The Country Girl (1954)

Grace Kelly: Georgie Elgin

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Quotes 

• Georgie Elgin : Let's say I try my small way to help.

  Bernie Dodd : That's what my ex-wife used to keep me reminding of, cheerfully. She had a theory that behind every great man there was a great woman. She also was thoroughly convinced that she was great and all I needed to qualify was guidance on her part.

  Georgie Elgin : Still does not prove that the theory is completely wrong. I imagine one can go through history and find a few good examples.

  Bernie Dodd : It's a pity that Leonardo da Vinci never had a wife to guide him, he might have really gotten somewhere.

• Georgie Elgin : Frank's on stage.

  Bernie Dodd : I know. I want to talk to you.

  Georgie Elgin : The last time we talked, Mr. Dodd, you reduced me to tears. I promise you, it won't happen again.

• Georgie Elgin : Mr. Cook seems to be almost what the bad fairy promised Frank at his cradle.

  Bernie Dodd : Oh, he's not too bad. Gruff, but with a heart of stone.

• Georgie Elgin : Mr. Dodd, when I was a child, we had a town idiot who kept insisting that elephant tusks came from piano keys, but he had nothing on you.

• Georgie Elgin : How's Frank?

  Bernie Dodd : Okay. How's it been back here?

  Georgie Elgin : He was a little uneasy with the curtain going up so late.

  Bernie Dodd : If only the first few rows had the balcony's manners, what a wonderful world this would be.

• Bernie Dodd : I'm just trying to find out if you were ever an actress?

  Georgie Elgin : Oh, no. Not me. Thank you. I'm just a girl from the country. The theatre and its people have always been a complete mystery to me. They still are.

• Bernie Dodd : Touché. In French, that means...

  Georgie Elgin : Oh, come on, everybody knows what touché means.

• Bernie Dodd : Dreiser, Balzac, Montaigne. Who reads these books?

  Georgie Elgin : I do.

  Bernie Dodd : I'm afraid to ask you if you enjoy them. You'd bite my head off. Montaigne's too polite for me.

  Georgie Elgin : That doesn't surprise me.

• Georgie Elgin : You're even younger than I thought.

  Bernie Dodd : And you try to look like an old lady. You're not. You shouldn't wear your hair like that. There are two kinds of women: those who pay too much attention to themselves and those who don't pay enough.

  Georgie Elgin : [sarcastically]  Say, that's quite a pearl of wisdom. May I quote you?

• Georgie Elgin : No pity. I like that. Now at least he knows what to expect.

• Georgie Elgin : Flattery is cheap, Mr. Dodd. How about a little costly truth?

• Bernie Dodd : Are you for him or against him?

  Georgie Elgin : I'm his wife.

• Georgie Elgin : You're sure I'm not in the way?

  Bernie Dodd : No, no. We're just closing up shop, giving it back to the theatre ghosts.

  Georgie Elgin : There's nothing quite so mysterious and silent as a dark theatre. A night without a star.

• Bernie Dodd : Your timing was perfect, Mrs Elgin.

  Georgie Elgin : I have a knack that way.

• Georgie Elgin : After every first dress rehearsal, I always sit in a draft hoping to catch pneumonia. It never works. Oh, for the peaceful quiet of an oxygen tent.

• Georgie Elgin : Certain men are very strange. Business couldn't be better, wife and kiddies are fine, jokes with the boys at the club. And the next day you read he's hung himself from the chandelier.

• Georgie Elgin : I try to be careful, Mr. Dodd, but being an actor's wife is not the easiest of jobs. If I tell him he's magnificent, he says I'm not honest. If I tell him he's not magnificent, he says I don't love him.

  Bernie Dodd : Why don't you tell him he's good but can be better.

  Georgie Elgin : Is that what the critics will tell him?

  Bernie Dodd : Are you a critic or a wife?

• Georgie Elgin : Frank's weak. He's a leaner! I happen to be the one he leans on.

  Bernie Dodd : The good, strong helpmate. Did it ever occur to you that you and your strength might be the very reason he is weak. I don't like strong women, Mrs. Elgin.

• Georgie Elgin : For your edification, he's heading for a bender.

  Bernie Dodd : Why is it that women always think they understand men better than men do?

  Georgie Elgin : Maybe because they live with them.

• Georgie Elgin : If you're not careful you're going to have him full of whisky before morning. He's getting a cold and that's a respectable surface reason for any drinker to jump down the well.

• Bernie Dodd : You make him tense and uneasy. You never stop handling him and now you're trying to handle me too!

  Georgie Elgin : And don't think I couldn't, after handling a cunning drunkard for 10 years.

  Bernie Dodd : If you had any compassion or love whatsoever for this man, you could never call him a cunning drunkard.

  Georgie Elgin : Maybe I have a greater love for the truth. That's what he is and I'm a drunkard's wife. That's the truth, too. And I think it's high time you stop looking at everything as if it were a musical comedy!

• Georgie Elgin : Have you got the key to the room? Well, keep it. I'll get another one from the hotel. And don't wake me up when you come in. Who knows, I may be having a happy dream!

• Georgie Elgin : Frank, I'm warning you. I'm going to hit you with the first thing I pick up!

• Georgie Elgin : Frank, I'm tired. Don't play peek-a-boo.

• Bernie Dodd : May I smoke?

  Georgie Elgin : May you smoke? What is that supposed to be? Homage to a lady?

• Georgie Elgin : He hates himself. Consequently, he'll do or say anything to be liked by others. People like Frank ought to have two votes. Then they could mark their ballot: Democrat and Republican. That way, everybody would love them.

• Bernie Dodd : I don't know where to begin to apologize, Mrs. Elgin.

  Georgie Elgin : You can begin by not calling me Mrs. Elgin.

• Georgie Elgin : How could you be so angry at someone you didn't even know?

  Bernie Dodd : Maybe I really wasn't. Maybe I screamed at you to keep myself at an angry distance.

• Georgie Elgin : You'll be taking a big chance.

  Bernie Dodd : They're the only ones worth taking.

• Georgie Elgin : No one has looked at me as a woman for years and years.

• Georgie Elgin : He drank a little. He wasn't too dependable, but that was only a pathetic hint of frailty in a wonderful, glowing man. That appeals to a lot of us. It did to me. I was so young. His weaknesses - they seemed touching and sweet. They made me love him more.

• Bernie Dodd : I'm always running out of cigarettes.

  Georgie Elgin : You smoke too much.

  Bernie Dodd : And you're impertinent. But you're loyal and steadfast and devoted. I like that in a woman.