His Girl Friday_1940HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940)
w / Cary Grant & Rosalind Russel
[Walter Burns (Grant), editor of a major Chicago newspaper, is about to lose his ace reporter and former wife, Hildy Johnson (Russel), to insurance salesman Bruce Baldwin, but not without a fight! The crafty editor uses every trick in his fedora to get Hildy to write one last big story, about murderer Earl Williams and the inept Sheriff Hartwell. The comedy snowballs as William's friend, Molly Malloy, the crooked Mayor, and Bruce's mother all get tied up in Walter's web. - IMDb]
Hildy: Walter, you're wonderful, in a loathsome sort of way.
Bruce: [Concerning Walter] I like him; he's got a lot of charm.
Hildy: Well, he comes by it naturally: his grandfather was a snake.
Walter: [ducking from Hildy's throw and reaching for the ringing telephone] Oh, you're losing your eye! You used to be able to pitch better than that.
Hildy: I suppose I proposed to you?
Walter: Well, you practically did, making goo-goo eyes at me for two years until I broke down.
[impersonates Hildy, flutters his eyelashes]
Hildy: All I know is that instead of two weeks in Atlantic City with my bridegroom, I spent two weeks in a coal mine with John Krupsky. You don't deny that, do you Walter?
Walter: Deny it? I'm proud of it. We beat the whole country on that story.
Hildy: [shouting] Well, suppose we did. That isn't what I got married for!
Walter: Look, Hildy, I only acted like any husband that didn't want to see his home broken up.
Hildy: What "home"?
Hildy: [speaking to Walter on the phone] Now, get this, you double-crossing chimpanzee: There ain't going to be any interview and there ain't going to be any story. And that certified check of yours is leaving with me in twenty minutes. I wouldn't cover the burning of Rome for you if they were just lighting it up. If I ever lay my two eyes on you again, I'm gonna walk right up to you and hammer on that monkeyed skull of yours 'til it rings like a Chinese gong!
Hildy: [speaking of her fiance] He treats me like a woman.
Walter: Oh he does, does he? Mm-hm... how did I treat you? Like a water buffalo?
Hildy: [speaking to Walter on the phone] Did you hear that? That's the story I just wrote. Yes, yes, I know we had a bargain. I just said I'd write it, I didn't say I wouldn't tear it up! It's all in little pieces now, Walter, and I hope to do the same for you some day!
[hangs up emphatically]
[to the other reporters] And that, my friends, is my farewell to the newspaper game.
Walter: Sorta wish you hadn't done that, Hildy.
Hildy: Done what?
Walter: Divorced me. Makes a fella lose all faith in himself. Gives him a... almost gives him a feeling he wasn't wanted.
Hildy: Oh, now look, junior... that's what divorces are FOR!
Walter: Let's see this paragon! Is he as good as you say?
Hildy: Why, he's better!
Walter: Well then, what does he want with you?
Hildy: Ah-ha-ha, now you got me!
Walter: You've got an old fashioned idea divorce is something that lasts forever, 'til death do us part.' Why divorce doesn't mean anything nowadays, Hildy, just a few words mumbled over you by a judge.
Walter: What were you when you came here five years ago - a little college girl from a school of journalism. I took a doll-faced hick...
Hildy: Well, you wouldn't take me if I hadn't been doll-faced.
Walter: Well, why should I? I thought it would be a novelty to have a face around here a man could look at without shuddering.
Walter: You've got the brain of a pancake. This isn't just a story you're covering - it's a revolution. This is the greatest yarn in journalism since Livingstone discovered Stanley.
Hildy: It's the other way around.
Walter: Oh, well, don't get technical at a time like this.
Hildy: Tell me. Is the Lord of the Universe in?
Bruce: Even ten minutes is a long time to be away from you.
Hildy: What did you say?
Bruce: What?
Hildy: Go on. [He laughs sheepishly] Well, go ahead.
Bruce: Well, I just said, 'Even ten minutes is a long time to be away from you.'
Hildy: I heard you the first time. I like it. That's why I asked you to say it again.
Hildy: I spent six weeks in Reno, then Bermuda, oh, about four months, I guess. It seems like yesterday to me.
Walter: Maybe it was yesterday, Hildy. Been seeing me in your dreams?
