A while ago, a coworker asked me what my favorite movie was. I'm sure he was thinking I would respond with a title he had heard before, such as Casablanca, Star Wars or The Princess Bride. He seemed surprised when I named a little-known black and white film from 1938, The Rage of Paris.
It stars Danielle Darrieux, a popular French actress at the time, who made only a few films in the United States, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. It's not a masterpiece, or even what you would call a "great" movie, but I like everything about it: the script, the characters, the acting, the perfect comic timing, the witty word-play, the chemistry between the two leads, and the 1930's fashion. With this movie, it's all about the journey - and what an enjoyable romp of a journey it is.
Synopsis:
Nicole (Danielle Darrieux) has no job and is several weeks behind with her rent at the boarding house where she's been living. Her solution is to try and snare a rich husband. Enlisting the help of her friend Gloria (Helen Broderick) and Mike, the head waiter at a ritzy New York City hotel (Mischa Auer), the trio devise a plot for Nicole to catch the eye of Bill Duncan (Louis Hayward), a handsome millionaire staying at the hotel. Nicole's plan may be thwarted by Bill's friend, Jim Trevor (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), who met Nicole when she was still down on her luck, and sees through her plot.
Quotes:
Nicole: Good afternoon.
Receptionist: What do you want please?
Nicole: I'd like to have a job.
Receptionist: Are you registered here?
Nicole: Well, no I'm not. I've never been --
Receptionist: We're not registering any new girls. (answers the phone) Towers Model Agency. Good afternoon. (pause) You have the wrong number. I'm sorry.
Nicole: I'm sorry too.
Mr. Wright: You're French, eh?
Nicole: Yes, I'm French. But it would show on the pictures.
Mr. Wright: I have a job for you to pose with drapes.
Model: For how much?
Mr. Wright: Two seventy-five an hour. He wants you three hours a day for about ten weeks.
Model: That's no job. That's a career.
Nicole: You are Mr. James Trevor, no?
Jim: I am Mr. James Trevor, yes.
Nicole: I'm sorry I'm not ready. I know you are very impatient.
Jim: No, I'm just curious. Would you mind telling me what this is all about, or is that asking too much?
Nicole: Pardon?
Jim: What is this all for?
Nicole: Two dollars and seventy-five cents an hour.
Jim: Oh, for two seventy-five an hour.
Nicole: Is it too much?
Jim: Oh no, no, no. As a matter of fact it's quite reasonable. I was just thinking that it's worth that to find out what happens next.
Nicole: You are the certain Mr. Trevor, no?
Jim: I am Mr. James Trevor, but not very certain.
Nicole: Where are the draps [drapes]?
Jim: What?
Nicole: You have the draps?
Jim: I don't know. I had the measles. What are the draps like?
Nicole: You're a photographer, no?
Jim: That's where you've got me. I'm a photographer. No.
Jim: Well, gentlemen. There must be a moral in there somewhere. So will you all go back to your offices and try to find out what that is?
Landlady: On your way!
Nicole: But you can't do this. You must help me.
Landlady: If you want help, get it from Washington.
Gloria: Washington's dead, haven't you heard?
Landlady: You keep out of this, Miss Patterson.
Gloria: I pay seven dollars a week in this fire trap, and if there's any fun going on, I want to be in on it.
Old male boarder: Stop this clacker. I'm trying to think!
Gloria: It's all right, the evil queen is trying slip Snow White the apple again.
Landlady: She's four days behind in her rent.
Gloria: And you're two weeks behind with your hot water.
Landlady: I have to live too, you know.
Gloria: Why?
Landlady: Don't you talk to me like that!
Gloria: I'll do better than that. I won't even talk to you at all. And I'll pay her rent!
Nicole: Why are you always so good me?
Gloria: Oh, I suppose you have to be good to something, and my dog died a week before you moved in here.
Nicole: Did you marry a rich husband?
Gloria: I married a hoofer. All he had was a time step and a shuffle off to buffalo. Late in life in got ambitious.
Nicole: And got rich?
Gloria: And got 20 years.
Gloria: This kid wants a job.
Mike: Job?
Gloria: Yes, she's one of those rare people who really want to work for a living.
Gloria: Look at those girls in there. That's where you belong. Not in a kitchen. The way to a man's heart is through his eyes, baby. That's the modern version. He believes what he sees and takes bicarbonate of soda for his indigestion instead of a wife that can cook. Those women spend three billion dollars a year in beauty parlors and not for cook books.
Nicole: You're very hard to understand sometimes.
Gloria: Seventy percent of all the money in America is in the hands of women. You understand that, don't you?
Nicole: Yes, but --
Gloria: And if the boys don't look out, the girls will be the other thirty percent.
Hotel Manager: We want your stay with us to be a memorable and enjoyable one. Because we feel that there isn't a hotel in America that is so well equipped as ours to make you as comfortable as you were in the home you just left.
Gloria: What a sweet thought.
Nicole (regarding fur coat): Oh, oh, it's a dream.
Mike: It costs 30.00 a day to rent the coat. It's no dream, it's a nightmare.
Gloria: She's such a child.
Mike: And while she's growing up it's costing me 60.00 a day for this suite. And that's a little over four cents a minute.
Gloria: If you lose one penny on this deal I'll give you my right eye.
Mike: And I'll take it.
Gloria: If I just had my boots and saddle.
Bill: When did you get the mustache?
Jim: That's something I picked up when I had the flu.
Jim: Who are you with?
Bill: A girl.
Jim: A local one?
Bill: No, she's from Paris.
Jim: Kentucky?
Bill: France.
Bill: Do you still like brunettes?
Jim: Sure, you know me.
Bill: Well fine, she's a blonde.
Girl in restaurant: I want ham and eggs.
