK. Heck, he might be the only person who could find a practical use for that little hook.

 

[kamagong]

In A Walk in the Clouds, a budding and grafting knife of the Tina type is used to check the health of a plant after the rest of the vineyard burns down.

 

[btb01]

Caught a couple more traditional knives while watching TV recently. The first is from this week's episode of Better Call Saul. Jack-of-all-trades (or at least those of questionable legality) Mike uses a pocket knife to cut into a stash of cash hidden under the floorboards in his closet. You never get a great look at the knife, but from this view it looks somewhat similar to a Buck-style folder with a large brass bolster.

The blade appears to be a drop point.

Later in the show, Mike uses the same knife to pry ( ) open a gas cap, checking for a GPS tracker. Again, you never get a great view of the knife. You can see it here in the hand holding the flashlight.

And here you can see the bottom of the handle. Now that doesn't look like any Buck knife I've seen -- or any other knife I'm familiar with, for that matter. The scales look like they might be synthetic (faux wood?) and partially textured.

I've been rewatching the early-'90s series Twin Peaks this week before starting on the reboot that premiered this past weekend, and there's a scene in the pilot episode that I think applies here (although you never actually see the knife being used).

FBI Special Agent Gary Dale Cooper and Sheriff Harry S. Truman (if you haven't seen Twin Peaks, well... it's a weird show ) are on a stakeout. Special Agent Cooper spends the time whittling what turns out to be a wooden whistle (with what I'm assuming is a traditional pocket knife, though, again, you never get to see it).

Cooper: "Do you know why I'm whittling?"
Truman: "Ok, I'll bite again. Why are you whittling?"
Cooper: "Because that's what you do in a town where a yellow light still means slow down, not speed up."

 

[btb01]

Alright, I have a couple knives to add from two Netflix shows I've watched recently.

The first is from Orange is the New Black. In a flashback scene, one of the characters (as a young girl) is left alone in the woods by her Cold-War-era survivalist father, with just a metal-handled pocket knife and the makings of a rudimentary compass.

I know I've seen this same type of knife posted here on the porch before, but I don't know much about them. Perhaps someone can chime in and identify it.

The character is later shown using the knife to whittle the end of a stick into a spear, which she uses to catch a fish for supper.

The second is from the Netflix show The Ranch. Ranch-owner Beau (played by Sam Elliott) gives his son, Rooster (Danny Masterson), his grandfather's old pocket knife for Christmas. The knife looks like a stockman with a federal shield and light-colored bone scales.

After giving him the knife, Beau tells Rooster to give him a penny, and explains that it's bad luck to give a knife away for free. He says that his father had to give his grandfather a penny when he gave him the knife, and that he had to do the same when it was handed down to him. Rooster digs around in his pocket, pulls out a bill and says that he only has a twenty. Beau takes it from his hand and responds, "That'll work."

 

[5K Qs]

You sure have an eye for detail, Barrett!! The girl's knife you showed looks quite similar to this Imperial Jack that davek14 rescued, restored, and sent to me. (It was the knife I took to Spain when I went to visit my daughter a couple of years ago.)

BTW, we used to watch Twin Peaks when it originally aired, and I'll second your opinion that it's a weird show. I'm quite sure the FBI agent wasn't named Gary Cooper, but Dale Bartholomew Cooper - DB Cooper, a different strange cultural allusion.

- GT