Middle of the Night (1959)

Fredric March: Jerry Kingsley

Photos 

Quotes 

• Jerry Kingsley : Listen, sonny boy. Love, no matter how shabby it may seem, is still a beautiful thing. Everything else is nothing.

• Jerry Kingsley : Do you feel better?

  Betty Preisser : Why, Mr. Kingsley, I feel much better.

  Jerry Kingsley : You made a decision. Suddenly there's not such big, black clouds in the sky. There's an old European saying: I'm an old man, and I've had many troubles. And most of them never happened. And you're a young kid and you're very pretty. So, go wash your face, put on some lipstick, call up a friend, drink a beer with him.

• Jerry Kingsley : [Talking to Betty]  I can't tell you how often recently I've found myself thinking about dying. "Dying" to you is something that happens to old relatives, but it's a very intimate business to me. I don't expect you to understand this, but in those moments when I'm suddenly impossible to live with, that's probably what's at the bottom of my bad temper.

• Jerry Kingsley : [at 01:48:40]  Get away from me.

  Betty Preisser : [01:48:43]  I love you, Jerry. I need you. I don't know what to do without you.

  Jerry Kingsley : [at 01:48:45]  That's a lousy kind of love.

  Betty Preisser : [at 01:48:47]  Well, it's the only kind of love I know. I'd be a good wife to you, Jerry. I promise you that.

  [Thanks to subzin.com for quotes] 

• Walter Lockman : Hey Jerry, let me tell ya, did I have a Tootsie last night. Oh, boy!

  Jerry Kingsley : Oh, you and your Tootsies, Walter.

• Jerry Kingsley : It's that time of life. You get to be 50, 55, 60. Its so supposed to be a feminine disposition, but, men suffer from it to, believe me. You know, my partner, Walter Lockman, he's a man 59, gonna be 60. Grandfather, three times. The last couple of years he's become absolutely obsessed with women. It's all he talks about. Comes in the office, the first thing he says, he's got a story about some girl he was out with - always a beautiful girl and it always winds up the girl tells him he's a better lover than all the young men she knows. He sees doctors, pills, everything. If it wasn't so sad it'd be comic.

• Jerry Kingsley : [Lockman walks in]  Your wife called. Wanted to know when you were coming back from Chicago. Huh, is that what you told her?

• Walter Lockman : Hey, when are you going out with me? I'll show you a good time. I thought you understood when you were hired, you had to go out with the bosses.

  [squeezes Betty] 

  Betty Preisser : Would you cut it out, please. I don't feel very well.

  Walter Lockman : Now that you got your divorce from your husband, how about it?

  [squeezes Betty again] 

  Betty Preisser : Please, cut it out.

  Jerry Kingsley : Walter, leave the girls alone!

  Walter Lockman : Oh, what did I do? Huh?

  Betty Preisser : I'm sorry Mr. Lockman.

• Lillian Englander : Pa, how's your sex life?

  Jerry Kingsley : [waves off the question]  You're all right.

  Lillian Englander : No. I mean it. You're a vigorous man with normal appetites.

  Jerry Kingsley : You know, you're funny. Its typical of young people to think unhappyess is always a glandular condition. All right, my sex life is not so hot.

• Jerry Kingsley : I can't let you get away from me. My whole life has been a joy since I've known you. A joy to wake up in the morning. A joy to go to work, to have you around me, to look at you, to touch you. And you're an obsession. And that's what love is: obsession.

• Jerry Kingsley : That's just about enough of this childishness! I'm not going to treat you like a kid. Now, you start acting like a woman.

• Jerry Kingsley : It's a lousy kind of love.

  Betty Preisser : It's the only kind of love I know.