Movie Quote of the Day (‘Legally Blonde,’ As Elle Grills the Star Prosecution Witness)

Elle Woods [played by Reese Witherspoon]: “Isn't the first cardinal rule of perm maintenance that you're forbidden to wet your hair for at least 24 hours after getting a perm at the risk of deactivating the ammonium thioglycolate?”—Legally Blonde (2001), screenplay by Amanda Brown, Karen McCullah, and Kirsten Smith, directed by Robert Luketic

Twenty-five years ago this month, the uproarious comedy Legally Blonde premiered. I don’t think the legal profession has quite recovered in the years since!

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Murder by Death,’ With a Character Who Resembles His Actor)

Lionel Twain [played by Truman Capote, pictured]: “That drives me crazy!”

Sam Diamond [played by Peter Falk]: “Sounds like a short ride to me.”— Murder by Death (1976), screenplay by Neil Simon, directed by Robert Moore

The murder mystery spoof Murder by Death premiered 50 years ago today, featuring a cast of highly accomplished film veterans like David Niven, Maggie Smith, Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Elsa Lanchester, and James Coco.

But wouldn’t you know it, a mere tyro caught most of the attention of the public: In Cold Blood author Truman Capote, in the only film where he played someone other than himself. (He provided voiceover narration of his stories “The Thanksgiving Visitor” and “A Christmas Memory,” and played the Capote look-alike in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall.)

I bet that you were as surprised as I was to learn that for his performance, Capote was nominated for a Golden Globe in Best Acting Debut in a Motion Picture. But remember, these were the awards that notoriously handed Pia Zadora a statuette as “New Star of the Year” for the 1982 bomb Butterfly. In other words, you have to wonder which Hollywood powerbroker influenced such ridiculous recognition.

I doubt that Neil Simon thought that Capote turned in a noteworthy performance, though I have read a couple of versions of his reaction. When interviewed for George Plimpton’s 1997 oral biography Truman Capote, the playwright-screenwriter, while admitting that hiring the author was more producer Ray Stark’s idea than his own, said that he “had no problem with him.”

Well, except for two: Capote was “very ill at ease with the dialogue” and “didn’t know how to move,” as he was always looking for his marks.

On the other hand, in commentary for a 1999 DVD release of the movie, Simon said he and director Robert Moore wanted to replace Capote as Lionel Twain, the rich eccentric who invites the world’s greatest detectives to his home for a contest to solve a murder. In the end, that desire didn’t come to pass.

Two rather different reactions, as I say. But when you think about it, both were united in one belief: Capote was making mistakes that professional actors would not have committed, and it was deeply frustrating.

Besides lack of experience, there was another reason why the creators of Murder by Death should have thought better of hiring Capote in the first place: he was already well along in the drink-and-pills spiral that led to his death by liver cancer in 1984.

A couple of years before, he had been in such terrible condition when commissioned to write the screenplay for The Great Gatsby remake that he had to be replaced before he could finish. Gossip spreads fast in Hollywood, and nobody involved with Murder by Death should have been surprised that he would be a handful.

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Crazy Rich Asians,’ on a June Surprise)

Rachel Chu [played by Constance Wu]: “I thought I was here to meet your family, go to your best friend's wedding, eat some good food. Instead, I feel like I'm a villain in a soap opera who's plotting to steal your family fortune.”— Crazy Rich Asians (2018), screenplay by Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim, adapted from the novel by Kevin Kwan, directed by Jon M. Chu

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,’ on a Source of Opera Funding)

[Longfellow Deeds, suddenly inheriting $20 million from his uncle, finds himself besieged by the opera board of directors.]

Longfellow Deeds [played by Gary Cooper]: “Gee, I'm busy. Do the opera people always come here for their meetings?”

Cornelius Cobb [played by Lionel Stander]: “Uu-hum.”

Deeds: “That's funny. Why is that?”

Cobb: “Why do mice go where there's cheese?”—Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), screenplay by Robert Riskin and Clarence Budington Kelland, directed by Frank Capra

In the last few weeks, at least as far as the Metropolitan Opera is concerned, the cheese moved. The agreement that the Met announced last fall for the Saudi Arabian government to provide more than $800 million over eight years came unraveled, just one more casualty of the Iranian War and the resulting Strait of Hormuz standoff.