Hildy: Oh, no, Mama doesn't dream about you anymore, Walter. You wouldn't know the old girl now.
Walter: I'd know you anytime, anyplace, anywhere.
Hildy: A big fat lummox like you - hiring an airplane to write: 'Hildy, don't be hasty, remember my dimple.' Walter. It delayed our divorce twenty minutes while the judge went out to watch it.
Walter: I've still got the dimple and in the same place.
Walter: You can marry all you want to, Hildy, but you can't quit the newspaper business.
Hildy: Oh! Why not?
Walter: I know you, Hildy. I know what quitting would mean to you.
Hildy: And what would it mean?
Walter: It would kill ya.
Hildy: You can't sell me that, Walter Burns.
Walter: Who says I can't? You're a newspaperman.
Hildy: That's why I'm quitting. I want to go someplace where I can be a woman.
Walter: You mean be a traitor.
Hildy: A traitor? A traitor to what?
Walter: A traitor to journalism. You're a journalist, Hildy.
Hildy: A journalist? Hell, what does that mean? Peeking through keyholes? Chasing after fire engines? Waking people up in the middle of the night to ask them if Hitler's gonna start another war? Stealing pictures off old ladies? I know all about reporters, Walter. A lot of daffy buttinskis running around without a nickel in their pockets and for what? So a million hired girls and motormen's wives'll know what's going on. Why-... Golly, what's the use? Walter, you-you wouldn't know what it means to want to be respectable and live a half-way normal life. The point is, I-I'm through.
IMDb Quotes
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ADAM'S RIB (1949)
w / Spencer Tracy & Katharine Hepburn
[Married lawyers Adam and Amanda Bonner (Tracy & Hepburn) find themselves on opposite sides of the courtroom in this comedy. Adam is prosecuting a high-profile case in which a woman is accused of trying to murder her philandering husband. Amanda acts as her defense attorney, and the sparring begins. - IMDb]
After the rough day in court, the couple are at home giving each other customary rubdowns and Swedish massages. In one of the film's classic scenes, while they wear only towels and lie on a massage table in their bedroom (from a low-angle shot), Adam receives the first expert massage and is tested with a smack to his behind. When he is finished, she takes the position on the table, while the radio plays "Farewell, Amanda" - he turns it off with a slur toward their next-door neighbor's hit song: "I got the station with the bad news." He delivers a resounding flesh-on-flesh smack on her behind while she sings the tune, reasoning that he resents her "shaking the law by the tail." She confronts him with eyes flashing, suspecting that he is antagonistic because of the court case. He stands there helpless with cold cream on both his hands, and when he gets excited or challenged, he jumbles his syllables:
Adam: What are ya? Sore about a little slap?
Amanda: No.
Adam: Well, what then?
Amanda: (outraged at him) You meant that, didn't you? You really meant that.
Adam: Why, no, I...
Amanda: Yes, you did. I can tell. I know your type. I know a slap from a slug.
Adam: Well, OK, OK.
Amanda: I'm not so sure it is. I'm not so sure I care to expose myself to typical instinctive masculine brutality.
Adam: Oh come now.
Amanda: And it felt not only as though you meant it, but as though you felt you had a right to. I can tell.
Adam: What've you got back there? Radar equipment?
Amanda: You're really sore at me, aren't you?
Adam: Oh, don't be 'diriculous.' Ridiculous.
Amanda: There! Proves it!
Adam: All right, all right, I am sore. I am sore. What about it?
Amanda: Why are you?
Adam: You know why.
Amanda: You mean Kip? Just because he's having a little fun?
Adam: No. Because you're having a little fun. You're having the wrong kind of fun - down in that courtroom. You're shaking the law by the tail, and I don't like it. I'm ashamed of you, Amanda.
Amanda: Is that so?
Adam: Yes, that's so. We've had our little differences and I've always tried to see your point of view, but this time, you've got me stumped, baby.
Amanda: You haven't tried to see my point of view. You haven't even any respect for my, my, my -
Adam: There we go, there we go, there we go - Oh, oh, here we go again. The old juice. (She begins to cry because he refuses to understand her strong feelings and point of view.) Ah, guaranteed heart-melter. A few female tears...
