Funny movie quotes from The Comedy of Terrors – a hilarious black comedy starring Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone, Joyce Jameson
Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre): And what if I tell them the truth and say it was all your idea in the first place?
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): Mr. Gillie… Felix… friend… I put it to you, who in your discerning estimation are the police most likely to believe, hm? Mr. W. Trumble, respected local citizen and entrepreneur of death, or Mr. Felix Gillie… wanted fugitive and confessed bank robber?
Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre): I never confessed! [pause] They just proved it.
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): Get away from me!
Amaryllis Trumbull (Joyce Jameson): Am I so repulsive?
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): That’s the word, yes.
Amaryllis Trumbull (Joyce Jameson): Couldn’t you find it in your heart to love me, Waldo?
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): Get up, you’re sitting on my money!
Amaryllis Trumbull (Joyce Jameson): So you reject me?
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): As long as there’s liquor in the house!
Amos Hinchley (Boris Karloff): [giving eulogy for John F. Black] And so, my friends, we find ourselves gathered around the bier of Mrs… er… Mr… You Know Whom… this litter of sorrow, this cairn, this cromlech, this dread dochma, this gart, this mastaba, this sorrowing tope, this unhappy tumulus, this, this… what is the word?… this… er, coffin! Never could think of that word. Requiescat in Pace, Mr… um… Mr… the memory of your good deeds will not perish with your untimely sepulture.
John F. Black (Basil Rathbone): [as he’s dying again] “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more…”
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): I’ll believe that when I see it.
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): To… uh… paraphrase the venerable adage: we shall kill two birds, with one… pillow.
Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre): [They’re hiding from the rampaging Mr. Black] It’s better in the dark.
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): What is? Decapitation?
Amaryllis Trumbull (Joyce Jameson): If my father chose to spend his hard-earned money in the collection of curious objects…
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): [interrupting] He did more than collect curious objects, madam, he also fathered one!
John F. Black (Basil Rathbone): [fighting to get out of the coffin into which Trumbull and Gillie have put him and which they are fighting to keep closed] Let me out of here!
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): We most certainly will NOT let you out of here, sir!
John F. Black (Basil Rathbone): Confound you, sir!
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): Confound you too, sir! Will you KINDLY have the goodness to die?
John F. Black (Basil Rathbone): NEVER!
Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre): [he and Trumbuill are sitting on the coffin, trying to keep it closed and referring to Mr. Black, who’s inside the coffin] For a man in his condition, he certainly has a lot of energy!
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): The stubborn crackpot! I could have sworn that he was dead!
Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre): It’s about time!
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): I’ve never had such an uncooperative customer in my whole life!
Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre): [stuck on a roof] Why did I ever escape from prison? It was so peaceful there.
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): [Impatiently waiting for Gillie to pick the lock of a heavy door] You having a little trouble, Mr. Gillie?
Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre): Oh, this dirty lock was never meant for picking.
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): Well, why don’t you take an axe, and chop it open?
Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre): [Getting angry] Nobody, but nobody, tells Gillie what to do with locks!
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): [Amused] No, I take it back. What you need is a keg of gunpowder.
Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre): Hey, I have an idea… Maybe there is a bolt on the inside?
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): There’s a “bolt” on the inside of your head, Mr. Gillie, and it’s LOOSE!
Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre): [talking about Amaryllis’ (terrible) singing during Mr. Black’s funeral service] I wish she would have picked another song.
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): I wish her vocal cords would snap.
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): [gesturing toward the body of Mr. Phipps] I’m afraid, madam, he has made his final journey towards that stygian shore.
Mrs. Phipps: [blankly] What?
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): [pause] He’s dead.
John F. Black (Basil Rathbone): [who has just awakened from a cataleptic trance in the mortuary basement] Mr. Trumbull… this man… what – – what am I doing here?
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): [who has recovered from his shock] Well, you’re here because you’re dead, Mr. Black.
John F. Black (Basil Rathbone): The hell I am!
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): Oh yes you are. Everybody else knows you’re dead, Mr. Black, except apparently you.
John F. Black (Basil Rathbone): What jiggery-pokery is this?
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): Not jiggery-pokery, Mr. Black… Hinchley and Trumbull, Funeral Parlor.
John F. Black (Basil Rathbone): [realizing what Trumbull means] You wouldn’t dare!
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): [pause, then] Have we a choice, Mr. Black?
Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre): [after Amaryllis’ singing has caused glasses to break, flowers to wither, and corks to pop out of bottles] Just like a nightingale
Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre): There must be a little more honest way to conduct a funeral business.
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): I might have expected that kind of talk from a criminal.
Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre): We are not going to embalm him tonight?
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): We haven’t embalmed anybody in six years. Why should we start now?
Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre): I just thought…
Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price): Well, don’t! You don’t do it very well.