The Seven Year Itch (1955)

Tom Ewell: Richard Sherman

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Quotes 

• Richard Sherman : You get out of here. And you tell Helen if she sent you to get a divorce.

  Tom MacKenzie : [incredulous]  A divorce?

  Richard Sherman : [continuing]  I absolutely refuse!

  Tom MacKenzie : [incredulous]  Helen didn't send me for a divorce. She sent me for Ricky's paddle.

  Richard Sherman : [continuing; crazed]  I'll fight it in every court in the country! Because I can explain everything: the stairs, the cinnamon toast, the blonde in the kitchen.

  Tom MacKenzie : [interrupts; incredulous]  Now, wait a minute Dickey-Boy. Let's just take it easy. What blonde in the kitchen?

  Richard Sherman : [seething with contempt]  Oh, wouldn't you like to know! Maybe it's Marilyn Monroe!

• Richard Sherman : Miss Morris, I'm perfectly capable of fixing my own breakfast. As a matter of fact, I had a peanut butter sandwich and two whiskey sours.

• Richard Sherman : There's gin and vermouth. That's a martini.

  The Girl : Oh, that sounds cool! I think I'll have a glass of that. A big tall one!

• Richard Sherman : Isn't the Kaufman place air conditioned?

  The Girl : Gee, no! It's just terrible up there. That's why I bought the electric fan. Ohh, this feels just elegant! I'm just not made for the heat. This is my first summer in New York and it's practically killing me. You know what I tried yesterday? I tried to sleep in the bathtub. Just lying there up to my neck in cold water.

  Richard Sherman : That sounds like a good idea.

  The Girl : But there was something wrong with the faucet. It kept dripping. It was keeping me awake. So you know what I did? I pushed my big toe up the faucet.

  Richard Sherman : I guess that's what they call American know-how.

  The Girl : The only thing was, my toe got stuck and I couldn't get it back out again.

  Richard Sherman : You couldn't?

  The Girl : No, but thank goodness there was a phone in the bathroom, so I was able to call the plumber.

  Richard Sherman : You called the plumber?

  The Girl : Oh, sure. He was very nice, even though it was Sunday, I explained the situation to him and he rushed right over.

  Richard Sherman : Did everything come out all right?

  The Girl : Oh, sure! But it was sort of embarrassing.

  Richard Sherman : Yeah, I can see how it might have been.

  The Girl : Honestly, I almost died. There I was with a perfectly strange plumber and no polish on my toenails.

• The Girl : I think it's wonderful that you're married. I think it's just elegant.

  Richard Sherman : You do?

  The Girl : Of course. I mean, I wouldn't be lying on the floor in the middle of the night in some man's apartment drinking champagne if he wasn't married.

  Richard Sherman : That's an interesting line of reasoning.

• Richard Sherman : Tell me doctor, are you very expensive?

  Dr. Brubaker : Very!

  Richard Sherman : I'm sure you occasionally make exceptions.

  Dr. Brubaker : Never!

  Richard Sherman : Well I mean, once in a while, a case must come along that really interests you.

  Dr. Brubaker : At fifty dollars an hour, all my cases interest me.

• Richard Sherman : [In Richard's nightmare, Helen shoots him and he lays dying on the stairs]  Helen... I'm going fast. Give me a cigarette!

  Helen Sherman : A cigarette? You know what Dr. Murphy told you about smoking!

• Richard Sherman : 'What happened at the office today, darling?' 'What happened at the office? Well, I shot Mr. Brady in the head, made violent love to Miss Morris and set fire to three hundred thousand copies of Little Women. That's what happened at the office.' What *can* happen at the office?

• Elaine : [in Richard's fantasy, 'From Here To Eternity' spoof, Elaine and Richard on the beach, at midnight, kissing and embracing]  What is this strange animal thing you have? lt bothers me. lt's bothered me since the first time l saw you. And it'll bother me always, from here to eternity.

  Richard Sherman : You must fight it, Elaine. Remember, l belong to another!

  Elaine : Richard!