Amanda: (sobbing) I can't help it.
Adam: ...stronger than any acid. But this time they won't work...
Amanda: I didn't...
Adam: You can cry from now until the time the jury comes in and it won't make you right and it won't win you that silly case.
Amanda: Adam! Please...
Adam: Nothing doing... (He leaves the room, upset about their argument)
Amanda: ...please try to understand.
Adam: (He returns) Ah, don't you want your rubdown? You want a drink?
Amanda: No.
Adam: Do you want anything? What, honey? (She kicks him in the shin) Ow!
Amanda: Let's all be manly! (She marches offscreen)
Adam's Rib - Review
Adam's Rib - Songvid
Katharine & Spencer - pics
THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)
w / Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant & James Stewart
[Philadelphia heiress Tracy Lord (Hepburn) throws out her playboy husband C.K. Dexter Haven (Grant) shortly after their marriage. Two years later, Tracy is about to marry respectable George Kittredge whilst Dexter has been working for "Spy" magazine. Dexter arrives at the Lord's mansion the day before the wedding with writer Macaulay Connor (Stewart) and photographer Liz Imbrie, determined to spoil things. - IMDb]
C.K.: Sometimes, for your own sake, Red, I think you should've stuck to me longer.
Tracy: I thought it was for life, but the nice judge gave me a full pardon.
C.K.: Aaah, that's the old redhead. No bitterness, no recrimination, just a good swift left to the jaw.
C.K.: Orange juice, certainly.
Tracy: Don't tell me you've forsaken your beloved whisky and whiskies.
C.K.: No-no-no-no. I've just changed their colour, that's all. I'm going for the pale pastel shades now. There're more becoming of me. How about you, Mr. Connor? You drink, don't you - alcohol, I mean?
Macaulay: Oh, a little.
C.K.: [Amused] A little? And you a writer? Tsk, tsk, tsk. I thought all writers drank to excess and beat their wives. You know, at one time I think I secretly wanted to be a writer.
[He and Tracy exchange scornful looks]
Macaulay: Champagne's funny stuff. I'm used to whiskey. Whiskey is a slap on the back, and champagne's heavy mist before my eyes.
George: You're like some marvelous, distant, well, queen, I guess. You're so cool and fine and always so much your own. There's a kind of beautiful purity about you, Tracy, like, like a statue.
Tracy: George...
George: Oh, it's grand, Tracy. It's what everybody feels about you. It's what I first worshipped you for from afar.
Tracy: I don't want to be worshipped. I want to be loved.
C.K.: The moon is also a goddess, chaste and virginal.
Tracy: Stop using those foul words.
[Mike discovers the intercom in the Lords' house]
Macaulay: Uh-oh, Liz, what did I tell you? Look, how do you like this - living room, sitting room, terrace, pool, stables.
Liz: That's probably so they can talk to the horses without having them in the house.
Macaulay: Tracy.
Tracy: What do you want?
Macaulay: You're wonderful. There's a magnificence in you, Tracy.
Tracy: Now I'm getting self-conscious. It's funny. I - Mike? Let's...
Macaulay: Yeah?
Tracy: I don't know - go up, I guess, it's late.
Macaulay: A magnificence that comes out of your eyes, in your voice, in the way you stand there, in the way you walk. You're lit from within, Tracy. You've got fires banked down in you, hearth-fires and holocausts.
Tracy: I don't seem to you made of bronze?
Macaulay: No, you're made out of flesh and blood. That's the blank, unholy surprise of it. You're the golden girl, Tracy. Full of life and warmth and delight. What goes on? You've got tears in your eyes.
Tracy: Shut up, shut up. Oh, Mike. Keep talking, keep talking. Talk, will you?
Macaulay: What's this? Is it my book?
C.K.: Yes.
Macaulay: C. K. Dexter Haven you have unsuspected depth!
C.K.: Thanks, old chap.
Macaulay: But have you read it?
C.K.: When I was trying to stop drinking, I read anything.
Macaulay: And did you stop drinking?
C.K.: Yes. Your book didn't do it though.
Tracy: I can't make you out at all now.
Macaulay: I thought I was easy.
Tracy: So did I. But you're not. You talk so big and tough and then you write like this. Which is which?
