Funny movie quotes from Dancing Lady starring Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone, the Three Stooges, and Fred Astaire
Patch Gallagher (Clark Gable): Yes, yes, yes, the top spot. Where if you drop, you’ve got twice as far to fall. Maybe I’m a sap for trying. And maybe I can make something out of you, if you can stand up when I get through with you.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): I’ve got good legs, Mr. Gallagher.
Patch Gallagher (Clark Gable): Yes, so I’ve noticed; but, don’t let them run away with you.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): Sorry to tell ya, but I’m the kind of investment that doesn’t pay.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): [reading a note from Tod] Don’t say ‘them things’. Don’t say ‘can it’. Don’t say ‘guy’. Don’t buy shoes with ribbons on them. Don’t forget, what’s a striptease on 2nd Avenue is art on Broadway. The $50 is to buy you a dress without a zipper.
Harry – Pianist (Larry Fine): I’m the best musician in the country.
Moe – Stagehand (Moe Howard): Yeah, but how are ya in the city?
Policeman: [During a raid at the Burlesque House] Wait a minute, you… Come on up to the station house, the Lieutenant is throwing a party.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): Can’t I even get some clothes!
Policeman: No, he wants you just as you are.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): Oh, it’s that kind of a party!
Steve: So, you took Warner, eh?
Patch Gallagher (Clark Gable): Yeah, I know she’s not so hot, but with all the real talent going Hollywood, you’ve got to make the best of what you can get.
Steve: We’ll be down to using midgets pretty soon.
Patch Gallagher (Clark Gable): Well, work on her. Use a whip if you have to, she’s got to be loosened up by the time we open.
Steve: I’ll offer her candy, maybe she likes candy.
Patch Gallagher (Clark Gable): Offer her anything, but, more money.
Jasper Bradley, Sr.: You didn’t really mean to walk out on me just for a few costumes.
Patch Gallagher (Clark Gable): Rather than send beautiful girls out in those, I’d let them go on naked.
Jasper Bradley, Jr.: You know, Papa, that’s a swell idea.
Jasper Bradley, Sr.: That’s the same idea that got you kicked out of school!
Tod Newton (Franchot Tone): Do you like gardenias?
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): I love ’em!
Tod Newton (Franchot Tone): I could take you in my yacht to Tahiti where they grow wild, millions of ’em.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): Hoping I’d go wild too, huh?
Tod Newton (Franchot Tone): It might do you a world of good, Janie.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): Tod, dance me towards the bedroom, will you?
Tod Newton (Franchot Tone): Hmmm…
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): I want to get my coat. I’m going home.
Patch Gallagher (Clark Gable): Do you feel like going through that opening number with Mr. Astaire?
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): All right.
Patch Gallagher (Clark Gable): Freddie!
Fred Astaire: Yes, Pat.
Patch Gallagher (Clark Gable): Show Miss Barlow the routine on that opening number, will you?
Fred Astaire: I’d love to.
Chorus Girl #1: How’s that Barlow get to take Warner’s place?
Chorus Girl #2: Didn’t you ever hear of poisonality?
Judge: What’s your name?
Rosette Henrietta LaRue (Winnie Lightner): Rosette Henrietta LaRue! Occupation: hipswinging! [the court erupts in laughter]
Judge: Now, Miss LaRue, just what constitutes a striptease?
Rosette Henrietta LaRue (Winnie Lightner): A good constitution and a couple of zippers. [the court erupts in laughter again]
Judge: Don’t be ambiguous.
Rosette Henrietta LaRue (Winnie Lightner): Oh, I won’t if you won’t.
[Smiles and sticks out her tougue. More courtroom laughter]
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): [to the heavy drinking Tod Newton] You sure drink a good dinner.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): What kind of a guy is Patch Gallagher, Rosie?
Rosette Henrietta LaRue (Winnie Lightner): Compared to him an elephant’s hide is tissue paper, but he sure knows his stuff.
Girl with Tod: The judge will give you 15 years for what you’re thinking.
Tod Newton (Franchot Tone): It’d be worth it.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): I’m like the guy throwing quarters in the slot machine. I keep on trying.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): I’ll stick to those thousand-to-one shots – sometimes they win.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): You didn’t stop to think that I might have to wrestle my way home did you?
Rosette Henrietta LaRue: That’s all right. Let him insult you. Plenty a girl has cashed in on a good-hearted insult.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): Listen Paderewski, were them funny noises comin’ outta you or the piano?
Rosette Henrietta LaRue (Winnie Lightner): You could dream better if you’ll get to sleep.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): I’m through dreamin’. I’m gonna start doin’. I’m going up where its art. Uptown.
Marcia – the Southern Actress: And you all can tell that Mr. Gallagher, that cotton will grow black before I come to see him again, sir! Where we all come from, the gentlemen know how to speak to ladies. And you can tell him from me…
Steve: Break it up, you all go back to the Mason-Dixon line, sugar.
Jasper Bradley, Jr.: You sure have got rhythm, baby.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): Yeah, well, keep your hands off it.
Tod Newton (Franchot Tone): You think you’re a dancer, huh. You’ll never be an artist until you find out what life’s about.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): You ought to open up a art school for chorus girls.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): I milked a cow once.
Tod Newton (Franchot Tone): What kind of a cow was it? A Jersey or a Guernsey?
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): I don’t know. I didn’t see the license plate.
Patch Gallagher (Clark Gable): Maybe I ought to speak Cuban! And it’s the same in any language!
Steve: Wait a minute, the boss is all steamed up and this ain’t no Turkish bath.
Patch Gallagher (Clark Gable): I don’t mix business with pleasure.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): Well, it’d be a pleasure to me if you’d mind your own business.
Patch Gallagher (Clark Gable): Yeah? Say, listen, its my business to see that you gals keep your shapes, Duchess.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): You mean to see that we don’t give ’em away.
Steve: Come on, girls. Mr. Gallagher’s waitin’.
Chorus Girl: Why don’t you knock?
Steve: What for? You ain’t got nothin’ to hide. Come on girls. Everybody.
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): I saw your face once, in the wings. It made me feel as if everything I was doin’ was wrong.
Patch Gallagher (Clark Gable): I guess I got that kind of a face.
Patch Gallagher (Clark Gable): Say, what is this you’re dishing out?
Janie ‘Duchess’ Barlow (Joan Crawford): Can’t you take it?
[They kiss]