Twentieth Century (1934)

John Barrymore: Oscar Jaffe

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Oscar Jaffe : Go on, Owen... tell her I'm dying... and DON'T OVERACT!

• Oscar Jaffe : I'm offering you a last chance to become immortal.

  Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : Then I've decided to stay mortal with responsible management.

• Oscar McGonigle : Who told her that her phone was tapped?

  Oscar Jaffe : [seeing Oliver Webb trying to sneak away]  Stay where you are, Judas Iscariot!

• Oscar Jaffe : She loves me. I could tell it through that screaming.

• Oscar Jaffe : [looking at a poster with Lily Garland's picture on it]  Anathema! Child of Satan!

• Oscar Jaffe : They are the only true actors we have left. Not like our cheap Broadway hams.

• George Smith : Lying to me! Every minute with every breath, lying to me!

  Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : Yes. I tried to save you pain! I lied, yes, only to save you!

  Oscar Jaffe : That' s from Sappho.

  Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : Get out!

• Oscar Jaffe : Those movies you were in! It's sacrilege throwing you away on things like that. When I left that movie house, I felt some magnificent ruby had been thrown into a platter of lard.

• Oscar Jaffe : I never thought I should sink so low as to become an actor.

• Oscar Jaffe : No cooperation from anybody. Never mind. I'll carry through alone.

• Oscar Jaffe : You squalling litle amateur. On your feet! Get up! Take that hump out of your back. You're not demonstrating underwear anymore!

• Oscar Jaffe : Did you hear that? She's left me.

  Oliver Webb : Say the word, O.J., and I'll kill myself.

• Oscar Jaffe : You amoeba.

  Max Jacobs : It's the truth, whether you know it or not.

  Oscar Jaffe : Owen, take this creature who came to me as an office boy as Max Mendlebaum and who is now Max Jacobs for some mysterious reason and throw him into the street.

• Oscar Jaffe : Now, before we begin I want you all to remember one thing. No matter what I may say... no matter what I may do on this stage during our work... I love you all.

• Oscar Jaffe : There's a message I want to go with those gardenias: "To my little madonna of the snows... " No, wait a minute. We won't use that this time.

• Oscar Jaffe : Lily, you're crying.

  Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : Sure, I turn on a faucet. It's that sort of scene.

• Oscar Jaffe : When I love a woman, I'm an Oriental. It never goes. It never dies.

  Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : Phooey.

  Oscar Jaffe : Love blinded me. That was the trouble between us as producer and artist.

  Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : So that's what it was, was it? How about your name in electric lights bigger than everybody's, and your delusion that you were a Shakespeare and a Napoleon and a Grand Lama of Tibet all rolled into one?

• Oscar Jaffe : I want to send another

  [telegram] 

  Oscar Jaffe : . To John Ringling. "I'm in the market for 25 camels, several elephants, and an ibis... Give me the rock-bottom price."

• Oscar Jaffe : Owen, something tells me you're not educated enough for this sort of thing. I'll have to hire some professor.

  Owen O'Malley : Save your dough, sire. I yield the lamp of learning to no one.

• Oscar Jaffe : It's typical of my career that in the great crises of life, I should stand flanked by two incompetent alcoholics.

• Oscar Jaffe : [lamenting Lily's departure, after trashing her lobby posters]  ... O tempora, o mores!

• Oscar Jaffe : When I love a woman, I'm an Oriental. It never goes! It never dies!

  Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : Phooey!

• Mathew J. Clark : He had a gun! I shot him in self-defense!

  Oscar Jaffe : Owen, I was aiming at myself. He grabbed the gun away from me and shot me. That's the final irony... Killed by a lunatic.

• Oscar Jaffe : I close...

  Oliver Webb : Yeah, yeah, I know - the iron door!

• Oscar Jaffe : What do you know about talent? What do you know about the theatre? What do you know about genius? What do you know about anything, you... bookkeeper!

• Oscar Jaffe : I'm offering you your last chance to become immortal.

  Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : Thanks, I've decided to stay mortal - with a responsible management!

  Oscar Jaffe : Who?

  Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : Max Jacobs!

  Oscar Jaffe : I can't believe it.

  Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : No? Read the papers tomorrow, then. Why do you think I left Hollywood?

