You know you love Henry, you admire him, and you fear him. Let's see a thread of Henry Silva's most memorable moments. Scenes, lines of dialogue, asskickings, you name it.

I'll start with..."Who the fuck is this CHERRY?" from ABOVE THE LAW. My friends and I have been using that line for years, but only the way Henry says it.

Does anybody swear better than Silva?

The one that came immediately to mind for me was the bizarre, WTF? moment at the end of SHARKY'S MACHINE when Silva puts a gun to the head of Bernie Casey and screams; we wait for him to shoot Bernie, but Bernie just sits there without reacting, so Silva screams again, then walks off without pulling the trigger. The first time I saw that I was so confused I thought the movie had moved from action-drama to some sort of Mel Brooks spoof.

I've always been partial to the bit in CRY OF A PROSTITUTE where he gets into a fight at a bar after some guys pour an espresso at his feet.

Silva: Would you please clean my shoes.
*guys laugh*
Silva: LOOK MUTHERFUCKER! I repeat myself, clean my shoes!

It got made into a semi-popular Youtube mash-up video a few years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZFlmObCrLw

Jack Warden did.

Silva's shit eating grin in CHAINED HEAT consistently cracks me up, even after dozens of viewings; no lines needed. Especially in the scenes with John Vernon.

Love the subtle "Columbian necktie" moment with Chuck Norris in CODE OF SILENCE, though I guess it's more of a Norris moment than a Silva moment.

Not really a moment but its great seeing a young Silva working with the late Diana Sands on the OUTER LIMITS episode "The Mice".

I was hoping someone would add the Silva/Motorhead video. Genius.

Silva has an awesome death scene in SHARKY'S MACHINE. And in THIRST.

Budd Boetticher's THE TALL T (1957): Richard Boone and his gang have taken over the stagecoach stop to wait for a cash-laden stage only to have waiting passenger John Hubbard inform them that they missed the one with the cash and that they should call it a day and let the passengers go on their merry way. Boone's gang members Chink (Silva) and Billy Jack (Skip Homeier) look Hubbard over as he tries to talk his way out of certain doom. Silva, with a grin and a malevolent glint in his eye, says "He's a talker." Another passenger, Randolph Scott, watches all this with a grim expression on his face.

That's definitely my favorite. But his blow-up with Vittorio Gassman in SHARKY'S MACHINE is a close second, but I just don't remember the dialogue. And there's always the bit with the grenade launcher in WIPEOUT. And the karate fight with Sinatra in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. And the clever escape from the sack in the otherwise unmemorable THE RETURN OF MR. MOTO.

P.S. The scene David describes in SHARKY'S is actually explained by dialogue from Casey earlier in the film when he recounts a confrontation where he was sure he was going to die, so he did an out-of-body moment and just left his opponent with nothing to confront and the guy walked away. "I gave him nothing," was Casey's line of explanation. So that's the tactic he uses at the end with Silva.

Silva's got some choice ejaculations in THE BOSS. I don't know how they begin, but I sure remember how they end.

"Ghost......DOG?!"

Almost everything he says in ALLIGATOR, though I love the throwaway moment where he walks out of the carryout and tosses the three hoods a six-pack in exchange for helping him.

He has a couple of great

I wouldn't rank it among his career highlights, but I enjoy Silva's gleefully hammy performance in Hal Needham's oh-so-wrong MEGAFORCE: "You're an idealist! In the '70s, we could be idealists, but today...it's too expensive!"

Best performance by Silva virtually no one has seen: as one half of the hit team out to kill Eddie Constantine in HAIL MAFIA! (also featuring a great Jack Klugman turn).

Moving this up on my stack...

Seen it, love it. I think it anticipates THE HIT in some interesting ways.

Agreed about HAIL MAFIA - it's a very well-thought out performance by Silva, and tightly controlled. When I watched the film it didn't really strike me as being anything different - at least initially, but it succeeds at drawing you in and keeps getting better and better as it rolls along.

Regarding SHARKY's MACHINE - it's bad enough that Silva's going to blow your head off but to have him also scream at you.......

Loved his little cameo in AMAZON WOMEN ON THE MOON.

Holy crap! Check out this clip detailing the making of that Thirst scene in the new documentary Not Quite Hollywood:

Cherry Picked Silva