  Richard Sherman : [Running off into the surf]  This can never be. l have a devoted, trusting wife at home, and a freckle-faced little space cadet.

  Elaine : Richard!

• Richard Sherman : [walking up to his New York townhouse building]  I like this house. Why does Helen keep talking about moving into one of those big, enormous buildings that look like "Riot in Cell Block 11"?

  Richard Sherman : [as he enters the building]  It's so much nicer here. Just three apartments: ours, the Kaufmans upstairs, and then those two guys on the top floor - "interior decorators" or something.

• Richard Sherman : Miss, may I have the check, please?

  Waitress at Vegetarian Restaurant : Oh, yes, sir. Now let's see... we had the number seven special, a soybean hamburger with french-fried soybeans... Soybean sherbet and peppermint tea.

  Richard Sherman : Don't forget I had a cocktail to start.

  Waitress at Vegetarian Restaurant : Oh yes, we had the sauerkraut juice on the rocks, didn't we? You will be proud to know that your entire meal with the cocktail was only 260 calories.

  Richard Sherman : I am proud.

  Waitress at Vegetarian Restaurant : That will be a dollar and 27 cents.

  Richard Sherman : Keep the change.

  Waitress at Vegetarian Restaurant : Oh, we don't permit tipping. But, if you like, I can put it in the fund for our nudist camp?

  Richard Sherman : You do that.

• The Girl : I just hope it's not some priceless antique or something.

  Richard Sherman : Forget it. Just early Sears, Roebuck.

• [Reading the cover of his book] 

  Dr. Brubaker : "Of Sex and Violence"?

  Richard Sherman : Well we had to spice up the title a little.

• The Girl : Do you have any kids?

  Richard Sherman : No. None. No kids. Well, just one. Little one. Hardly counts.

• Richard Sherman : I'm in big trouble. I know girls like this! They just can't keep their big mouths shut! This is gonna be *all* over New York. I bet, right this minute, she's telling somebody about it... yaddida yaddida yaddida yaddida...

  The Girl : [in Richard's imagination, The Girl, sitting in a bubble bath, while the Plumber is working on her pipes]  So, he lured me down in his apartment. He made me sit on his piano bench. Then he made me play "Chopsticks"! Then suddenly he turned on me. His eyes bulging. He was frothing at the mouth - just like the Creature from the Black Lagoon!

  Richard Sherman : I knew it. I knew it! That's how these stories get started. Big blabbermouth.

• Dr. Brubaker : When something itches my dear sir, the natural tendency is to scratch.

  Richard Sherman : Last night I scratched.

• The Girl : [in Richard's fantasy]  Rachmaninoff.

  Richard Sherman : The Second Piano Concerto.

  The Girl : It isn't fair.

  Richard Sherman : Not fair? Why?

  The Girl : Every time I hear it, I go to pieces.

  Richard Sherman : Oh?

  The Girl : May I sit next to you?

  Richard Sherman : Please do.

  The Girl : It shakes me, it quakes me. It makes me feel goose-pimply all over. I don't know where I am, or who I am, or what I'm doing. Don't stop, don't stop! Don't ever stop!

• Richard Sherman : My wife. She found out about us and she shot me. Five times in the back and twice in the belly!

• Richard Sherman : Let's see. Debussy, Ravel. Stravinsky. Stravinsky'd only scare her. Yeah! Here's the baby. Rachmaninoff! Give her the full treatment. Come in like gangbusters! Good old Rachmaninoff. The Second Piano Concerto. Never misses.

• The Girl : You sure have strong thumbs!

  Richard Sherman : I used to play a lot of badminton.

• Richard Sherman : Why did they practically ask you to leave?

  The Girl : It was so silly. I posed for this picture and when it was published in "U.S. Camera", they got all upset.

  Richard Sherman : Well, what was the matter with the picture?

  The Girl : I was - it was one of these - 'artistic' pictures.

  Richard Sherman : Oh.

  [giggles] 

  The Girl : It was on a beach with some driftwood. It got Honorable Mention.

