Bullets Over Broadway
1994
Rita: For me, love is very deep, but sex only has to go a few inches.
Cheech: It stinks on fucking hot ice.
Olive: Hey, didn't I tell you to make "horse durves"? Venus: I don't make nothin' out of horses, especially "horse durves", 'cause I don't know what they are, and neither do you.
Sid Loomis: You're a star because you're great and you are a great star, but let me tell you something, Helen. In the last couple of years you're better known as an adulteress and a drunk. And I say this in all due respect. Helen Sinclair: Look, I haven't had a drink since New Year's Eve. Sid Loomis: You're talking Chinese New Year's. Helen Sinclair: Naturally. Still, that's two days, Sid! You know how long that is for me?
Nick: Open your gift. Olive: You open it, can't you see I'm dressing? Nick: Here. Olive: What is it? Nick: Pearls. What the hell do you think they are? Olive: Pearls are white. Nick: These are black pearls. Olive: Oh, don't give me that. I never heard of black pearls. Nick: Just becaus you never heard of them don't mean it don't exist. Olive: What do think I am, some kind of chump? They're black for God's sake. They probably came from defective oysters.
Helen Sinclair: Two martinis please, very dry. David Shayne: How'd you know what I drank? Helen Sinclair: Oh, you want one too? Three.
Cheech: She ruins everything she's in. She ruins things she's not even in.
Helen Sinclair: You stand on the brink of greatness. The world will open to you like an oyster. No... not like an oyster. The world will open to you like a magnificent vagina.
Helen Sinclair: She's perky all right. She makes you want to sneak up behind her with a pillow and suffocate her.
(Cheech is helping Olive rehearse a scene) Olive: Can't you see? You're living out the exact same pattern your mother lived out with your father. Cheech: I am? Pray tell. Olive: In some way you're trying to relive it and in the process of reliving it, correct it. As if that were possible. HA. Cheech: It don't say "ha." Olive: I know it don't say "ha," I added that. Cheech: Are you allowed to do that? I don't think you're allowed to do that. Olive: We're allowed to add things. It's called ad-libbing. Cheech: Well, I think the whole thing stinks. Olive: Well, I think you're a degenerate zombie so shut up and read. Cheech: You shut up. Olive: You shut up and read. Cheech: you're lucky you're Nick's girl. Olive: You're lucky you're an idiot.
Olive: Ain't you the big mouth since you hit your number.
Sheldon Flender: Let's say there was a burning building and you could rush in and you could save only one thing: either the last known copy of Shakespeare's plays or some anonymous human being. What would you do?
(Helen is late for rehearsal) Helen Sinclair: Please forgive me. My pedicurist had a stroke. She fell forward onto the orange stick and plunged it into my toe. It required bandaging.
David Shayne: Maybe Olive's got stage fright. Maybe she won't show. Julian Marx: Not Olive. That dame doesn't have a nerve in her body. I don't think her spinal cord touches her brain.
Sheldon Flender: (bragging) I have never had a play produced. That's right. And I've written one play a year for the past twenty years. David Shayne: Yes, but that's because you're a genius. And the proof is that both common people and intellectuals find your work completely incoherent. Means you're a genius.
Venus: Do you want the blue stuff or the green? Olive: The imported, dummy. Venus: Oh, you mean from the *clean* bathtub.
David Shayne: Your taste is exquisite. Helen Sinclair: (correcting) My taste is superb. My eyes are exquisite.
David Shayne: Suddenly I'm taking suggestions from some strong-arm man with an IQ of minus 50.
Helen Sinclair: Oh, Julian. Julian Marx. I do plays put on by Balasco, or Sam Harris, not some Yiddish pant salesman turned producer. My ex-husband used to say, "If you're gonna go down, go down with the best of them." Sid Loomis: Which ex-husband? Helen Sinclair: Oh, I don't know which ex-husband. The one with the moustache.
(Helen complains about her role) Helen Sinclair: She's dowdy. Sid, the ingenue has all the hot lines. Even the female psychiatrist is a better role. Sid Loomis: But the role of Sylvia Poston is the lead. Helen Sinclair: "Sylvia Poston." Even the *name* reeks of Orbach's. I do Electra. I do Lady Macbeth. I do plays by Noel and Phil Barry, or at least Max Anderson.
