“Tunneling out of here with a spoon”

LORELAI: Aw, look at you, trying to make Mommy feel like you don’t spend every night tunneling out of here with a spoon.

Lorelai references Escape from Alcatraz, 1979 prison thriller film directed by Don Spiegel. It’s an adaptation of the 1963 non-fiction book of the same name by J. Campbell Bruce, and dramatises the 1962 prisoner escape from the maximum security prison on Alcatraz Island, off the shore of San Francisco.

The film stars Clint Eastwood as Frank Morris, an extremely intelligent criminal who forms an escape plan with a few other prisoners. Over the next few months, they dig through their cell walls with spoons, make papier-mache dummies to act as decoys, and construct a raft out of raincoats. The film implies the escape was successful, although that is not certain (recent evidence seems to suggest the men did survive).

Escape from Alcatraz was a commercial success and well received by critics. It is often considered one of the best films of 1979.