  Richard Sherman : Honorable Mention? In "U.S. Camera"? Well.

  The Girl : It was called 'Textures', because you could see three different kinds of texture: the driftwood, the sand and me. I got $25 dollars an hour, and it took hours and hours. You'd be surprised!

• The Girl : That's what's wonderful about a married man. No matter what, he can't ask you to marry him. He's married already. Right?

  Richard Sherman : Right... You certainly don't have to worry about me. Am I ever a married man! I'm the most married man you'll ever know. And I promise... I will never ask you to marry me, come what may.

• Richard Sherman : [Showing Dr. Brubaker a picture of The Girl in the "U.S. Camera" magazine yearbook]  Here, Doctor. I brought this with me. I didn't want to leave it lying around the house. That's her. Her hair was a little longer then. It's called "Textures" because you can see the three different textures: The driftwood, the sand and her. It got "honorable mention."

  Dr. Brubaker : Splendid. I congratulate you on your good taste. Interesting driftwood formation, too.

• Richard Sherman : [imaginary conversation]  You don't have to worry about me. Just remember, although I have tremendous personal magnetism, I also have strength of character.

  Helen Sherman : And tremendous imagination. Lately you've begun to imagine it in Cinemascope, with stereophonic sound.

• The Girl : Oo! Do you feel the breeze from the subway? Isn't it delicious!

  Richard Sherman : It sort of cools the ankles, doesn't it?

• The Girl : [as she leaves his apartment]  Good night... I think you're very nice.

  Richard Sherman : [now alone in his apartment, talking to himself]  "Nice"! You're not nice. You're crazy, that's what you are. You're running amok. Helen's gone for one day and you're running amok. Smoking, drinking, picking up girls, playing "Chopsticks." You're not gonna' live through this summer. Not like this, you're not.

  Richard Sherman : [looking at himself in a mirror]  Look at those bloodshot eyes. Look at that face, ravaged, dissipated, evil. One of these mornings you're gonna' look in the mirror and that's all, brother. "The Portrait of Dorian Gray."

• Richard Sherman : Suppose this girl tells somebody about this? Oh, if she tells anybody about this, I'll kill her - I'll kill her with my bare hands!

  Dr. Brubaker : A possible solution... I submit, however, that murder is the most difficult of all crimes to commit successfully. Therefore, until you are able to commit a simple act of terror, I strongly advise you to avoid anything as complex as murder. One must learn to walk, before one can run. Thank you, and good bye.

• Richard Sherman : [reading the label on a soft drink]  "Contains carbonated water, citric acid, corn syrup, artificial raspberry flavoring, pure vegetable colors and preservative." I'd like Dr. Summers to explain to me why this stuff should be better for you than a little scotch, plain water, and a twist of lemon? I'd really like to know.

• Richard Sherman : Oh, no, not me. Not me! And I'm not gonna smoke either. Some husbands think that because their wives are away for the summer they can just run wild! Do anything terrible they want. Like Charlie Lederer last summer. Annie hadn't been gone two days when Charlie went out and got himself tattooed. A green dragon on his chest, a butterfly on each shoulder. Not me. Oh, no. Work, work, work. I'm gonna work here till 6, then I'll have dinner at the saloon on the corner. No! No saloon, no drinking like Dr. Summers said. I know what I'll do. I'll try that vegetarian restaurant on 3rd Avenue. Health food, that's the stuff. The human body is a very delicate machine. A precision instrument. You can't run it on martinis and Hungarian goulash. Especially in this hot weather.

• Richard Sherman : I bet she thinks I'm gonna have girls up here. You know, that's terrible thing. Seven years we've been married and not once I've done anything like that. Not once! Don't think I couldn't have either. Because I could have, plenty. But, plenty.

• Richard Sherman : Women have been throwing themselves at me for years. That's right, Helen. Beautiful ones, plenty of 'em. Acres and acres of 'em.

• Richard Sherman : Oh, say!

  [admiring The Girl's tight dress] 

  The Girl : I figured it just isn't right to drink champagne in matador pants. Would you mind fastening my straps in the back?