Mike: I have a beautiful table for three.
Gloria (whispers to Mike): I wish you were right.
Bill: Make it for four, Mike.
Mike: Right this way, please. (to Gloria) Why four?
Gloria: We're having company for supper.
Mike: Who?
Gloria: Trouble.
Mike: On my money, having trouble for supper.
Jim: How long have you been in New York, mademoiselle?
Nicole: Oh, well I...
Bill: Just a week. She arrived the same day I did.
Jim: A week? I would have said you'd been here much longer.
Gloria: Oh, uh, she fools everyone.
Jim: I'm sure she does.
Nicole: Go ahead, I can took it.
Jim: Sorry I've been rough on you, but war is war.
Nicole: You said it, Mr. Trevor.
Bill: Nice friend I have.
Gloria: I've heard that man's best friend is always the dog.
Bill: I can't understand it. He's changed so completely, inside a year too.
Gloria: I knew a man once whose hair turned white overnight.
Bill: Well, I wouldn't believe it about Jim, unless I'd seen it.
Gloria: You know, this man wouldn't believe it about his hair until he became bald the following night. But that convinced him.
Mike: The young lady in your party forgot her wrap.
Jim: It wasn't my party, and she's not a lady.
Mike: Oh, I'm sorry sir, but I'm sure you know your friends better than I do.
Nicole: That's the first time anyone has ever said anything like that to me before.
Gloria: Said what?
Nicole: He said I'm cheap.
Gloria: Well, you certainly paid him back for that.
Mike: In spades! He's got some nerve! Cheap. I've figured out just now how much it costs. Eighty seven dollars and fifty cents in rental. Cheap. What does he want you to wear, radium?
Nicole: He meant I was dishonest.
Gloria: Darling, all women are dishonest. If they weren't, the world would be divided into two classes of people: old maids and bachelors. Look (rubs off Nicole's lipstick), that's dishonest. Plucking your eyebrows is dishonest. The rouge on your cheeks is dishonest. And a fat women in a girdle... ha! that's highway robbery.
Mike: I started out to get a restaurant, and now I'll be lucky if I end up with a ham sandwich.
Rigley (Jim's valet): It's a dangerous business interfering between a man and a maid.
Jim: Yes, Rigley. I know when I'm in trouble without you telling me.
Rigley: There was a similar situation in my own family, sir. As a matter of fact, that's the way my second cousin lost his right eye.
Jim: Mr. Duncan's my best friend. That's the only reason I'm doing this.
Rigley: It was my second cousin's brother, sir, that knocked out my second cousin's eye.
Jim (on the phone with Nicole): Hello. Is the the rage of Paris, or the pride of Hoboken, or whatever you're calling yourself today?
Jim: You're going to have dinner with me tonight.
Nicole: What! Oh, oh no, I don't like you. I'm sorry.
Jim: Well, I'm not sorry at all, but you're still going to have dinner with me at 7:30 sharp.
Jim: Did you hear that, Rigley?
Rigley: Do you want me to, sir?
Jim: I do.
Rigley: I did.
Jim: I'm sorry, my dear, but the age of chivalry is dead. And when I come back I'll take you to the funeral.
Uncle Eric: I think your niece resembles you quite a lot. Or should I say you resemble your niece.
Gloria: Oh, it doesn't matter. We all look alike in our family.
Uncle Eric: Haha! I'm glad we don't in ours.
Jim: You're working on borrowed time anyway. I should have fired you last Tuesday.
Rigley: Why don't you fire me now, sir.
Jim: Well, if you do a good job tonight, perhaps I will.
Rigley: Thank you very much, sir.
Nicole: Just wait, I make a lot of trouble for you.
Jim: Go ahead, I can took it.
Jim: Watch you step. It's rough here. I don't want you to break your neck.
Nicole: I'm sorry I can't wish you the same.
Nicole: What's a hog.
Jim: A hog is a very big pig.
Nicole: Now I could say something. (pause) But I don't.
Pops: It's been so long since you've been up here that I was beginning to commence to forget what you look like.
Nicole: Now I go on a sit-down strike.
Jim: Then I'd better get you a coat.
Nicole: No. I don't want any coat. I'm going to get pneumonia and die. Then what will you do with the body?
Nicole: Don't be mad, Jimmy.
Nicole: Mr. Pops, where is the telephone?
Pops: Right over there. But it ain't connected.
Nicole: Not connected? But can't you make it connected?
Pops: Oh sure. I'll notify the company first thing tomorrow. They'll send a man out to fix it... in about a week or 10 days. That's what they call service or something. But I've got another name for it.
Jim: I always thought the French like to eat.
Nicole: Yes, but they're very particular.
Jim: About their food?
Nicole: About who they eat with.
Jim: I come from a long line of hunters.
Nicole: No, I think you come from a long line of sour pusses.
Nicole: All the fresh air is outside, and inside, there's nothing.
Nicole: I think I'm going to look out of the window, if you don't mind.
Jim: No, no, it all comes with the dinner.
Nicole: Can't you go any faster?
Truck driver: Sure. But I ain't allowed to leave the truck.
Mike: So, it's all over but the shouting. Well, that's life. You take a chance, and draw a blank.
Gloria: It's finally got him.
Gloria: You know, something tells me I'm going in the restaurant business myself.
Rigley: Before you do this, sir. Let me tell you about an incident in which my second cousin, One Eye Rigley, was involved.
Mike: I'm gonna name a dish after her.
Gloria: Yeah, what?
Mike: On the regular dollar dinner in our new restaurant the frogs legs will always be called "a la Cortillion."
Gloria. Don't forget to name the mashed potatoes after me.
Jim: You have the draps, no? You are the certain mademoiselle de Cortillion, no?
Watch it on Youtube.
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