What will the Met do now? Even looking to a misogynistic, authoritarian Mideast regime to keep it afloat was…a stretch. Now, the longtime cultural institution might be hearing more variants on this sharp rejoinder from Mr. Deeds: “I personally wouldn't care to be the head of a business that kept losing money! That wouldn't be common sense.”

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Stranger Than Paradise,’ As A Hungarian Teen Learns About ‘The Way We Eat in America’)

Willie [played by John Lurie]: “You're sure you don't want a TV dinner?”

Eva [played by Eszter Balint]: “Yes. I'm not hungry. Why is it called ‘TV dinner’?”

Willie: “Um... You're supposed to eat it while you watch TV. Television.”

Eva: “I know what a TV is. Where does that meat come from?”:

Willie: “What do you mean?”

Eva: “What does that meat come from?”

Willie: “I guess it comes from a cow.”

Eva: “From a cow? It doesn't even look like meat.”

Willie: “Eva, stop bugging me, will you? You know, this is the way we eat in America. I got my meat, I got my potatoes, I got my vegetables, I got my dessert, and I don't even have to wash the dishes.”— Stranger Than Paradise (1984), screenplay by Jim Jarmusch and John Lurie, directed by Jim Jarmusch

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Duck Soup,’ on Forgetting Faces)

Rufus T. Firefly [played by Groucho Marx]: “I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.”— Duck Soup (1933), story by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, with additional dialogue by Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin, directed by Leo McCarey

Movie Quote of the Day (‘The Bank Dick,’ With W.C. Fields on a Car Chase)

Egbert Souse [played by W.C. Fields]: [to bank robber, after narrowly missing the police during a car chase] “Seems to be a great deal of traffic here for a country road. Don't you think?”—The Bank Dick (1940), screenplay by "Mahatma Kane Jeeves" (pseudonym used by W.C. Fields), directed by Edward F. Cline

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Woman of the Year,’ As a Sportswriter Introduces His Date to the Game of Baseball)

Tess Harding [A sophisticated foreign correspondent played by Katharine Hepburn]: [In the stands at a major-league ballpark, observing the large crowd in attendance] “Are all these people unemployed?”

Sam Craig [A sportswriter, played by Spencer Tracy]: “No, they're all attending their grandmother's funeral.”— Woman of the Year (1942), screenplay by Ring Lardner Jr., Michael Kanin, and John Lee Mahin, directed by George Stevens

A lovely hat that Miss Harding is wearing, isn’t it? Except that it blocks the view of the large, angry-looking fellow behind her.

Oh, well—with the help of Sam, she’ll learn about not just the balls and strikes that affect the players, but appropriate attire for spectators like herself! 

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Tootsie,’ on Being a ‘Cult Failure’)

[Frustrated actor Michael Dorsey has complained that agent George Fields hasn’t found him any job recently. George pushes back, arguing that refusing to compromise about roles makes Michael unemployable.]

George Fields [played by Sydney Pollack]: “OK, I know this is going to disgust you, Michael, but a lot of people are in this business to make money.”

Michael Dorsey [played by Dustin Hoffman]: “You make it out like I'm some flake, George. I am in this business to make money, too.”

George: “Really?”

Michael: “Yes!”

George: “The Harlem Theatre for the Blind? Strindberg in the Park? The People's Workshop in Syracuse?”

Michael: “OK, now wait a minute. I did nine plays in eight months up in Syracuse. I happened to get great reviews from the New York critics, not that that's why I did it.”

George: “Oh, of course not. God forbid you should lose your standing as a cult failure!”— —Tootsie (1982), story by Don McGuire and Larry Gelbart, screenplay by Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal, with uncredited contributions by Robert Garland, Barry Levinson and Elaine May, directed by Sydney Pollack

This morning, there are at least a few actors in Hollywood, following last night’s Oscar ceremony, who don’t have to feel like they’re a “cult failure” anymore.

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Pat and Mike,’ With a Promoter on His New Athlete Client)

[A slightly shady promoter-manager summarizes his new client, exceptional multi-sport female athlete Pat Pemberton, played by Katharine Hepburn.]