Macaulay: Both. I guess.
Tracy: No. No, I believe you put the toughness down to save your skin.
Macaulay: You think so?
Tracy: Yes. I know a little about that.
Macaulay: You do?
Tracy: Quite a lot.
Dexter: I never saw you looking better, Red. You're getting that fine, tawny look.
Tracy: Oh, we're going to talk about me, are we? Goodie.
Dexter: It's astonishing what money can do for people, don't you agree, Mr. Connor? Not too much, you know - just more than enough. Now take Tracy for example. Never a blow that hasn't been softened for her. Never a blow that won't be softened. As a matter of fact, she's even changed her shape - she was a dumpy little thing at one time.
Tracy: Only as it happens, I'm not interested in myself, for the moment.
Dexter: Not interested in yourself! You're fascinated, Red. You're far and away your favorite person in the world.
Tracy: Dexter, in case you don't know it -
Dexter: Of course, Mr. Connor, she's a girl who's generous to a fault.
Tracy: To a fault, Mr. Connor.
Dexter: Except to other people's faults. For instance, she never had any understanding of my deep and gorgeous thirst.
Tracy: That was your problem.
Dexter: Granted. But you took on that problem with me when you took me, Red. You were no help-mate there. You were a scold.
Tracy: It was disgusting. It made you so unattractive.
Dexter: A weakness, sure, and strength is her religion, Mr. Connor. She finds human imperfection unforgiveable. And when I gradually discovered that my relationship to her was supposed to be not that of a loving husband and a good companion, but - [He turns away from her] Oh, never mind.
Tracy: Say it.
Dexter: But that of a kind of high priest to a virgin goddess, then my drinks grew deeper and more frequent, that's all. [Macaulay slides off his chair and leaves them.]
Tracy: I never considered you as that, nor myself.
Dexter: You did without knowing it. Oh, and the night that you got drunk on champagne and climbed out on the roof and stood there, NAKED, with your arms out to the moon, wailing like a banshee - [Dexter laughs at the thought.]
Tracy: I told you I never had the slightest recollection of doing any such thing.
Dexter: I know. You drew a blank. You wanted to. Mr. Connor, what would you... [He turns and notices Mike has gone] Oh.
Tracy: A nice story for spies, incidentally.
Dexter: Too bad we can't supply photographs of you on the roof.
Dexter: [about marrying George] How in the world could you even think of it?
Tracy: Because he is everything you're not. He's been poor. He's had to work and he's had to fight for everything. And I love him, as I never even began to love you.
Dexter: Maybe so, but I doubt it. I think he's just a swing from me. But it's too violent a swing. Kittredge is no great tower of strength, you know, Tracy. He's just a tower.
Tracy: You hardly know him.
Dexter: To hardly know him is to know him well. And perhaps it offends my vanity to have anyone who is even remotely my wife re-marry so obviously beneath her.
Tracy: How dare you! Any of you in this day and age use such an idiotic...
Dexter: I'm talking about the difference in mind and spirit...Kittredge is not for you.
Tracy: You bet he's for me. He's a great man and a good man. Already, he's of national importance.
Dexter: You sound like Spy Magazine talking. But whatever he is, toots, you'll have to stick. He'll give you no out as I did.
Tracy: I won't require one.
Dexter: I suppose you'd still be attractive to any man of spirit, though. There's something engaging about it, this goddess business. There's something more challenging to the male than the, uh, more obvious charms.
Tracy: Really?
Dexter: Really. We're very vain, you know - 'This citadel can and shall be taken, and I'm the boy to do it.'
Tracy: You seem quite contemptuous of me all of a sudden.
Dexter: No, Red, not of you, never of you. Red, you could be the finest woman on this earth. I'm contemptuous of something inside of you you either can't help, or make no attempt to; your so-called 'strength' - your prejudice against weakness - your blank intolerance.
Tracy: Is that all?
Dexter: That's the gist of it; because you'll never be a first-class human being or a first-class woman, until you've learned to have some regard for human frailty. It's a pity your own foot can't slip a little sometime - but your sense of inner divinity wouldn't allow that. This goddess must and shall remain intact. There are more of you than people realize - a special class of the American Female. The Married Maidens.
