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Sep. 8th, 2005 03:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieOne of the reasons I love film noir so much are the great quotes. So here's a list of some my faves.
Here are quotes from Notorious, The Big Sleep, Gilda, Murder My Sweet, Laura, In a Lonely Place,The Glass Key, The Blue Dahlia, Double Indemnity, Macao, The Shanghai Gesture, To Have and Have Not, and The Dark Corner.
Sample:
Philip Marlowe: You know what he'll do when he comes back? Beat my teeth out, then kick me in the stomach for mumbling. (The Big Sleep)
IN A LONELY PLACE (Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame in one of the most heart-breaking movies ever as a violent screenwriter and a B-movie actress whose relationship falls apart under the strain of his being suspected of murder)
Dixon Steele: I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.
Mildred Atkinson: Oh I think it'll make a dreamy picture, Mr. Steele. What I call an epic.
Dixon Steele: And what do you call an epic?
Mildred Atkinson: Well, you know - a picture that's REAL long and has lots of things going on.
GILDA: (destructive love affairs have never been sexier)
Johnny Farrell: I hated her so I couldn't get her out of my mind for a minute.
Johnny Farrell: Pardon me, but your husband is showing.
Johnny Farrell: Doesn't it bother you at all that you're married?
Gilda: What I want to know is, does it bother you?
Johnny Farrell: You've no idea how faithful and obedient I can be - for a nice salary.
Gilda: If I'd been a ranch, they would have named me The Bar Nothing.
Johnny Farrell: Statistics show that there are more women in the world than anything else. Except insects.
Ballin (to Gilda): Oh, I want to have a look at you and your costume before you go. I see you're gonna carry a whip. Have you warned Johnny so that he can also arm himself?
Gilda: Now isn't this something? It's a small world in Argentina, isn't it?
Johnny Farrell: Isn't it? Why did you marry him?
Gilda: My husband's a very attractive man.
Johnny Farrell: You don't love him.
Gilda: What was that word again, Johnny?
Johnny Farrell: You married him for his money.
Gilda: That happened to come with it.
Johnny Farrell: Now, that's a great way to make a living.
Gilda: That wouldn't be the big pot calling the little kettle black, now would it?
Johnny Farrell: I was down and out. He picked me up. Put me on my feet.
Gilda: Now isn't that an amazing coincidence, Johnny. That's practically the story of my life.
Gilda: You do hate me, don't you, Johnny?
Johnny Farrell: I don't think you have any idea of how much.
Gilda: Hate is a very exciting emotion. Haven't you noticed? Very exciting. I hate you too, Johnny. I hate you so much I think I'm going to die from it. Darling...
[they kiss passionately]
Gilda: I think I'm going to die from it.
Gilda: Johnny. There's never been anybody but you and me. All those things I did were just to make you jealous, Johnny. There's never been anybody but you and me.
Johnny Farrell: Not anybody?
Gilda: Not anybody.
Johnny Farrell: (He grabs her violently) What about your husband? If you could forget him so easily, you could forget the others too, couldn't you?
Gilda: But there weren't any others, Johnny!
Johnny Farrell: When you admit them, when you admit them and tell me who they were... (He pushes her away)
Gilda: You wouldn't think one woman could marry two insane men in one lifetime, now would you?
Johnny Farrell: I want to go with you, Gilda. Please take me. I know I did everything wrong...
Gilda: Isn't it wonderful? Nobody has to apologize, because we were both such stinkers, weren't we? Isn't it wonderful?
Johnny Farrell: Wonderful.
LAURA: (One of the most sylish of all noirs, this is a story of a detective investigating a murder of a beautiful woman who falls in love with her portrait).
Waldo Lydecker: I don't use a pen. I write with a goose quill dipped in venom.
Waldo Lydecker: In my case, self-absorption is completely justified. I have never discovered any other subject quite so worthy of my attention.
Shelby Carpenter: I can afford a blemish on my character, but not on my clothes.
Waldo Lydecker: You'd better watch out, McPherson, or you'll finish up in a psychiatric ward. I doubt they've ever had a patient who fell in love with a corpse
THE GLASS KEY: (Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake in a look at politics and corruption)
Rusty: My first wife was the second cook at a third-rate joint on 4th Street.