Mike Conovan [played by Spencer Tracy] [to his friend Barney]: “You see her face? A real honest face. The only disgustin’ thing about her.”— Pat and Mike (1952), screenplay by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, directed by George Cukor

Movie Quote of the Day (‘The In-Laws,’ With an Intro to a Nutty New Relative)

Dr. Sheldon Kornpett [played by Alan Arkin]: “You were involved in the Bay of Pigs?”

Vince Ricardo [played by Peter Falk]: “Involved? That was my idea.”—The In-Laws (1979), screenplay by Andrew Bergman, directed by Arthur Hiller

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Born Yesterday,’ on the ‘Struggle Between the Selfish and the Unselfish’)

[Reporter Paul Verrall is discussing Harry Brock, a vulgar, hot-tempered, corrupt tycoon, with the businessman’s mistress, Billie Dawn.]

Paul Verrall [played by William Holden]: “Harry's a menace.”

Billie Dawn [played by Judy Holliday]: “He's not so bad. I seen worse.”

Paul: “Has he ever thought of anyone but himself?”

Billie: “Who does?”

Paul: “Millions of people, Billie. The whole history of the world is a story of a struggle between the selfish and the unselfish.”

Billie: I can hear you.

Paul: “All that's bad around us is bred by selfishness. Sometimes selfishness can even get to be a - a cause, an organized force, even a government. And then it's called fascism. Can you understand that?”

Billie: “Sort of.”

Paul: “Well, think about it.

Billie: You're crazy about me, aren't ya?”

Paul: “Yes.”

Billie: “That's why you're so mad at Harry.”

Paul: “Listen, I hate his life, what he does, what he stands for—not him. He just doesn't know any better.”

Billie: “I go for you, too.”—Born Yesterday (1950), screenplay by Albert Mannheimer and Garson Kanin based on Kanin’s play, directed by George Cukor

Movie Quote of the Day (‘The Lady Eve,’ As a Conversation Takes an Unusual Turn)

Charles [played by Henry Fonda] [speaking of card playing]: “Now you, on the other hand, with a little coaching you could be terrific."

Jean [played by Barbara Stanwyck]: “Do you really think so?”

Charles: “Yes, you have a definite nose.”

Jean: “Well, I'm glad you like it. Do you like any of the rest of me?”— The Lady Eve (1941), screenplay by Monckton Hoffe and Preston Sturges, directed by Preston Sturges

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Metropolitan,’ on Jane Austen)

[Two of the more intellectual members of the “Sally Fowler Rat Pack” of debutantes and their dates are discussing novels they’ve recently read.]

Audrey Rouget [played by Carolyn Farina, right]: “By Tolstoy, War and Peace and by Jane Austen, Persuasion and Mansfield Park."

Tom Townsend [played by Edward Clements, left]: "Mansfield Park? You've got to be kidding.”

Audrey: “No.”

Tom: “But it's a notoriously bad book. Even Lionel Trilling, one of her greatest admirers, thought that.”

Audrey: “Well, if Lionel Trilling thought that, he's an idiot.”

Tom: “The whole story revolves around, what? The immorality of a group of young people putting on a play.”

Audrey: “In the context of the novel it makes perfect sense.”

Tom: “But in the context of the novel, then nearly everything Jane Austen wrote is near ridiculous from today's perspective.”

Audrey: “Has it ever occurred to you that today, looked at from Jane Austen's perspective, would look even worse?”— Metropolitan (1990), written and directed by Whit Stillman

I couldn’t help feeling amused by last week’s conjunction of events: Turner Classic Movies’ scheduling of Whit Stillman’s movie during the holiday season, and this past month’s 250^th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen.

But I really chuckled when I heard this exchange. In a 2017 appearance at Arizona State University, Stillman disclaimed any notion that his first film, an indie movie darling set during Christmas break, was an adaptation of Mansfield Park, let alone that Austen had “inspired” this film.

Whatever. Given that the filmmaker's last movie to date, Love and Friendship (2016), was an adaptation of Austen’s unfinished epistolary novel Lady Susan, I don’t think he would deny that she was a formative influence on his sensibility.

Take another look, then, at the above sample from Stillman’s unabashed talkfest. What a slyboots he is—ribbing the very book that furnished the ethical conflict of his own movie.

I must confess that when I first saw this comedy-drama 35 years ago, I felt deep ambivalence. 

