Funny movie quotes from The Gay Divorcee, the first movie starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers – with lots of the rapid-fire verbal humor that their movies became famous for — for instance:
Mimi Glossop (Ginger Rogers): Oh, here you are Hortense. I’ve just had the most embarrassing experience. A man tore my dress off!
Aunt Hortense: My goodness! Anyone we know?
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): I wonder if she resented me tearing her skirt?
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): Well, I wouldn’t at all be surprised. That’s the usual reaction. What did you do that for?
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): She couldn’t move.
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): Sounds very unsporting of you, Guy, really!
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): Well, you don’t understand… uh… it was an accident.
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): It usually is.
Aunt Hortense: [to Mimi] I do adore Paris. It’s so much like chicago… It’s such a relief when you travel to feel that you’ve never left home at all.
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): Guy, you’re not pining for that girl!
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): Pining? Men don’t pine. Girls pine. Men just… suffer.
Aunt Hortense: You know, you’re beginning to fascinate me, and I resent that in any man.
Mimi Glossop (Ginger Rogers): You?
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): [looking around] Yes. It’s me.
Aunt Hortense: [Going with Mimi to check into the hotel] Oh, Egbert, are you coming with us?
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): What? Hortense, oh my. You can’t remain with her. This is supposed to be a clandestine affair. You can’t have a clandestine affair between three people!
Aunt Hortense: [laughing] Oh, that’s what you say!
Waiter (Eric Blore): Pardon, you, you uh rang sir?
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): Who me? Well, my dear fellow, what is there here to ring with?
Waiter (Eric Blore): Pardon sir, that’s just a figure of speech.
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): Oh, oh. Uhuh. Well, bring me a… let me have a… eh, there there. You see? Your figure of speech has made me forget entirely what I wanted.
Waiter (Eric Blore): Could it have been that you require crumpets?
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): No no no, I never ring for crumpets.
Waiter (Eric Blore): Would you be the kind of man who would ring for a toasted scone, sir?
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): Scone? Well, now uh, no. no. Try me again.
Waiter (Eric Blore): Well, then could you, could you imagine yourself with a hankering for a nice gooseberry tart?
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): Oh what an acid thought. Please.
Waiter (Eric Blore): No crumpets. No scones. No gooseberry tart. Well that lands both of us in a cul-de-sac doesn’t it, sir?
Egbert Fitzgerald: Of course it does. I knew it would.
Waiter (Eric Blore): You know I hate to leave you like this. You torn with doubts and me with my duty undischarged.
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): Oh well cheer up old man, cheer up. It will come to me.
Waiter (Eric Blore): Was it animal or vegetable sir?
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): No.
Waiter (Eric Blore): Well that leaves us mineral doesn’t it sir. Now sir, was it a bit of half and half, a noggin of ale, a pipkin of porter, a stoop of stout, or a beaker of beer?
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): Tea.
Waiter (Eric Blore): Tea. Ha. Well isn’t it a small world sir.
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): I was chasing you, you shouldn’t run away like that.
Mimi Glossop (Ginger Rogers): Why not?
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): It’s bad for my health.
Mimi Glossop (Ginger Rogers): Would you mind moving your car? Or don’t you want it anymore?
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): Your life, Mr. Tonetti, must be full of excitement.
Tonetti: Full of excitement, and full of danger.
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): Oh, yes, of course… from the husbands.
Tonetti: No, from the ladies.
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): Oh, how interesting!
Tonetti: But, Tonetti, he know what to do. Yes, sometimes, the lady and I have the conversation… sometimes, I play the concertina… sometimes, I play the solitaire… but, mostly, I practice my singing. At home, my wife, he do not like me to sing.
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): Unquestionably a woman of great perspicacity.
Tonetti: Oh, si, si, signor, you bet!
Tonetti: Rodolfo Tonetti at your service.
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): Yes… well, I am Mr. Fitzgerald.
Tonetti: Mr. Fitzgerald?
[shaking hands]
Tonetti: Oh, I’m delightful!
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): Oh, I shouldn’t doubt it, old man, I shouldn’t doubt it. But, don’t you think that a correspondent ought to come to work quieter? Let’s have more repose and less Rigoletto.
Tonetti: Ha, I am ready for action, and I will do a first-class job.
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): Well, don’t be too determined about it. Remember, the lady in question is very sensitive, and you must treat her accordingly.
Tonetti: Bene, whichever way the wind she is blowing, that is the way I sail.
Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton): And now, Tonetti, remember: I want delicacy, tact, assurance, finesse.
Tonetti: I’ve brought everything.
Tonetti: [unable to remember his passphrase “Chance is a fool’s name for fate,” Tonettie repeatedly muffs it] Chance is the foolish name for fate. / Give me a name for chance and I am a fool. / Fate is a foolish thing to take chances with. / I am a fate to take foolish chances with. / Chances are that fate is foolish. / Fate is the foolish thing. Take a chance.
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): Chance is the fool’s name for fate.
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): [after crashing into Mimi’s car] Hello, hello! I’ve been looking for you!
Aunt Hortense: Be feminine and sweet. If you can blend the two.
Mimi Glossop (Ginger Rogers): Please don’t ask me to stay.
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): Alright, I won’t. Don’t go!
Mimi Glossop (Ginger Rogers): I don’t care what you did as a boy.
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): Well, I did nothing as a girl, so there goes my childhood.
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): You think I’m going to leave you alone with a strange Italian? He might be a tenor!
Tonetti: Your wife is safe with Tonetti, He prefers spaghetti
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): [singing and skipping in a circle] The husband is coming! Hooray! Hooray!
Mimi Glossop (Ginger Rogers): I hope you like what I ordered. I’ve never had breakfast with two men before.
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): I’ve tried it. It’s no fun.
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): Can I offer you anything? Frosted chocolate? Cointreau? Benedictine? Marriage?
Mimi Glossop (Ginger Rogers): What was that last one?
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): Benedictine?
Mimi Glossop (Ginger Rogers): No, the one after that.
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): Oh, marriage?
Mimi Glossop (Ginger Rogers): Do you always propose marriage as casually as that?
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): There is nothing casual about it. In fact, I’ve given it long and sincere thought.
Waiter (Eric Blore): I have an unnatural passion for rocks.
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
Waiter (Eric Blore): That’s what they call an igneous intrusion.
Guy Holden (Fred Astaire): You’re somewhat of an igneous intrusion yourself.