- Karl Ober: I can't work in New York anyway. Is this place far from here?
- Pamela Drake: Oh, no, Mr. Ober, it's only Maine. You know where Maine is!
- Karl Ober: No.
- Pamela Drake: Oh, it's practically a few minutes from here! You could write fine there.
- Sidney Simpson: 'A few minutes'!
- Pamela Drake: [to Sidney, blithely] Yes!
- [to Ober]
- Pamela Drake: That's all, really.
- Karl Ober: [wagging his finger] Then it isn't quiet enough. I have to go further away from New York.
- Pamela Drake: Oh, good - it *is* far away! Takes a whole day to get there.
- [to Sidney, brightly]
- Pamela Drake: Really, I'm an awful liar, aren't I?
- Sidney Simpson: Yes.
- Pamela Drake: Oh, I'm old for my age. If you're raised in the theater, you age quicker, is the way I look at it.
- Sara Frankenstein: You're practically an old hag, Pam.
- John Arlen: Oh have a heart, lady. How'd I know you were gonna turn out like this?
- Georgia Drake: You expected an old, fat dimwit, didn't you?
- John Arlen: Georgia, huh, at my age, but, when a man has just so long, and... ..
- [sic]
- Captain Andrew: [after Pamela had told an annoying young man that the captain was her father] How's my daughter?
- John Arlen: She's got quite an imagination. She not only imagined a proposal out of me, but she turned me down.
- Sidney Simpson: [to Karl Ober] Come on, let's get out of here before she wants to borrow a revolving stage.
- Pamela Drake: Have you got one?
- Georgia Drake: What's the background of the play?
- Pamela Drake: Uh, the Swiss Alps. Very colorful, you know - mountain people.
- Georgia Drake: You mean this naval officer lives in the Swiss Alps?
- Sara Frankenstein: They haven't even got a navy in Switzerland.
- Pamela Drake: Well, it's kinda hard to explain. But the dialog's wonderful. It clears the whole thing up.
- Sara Frankenstein: It must be some dialog.
- Georgia Drake: Your friends - one sends a message that he's broken his leg. The last fellow says he shot himself.
- John Arlen: Now, Georgia, I explained that.
- Pamela Drake: Sara, I'm going to be famous. Bernhardt, Modjeska, Duse, and Pamela Drake.
- Sara Frankenstein: Yes, they were good too. But don't you think your name ought to go in front?
- Pamela Drake: Oh, I'm not any better than they were, I admit it
- Sara Frankenstein: Well, that's nice.
- Pamela Drake: But they never had a part like this one
- Pamela Drake: [Rehearsing on the ship's top deck] A woman's love is like a cocoon.
- John Arlen: [to Captain Andrew] She's a cocoon again.
- Sara Frankenstein: What's it about?
- Pamela Drake: Well, I play everything. I'm happy and I'm sad. My heart's broken. I wanna kill myself. I go crazy. I recover. I go crazy again. Oh, Sara, it's the real me.
- Sara Frankenstein: Yeah, I , I see a certain similarity.
- Karl Ober: The part is a 20-year-old girl.
- Sidney Simpson: But she played Juliet last year. That's a 15-year-od girl.
- Karl Ober: Romeo and Juliet was a hit even before last year. This is a new play. An actor will have to make the part, not verse visa.
- Sidney Simpson: Vice versa.
- Karl Ober: I don't know - I always avoid the word.
- Freddie Miller: That's a wonderful curtain speech.
- Pamela Drake: Isn't it? She used it three years ago when "The Fallen Angel" closed. She has another one I like even better.
- Karl Ober: I can't work in New York anyway. Is this place far from here?
- Pamela Drake: Oh, no, Mr. Ober. It's only Maine. You know where Maine is?
- Karl Ober: No.
- Pamela Drake: Oh, it's practically a few minutes from here. Please come! You could write from there.
- Sidney Simpson: A few minutes!
- Pamela Drake: Yes, that's all, really.
- Karl Ober: It isn't quiet enough. I have to go farther away from New York.
- Pamela Drake: Oh, good, it is far away - takes a whole day to get there. Really.
- Georgia Drake: An actress never belittles another actress, Pam.
