About Murphy's Law

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Murphy's Law is a 1986 American neo-noir action thriller film directed by J. Lee Thompson from a screenplay by Gail Morgan Hickman. It stars Charles Bronson, Kathleen Wilhoite, and Carrie Snodgress, with a supporting cast featuring Robert F. Lyons, Richard Romanus, Angel Tompkins and Lawrence Tierney.

Bronson plays an antisocial detective of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) who is miserable due to the failures of both his marriage and his career. His former foe returns to seek revenge, framing the detective for the murders of his ex-wife, her boyfriend, and several of his own associates. On the run from the police, the detective teams-up with a petty thief who he had earlier arrested.

Murphy's Law was released by Cannon Films on April 18, 1986. The film marked the sixth collaboration between Bronson and director J. Lee Thompson (following 1976's St. Ives, 1977's The White Buffalo, 1980's Caboblanco, 1983's 10 to Midnight, and 1984's The Evil That Men Do).

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Plot

Jack Murphy, a hardened, antisocial alcoholic LAPD detective, frequently escapes the harsh reality that his ex-wife has become a stripper and his career is going nowhere by drinking. His world is turned upside down, however, when he is framed by ex-convict Joan Freeman for putting her in prison earlier in his career.

Notable quotes

“If there is a wrong way to do something, then someone will do it.”
— Version attributed to Edward A. Murphy in "Murphy Lives!" by Robert L. Forward, in Science 83 (January-February 1983), p. 78
“If there's more than one way to do a job and one of those ways will end in disaster, then somebody will do it that way.”
— Version attributed to Edward A. Murphy in People Magazine (31 January 1983), p. 82
“If there's more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will result in disaster, then somebody will do it that way.”
— According to Robert Murphy (son of Edward A. Murphy, Jr.) his father's statement was along these lines; reported in People (31 January 1983), p. 82; alternately reported as "If there is a wrong way to do something, then someone will do it", in "Murphy Lives!" by Robert L. Forward, Science 83 (January-February 1983), p. 78; also commonly reported as, "If anything can go wrong, it will", in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (1982) edited by J. A. Simpson, p. 4.
“Colonel Stapp's favorite takeoff on sober scientific laws — Murphy's Law, Stapp calls it — 'Everything that can possibly go wrong will go wrong'”
— Lloyd Mallan, in Men, Rockets and Space Rats (1955), possibly the earliest printed use of Murphy's name in connection with the law.
“Murphy's Quantum Law: Anything that can, could have, or will go wrong, is going wrong, all at once.”
— Paul Dickson, in The Official Rules (1982)
“With diligent effort he has established that there is no statistical basis for Murphy’s Law. He has also established that he believes in it anyway.”
— John Barnes, Mother of Storms (1994) p. 511 (from the first mass market paperback edition published by Tor Books (May 1995) )

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

Murphy's Law

Murphy's Law

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Notable quotes

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