Cluny Brown (1946)

Charles Boyer: Adam Belinski

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Quotes 

• Adam Belinski : In Hyde Park, for instance, some people like to feed nuts to the squirrels. But if it makes you happy to feed squirrels to the nuts, who am I to say, "nuts to the squirrels?"

• Adam Belinski : No, Sir Henry. I know Hitler.

  Sir Henry Carmel : Oh, yes, he's written a book, hasn't he?

  Adam Belinski : Yes.

  Sir Henry Carmel : Big success, isn't it?

  Adam Belinski : Very big.

  Sir Henry Carmel : Well, what more does he want? Why doesn't he lie down and keep quiet?

  Adam Belinski : Well, if you really want to know, Sir Henry, read the book.

  Sir Henry Carmel : Sort of an outdoor book, isn't it? What's it called? Oh yes, "My Camp".

• Sir Henry Carmel : Well, she needn't have dropped the platter and insulted my friend. What was it she said to you?

  Syrette : I remember very well, sir. It was, if I may take the liberty of repeating it, 'Nuts to the squirrels.'

  Sir Henry Carmel : Doesn't make sense!

  Adam Belinski : No, it doesn't. It should be 'Squirrels to the nuts.' But I have an open mind, and if someone says to me 'Nuts to the squirrels,' I accept it. You may be inclined to say that to me yourself some day, when you know me better - and I'm not so sure that you will include the 'squirrels.'

  Sir Henry Carmel : [shaking his head]  That's much too deep for me.

• Andrew Carmel : [hearing news of the war]  I intend to write another letter to the Times.

  Adam Belinski : Good.

  Andrew Carmel : [uncertainly]  No... No, I'll join the R.A.F.

  Adam Belinski : Better... join the R.A.F, and rise above the Times.

• Adam Belinski : You couldn't have prescribed a better sedative than yourself!

  Jonathan Wilson : Thank you Sir.

  Adam Belinski : Not at all.

• Cluny Brown : You must never become a victim of my circumstances, and, if you should ever seem romantic to me - don't hesitate. Just kick me.

  Adam Belinski : Yes, let's kick each other.

• Adam Belinski : I would build you the most beautiful mansion, with the most exquisite and complicated plumbing, I would hand you a hammer, and say "Ladies and Gentlemen, Madame Cluny Belinski is about to put the pipes in their place".

• Adam Belinski : You see she's not dressed for plumbing... but what woman is ?

• Adam Belinski : Nobody can tell you where your place is. Where is my place? Where is everybody's place? I'll tell you where it is. Wherever you're happy - that's your place. And happiness is a matter of purely personal adjustment to your environment. You're the sole judge. In Hyde Park, for instance, some people like to feed nuts to the squirrels. But if it makes you happy to feed squirrels to the nuts, who am I to say, "nuts to the squirrels?"

• Cluny Brown : I can't quite describe it. I feel chirrupy.

  Hilary Ames : Chirrupy? I don't ever remember feeling chirrupy.

  Adam Belinski : I'm afraid you never will, my dear Ames. There is not a chirrup in you.

• Adam Belinski : When the lower classes start throwing away pound notes, the upper classes better look out.

• Adam Belinski : You will never have to serve three meals a day again. On the other hand, you might not have three meals a day.

• Adam Belinski : You're the most selfish man I've ever seen.

  Hilary Ames : What?

  Adam Belinski : You don't even know me, and already you're not interested in me.

• Adam Belinski : All you think about is the honorable Betty Cream. Why don't you ask me about my landlady? Is she humane? Or does she want the rent? Do you know, or do you care? No!

• Adam Belinski : My dear Ames, where is the gypsy in you? Where is your sense of adventure? Are you the type of man who puts on his pants before he answers the telephone?

• Adam Belinski : What if the thing does go wrong. Let's assume the whole place gets flooded, and there is no party. You save your liquor. Is that bad? But if the girl succeeds...

  Cluny Brown : Please, sir, do let me.

  Hilary Ames : Why yes, I'll do it. Yes, I'll do it. Come on. Relieve the drain, relieve the strain, eh?

• Adam Belinski : That's very interesting. You don't seem to be inhibited. Tell to me more specific - what made you think you were out of place?

  Cluny Brown : Oh, I don't think I was. It's Uncle Arn. He's always telling me, "Cluny Brown, you don't know your place."

• Adam Belinski : However, should the occasion arise when I need 30 additional pounds, you will give it to me, and nobody else.

  Andrew Carmel : Is that a promise?

  Adam Belinski : My word of honor.

  John Frewen : Oh, we appreciate this.

• Adam Belinski : I have no dinner jacket, Sir Henry. I couldn't bear to face you in a lounge suit across the dinner table.

  Sir Henry Carmel : Well, uh, wore a lounge suit myself once at dinner - in Naples. Went slumming. Didn't want to shock the natives.

• Lady Alice Carmel : Oh, um, shall we go in. Andrew will lend you a dinner jacket, professor. He has two. It doesn't matter tonight. But, um, as a favor - oh, it's not really important, but you see, my husband likes to be dressed for dinner. But if you don't dress, he couldn't. And, uh, if he couldn't, then of course I wouldn't.

  Adam Belinski : How simple and charming you make everything.

• Adam Belinski : Has it occurred to you that for generations the Lords of Carmel have probably eaten the wrong piece of mutton?