- Pamela Drake: Honest criticism is the guardian of art, ..
- Georgia Drake: [Joining in, both women] .. the servant of the sincere and the despair and destruction of dishonesty.
- Pamela Drake: I always start out honestly, then if I see it's going to be a good scene, I just keep on going. I know what I'm doing, but I can't stop.
- Karl Ober: [Chuckling] Wonderful!
- Pamela Drake: I can't understand it myself, but I figure it's good experience, don't you?
- Karl Ober: Maybe. But it must be awfully hard on your friends.
- Pamela Drake: Oh yes, I know.
- Pamela Drake: Opening night she took 17 curtain calls - seventeen!
- Freddie Miller: Really?
- Pamela Drake: Uh, huh. She could've been bowing yet, but she got a crick in her back.
- Freddie Miller: Really?
- Pamela Drake: I spent half the night rubbing it.
- Freddie Miller: Really?
- Georgia Drake: Don't tell me - let me guess. Your house is on fire. That means that you sent a message to yourself, to eat breakfast tomorrow.
- John Arlen: No, it's really on fire. I did it myself to collect the insurance.
- Sidney Simpson: You know, he came 4,000 miles to see you, and was seasick all the way.
- Georgia Drake: Oh, I'm awfully sorry.
- Karl Ober: I would have gladly swum the entire distance - do you say swum?
- Sidney Simpson: I don't know, Karl. I always avoid the word.
- Pamela Drake: This is Freddie Miller.
- Freddie Miller: How do you do, Mrs. Drake.
- Pamela Drake: And, Sara... Sara Frankenstein.
- Freddie Miller: How do you do Miss Frankenstein.
- Sara Frankenstein: [Glaring at Pamela] How do you do.
- Sara Frankenstein: Oh, now, honey, a shipboard romance. I hope you're not go...
- Pamela Drake: [Chuckling] You're acting like a mother in a play. You're so naïve, mother - really, you are.
- Sara Frankenstein: Never mind my being naïve - I'm old enough to be your mother.
- Pamela Drake: [Walking up to Freddie who's twitching and jerking] Something disturbing you?
- Captain of Waiters: They're all watching me. I wanna get that part.
- Pamela Drake: What part, St. Vidus?
- Captain of Waiters: The dope fiend.
- Pamela Drake: Dope fiend?... I didn't say dope fiend, I sad dauphin - the French prince.
- Pamela Drake: Personally, I see the part played by a young, beautiful girl.
- Sidney Simpson: Can you suggest somebody?
- Pamela Drake: Don't come crying to me after the opening night.
- John Arlen: She even wanted to pay for my fare.
- Captain Andrew: How did you get out of that?
- John Arlen: Well, I sort of hinted I'm wanted by the police. She hinted it, as a matter of fact. I just dropped my eyes.
- John Arlen: [after two days in and out of a lifeboat under cover] I can't shave. This shirt's beginning to crawl. I haven't got any skin left on my knees from climbing into that lifeboat.
- John Arlen: Do you know, she's got it all worked out how I'm gonna get of this boat - in her clothes.
- Captain Andrew: Oh, I can't wait to see that.
- John Arlen: Oh, you can't, huh?
- Sidney Simpson: Karl, I wanna ask you something.
- Karl Ober: Please.
- Sidney Simpson: Do you get to be an author first and then become crazy? Or, are you crazy first and then you become an author?
- Karl Ober: Please, once more, slowly.
- John Arlen: And will you tell me where she gets it all?
- Captain Andrew: She bribes the steward - says she has a tape worm.
- Pamela Drake: I'm an awful liar, aren't I?
- Sidney Simpson: Oh, yes, yes.
- Pamela Drake: Well there you are. Now you'll both come up.
- Captain Andrew: How about a little chess now?
- John Arlen: You must owe me a couple million now, as it is, don't you?
- Captain Andrew: Oh, it's one million, eight hundred thousand. But I've been reading up on this. Just you watch yourself.
- John Arlen: So, you've learned to read, have you?
- Pamela Drake: [after jumping in the ocean, and John jumping after her] I think what you've done, exposing yourself because you thought I was in danger, is the finest, most unselfish thing I've ever heard of.
- John Arlen: Yeah.