  Richard Sherman : Oh, sure. Sure.

• Richard Sherman : It seems to be stuck.

  The Girl : That's silly. Just give it a good yank!

• Mr. Brady : What would you think about a 25-cent reprint of "The Portrait of Dorian Gray"?

  Richard Sherman : "The Portrait of Dorian Gray"?

  Mr. Brady : It's a natural, Sherman! Look what we'll be giving them for a quarter! Vice, lust and corruption. The story of a young man: on the surface, clear-eyed and healthy, just like you, Sherman. But underneath, ah, dry rot! And the termites of sin and depravity, *gnawing* at his soul. Well, how's that strike you, Sherman?

• [Richard exhales after a long drag on a forbidden cigarette] 

  Richard Sherman : All those lovely, injurious tars and resins.

• Richard Sherman : Well, how about some music?

  The Girl : Fine.

  Richard Sherman : Let's see. Let's see what we've got here. Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky. Hey, how about this one? Rachmaninoff, the "Second Piano Concerto." You look to me like a big Rachmaninoff girl.

  The Girl : I do? That's funny, because I don't know anything about music.

• Richard Sherman : It's peaceful with everybody gone. Sure is peaceful. No Howdy Doody. No Captain Video.

• Richard Sherman : You're going to Maine, not to Mars.

• Richard Sherman : What you don't realize, Helen, is this thing about women and me: I walk into a room - and they sense it. I arouse something in 'em. I bother them. It's a kind of animal thing I've got. It's really quite extraordinary.

• Miss Finch - Nurse : [in Richard's fantasy]  Let's crash out of here! Let's steal an ambulance and make a run for the border.

  Richard Sherman : Miss Finch, you're not fit to wear that uniform. You're rotten to the core.

  [slaps Miss Finch across the face four times] 

  Miss Finch - Nurse : Beat me. Hit me! Beat me till your arms ache. You know I'll only come crawling back for more.

• Richard Sherman : [in Richard's fantasy]  Miss Finch, please, not again tonight.

  Miss Finch - Nurse : We have so little time. Soon they'll take out your stitches and I'll have lost you forever.

  Richard Sherman : Please, Miss Finch. There is such a thing as ethics. Remember, you are a registered nurse.

  Miss Finch - Nurse : Ethics? Once I had ethics. Once I was young. Once I had ideals. Once I was registered! And then you happened.

• Richard Sherman : Take my secretary, for instance. To you, she's just nothing. A Miss Morris, a dictaphone, a piece of office furniture. Ten fingers to type my letters. Well, let me tell you... Well, let me tell you.

• Richard Sherman : She probably figures she isn't as young as she used to be. She's 31 years old. One of these days she's gonna wake up and find her looks are gone. Then where will she be? Well, no wonder she's worried. Especially since I don't look a bit different than I did when I was 28. It's not my fault that I don't. It's just a simple biological fact. Women age quicker than men. Yeah, I probably won't look different when I'm 60. I have that kind of a face. Everybody'll think she's my mother.

• Richard Sherman : What am I doing anyway? Well, this is absolutely ridiculous. The first night Helen leaves and I'm bringing dames into the apartment.

• Mr. Kruhulik : Do you know the maid from 531 Park? Why, you must've seen her walking down the street with her big, fat poodle.

  Richard Sherman : What are you talking about?

  Mr. Kruhulik : Come now, Mr. Sherman, we're both summer bachelors. Don't let's be naive.

  Richard Sherman : Good night, Mr. Kruhulik! Big, fat poodle! Why he's got four kids. Something happens to people in this town in the summer.

• Richard Sherman : She's probably getting all fixed up. And she'll probably wear some kind of an ice-cold evening dress.

• Richard Sherman : What would you like to drink? You do drink, don't you?

  The Girl : Oh, sure! I drink like a fish.

• Richard Sherman : [after a clumsy attempt to embrace her, with both falling to the floor]  I'm terribly sorry. Nothing like this ever happened to me before in all my life.