Paul Madvig: I'm going to society. He's practically given me the key to his house.
Ed Beaumont: Yeah, a glass key. Be sure it doesn't break in your hand.
DOUBLE INDEMNITY: (About a wife and an insurance salesman who connive at the murder of her husband)
Walter Neff: How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell like honeysuckle?
Walter Neff: I killed him for money and for a woman. I didn't get the money... and I didn't get the woman.
Phyllis: I was just fixing some ice tea; would you like a glass?
Walter Neff: Yeah, unless you got a bottle of beer that's not working.
Barton Keyes: I picked you for the job, not because I think you're so darn smart, but because I thought you were a shade less dumb than the rest of the outfit. Guess I was wrong. You're not smarter, Walter... you're just a little taller.
Walter Neff: Who'd you think I was anyway? The guy that's walks into a good looking dame's front parlour and says, "Good afternoon, I sell accident insurance on husbands... you got one that's been around too long? One you'd like to turn into a little hard cash?"
Walter Neff: They say all native Californians come from Iowa.
THE BLUE DAHLIA: (Another Alan Ladd-Veronica Lake noir about a veteran who is suspected of his wife's murder)
Leo: Just don't get too complicated, Eddie. When a man gets too complicated, he's unhappy. And when he's unhappy, his luck runs out.
Eddie Harwood: Am I under suspicion?
Captain Hendrickson: I don't know. How do you feel about it?
Johnny Morrison: You oughta have more sense than to take chances with strangers like this.
Joyce Harwood: It's funny, but practically all the people I know were strangers when I met them.
Helen Morrison: I take all the drinks I like, any time, any place. I go where I want to with anybody I want. I just happen to be that kind of a girl.
THE SHANGHAI GESTURE: (Film noir set in a brothel? Hmmm :))
Poppy: You said Doctor Omar. Doctor of what?
Omar: Doctor of nothing, Miss Smith. It sounds important and hurts no one. Unlike most doctors.
BIG SLEEP: (Humphrey Bogart as Marlowe who is investigating murder/dissapearance but the plot is not important. What's important is his crazy chemistry with Bacall and the insanely sharp dialogue. This is probably the most quotable movie ever).
Carmen Sternwood: You're not very tall are you?
Philip Marlowe: Well, I, uh, I try to be.
General Sternwood: Do you like orchids?
Philip Marlowe: Not particularly.
General Sternwood: Ugh. Nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men, and their perfume has the rotten sweetness of corruption.
Philip Marlowe: Oh, Eddie, you don't have anybody watching me, do you? Tailing me in a gray Plymouth coupe, maybe?
Eddie Mars: No, why should I?
Philip Marlowe: Well, I can't imagine, unless you're worried about where I am all the time.
Eddie Mars: I don't like you that well.
Vivian: So you do get up, I was beginning to think you worked in bed like Marcel Proust.
Philip Marlowe: Who's he?
Vivian: You wouldn't know him, a French writer.
Philip Marlowe: Come into my boudoir.
Vivian: Speaking of horses, I like to play them myself. But I like to see them workout a little first, see if they're front runners or comefrom behind, find out what their whole card is, what makes them run.
Philip Marlowe: Find out mine?
Vivian: I think so.
Philip Marlowe: Go ahead.
Vivian: I'd say you don't like to be rated. You like to get out in front, open up a little lead, take a little breather in the backstretch, and then come home free.
Philip Marlowe: You don't like to be rated yourself.
Vivian: I haven't met anyone yet that can do it. Any suggestions?
Philip Marlowe: Well, I can't tell till I've seen you over a distance of ground. You've got a touch of class, but I don't know how, how far you can go.
Vivian: A lot depends on who's in the saddle.
Vivian: You go too far, Marlowe.
Philip Marlowe: Those are harsh words to throw at a man, especially when he's walking out of your bedroom.
Philip Marlowe: You know what he'll do when he comes back? Beat my teeth out, then kick me in the stomach for mumbling.
Vivian: You've forgotten one thing - me.