Tracy: So help me, Dexter, if you say another word, I'll...
Dexter: I'm through, Red. For the moment, I've had my say.
IMDb Quotes
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Philip Barry
BALL OF FIRE (1941)
w / Barbara Stanwyck & Gary Cooper
[Sexy, wisecracking nightclub singer Sugarpuss O'Shea (Stanwyck) is a hot tomato who needs to be kept on ice: mobster boyfriend Joe Lilac is suspected of murder and Sugarpuss' testimony could put him away. Naive Professor Bertram Potts (Cooper) meets Miss O'Shea while researching an article on slang and in true romantic comedy fashion the two worlds collide. When Miss O'Shea hides out with Potts and his fellow professors, everyone learns something new: the professors how to cha-cha and Potts the meaning of "yum-yum"! - IMDb]
Prof. Potts: Make no mistake, I shall regret the absence of your keen mind; unfortunately, it is inseparable from an extremely disturbing body.
Prof. Potts [attempts to propose to Sugarpuss]: People like that...well...dust just piles up on their hearts, and it took you to blow it away.
Sugarpuss: Yeah, but I didn't mean to blow it smack into your eye.
Sugarpuss: I love him because he's the kind of guy who gets drunk on a glass of buttermilk, and I love the way he blushes right up over his ears. I love him because he doesn't know how to kiss, the jerk!
IMDb Quotes
Potts' Proposal
Drum Boogie ft. Gene Krupa
THE THIN MAN (1934)
w / William Powell & Myrna Loy
[Young Dorothy Wynant approaches amateur sleuth Nick Charles (Powell) when her inventor father appears to be a major suspect in a murder case. In fact, Dorothy is so worried about her father's guilt that she tries to convince Nick that she did it. Nick's wife Nora (Loy) wants him on the case so that she can experience some of the excitement herself. However, Nick is reluctant to get involved until he sees that police Lt. Guild is coming to the wrong conclusions. Nick decides that the best way to clear up the case is to invite all the suspects to dinner with Lt. Guild and see what happens... - IMDb]
Reporter: Say listen, is he working on a case?
Nora: Yes, he is.
Reporter: What case?
Nora: A case of scotch. Pitch in and help him.
Nick: Oh, it's all right, Joe. It's all right. It's my dog. And, uh, my wife.
Nora: Well you might have mentioned me first on the billing.
Nora: You know, that sounds like an interesting case. Why don't you take it?
Nick: I haven't the time. I'm much too busy seeing that you don't lose any of the money I married you for.
Nora: You asleep?
Nick: Yes!
Nora: Good... I want to talk to you.
Nora: What's that man doing in my drawers?
Nora: [suffering from a hang-over] What hit me?
Nick: The last martini.
Nick: Hey, would you mind putting that gun away. My wife doesn't care, but I'm a very timid fellow...All right, shoot. I mean, uh, what's on your mind?
Nora: You darn fool, you didn't have to knock me out. I knew you'd take him, but I wanted to see you do it.
Nick (laughing): There's a girl with hair on her chest.
Nick: Oh, I'm a hero. I was shot twice in the Tribune.
Nora: I read you were shot five times in the tabloids.
Nick: It's not true. He didn't come anywhere near my tabloids.
Nora: I think it's a dirty trick to bring me all the way to New York just to make a widow of me.
Nick: You wouldn't be a widow long.
Nora: You bet I wouldn't.
Nick: Not with all your money.
Nora: (worried that he will get hurt) Take care of yourself.
Nick: (laughing) Why sure I will.
Nora: Don't say it like that! Say it as if you meant it.
Nick: Well, I do believe the little woman cares.
Nora: I don't care. It's just that I'm used to you, that's all.
In the final sequence on a westbound transcontinental train, Nick and Nora travel back to California and share an adjacent cabin with newlyweds Dorothy and Tommy. They finally adjourn to their respective rooms late into the night. There are upper and lower bunks in Nick's and Nora's room. Nora asks that Nick put Asta in her lower bunk with her for the night. Nick laughs: "Oh, yeah," tosses Asta up onto the top bunk, and joins Nora in the lower bunk. Asta covers his eyes with his paw.
The Thin Man - Review
Witty Lines
I'll Just Dance With Myself