  The Girl : Honest? It happens to me all the time.

• The Girl : This is what they call classical music, isn't it?

  Richard Sherman : Yes.

  The Girl : I could tell, because there's no vocal.

• Richard Sherman : You're not leaving yet, are you? How about some more champagne?

  The Girl : Love some!

• Richard Sherman : I'm 39. Or, I will be in August. At the moment I'm still only 38.

  The Girl : Thirty-eight? I was 22, day before yesterday. I didn't do anything about it though. I didn't even tell anyone. Oh, I did do one thing. I bought myself a bottle of champagne. I thought I'd just sit up there and drink it all by myself.

  Richard Sherman : That sounds absolutely sad.

  The Girl : Oh, no! It would've been just elegant, lying there in a bath, drinking champagne. But I couldn't get the bottle open.

  Richard Sherman : You couldn't? There's nothing to it. It's just a trick.

  The Girl : You think you could get it open?

  Richard Sherman : I'm pretty sure I could.

  The Girl : I've got a wonderful idea. Why don't I go upstairs and get it. It's in the icebox with the potato chips and my underwear.

• The Girl : Hey, you've got air conditioning! How does it work? Put it on.

  Richard Sherman : Sure! I got air conditioning in every room.

• Richard Sherman : Now, look, Doctor, don't you think it'd be much more effective to show a man terrorizing a young and beautiful girl? Sales-wise, I mean?

• Richard Sherman : The word is spreading. It's spreading! It's like jungle drums. Everybody knows about it. Everybody's talking about it. Everybody's talking about it. Television! I forgot she's on television. Fifty million television sets in America - and now with the coaxial cable...

• Richard Sherman : I just made a little boo-boo.

  Dr. Brubaker : Psychoanalysis does not recognize the boo-boo as such. Everything you do has it's roots in the unconscious.

  Richard Sherman : Believe me, Doctor, I was completely conscious.

• Mr. Brady : How long have you been married, Sherman?

  Richard Sherman : Seven years, Mr. Brady.

  Mr. Brady : Well, wait till you've been married as long as I have and you'll be delighted to get rid of them for the summer. Now, take me. Shipped Betty and the kids to Nantucket yesterday afternoon and I haven't been to bed since. Drank bourbon, smoked cigars, played poker with the boys till a quarter of nine this morning. Came directly to the office. Never felt better in my life. As a matter of fact, I may not go to bed at all till the family gets back in September.

• Richard Sherman : Tom MacKenzie's a writer. And he happens to be a lousy writer. That last book of his! Oh, that inwardly, downwardly, pulsating, backwards of hair spilled across the pillow malarkey. No woman is safe around a guy who writes stuff like that.

• Mr. Brady : What about the two of us teaming up tonight, seeing if we can get lucky? And it doesn't have to be just poker, either. We'll cut loose and have us a real hootenanny!

  Richard Sherman : Well, it's very kind of you, Mr. Brady, but I don't think - well, I mean, I'm really not up - no hootenannies. No, no, no.

• Richard Sherman : It's going to be quietsville around here tonight. I promise you that. Take a shower. Poach an egg. Rinse out a shirt. Hit the sack. And - that's all.

• Richard Sherman : Oh, no, not tonight. This girl's a pistol. I got away with it once. Why press my luck.

• Richard Sherman : Maybe we could go to an air-conditioned movie?

• Richard Sherman : What a cornball.

• Richard Sherman : We don't wanna rush blindly into something. Look, when I said we were savages, well, there are savages and savages. This may be a little *too* savage.

• The Girl : I'll bet it was 95 in the bedroom last night. Like an oven!

  Richard Sherman : Poor kid, it's awful.

  The Girl : Good night.

  Richard Sherman : Of course, if you wanted to drop by my place for a few minutes just to cool off before you face that Turkish bath up there.

  The Girl : Well.

  Richard Sherman : I left the air conditioning on full blast. It's cool in there. Probably too cold.

  The Girl : Well, maybe just for a few minutes.

