ONE-LINERS IN MOVIES OF THE 1940s
'There's a face I always like to shake hands with.'
Armstrong Custer (Errol Flynn) to Ned Sharp (Arthur Kennedy) in THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON (1941)
'I'm going crazy! I'm standing here, solidly on my own two hands, and I'm going crazy.'
Macaulay Connor (James Stewart) in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)
'Here, wipe the spit out of your eye.'
Elizabeth Imbrie (Ruth Hussey) to spiteful Macaulay Connor (James Stewart) in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)
'I'm so hungry my spare tire's deflated.'
Josh Mallon (Bing Crosby) in ROAD TO SINGAPORE (1940)
'Psychologically, I'm very confused, but personally, I don't feel bad at all.'
Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) upon learning that her secret correspondent and her co-worker Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) are one and the same man in THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940)
'I was a heel from the ground up.'
Francis Harrigan (John Payne) remembering his ill-treatment of Katie Blaine (Alice Faye) in TIN PAN ALLEY (1940)
'A fellah like that reminds me of a side of pork: streak of fat, streak of lean, streak of good, streak of mean.'
Mrs. Reverend Varner (Marjorie Main) to Elizabeth Cotton (Lana Turner) about gambler Candy Johnson (Clark Gable) in HONKY TONK (1941)
'What's that you're playing, boys? Poker?'
Card sharp Sniper (Chill Wills) everytime he sits at a gambling table in HONKY TONK (1941)
'You look like the last grave over near the willow.'
Jean (Barbara Stanwyck) to Charlie/Hopsie (Henry Fonda) in THE LADY EVE (1941)
'Love is like champagne, marriage is the headache and divorce is the aspirin tablet.'
Charlie McCarthy (voice of Edgar Bergen) in LOOK WHO'S LAUGHING (1941)
'He gets a cold just from reading a weather report.'
Julie Patterson (Lucille Ball) about her boss Edgar Bergen (as himself) in LOOK WHO'S LAUGHING (1941)
'You sound horribly nice.'
Charlie McCarthy (voice of Edgar Bergen) courting a girl on the telephone in LOOK WHO'S LAUGHING (1941)
'Absence makes the heart grow fainter.'
Molly McGee (Marion Jordan) to Julie Patterson (Lucille Ball) in LOOK WHO'S LAUGHING (1941)
'I don't read no papers and I don't listen to radios either. I know the world's been shaved by a drunken barber and I don't have to read about it.'
Colonel (Walter Brennan) to Beanny (Irving Bacon) in MEET JOHN DOE (1941)
'I will smolder, I'll siren, I'll vamp him to a crisp.'
Karin/Kathryn Borg (Greta Garbo) about being a 'smoldering siren' and 'vamp' to her husband Lawrence Blake (Melvyn Douglas) in TWO-FACED WOMAN (1941)
'Oh! Oh! Danger ahead! Two of 'em!'
Eddie (Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson) spotting two hitch-hiking girls in TOPPER RETURNS (1941)
'Enough is enough and that's what I've had an abundancy of.'
Eddie (Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson) in TOPPER RETURNS (1941)
'Don't give me that honey again. Love is something that gives you one room, two chins, and three kids.'
Gloria Lyons (Lucille Ball) to Ruby in THE BIG STREET (1942)
'Take it from an expert, Ruby, a girl's best friend is a dollar.'
Gloria Lyons (Lucille Ball) to Ruby in THE BIG STREET (1942)
'Anyone knows that a hunch can make a dollar faster than an expert.'
Professor B (Ray Collins) about betting on the horses in THE BIG STREET (1942)
'Why don't you get out of that wet coat and into a dry martini.'
Mr. Osborne (Robert Benchley) to Susan Applegate (Ginger Rogers) in THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR (1942)
'You are sort of attractive, in a corn-fed sort of way. I can imagine some poor girl falling in love with you if, well, you throw in a set of dishes.'
Maggie Cutler (Bette Davis) to Bert Jefferson (Dick Travis) in THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER (1942)
'Ah! My beautiful one. (...) I love you madly. (...) Kiss me! I can feel the hot blood pumping through your varicosed veins.'
Banjo (Jimmy Durante) to the nurse in THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER (1942)
'Are married or happy, Miss Kelly?'
Ralph Edwards to a woman in the audience of the radio show Truth or Consequences in SEVEN DAYS' LEAVE (1942)
'Where did he go without his beard?'
Nora Shelley (Jean Arthur) worried for Professor Lightcap (Ronald Colman) in THE TALK OF THE TOWN (1942)
'There's more here than meets the F.B.I.'