Philip Marlowe: What's wrong with you?
Vivian: Nothing you can't fix.
General Sternwood: How do you like your brandy, sir?
Philip Marlowe: In a glass.
[After a kiss.]
Vivian: I liked that. I'd like more.
Philip Marlowe: She tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up.
Vivian: I don't like your manners.
Philip Marlowe: And I'm not crazy about yours. I didn't ask to see you. I don't mind if you don't like my manners, I don't like them myself. They are pretty bad. I grieve over them on long winter evenings. I don't mind your ritzing me drinking your lunch out of a bottle. But don't waste your time trying to cross-examine me.
General Sternwood: You may smoke, too. I can still enjoy the smell of it. Hum, nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy. You're looking, sir, at a very dull survival of a very gaudy life, crippled, paralyzed in both legs, barely I eat and my sleep is so near waking it's hardly worth a name. I seem to exist largely on heat like a new born spider.
Vivian: So you're a private detective. I didn't know they existed, except in books, or else they were greasy little men snooping around hotel corridors. My, you're a mess, aren't you?
Philip Marlowe: Hmm.
General Sternwood: What does that mean?
Philip Marlowe: It means, hmm.
General Sternwood: You knew him too?
Philip Marlowe: Yes, in the old days, when he used to run rum out of Mexico and I was on the other side. We used to swap shots between drinks, or drinks between shots, whichever you like.
Philip Marlowe: : I know he was a good man at whatever he did. No one was more pleased than I when I heard you had taken him on as your... whatever he was.
General Sternwood: I assume they have all the usual vices, besides those they've invented for themselves.
[making a prank phone call]
Philip Marlowe: What can I do for you? I can do what? Where? Oh, no, I wouldn't like that. Neither would my daughter.
Eddie Mars: Your story didn't sound quite right.
Philip Marlowe: Oh, that's too bad. You got a better one?
Philip Marlowe: Did I hurt you much, sugar?
Agnes Lowzier: You and every other man I've ever met.
Philip Marlowe: What's the matter? Haven't you ever seen a gun before? What do you want me to do, count three like they do in the movies?
MURDER MY SWEET: (another Marlowe movie, with Dick Powell. I adore this one even more).
Philip Marlowe: "'Okay Marlowe,' I said to myself. 'You're a tough guy. You've been sapped twice, choked, beaten silly with a gun, shot in the arm until you're crazy as a couple of waltzing mice. Now let's see you do something really tough - like putting your pants on.'"
Philip Marlowe: My throat felt sore, but the fingers feeling it didn't feel anything. They were just a bunch of bananas that looked like fingers.
Philip Marlowe: She was a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud. I gave her a drink. She was a gal who'd take a drink, if she had to knock you down to get the bottle.
Philip Marlowe: [about his gun] That's just part of my clothes. I hardly ever shoot anybody with it.
Lt. Randall: You're not a detective, you're a slot machine. You'd slit your own throat for 6 bits plus tax!
Philip Marlowe: Now this is beginning to make sense, in a screwy sort of a way. I get dragged in and get money shoved at me. I get pushed out and get money shoved at me. Everybody pushes me in, everybody pushes me out. Nobody wants me to DO anything! Okay, put a check in the mail. I cost a lot not to do anything. I get restless. Throw in a trip to Mexico.
Helen Grayle: You shouldn't kiss a girl when you're wearing that gun... leaves a bruise!
Philip Marlowe: What were you saying?
Dr. Sonderborg: I made no remark.
Philip Marlowe: Remarks want you to make them. They got their tongues hanging out waiting to be said.
Lindsay Marriott: I'm afraid I don't like your manner.
Philip Marlowe: Yeah, I've had complaints about it, but it keeps getting worse.
MACAO (A fun Robert Mitchum-Jane Russell noir).
Halloran: You don't want that junk. Diamonds would only cheapen you.
Margie: Yeah. But what a way to be cheapened.
Nick Cochran: You know, you remind me of an old Egyptian girlfriend of mine. The Sphinx.
Margie: Are you partial to females made of stone?
TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT: (Not really a film noir but does involve shady characters, tough-talking women and sharp dialogue. Plus Bogie and Bacall's first movie together and their verbal banter is sharp enough to cut glass).
Slim: You know Steve, you're not very hard to figure, only at times. Sometimes I know exactly what you're going to say. Most of the time. The other times... the other times, you're just a stinker.
[Slim kisses Steve]
Steve: What did you do that for?
Slim: I've been wondering if I'd like it.
Steve: What's the decision?
Slim: I don't know yet.
[They kiss again]
Slim: It's even better when you help.
Slim: I'm hard to get, Steve. All you have to do is ask me.
Slim: You know you don't have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything, and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow.
Eddie: Drinking don't bother my memory. If it did I wouldn't drink. I couldn't. You see, I'd forget how good it was, then where'd I be? Start drinkin' water, again.
The Dark Corner: (Weeeeee, Clifton Webb!)
Hardy Cathcart: I hate the dawn. The grass always looks as though it's been left out all night.
Bradford Galt: I'm as clean as a hard-boiled egg.
Bradford Galt: I can be framed easier than "Whistler's Mother".
NOTORIOUS: (The closest Hitchcock came to film noir, there is a plot involving uranium, but the real fun are Alicia and Devlin's (Bergman and Cary Grant) screwed-up love affair).
Devlin: Don't you need a coat?
Alicia: You'll do.
Alicia: Well, did you hear that? I'm practically on the wagon, that's quite a change.
Devlin: It's a phase.
Alicia: You don't think a woman can change?
Devlin: Sure, change is fun, for awhile.
Alicia: This is a very strange love affair.
Devlin: Why?
Alicia: Maybe the fact that you don't love me.
Alicia: Dev, is that you? I am glad you are late. This chicken took longer than I expected... what did they say? Hope it isn't done too much. Of course, it caught fire once... I think it's better if I cut it up out here, unless you want a half of one for yourself. We're going to have knives and forks, after all, I've decided we're going to eat in style. Marriage must be wonderful with this sort of thing going on everyday.
Alicia: Don't ever leave me.
Devlin: You'll never get rid of me again.
Alicia: Never tried to.
Here are quotes from Notorious, The Big Sleep, Gilda, Murder My Sweet, Laura, In a Lonely Place,The Glass Key, The Blue Dahlia, Double Indemnity, Macao, The Shanghai Gesture, To Have and Have Not, and The Dark Corner.
Sample:
Philip Marlowe: You know what he'll do when he comes back? Beat my teeth out, then kick me in the stomach for mumbling. (The Big Sleep)
IN A LONELY PLACE (Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame in one of the most heart-breaking movies ever as a violent screenwriter and a B-movie actress whose relationship falls apart under the strain of his being suspected of murder)
Dixon Steele: I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.
Mildred Atkinson: Oh I think it'll make a dreamy picture, Mr. Steele. What I call an epic.
Dixon Steele: And what do you call an epic?
Mildred Atkinson: Well, you know - a picture that's REAL long and has lots of things going on.
GILDA: (destructive love affairs have never been sexier)
Johnny Farrell: I hated her so I couldn't get her out of my mind for a minute.
Johnny Farrell: Pardon me, but your husband is showing.
Johnny Farrell: Doesn't it bother you at all that you're married?
Gilda: What I want to know is, does it bother you?
Johnny Farrell: You've no idea how faithful and obedient I can be - for a nice salary.
Gilda: If I'd been a ranch, they would have named me The Bar Nothing.
Johnny Farrell: Statistics show that there are more women in the world than anything else. Except insects.
Ballin (to Gilda): Oh, I want to have a look at you and your costume before you go. I see you're gonna carry a whip. Have you warned Johnny so that he can also arm himself?
Gilda: Now isn't this something? It's a small world in Argentina, isn't it?
Johnny Farrell: Isn't it? Why did you marry him?
Gilda: My husband's a very attractive man.
Johnny Farrell: You don't love him.
Gilda: What was that word again, Johnny?
Johnny Farrell: You married him for his money.
Gilda: That happened to come with it.
Johnny Farrell: Now, that's a great way to make a living.