  Richard Sherman : Sure. To bring the body temperature down a little.

• Richard Sherman : There's nothing to be ashamed of. Under this thin veneer of civilization we're all savages. Man, woman, hopelessly enmeshed. We're on a great toboggan, we can't stop! We can't steer it. It's too late to run! The beguine has begun.

• Richard Sherman : Paddle, that's it! I've got to send the paddle. Little Ricky out there in the middle of the lake without a paddle. Wrap the paddle and send it off the first thing in the morning. Little Ricky needs the paddle. He's got to have his paddle. Going to get his paddle! How do you wrap a paddle, anyway? Paper and string, what else? Now, where can I get a piece of paper the shape of a paddle?

• Richard Sherman : I just cannot understand people like the Kaufmans. A successful businessman, probably makes 15,000 a year. Spends a fortune collecting African sculptures. But, he will not put in air conditioning.

• Richard Sherman : If Helen came in here and found you in the shower, you know what she'd probably think? She'd probably think you were the plumber.

  The Girl : A blonde plumber?

• Richard Sherman : Who's gonna walk in here? J. Edgar Hoover? Arthur Godfrey and His Friends?

• Richard Sherman : Why should Helen be jealous of me? How can anybody be jealous of somebody with a briefcase, who's getting a little pot, and gets so sleepy by 9:30 he can't keep his eyes open?

• Richard Sherman : Let's face it, no pretty girl in their right mind wants me. She wants Gregory Peck.

• Richard Sherman : Just taking a shower, she'll be out in a minute, that's all. Maybe I should get one of those big, new towels and take it into her. Uh-huh. Oo-oo. That would very definitely - be another boo-boo.

• Tom MacKenzie : Morning, Dickie-boy! Morning, morning, morning.

  Richard Sherman : What are you doing here? And don't call me "Dickie-boy."

• Richard Sherman : I don't think I can stay for breakfast, I'm sorry.

  The Girl : Don't ever be sorry.

• Richard Sherman : It's just my imagination. Some people have flat feet. Some people have dandruff. I have this appalling imagination.

• Richard Sherman : There you are! A big,tall, martini.

  The Girl : Thanks!

  Richard Sherman : You're welcome.

  The Girl : [drinks it, and coughs]  Very good. Maybe it needs a little more sugar.

  Richard Sherman : Sugar? No, no. I would strongly advise against putting sugar in a martini.

  The Girl : You would? Why?

  Richard Sherman : Well, you just have to take my word for it. No sugar in a martini, ever.

  The Girl : That's funny. Back home, they put sugar in martinis a lot.

  Richard Sherman : Back home? Where?

  The Girl : Denver, Colorado.

  Richard Sherman : Oh.

• Dr. Brubaker : [Entering the room]  Good afternoon, Mr. Sherman. I see you've been working on my little book, 'Man and the Unconscious'.

  Richard Sherman : Yessss. It's a wonderful book, doctor. Very important. It has something in it for everyone.

  Dr. Brubaker : I think so.

  Richard Sherman : Now really, doctor, you'll be happy to know we're giving it a big promotion. The full treatment. Two months from today you'll be seeing this cover in every drugstore in America.

  Dr. Brubaker : [Shown artboard of a leggy woman in flimsy red dress backpedalling from a man on the street lunging at her]  OF SEX AND VIOLENCE?

  Richard Sherman : Well, we had to soup the title a little.

  Dr. Brubaker : [Studying the artboard]  And what, my I ask, is this supposed to represent?

  Richard Sherman : It represents Gustaf Mayerheim, you remember, the mad lover of Leipzig, terrorizing one of his victims. Isn't that just sensational?

  Dr. Brubaker : May I remind you, sir, that Gustaf Mayerheim was a very small man with a large red beard?

  Richard Sherman : Doctor, you're quibbling, Nobody knows that.

  Dr. Brubaker : They know it in Leipzig!

• The Girl : Why did you stop?

  Richard Sherman : You know why. Because now I'm going to take you in my arms and kiss you, very quickly, and very hard.