Funny movie quotes from The Inspector General (1949) starring Danny Kaye
Kovatch (Alan Hale Jr.): Oh, I love my family, but I’d give my six kids to get rid of my wife.
Georgi (Danny Kaye): [singing] Drink to me only wi-ith thine eye-eyes / And I will drink with my nose!
The Mayor (Gene Lockhart): Your Excellency – he took bribes, he drank all my wine, he-he-he yelled out the windows, he even made love to my wife! How could I doubt that he was an Inspector General?
Yakov (Walter Slezak): You’ll regret this, you fat-faced village idiot!
The Mayor (Gene Lockhart): What! You … you … How dare you!
Yakov (Walter Slezak): Keep your dirty hands off me, you misbegotten peasants!
The Mayor (Gene Lockhart): Tie him up!
Yakov (Walter Slezak): The Emperor will tear this stinking village down over your ears, you thieving lard-bucket! Heads will roll here like marbles – yours first, and then this flea-ridden sack of nothing you call the Inspector General!
Inspector General: Oh! Why, he’s insane! Take him away! Take him away!
Yakov (Walter Slezak): This isn’t the Inspector General! Don’t make me laugh! The great Emperor wouldn’t appoint a thing like this to a post of such importance! THIS is your Inspector General! Here! His carriage, his manner, his bearing. Gentlemen, take your choice.
Georgi (Danny Kaye): [singing to himself on how to pull off the scam] Be arrogant, be elegant, be smart!
Georgi (Danny Kaye): [making up code for ‘arrogance, elegance, and smarts‘] Give ’em the fist, give ’em the wrist, give ’em the finger!
Gregor: The Inspector General. Yes, he has full power from the Emperor himself. And wherever he finds bribery and corruption, there the gallows and the firing squad go to work. More.
[the newly deposed Mayor of Klimenti is immediately given more wine to calm him]
The Mayor (Gene Lockhart): What does he look like, this Inspector General?
Gregor: Who knows? A man of mystery. Five days he was in our midst and no one even suspected it. He went everywhere, saw everything, and uncovered such corruption that even I was shocked.
The Mayor (Gene Lockhart): The hospital – have you cleaned it up?
Lazlo: Well, you could eat off the floors. We put sheets on the bed, and we got the goats out of surgery. I put charts on the foot of each patient’s bed indicating the nature of their illness.
The Mayor (Gene Lockhart): Good. Now at least they’ll know what they died from.
The Mayor (Gene Lockhart): [hearing that a stranger’s been arrested who might be the Inspector General in disguise] You idiot. Did you search him? Question him?
Kovatch (Alan Hale Jr.): Well … it was so near lunchtime.
Turnkey: This is a nice jail. Really it is. We’ve had some wonderful hangings here.
Yakov (Walter Slezak): May I become a wandering gypsy if I’m not telling the truth.
Georgi (Danny Kaye): But you ARE a wandering gypsy.
Yakov (Walter Slezak): That proves I’m telling the truth.
Georgi (Danny Kaye): [nervously] Oh, I have no wife. None of my family had wives. My father didn’t like wives. I mean, my mother didn’t like my father’s wives.