  Oscar Jaffe : Max Jacobs! He's a thief! Illiterate! He can hardly write his own name!

  Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : He writes it on checks, all right - great BIG checks, too!

• Oscar Jaffe : What did she say? Tell me everything!

  Owen O'Malley : You know her. She screamed like a fishwife.

  Oscar Jaffe : That' s a good sign! She blew up, eh? That shows the battery isn't dead.

• Oscar Jaffe : I wouldn't take that woman back if she and I were the last people in the world, and the future of the human race depended on it.

• Oscar Jaffe : From the grave of someone you loved yesterday. How's that?

  Owen O'Malley : A little on the sad side, isn't it?

  Oscar Jaffe : It's perfect. I wish I could get playwrights to write like that.

• Oscar Jaffe : Who is that?

  Owen O'Malley : Who?

  Oscar Jaffe : That fellow kissing her. This is the final irony. Mousing around with boys - after Oscar Jaffe. I always knew she'd head for the gutter.

• Oscar Jaffe : Where's Oliver?

  Owen O'Malley : You fired him.

  Oscar Jaffe : Oh, he's taking advantage of that, is he?

• Oscar Jaffe : Get Oliver with that contract.

  Owen O'Malley : I'll do my best sire, but we've crossed the river and I've lost the scent.

• Oscar Jaffe : The sorrows of life are the joys of art.

• Oscar Jaffe : Do you trust me, child?

  Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : Yes.

  Oscar Jaffe : I'm going to find the soul that's there and release it - so it'll fly. Soar up to the top gallery!

• Oscar Jaffe : That's when I'm at my best, with my back against the wall, disaster staring me in the face. Joan of Arc, The Bride of Bagdad, Desert Love. No money, no credit. My theater, everything gone. Everything but the name of Jaffe.

• Oscar Jaffe : They got me down. But I am like a prizefighter who gets up at the count of nine, staggers for a moment, and then leads with the fury of a wounded lion.

• Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : Oscar, you're complete. The most horrible excuse for a human being that ever walked on two legs.

  Oscar Jaffe : You've always misunderstood me, Lily. No matter what I said, if he'd been a lover, a real man, he'd have taken you in his arms, he'd have been tender. Instead of that, he stalked out of the room, like a Reverend Henry Davidson in "Rain".

  Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : Your philosophy of love doesn't interest me, Mr. Jaffe.

• Oscar Jaffe : Get out of my theatre, you gray rat! And don't have that fat wife of yours come around again, pleading for you!

• Oscar Jaffe : Just wait, dear. You're in America now, don't you know? The Old South does not yodel.

• Oscar Jaffe : If I'm a genius, Oliver, it's because of my failures. Always remember that.

• Oscar Jaffe : There's a law in this country about riding on trains.

  Train Conductor : What?

  Oscar Jaffe : I want you to enforce it. Stop the train.

• Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : What do you want, scorpion?

  Oscar Jaffe : If it makes you any happier to call me names, go ahead.

• Oscar Jaffe : I don't want him

  [the sultan of Turkey] 

  Oscar Jaffe : , you fool. I want his dervishes, the whirling ones.

• Oscar Jaffe : I'll make the supreme gesture.

  Owen O'Malley : You mean you're gonna let Lily Garland work for you again?

  Oscar Jaffe : How did you guess that?

• Oscar Jaffe : The reason I'm taking you back, Oliver, is on account of your wife.

  Oliver Webb : I see.

  Oscar Jaffe : No need to have the innocent suffer with the guilty.

• Beard #1 : We are belonging to the Passion Play.

  Oscar Jaffe : The Oberammergau Players.

  Beard #2 : Ja!

  Oscar Jaffe : I should have recognized you. The Oberammergau Players are the purest branch of the theater... They are the only true actors we have left. Not like our cheap Broadway hams. They are devoted to the art from infancy.

• Oscar Jaffe : While you were chatting over here, my mind was active.

• Oscar Jaffe : Shhhh. We're before Waterloo with Sheridan 20 miles away... but we can't wait for that now. Stand by Owen.

  Owen O'Malley : What's the program, Richelieu?