My upbringing was blue-collar ethnic, not WASP upper class, and if I spoke the way that Audrey and Tom do here (let alone their earnest philosophical friend Charlie about “Fourierism”), my friends would have handed my head to me. 

In fact, I wondered back then how many students even at elite college campuses talked about such subjects in their dorms instead of their classrooms.

But the more I thought about this movie’s young people, the less removed they seemed from my own experience.

Pampered and privileged as these preppies were, they shared many of the insecurities of my lower-middle-class set: clinging to one’s social circle, longing for someone who may or may not like you in return, wondering where the money would come to pay for the clothes and activities that would keep you in your clique, and making sense of your parents (or, as the cynic Nick says, “The most important thing to realize about parents is that there is absolutely nothing you can do about them”).

The very thought of it might puzzle my group—and the Sally Fowler Rat Pack subset of what Charlie christens “the Urban Haute Bourgeoisie”—but the values that Jane Austen extols in her social satires apply as much to all classes and regions in modern America as in the novelist’s Regency England: sincerity, thoughtfulness, and decency.

Movie Quote of the Day (‘The Return of the Pink Panther,’ As Clouseau Drives His Boss Crazy…Yet Again)

[After a robbery that Inspector Clouseau, talking to a beggar, managed to miss.]

Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus [played by Herbert Lom, left]: “The beggar was the lookout man for the gang.”

Clouseau [played by Peter Sellers, right]: “That is impossible.”

Dreyfus: “Why?”

Clouseau: “He was blind. How can a blind man be a lookout?”

Dreyfus [insinuating Clouseau] “How can an idiot be a policeman? Answer me that!”

Clouseau: “It's very simple, all he has to do is enlist...”

Dreyfus: “Shut up!”— The Return of the Pink Panther (1975), screenplay by Frank Waldman and Blake Edwards, directed by Blake Edwards

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Clueless,’ Comparing Two Forms of Futility)

Cher Horowitz [played by Alicia Silverstone]: “Searching for a boy in high school is as useless as searching for meaning in a Pauly Shore movie.”—Clueless (1995), written and directed by Amy Heckerling (1995)

Thirty years ago this month, Amy Heckerling’s loose contemporary version of Jane Austen’s novel Emma was released. It remains clever in its own right, well worth watching and re-watching (unlike, say, Pauly Shore movies). 

And, if it gets kids interested in reading Austen, as well as Hamlet (a play that Cher, astonishingly, knows well enough to identify the source of a famous quote), so much the better.

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Horse Feathers,’ As Groucho Mixes Geology and Theology)

Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff [played by Groucho Marx)]: “Beyond the Alps lies more Alps. And The Lord Alps those that Alps themselves.”— Horse Feathers (1932), written by Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, S.J. Perelman, Will B. Johnstone, and Arthur Skeekman (uncredited)

Movie Quote of the Day (‘A Fish Called Wanda,’ on One Guy’s Spectacular Stupidity)

Archie Leach [played by John Cleese]: “Your brother [“Otto,” played by Kevin Kline, pictured] didn't bring you here this time, did he?”

Wanda [played by Jamie Lee Curtis]: “No.”

Archie: “He's no idea?”

Wanda: “He doesn't have a clue.”

Archie: “What?”

Wanda: “He's so dumb...”

Archie: “Really?”

Wanda: “...he thought that the Gettysburg Address was where Lincoln lived.”— A Fish Called Wanda (1988), screenplay by John Cleese, directed by Charles Crichton and John Cleese

Poor Otto would never have guessed that the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg (featuring Pickett’s Charge) occurred on July 3, 1863, or that the “Address” in question was connected to the fighting.

Movie Quote of the Day (‘High Anxiety,’ With a Nasty Nurse If There Ever Was One)

Nurse Charlotte Diesel [played by Cloris Leachman]: “Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup.”— High Anxiety (1977), screenplay by Mel Brooks, Ron Clark, Rudy De Luca, and Barry Levinson, directed by Mel Brooks

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Waking Ned Devine,’ on an Irish ‘Twist of Fate’)

Jackie O'Shea [played by Ian Bannen] [to his wife, about longtime friend Ned Devine]: “Is there a greater twist of fate, Annie? To win half a million [in a lottery] and the next minute die from the shock of it!”—Waking Ned Devine (1998), written and directed by Kirk Jones