Helen Sinclair: I'm still a star. I never play frumps or virgins.
Venus: You better get in the mood, honey, 'cause he's payin' the rent.
Olive: (to Warner) I notice you have a really big appetite.
Helen Sinclair: No, no, don't speak. Don't speak. Please don't speak. Please don't speak. No. No. No. Go. Go, gentle Scorpio, go. Your Pisces wishes you every happy return. David Shayne: Just one... Helen Sinclair: Don't speak.
Cheech: (at the end, dying) No. Don't speak.
Cheech: Sylvia Pincus. Big fat Jewish broad, had a little tiny husband. She chopped him up with an ax and mailed his pieces all over the country. I don't know what she was tryin' to prove.
Eden Brent: (on David's new script changes) Congratulations. It finally has balls.
David Shayne: You're gonna write it? Cheech: What am I? A fuckin' idiot? They taught me how to read and write in school before I burned it down. David Shayne: You burned down your school? Cheech: Yeah, it was Lincoln's birthday. There was nobody there.
David Shayne: You thought my first draft was c-cerebral and tepid? Helen Sinclair: Only the plot and the dialogue. But this... David Shayne: Was-was-was there nothing in the original draft that you feel was worth saving? Helen Sinclair: The stage directions were lucid. Best I've ever seen... and the color of the binder. Good choice. David Shayne: Thank you. I've always had a flair for stage directions.
David Shayne: I studied playrighting with every teacher, I read every book... Cheech: Let me tell you somethin' about teachers. I hate teachers. Those blue-haired bitches used to whack us with rulers. Forget teachers.
Lord Chafee: My tongue is hanging out to present it on the London stage. David Shayne: London. Lord Chafee: Look at his face, Helen. You're going to be the toast of Broadway. Why not the West End, hmm?
Sid Loomis: It's a little idea she's wanted to do for years. She plays Jesus' mother. Partygoer: Oh. Sid Loomis: It's a whole Oedipal thing - he loves her, wants to do in the father. Well, you can see the complications. Of course, we're talking to Ira Gershwin about a modern musical version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. "Quasimodo Jones." Partygoer: Helen has such a-a-a... a new vitality. Even her face looks so smooth. Sid Loomis: I know. The monkey glands are working.
Sid: He's working on a vehicle for Helen for next season. She plays Jesus' mother. It's a whole Oedipul thing. He loves her... wants to do in the father... well you can see the complications.
Helen Sinclair: Make love to me. David Shayne: Here? Now? Helen Sinclair: I see no reason to wait. David Shayne: Jerome Kern is on the other side of the door. Helen Sinclair: Yes, he's a wonderful composer. You'll have to meet him. Now hang up your pants.
Olive: Don't tell me you still think the world revolves around... Stage Manager: You. Olive: ... you.
Eden Brent: There you are. Mr Purcell, you have been stealing our dog yummies and eating them. Warner Purcell: Absolutely not. That's an outrageous suggestion. Eden Brent: Then let me see in your pockets. Warner Purcell: Would I eat dog food? Eden Brent: You'd eat anything that didn't eat you first, you big fat pot of helium.
Flender: Hey, look who's here. The big Broadway success. I don't write hits. My plays are art. They're written specifically to go unproduced.
Olive: Why do you have to be so masso... masso... David Shayne: Masochistic. Olive: Masochistic? What the does that mean? David Shayne: It means someone who enjoys pain. Olive: Enjoys pain? What is she, *retarded*?
Nick: Sorry you guys had to hear that. Some problems with the firm. David Shayne: Really? What type of firm is it, Nick? Nick: It's a "don't stick your nose in other people's business and it won't get broken" type of firm.
Cheech: Olive, I think you should know this: you're a horrible actress. (Cheech shoots Olive dead)
Eden Brent: (David has offered to get Eden's dog a saucer of milk) Oh, you needn't bother with that because I breast feed her! Eden Brent: (awkward pause) Just KIDDING!