Time for the TOD, and then I must be off. One memory that always stayed with me:
There's a gag in the movie "10" that, the two times I went to it (in L.A., and then while in Miami Beach a few months later), came as close to stopping the show that a moment in a movie can do. (It was probably the best Blake Edwards gag setup in the whole damned movie.) The minister's old, deaf, shuffling, housekeeper farts loudly on her way out of the room -- whereupon the dog, heretofore napping contentedly, jolts awake and runs from the room like a bat out of hell. The minister explains to his guest, "Whenever Mrs. Kissel breaks wind, we beat the dog", and the audience exploded. It's the end of that scene, and Edwards and his editor knew their business. The transition to the next scene is a prolonged shot or series of shots that's just plain filler, allowing the laughter to play itself out and die down without anyone missing whatever followed.