Gilda: That wouldn't be the big pot calling the little kettle black, now would it?
Johnny Farrell: I was down and out. He picked me up. Put me on my feet.
Gilda: Now isn't that an amazing coincidence, Johnny. That's practically the story of my life.
Gilda: You do hate me, don't you, Johnny?
Johnny Farrell: I don't think you have any idea of how much.
Gilda: Hate is a very exciting emotion. Haven't you noticed? Very exciting. I hate you too, Johnny. I hate you so much I think I'm going to die from it. Darling...
[they kiss passionately]
Gilda: I think I'm going to die from it.
Gilda: Johnny. There's never been anybody but you and me. All those things I did were just to make you jealous, Johnny. There's never been anybody but you and me.
Johnny Farrell: Not anybody?
Gilda: Not anybody.
Johnny Farrell: (He grabs her violently) What about your husband? If you could forget him so easily, you could forget the others too, couldn't you?
Gilda: But there weren't any others, Johnny!
Johnny Farrell: When you admit them, when you admit them and tell me who they were... (He pushes her away)
Gilda: You wouldn't think one woman could marry two insane men in one lifetime, now would you?
Johnny Farrell: I want to go with you, Gilda. Please take me. I know I did everything wrong...
Gilda: Isn't it wonderful? Nobody has to apologize, because we were both such stinkers, weren't we? Isn't it wonderful?
Johnny Farrell: Wonderful.
LAURA: (One of the most sylish of all noirs, this is a story of a detective investigating a murder of a beautiful woman who falls in love with her portrait).
Waldo Lydecker: I don't use a pen. I write with a goose quill dipped in venom.
Waldo Lydecker: In my case, self-absorption is completely justified. I have never discovered any other subject quite so worthy of my attention.
Shelby Carpenter: I can afford a blemish on my character, but not on my clothes.
Waldo Lydecker: You'd better watch out, McPherson, or you'll finish up in a psychiatric ward. I doubt they've ever had a patient who fell in love with a corpse
THE GLASS KEY: (Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake in a look at politics and corruption)
Rusty: My first wife was the second cook at a third-rate joint on 4th Street.
Paul Madvig: I'm going to society. He's practically given me the key to his house.
Ed Beaumont: Yeah, a glass key. Be sure it doesn't break in your hand.
DOUBLE INDEMNITY: (About a wife and an insurance salesman who connive at the murder of her husband)
Walter Neff: How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell like honeysuckle?
Walter Neff: I killed him for money and for a woman. I didn't get the money... and I didn't get the woman.
Phyllis: I was just fixing some ice tea; would you like a glass?
Walter Neff: Yeah, unless you got a bottle of beer that's not working.
Barton Keyes: I picked you for the job, not because I think you're so darn smart, but because I thought you were a shade less dumb than the rest of the outfit. Guess I was wrong. You're not smarter, Walter... you're just a little taller.
Walter Neff: Who'd you think I was anyway? The guy that's walks into a good looking dame's front parlour and says, "Good afternoon, I sell accident insurance on husbands... you got one that's been around too long? One you'd like to turn into a little hard cash?"
Walter Neff: They say all native Californians come from Iowa.
THE BLUE DAHLIA: (Another Alan Ladd-Veronica Lake noir about a veteran who is suspected of his wife's murder)
Leo: Just don't get too complicated, Eddie. When a man gets too complicated, he's unhappy. And when he's unhappy, his luck runs out.
Eddie Harwood: Am I under suspicion?
Captain Hendrickson: I don't know. How do you feel about it?
Johnny Morrison: You oughta have more sense than to take chances with strangers like this.
Joyce Harwood: It's funny, but practically all the people I know were strangers when I met them.
Helen Morrison: I take all the drinks I like, any time, any place. I go where I want to with anybody I want. I just happen to be that kind of a girl.
THE SHANGHAI GESTURE: (Film noir set in a brothel? Hmmm :))
Poppy: You said Doctor Omar. Doctor of what?
Omar: Doctor of nothing, Miss Smith. It sounds important and hurts no one. Unlike most doctors.