- John Arlen: When kids that age get a cross-up in love, they never think of going on a drunk or looking for somebody else. You get that smart when you get older. You can walk down to the river and look at it all night. Some of them jump if they're hurt bad enough.
- Captain Andrew: She looks like the jumping kind, too.
- Pamela Drake: [to Sidney and Karl] Wednesday - morning train.
- Sidney Simpson: Yes, ma'am.
- Karl Ober: Yes, ma'am.
- Captain Andrew: [after fishing Pamela and John out of the drink] Well, I'm not sorry that it happened.
- John Arlen: Oh, so you're not sorry?
- Captain Andrew: No. She's a wonderful person, that girl, to have done what she did.
- John Arlen: A toast to little me, and the future. John my boy, mind your own business, and never forget you're much too old to be a Boy Scout.
- John Arlen: She has quite an imagination.
- Captain Andrew: Mmm. Of course, you haven't helped her at all.
- Pamela Drake: Sara, was grandmother a better actress than mother?
- Freddie Miller: I think so, but I guess it would be natural for me to think so.
- Pamela Drake: What do you think, mother?
- Sara Frankenstein: I don't know either. I saw her often enough. She was wonderful. But I was so wrapped up in myself, I thought I was the most wonderful actress in the world.
- Pamela Drake: You're really the defenseless type - sweet, clinging. I can easily see where your mother must have been awfully worried about you when you were my age. But your daughter, dear, is made of different stuff.
- Sara Frankenstein: You wouldn't want any advice from grandma, would you?
- John Arlen: Oh, grandma, shoot. What is it?
- Sara Frankenstein: A little more attention to Georgia.
- John Arlen: Uh, huh.
- Sara Frankenstein: Georgia! Not Pam.
- John Arlen: You don't think I'd be pressing it a bit?
- Sara Frankenstein: My dear, when it comes to a woman, a man can't press too much. That's inside information
- John Arlen: You think so?
- Georgia Drake: You see, there's no disgrace in having a failure. But you mustn't have a part that makes you look bad.
- John Arlen: Sara, I'm a desperate man.
- Sara Frankenstein: Go on.
- John Arlen: I never proposed to a woman before. Whatta ya do?
- Sara Frankenstein: I never did either.
- John Arlen: What's the best tact? Do you throw it off as sort of a joke? Or, uh, do you talk seriously? You know, uh, heart to heart.
- Sara Frankenstein: I would say according to whom you're proposing.
- Governor Allen: Stop complaining, John. Miss Drake is going to sing.
- Georgia Drake: I'd consider it an honor.
- John Arlen: You haven't even got the right Miss Drake. I said Miss Pamela Drake.
- Governor Allen: I just took it for granted you meant Miss Georgia Drake.
- John Arlen: All right. Now, will you please ask Miss Pamela Drake to sing?
- Governor Allen: Come on, Pamela, he's crazy.
- Pamela Drake: [Describing a make-believe play] You see, he's not good enough for her.
- Georgia Drake: Why not?
- Pamela Drake: Well, he, he's kinda sickly. He inherited it.
- Sara Frankenstein: Kinda stollen from Ibsen, isn't it? That's these new authors for you.
- John Arlen: Uh, Georgia, I've been trying to get you alone for days, and , uh, well, this whole singing deal was arranged so I could take to you without Pam around.
- Georgia Drake: And he can't lose a whole evening of his life just watching someone make noise with soup.
- John Arlen: Oh, now you're exaggerating. I knew that you weren't going to make noises with your soup.
- Georgia Drake: What course did you expect to get away on? After the fish wasn't it?
- John Arlen: No, no. I was gonna last all through dinner. I swear.
- Georgia Drake: Coffee and everything? Oh, that was too much.
- John Arlen: This business of going over it ahead of time - why you get chills all over. I don't even talk glibly anymore. I go over this thing at home and I've got it down fine, and then when I met her, I tumble all around.
- Georgia Drake: Wait a minute! Just a minute!
- Pamela Drake: For heaven's sake, just because a man asks me to marry him doesn't mean I'm going to. I'm very fond of him. He was very sweet to me on the boat, and I promised that you and I would have dinner with him tonight. Now, is that too much to ask?