The picture is full of marvellous lines, but I think I'd go for
"Dullest woman I ever met. Plain too. But good breeding stock, the Redpoles, and they litter a very high proportion of boys."
Ahh, for the days of the 30's and '40s, when scripts were literate and witty. My personal favorite from this one:
"I was sorry about the girl, but found some relief in the reflection that she had presumably during the weekend already undergone a fate worse than death."
"The D'Ascoynes certainly appeared to have accorded with the tradition of the landed gentry and sent the fool of the family into the church."
"Your thinking is untidy, like most so-called thinking today." (Murder, My Sweet)
"And I always say my west window has all the exuberance of Chaucer without, happily, all the concomitant crudities of his period."
shareIt is so hard to make an end of one with whom one is not on friendly terms (unfortunately paraphrased).
Weekends, like life, are short.
Louis, explaining to us that his father (played by Dennis Price) died upon first seeing infant Louis: "It will be understood that, in the circumstance, I have but slight recollection of him."
The whole delicious little description of Sibella to the lady, beginning with "I'd say your nose was a little to short; and your mouth a little too wide..." Delivered with Price's wonderfully cold, precise diction. And ending with the lovely "and your mouth. Yes, your mouth, just a little too wide...."
On Henry D.: "He seemed a charming young man, and I regretted that our acquaintance was to be so short."
Oh, just the whole script...
I have several favorites such as.
Louis Mazzini: I shot an arrow in the air, she fell to earth in Barclay Square.
Louis Mazzini: I must admit he exhibits the most extraordinary capacity for middle age that I've ever encountered in a young man of twenty-four.
Louis Mazzini: The next morning I went out shooting with Ethelred - or rather, to watch Ethelred shooting; for my principles will not allow me to take a direct part in blood sports.
Fantastic.
Forgot about the Barclay Square line...I did laugh out loud at that one!
Don't be a bitch to me,cuz then I'll have to be a bitch back and I do it better than you.
Don't remember the exact phrasing, but it was the Vicar's "This is the family chapel, with the monuments and the pews. The dead and the living. ( With the implication that he did not belong either group). Also the subsequent "And these columns are an example of Early Modern Perpendicular".
From Louis to the bridegroom at his wedding (after sleeping with the bride on her wedding eve):
You're a lucky man, Lionel. Take my word for it.share
"Sometimes the deaths column brought good news. Sometimes the births column brought bad. The advent of twin sons to the duke was a terrible blow. Fortunately, an epidemic of diphtheria restored the status quo almost immediately and even brought me a bonus in the shape of the duchess."
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