BIG SLEEP: (Humphrey Bogart as Marlowe who is investigating murder/dissapearance but the plot is not important. What's important is his crazy chemistry with Bacall and the insanely sharp dialogue. This is probably the most quotable movie ever).
Carmen Sternwood: You're not very tall are you?
Philip Marlowe: Well, I, uh, I try to be.
General Sternwood: Do you like orchids?
Philip Marlowe: Not particularly.
General Sternwood: Ugh. Nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men, and their perfume has the rotten sweetness of corruption.
Philip Marlowe: Oh, Eddie, you don't have anybody watching me, do you? Tailing me in a gray Plymouth coupe, maybe?
Eddie Mars: No, why should I?
Philip Marlowe: Well, I can't imagine, unless you're worried about where I am all the time.
Eddie Mars: I don't like you that well.
Vivian: So you do get up, I was beginning to think you worked in bed like Marcel Proust.
Philip Marlowe: Who's he?
Vivian: You wouldn't know him, a French writer.
Philip Marlowe: Come into my boudoir.
Vivian: Speaking of horses, I like to play them myself. But I like to see them workout a little first, see if they're front runners or comefrom behind, find out what their whole card is, what makes them run.
Philip Marlowe: Find out mine?
Vivian: I think so.
Philip Marlowe: Go ahead.
Vivian: I'd say you don't like to be rated. You like to get out in front, open up a little lead, take a little breather in the backstretch, and then come home free.
Philip Marlowe: You don't like to be rated yourself.
Vivian: I haven't met anyone yet that can do it. Any suggestions?
Philip Marlowe: Well, I can't tell till I've seen you over a distance of ground. You've got a touch of class, but I don't know how, how far you can go.
Vivian: A lot depends on who's in the saddle.
Vivian: You go too far, Marlowe.
Philip Marlowe: Those are harsh words to throw at a man, especially when he's walking out of your bedroom.
Philip Marlowe: You know what he'll do when he comes back? Beat my teeth out, then kick me in the stomach for mumbling.
Vivian: You've forgotten one thing - me.
Philip Marlowe: What's wrong with you?
Vivian: Nothing you can't fix.
General Sternwood: How do you like your brandy, sir?
Philip Marlowe: In a glass.
[After a kiss.]
Vivian: I liked that. I'd like more.
Philip Marlowe: She tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up.
Vivian: I don't like your manners.
Philip Marlowe: And I'm not crazy about yours. I didn't ask to see you. I don't mind if you don't like my manners, I don't like them myself. They are pretty bad. I grieve over them on long winter evenings. I don't mind your ritzing me drinking your lunch out of a bottle. But don't waste your time trying to cross-examine me.
General Sternwood: You may smoke, too. I can still enjoy the smell of it. Hum, nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy. You're looking, sir, at a very dull survival of a very gaudy life, crippled, paralyzed in both legs, barely I eat and my sleep is so near waking it's hardly worth a name. I seem to exist largely on heat like a new born spider.
Vivian: So you're a private detective. I didn't know they existed, except in books, or else they were greasy little men snooping around hotel corridors. My, you're a mess, aren't you?
Philip Marlowe: Hmm.
General Sternwood: What does that mean?
Philip Marlowe: It means, hmm.
General Sternwood: You knew him too?
Philip Marlowe: Yes, in the old days, when he used to run rum out of Mexico and I was on the other side. We used to swap shots between drinks, or drinks between shots, whichever you like.
Philip Marlowe: : I know he was a good man at whatever he did. No one was more pleased than I when I heard you had taken him on as your... whatever he was.
General Sternwood: I assume they have all the usual vices, besides those they've invented for themselves.
[making a prank phone call]
Philip Marlowe: What can I do for you? I can do what? Where? Oh, no, I wouldn't like that. Neither would my daughter.
Eddie Mars: Your story didn't sound quite right.
Philip Marlowe: Oh, that's too bad. You got a better one?
Philip Marlowe: Did I hurt you much, sugar?
Agnes Lowzier: You and every other man I've ever met.
Philip Marlowe: What's the matter? Haven't you ever seen a gun before? What do you want me to do, count three like they do in the movies?