  Lady Alice Carmel : That's a very interesting way of looking at it. Besides, it's so difficult to get domestics to come to the country nowadays.

• Lady Alice Carmel : By the way, there's a nightingale under your window?

  Adam Belinski : Oh, you should not have gone to so much trouble.

• Adam Belinski : What about me, Cluny? I'm a city man. I love crowds and traffic and lights - smoke in my lungs. What have I got? A big mouth nightingale right under my window.

• Adam Belinski : Well, I think I'll go to my room now and let the nightingale bang me to sleep.

• Cluny Brown : But I'm sure some day your ship will come in too.

  Adam Belinski : Don't worry about me. If it doesn't come, I'm a good swimmer.

• Andrew Carmel : Why, that's Betty Cream. What's she doing here?

  Adam Belinski : She came this morning for the weekend.

  Andrew Carmel : Well, why didn't you tell me?

  Adam Belinski : What do you care? You're through with women.

• Adam Belinski : Remember, Miss Brown's also your personal maid. Now the question arises, Miss Cream, can you get in and out of your clothes without breaking your neck?

  Elizabeth 'Betty' Cream : That I don't know.

  Adam Belinski : Try it, will you? My little lamb, my sweet. And if you should break your pretty little neck, just yell "Belinski!"

  Elizabeth 'Betty' Cream : If you promise not to come, Miss Brown may have the whole night off.

  Adam Belinski : Thank you, Miss Cream.

  Elizabeth 'Betty' Cream : A pleasure, Mr. Belinski.

• Adam Belinski : [Walks into Betty's room, where she's sitting up in bed reading, and he sits down in a chair]  What does one do with a woman like you?

  Elizabeth 'Betty' Cream : One feels like a fool and gets out... in a hurry, professor.

  Adam Belinski : A good beating. That's what I ought to do. Give you a good beating.

  Elizabeth 'Betty' Cream : Hmmm, sounds very tempting. But unfortunately, I've been brought up to resist temptations. Now will you take your primitive instincts out of my room? Or, should I scream?

• Adam Belinski : Why are you so vicious to my friend, Andrew?

  Elizabeth 'Betty' Cream : Oh, I see. This time you came to talk about Andrew, and I thought it was a personal call. Are you sure it isn't, professor?

  Adam Belinski : Miss Cream, you hold no attraction for me whatsoever. None.

• Adam Belinski : Betty, I'm beginning to doubt my motives.

  Elizabeth 'Betty' Cream : I wish you'd get out. And I don't mean subconsciously.

• Adam Belinski : Betty, why are you so nasty to Andrew?

  Elizabeth 'Betty' Cream : I'll scream.

  Adam Belinski : Why should you, Betty? Wake up the whole house. Distress everybody. Can't you ever think of anybody but yourself? Doesn't it occur to you that you could make someone else happy?

  Elizabeth 'Betty' Cream : [Screams, half-heartedly]  Ahhhhhh.!

  [Belinski rises, goes to the door, turns back, and Betty screams again, a little louder and more intense] 

  Elizabeth 'Betty' Cream : Ahhhhhh!

• Sir Henry Carmel : Well then, I'm glad Andrew's joining up. We Carmels have never shirked our duty. No Englishman has or ever will. We'll see this thing through. We'll show that blighter.

  Adam Belinski : It's good to see you angry, Sir Henry. Stay angry and everything will be all right.

• Adam Belinski : But I think you ought to know that I was once the lightweight champion of all Czechoslovakia.

  Andrew Carmel : And I think you should know that I was middleweight champion of all Oxford and Cambridge.

• Adam Belinski : But if she should ever feel unhappy, tell her just to close her eyes and say "Squirrels to the nuts." You will remember that, Mrs. Maile, won't you?

  Mrs. Maile : If she is ever unhappy, she's to close her eyes and say, "Nuts to the squirrels."

  Adam Belinski : Oh, no. No, no. Squirrels to the nuts, Mrs. Maile. Squirrels to the nuts.

• Adam Belinski : What did you do, Cluny?

  Cluny Brown : Well, you know what plumbing does to me. Just can't keep my hands off it. And I didn't last night. Oh, I don't blame Mr. Wilson. You know, Mr. Belinski, men just don't marry plumbers.

• Cluny Brown : What a wonderful day this has been for me. My first sink, and my first cocktail - a martini cocktail... with an olive.

  Adam Belinski : Have some more.

  Hilary Ames : Should she?

  Adam Belinski : Definitely!

  Cluny Brown : Oh yeah, thank you.

• Adam Belinski : I'm going to write a bestseller. A murder mystery.

  Cluny Brown : A murder mystery? What's it going to be about?

  Adam Belinski : A murder. A man gets murdered.

  Cluny Brown : Who's the man?

  Adam Belinski : A rich man.

  Cluny Brown : Oh, yes, there's no use murdering a poor man.

  Adam Belinski : How right you are. You see how well we work together?

  Cluny Brown : Who killed him? Who did it?

  Adam Belinski : For 365 pages, I will not know myself. But when on page 366 it finally comes out, will I be surprised and so will millions of others. Cluny, this book will make enough money for both of us.

  Cluny Brown : But, Mr. Belinski, what if there should be three of us?

  Adam Belinski : Then I'll write a sequel. But why limit ourselves? I'll write a serial.

  Cluny Brown : Oh, Mr. Belinksi, I don't think I'll have much time for plumbing.

  [They kiss]