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Mathematics Goes to the Movies

by Burkard Polster and Marty Ross

Bullshot (1983)

11:40
Bullshot Crummond (Alan Shearman) is the stereotypical gentleman English hero. He is hunting pigeons with his friend Binky Brancaster (Christopher Good), and shoots one without looking.
BRANCASTER: Crummond! How the Dickens did you do that?
CRUMMOND: Simple, Binky. By rapidly calculating the pigeon’s angle of elevation in the reflection of your monocle, then subtracting the refractive index of its lense, I positioned myself at a complimentary axis and fired. It was no challenge at all.

23:05
Crummond is dancing with Diz White (Rosemary Fenton), whose father has been kidnapped in attempt to gain his secret formula.
CRUMMOND: Now, can you recall your father’s formula.
DIZ: Let’s think. It started with a capital N, and then there was a little A, followed by a 3. Ah, then there was a squiggle above a tick, and ah … a hot cross bun sign.