MURDER MY SWEET: (another Marlowe movie, with Dick Powell. I adore this one even more).
Philip Marlowe: "'Okay Marlowe,' I said to myself. 'You're a tough guy. You've been sapped twice, choked, beaten silly with a gun, shot in the arm until you're crazy as a couple of waltzing mice. Now let's see you do something really tough - like putting your pants on.'"
Philip Marlowe: My throat felt sore, but the fingers feeling it didn't feel anything. They were just a bunch of bananas that looked like fingers.
Philip Marlowe: She was a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud. I gave her a drink. She was a gal who'd take a drink, if she had to knock you down to get the bottle.
Philip Marlowe: [about his gun] That's just part of my clothes. I hardly ever shoot anybody with it.
Lt. Randall: You're not a detective, you're a slot machine. You'd slit your own throat for 6 bits plus tax!
Philip Marlowe: Now this is beginning to make sense, in a screwy sort of a way. I get dragged in and get money shoved at me. I get pushed out and get money shoved at me. Everybody pushes me in, everybody pushes me out. Nobody wants me to DO anything! Okay, put a check in the mail. I cost a lot not to do anything. I get restless. Throw in a trip to Mexico.
Helen Grayle: You shouldn't kiss a girl when you're wearing that gun... leaves a bruise!
Philip Marlowe: What were you saying?
Dr. Sonderborg: I made no remark.
Philip Marlowe: Remarks want you to make them. They got their tongues hanging out waiting to be said.
Lindsay Marriott: I'm afraid I don't like your manner.
Philip Marlowe: Yeah, I've had complaints about it, but it keeps getting worse.
MACAO (A fun Robert Mitchum-Jane Russell noir).
Halloran: You don't want that junk. Diamonds would only cheapen you.
Margie: Yeah. But what a way to be cheapened.
Nick Cochran: You know, you remind me of an old Egyptian girlfriend of mine. The Sphinx.
Margie: Are you partial to females made of stone?
TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT: (Not really a film noir but does involve shady characters, tough-talking women and sharp dialogue. Plus Bogie and Bacall's first movie together and their verbal banter is sharp enough to cut glass).
Slim: You know Steve, you're not very hard to figure, only at times. Sometimes I know exactly what you're going to say. Most of the time. The other times... the other times, you're just a stinker.
[Slim kisses Steve]
Steve: What did you do that for?
Slim: I've been wondering if I'd like it.
Steve: What's the decision?
Slim: I don't know yet.
[They kiss again]
Slim: It's even better when you help.
Slim: I'm hard to get, Steve. All you have to do is ask me.
Slim: You know you don't have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything, and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow.
Eddie: Drinking don't bother my memory. If it did I wouldn't drink. I couldn't. You see, I'd forget how good it was, then where'd I be? Start drinkin' water, again.
The Dark Corner: (Weeeeee, Clifton Webb!)
Hardy Cathcart: I hate the dawn. The grass always looks as though it's been left out all night.
Bradford Galt: I'm as clean as a hard-boiled egg.
Bradford Galt: I can be framed easier than "Whistler's Mother".
NOTORIOUS: (The closest Hitchcock came to film noir, there is a plot involving uranium, but the real fun are Alicia and Devlin's (Bergman and Cary Grant) screwed-up love affair).
Devlin: Don't you need a coat?
Alicia: You'll do.
Alicia: Well, did you hear that? I'm practically on the wagon, that's quite a change.
Devlin: It's a phase.
Alicia: You don't think a woman can change?
Devlin: Sure, change is fun, for awhile.
Alicia: This is a very strange love affair.
Devlin: Why?
Alicia: Maybe the fact that you don't love me.
Alicia: Dev, is that you? I am glad you are late. This chicken took longer than I expected... what did they say? Hope it isn't done too much. Of course, it caught fire once... I think it's better if I cut it up out here, unless you want a half of one for yourself. We're going to have knives and forks, after all, I've decided we're going to eat in style. Marriage must be wonderful with this sort of thing going on everyday.
Alicia: Don't ever leave me.
Devlin: You'll never get rid of me again.
Alicia: Never tried to.
