Blog Archives
Movie Quote of the Day – I Take This Woman, 1940 (dir. W.S. Van Dyke)
Patient: Is that your wife, Doc?
Dr. Karl Decker: Mmm-hmm.
Patient: How’d you get her? Dope her?
Movie Quote of the Day – Night Train to Munich, 1940 (dir. Carol Reed)
Kampenfeldt: It’s been reported to me that you’ve been heard expressing sentiments hostile to the fatherland!
Schwab: What – me, sir?
Kampenfeldt: I warn you, Schwab, this treasonable conduct will lead you to a concentration camp.
Schwab: But, sir, what did I say?
Kampenfeldt: You were distinctly heard to remark, “This is a fine country to live in.”
Schwab: Oh no, sir. There’s some mistake. What I said was, “This is a FINE country to live in!”
Kampenfeldt: Uh? You sure?
Schwab: Yes, sir.
Kampenfeldt: Huh. I see. Well in future don’t make remarks that can be taken two ways. Much wiser not to talk politics at all.
Oscar Vault Monday – The Philadelphia Story, 1940 (dir. George Cukor)
This was a hard year for me to pick just one film to talk about. Like 1939 before it, so many great films were up for Hollywood’s top prize in 1940. I decided to go with The Philadelphia Story, however, because I saw it on the big screen a few weeks ago and I fell in love with it even more than I already had been. It’s so perfectly written, acted, directed, paced, shot, everything. Truly one of the greatest films of Hollywood’s Golden Era – or ever, really. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, winning two: Best Screenplay (won), Best Supporting Actress Ruth Hussey, Best Actress Katharine Hepburn, Best Actor Jimmy Stewart (won), Best Director and Best Picture. The other films nominated for Best Picture that year were: All This, and Heaven Too, Foreign Correspondent, The Grapes of Wrath, The Great Dictator, Kitty Folye, The Long Voyage Home, Our Town and winner Rebecca.
Movie Quote of the Day – The Letter, 1940 (dir. William Wyler)
Leslie Crosbie: With all my heart, I still love the man I killed!
Movie Quote of the Day – The Grapes of Wrath, 1940 (dir. John Ford)
Ma Joad: How am I gonna know about ya, Tommy? Why they could kill ya and I’d never know. They could hurt ya. How am I gonna know?
Tom Joad: Well, maybe it’s like Casy says. A fellow ain’t got a soul of his own, just little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody, then. . .
Ma Joad: Then what, Tom?
Tom Joad: Then it don’t matter. I’ll be all around in the dark – I’ll be everywhere. Wherever you can look – wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad. I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready, and when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise and livin’ in the houses they build – I’ll be there, too.
Movie Quote of the Day – The Shop Around The Corner, 1940 (dir. Ernst Lubitsch)
Alfred Kralik: Can you see her?
Pirovitch: Yes.
Alfred Kralik: Is she pretty?
Pirovitch: Very pretty.
Alfred Kralik: She is, huh?
Pirovitch: I should say, she looks, she has a little of the coloring of Klara.
Alfred Kralik: Klara, Miss Novak of the shop?
Pirovitch: Now, Kralik, you must admit Klara is a very good looking girl, and personally I’ve always found her a very likable girl.
Alfred Kralik: Well this is a fine time to talk about Miss Novak.
Pirovitch: Well, if you don’t like Miss Novak, I can tell you right now you won’t like that girl.
Alfred Kralik: Why?
Pirovitch: Because it is Miss Novak.
the diary of a film history fanatic 