• Oscar Jaffe : I have been looking forward to this little occasion for some time. There's no thrill in the world like launching a play. Watching it come to life little by little. Seeing the living characters emerge like genii from the bottle. Now, before we begin - I want you all to remember one thing. No matter what I may say - no matter what I may do on this stage during our work - I love you all. And the people who have been through my battles with me will bear me out in testifying, that above everything in the world, I love the theater - and the charming people in it.

• Oscar Jaffe : Now, don't be nervous, child. You're not Lily Garland anymore. You're little Mary Jo Calhoun. The scent of jasmine - is floating through the open window of a summer evening. You've just kissed your lover goodnight. You're full of - vibrations.

• Oscar Jaffe : She's marvelous, just as I thought. Fire, passion, everything. The gold is all there, but we must mine it.

• Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : I'll tell you what you are. A fake. Go on, jump! Kill yourself.

  Oscar Jaffe : You washwoman's daughter!

  Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : What did you call me?

  Oscar Jaffe : You! Soaking yourself in perfume like a hired girl. Half undressed for other men. You don't fool me.

  [Lily slaps Oscar] 

  Oscar Jaffe : Go on, hit me. I'm not stopping you.

• Oscar Jaffe : I'm taking the 20th Century. I hope I ain't late.

• Oscar Jaffe : You Judas! Go to Mandlebaum or whatever his name is. You're fired!

  Oliver Webb : I know, the iron door. Okay, okay! I've had enough!

• Owen O'Malley : Are you down, O.J.?

  Oscar Jaffe : And almost out. What was the name of the minnesinger who cracked about: "It' s always darkest before the dawn?"

  Owen O'Malley : I don't know, Owen, but he was an ass!

• Oscar Jaffe : Come here, you! Who is that man with Lily? Who is he? What's his name?

  Sadie, Lily's maid : I don't know.

  Oscar Jaffe : Yes, you do, you Mata Hari!

• Oscar Jaffe : Stop the train! I want that man in Drawing Room B thrown off.

  Train Conductor : Nobody can stop this train!

  Oscar Jaffe : Oscar Jaffe's telling you to stop this train!

  Train Conductor : Oscar Jaffe or no Oscar Jaffe. Fires, floods, or blizzards - this is the 20th Century - and we get to New York on time.

• Oscar Jaffe : I've had my ear to the ground like an Indian.

• Oscar Jaffe : Oliver, our troubles are over!

  Oliver Webb : Oh, are they? Where are you going to get a quarter of a million dollars to produce a spectacle like that? By waving your magic wand?

  Oscar Jaffe : Don't talk about money matters now, Oliver.

• Oscar Jaffe : Listen to me. I'm going to put on the Passion Play in New York - with Lily Garland as the Magdalene. I've had it up my sleeve all this time, waiting for the right moment. The wickedest woman of her age: sensual, heartless, but beautiful, corrupting everything she touches - running the gamut from the gutter to glory. Can you see her, Lily? This little wanton - ending up in tears at the foot of the cross. I'm going to have Judas strangle himself with her hair.

• Oscar Jaffe : Lily, that's an inspiration. Go on, while you're in the creative mood.

• Oscar Jaffe : We'll have a Babylonian banquet with your slaves around you. You're covered in emeralds in that scene, from head to foot, and nothing else.

• Oscar Jaffe : Lily, I've been bamboozled!

• Owen O'Malley : The Black Watch, sire, with their bagpipes.

  Oscar Jaffe : I suppose you're both drunk.

  Oliver Webb : Drunk or sober, I'm here, ain't I?

• Oscar Jaffe : He's asleep. That' s just like the Irish. They always fail you in a pinch.

• Oscar Jaffe : Come on, Oliver, we're going into action. Here, set that chair, center. Wait a minute, a little bit off-center. Fix the lights.

  Oliver Webb : Lights!

  Oscar Jaffe : We're gonna do this like the last act of "Camille".

• Oscar Jaffe : It' s hard to die here - between nowhere and nowhere. I should have waited till I was back in the theater - amongst the dust and echoes that I loved.

• Oscar Jaffe : Stop. Let' s do this thing correctly. You've been in *Hollywood* too long. I think you've forgotten a lot of things. Give me the chalk, please.

  Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka : Oscar, I want it distinctly understood...

  Oscar Jaffe : Now, I'll show you how it' s done in the theater.

• Oscar Jaffe : That's very generous of you, but the diamond was there. I merely supplied a little polish.