Gloves Donahue (Humphrey Bogart) to his sidekick Sunshine (William Demarest) spotting a picture of Adolf Hitler in the holdout of a 'bunch of Fifth Columnists' in ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT (1942)
'The way to a woman's heart is to get her out of the kitchen.'
Warrick (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) in VALLEY OF THE SUN (1942)
'There's only two ways to handle women... and nobody knows what they are.'
Bill Yard (George Cleveland) in VALLEY OF THE SUN (1942)
'Nobody ever sends me flowers anymore. After a woman gets married, her husband decides she can't smell anymore.'
Delphina Acuna (Barbara Brown) to her husband Eduardo (Adolphe Menjou) in YOU WERE NEVER LOVELIER (1942)
'After all, what a husband doesn't know won't hurt his wife.'
Anna (Maude Eburne) to Maria Tura (Carole Lombard) about her rendez-vous with a young flyer in TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1942)
'I only hope you live up to that 'Y' professor.'
Maria Tura (Carole Lombard) analyzing Professor Siletslky's (Stanley Ridges) handwriting in TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1942)
'So, they call me Concentration Camp Ehrhardt!'
Joseph Tura (Jack Benny) posing as Colonel Ehrhardt in TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1942). Mel Brooks has the same line as F. Bronski in the 1983 remake.
'What he did to Shakespeare we are doing now to Poland.'
Colonel Ehrhardt (Sig Ruman) speaking to and about Joseph Tura (Jack Benny) disquised as Professor Siletsky in TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1942)
'I've been on the pavement so long my socks have bunions.'
George M. Cohan (James Cagney) in YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942)
'Clean hands, clean face, clean shirt, clean everything, mom. Put me in a dark room, you could see my halo.'
Andrew/Andy (Mickey Rooney) to his mother in ANDY HARDY'S DOUBLE LIFE (1942)
'I hope I get night-blindness to women.'
Andrew/Andy (Mickey Rooney) in ANDY HARDY'S DOUBLE LIFE (1942)
'You'll pay for this with every drop of your anemic blood.'
Eduardo Acuna (Adolphe Menjou) to his secretary in YOU WERE NEVER LOVELIER (1942)
'Amusing invention the electric chair. What will they think of next?'
Warlock Daniel (Cecil Kellaway) to Warren Wooley (Fredric March) in I MARRIED A WITCH (1942)
'When I told them that I was coming here and walked into that room, they got right down on their knees. What a reception, what a tribute, what a crap game.'
Ed Wynn (as himself) as a volunteer in STAGE DOOR CANTEEN (1943)
'What's he got that I wish I had and how can I get it?'
Louis Blore as King Louis XV (Red Skelton) jealous of dashing Alec Howe/Black Arrow (Gene Kelly) with whom May Daly/Madame DuBarry (Lucille Ball) is in love in DUBARRY WAS A LADY (1943)
'I love your hair. Let me run through your hair... barefoot.'
Rami the Swami (Zero Mostel) flirting with a lady in DUBARRY WAS A LADY (1943)
'For fighting without a license you get thirty days, for trying to knock me off you get the guillotine. (...) I've decided to give you a break. I'll cancel the thirty days.'
Louis Blore as King Louis XV (Red Skelton) to revolutionaries Alec Howe as Black Arrow (Gene Kelly) and Rami the Swami as Tagliostro (Zero Mostel) in DUBARRY WAS A LADY (1943)
'Hey, why is it rich people have all the money?'
Louis Blore (Red Skelton) in DUBARRY WAS A LADY (1943)
'He's so poor he doesn't have two shoestrings that match.'
Louis Blore (Red Skelton) about Alec Howe (Gene Kelly) in DUBARRY WAS A LADY (1943)
'The stork that brought him must have been part wolf.'
Louis Blore as King Louis XV (Red Skelton) speaking of his son the Dauphin of France (Rags Ragland) in DUBARRY WAS A LADY (1943)
'I'll slip this powder into his drink. (...) He goes into a coma for a fortnight, maybe longer, maybe five days.'
Charlie ('Rags' Ragland), who doesn't know that a fortnight is two weeks, to Louis Blore (Red Skelton) about slipping a 'rooney' (a mickey) into Alec Howe's (Gene Kelly) drink in DUBARRY WAS A LADY (1943)
'Maybe we could cross kangaroos with raccoons and raise fur coats with pockets in 'em.'
Kay Kyser (as himself) in AROUND THE WORLD (1943)
'She adores me. I'm quoting her verbatim.'
Bud Hooper (Tommy Dix) in BEST FOOT FORWARD (1943)
''I've been passed around so much I feel like a lead quarter.'
Lucille Ball (as herself) at the ball in BEST FOOT FORWARD (1943)
'Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.'
Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant) in ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (1944)
'This is serious business, Father O'Malley. As you're more familiar with the case, I think you should handle it. I'll handle the little sins.'
Old Father Fitzgibbons (Barry Fitzgerald) to Father O'Malley (Bing Crosby) in GOING MY WAY (1944)
'If I could reach as high as my father's shoestrings, my whole life would be justified.'
Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (Eddie Bracken) beginning his speach for truth in HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO (1944)
'Responsibility for recording a marriage has always been up to the woman. If it wasn't for her, marriage would have disappeared long since. No man is going to jeopardize his present or poison his future with a lot of little brats hollering around the house, unless he's forced to. It's up to the woman to knock him down, hard time, and drag him in front of two witnesses immediatly, if not sooner. Any time after that, it's too late.'
Attorney Johnson (Alan Bridge) to Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) in THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK (1944)
'I've a mind to carve you to ribbons.'
The Hook (Victor McLaglen) to Sylvester Crosby/Sylvester the Great (Bob Hope) in THE PRINCESS AND THE PIRATE (1944)
'When I finish my work, I want my solitude and my privitation.'
Fidelia (Hattie McDaniell) to Anne Hilton (Claudette Colbert) in SINCE YOU WENT AWAY (1944)
'Well cut off my legs and call me shorty!'
Brogan (Edward Brophy) greeting Nick Charles (William Powell) in THE THIN MAN GOES HOME (1944)
'I hate the dawn. The grass always looks as though it's been left out all night.'
Hardy Cathcart (Clifton Webb) in THE DARK CORNER (1946)
'I was in love myself once... many times.'
Gabrielle (Eve Arden) in NIGHT AND DAY (1946)
'He's so absent-minded he thinks he's honest.'
Jim Badger / Coyote Kid (George 'Gabby' Hayes) speaking of the town's doctor in BADMAN'S TERRITORY (1946)
'I'm so green with envy I look like a pool table.'
Gloria (Virginia Field) in THE PERFECT MARRIAGE (1946)
'Give me my pipe, my slippers and a beautiful woman and you can have my pipe and slippers.'
Nick Charles (William Powell) to his wife Nora (Myrna Loy) in SONG OF THE THIN MAN (1947)
'Why did God make so many dumb fools and democrats?'
Clarence 'Clare' Day (William Powell) in LIFE WITH FATHER (1947)
'Madam, I'm the character of my home.'
Clarence 'Clare' Day (William Powell) to the head of the hiring agency in LIFE WITH FATHER (1947)
'Until you stirred Him up, I had no trouble with God.'
Clarence 'Clare' Day (William Powell) to his wife Vinny (Irene Dunne) who discovered that he wasn't baptised in LIFE WITH FATHER (1947)
'I can't go to heaven in a cab!'
Clarence 'Clare' Day (William Powell) to his wife Vinny (Irene Dunne) in LIFE WITH FATHER (1947)
'King Solomon had the right idea about work: Whatever thy hand findeth to do, Solomon said, do thy doggonedest.'
Clarence 'Clare' Day (William Powell) to his son Clarence, Jr. (James Lydon) in LIFE WITH FATHER (1947)
'Jonathan is more than a man, he's an experience; and he's habit-forming. If they could ever bottle him, he'd outsell ginger ale.'
Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan) speaking of Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas) in THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (1952)
'A girl's best friend is a good looping right.'
Pearl White (Betty Hutton) after knocking down her boss in THE PERILS OF PAULINE (1947)
'You're only as old as your arteries.'
E.J. Waggleberry (Raymond Walburn) to Harold (Harold Lloyd) in THE SIN OF HAROLD DIDDLEBOCK (1947)
'The prettier the bait, the better the catch. That's an old saying I just made up.'
Nick Charles (William Powell) in SONG OF THE THIN MAN (1947)
'I don't know what the Good Lord was about when he made a female out of a perfectly good rib.'
John Fraser (Ward Bond) to Captain Chris Holden (Gary Cooper) in UNCONQUERED (1947)
'There is one reassuring thing about airplanes. They always come down.'
August (Rudy Vallee) in UNFAITHFULLY YOURS (1948)
'To think we gave up a perfectly good rib!'
Oscar Farrar (Oscar Levant) in ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS (1948)
'Very lovely. I love you to pieces.'
Georgi (Danny Kaye) to the chorus in THE INSPECTOR GENERAL (1949)
'I've got three mouths to feed, two on my wife.'
Regret (William Demarest) in SORROWFUL JONES (1949)
'I find that woman completely resistible.'
Ezra Millar (Oscar Levant) about aspiring actress Pamela Driscoll (Inez Cooper) in THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY (1949)