Baby Doll (1956)

Carroll Baker: Baby Doll Meighan

Photos 

Quotes 

• Baby Doll : Sometimes, big shot, you don't seem to give me credit for very much intelligence at all. I've been to school in my life - and I'm a magazine reader!

• Baby Doll : I don't wanna be in the same room with a man that would make me live in a house with no furniture in it!

  Archie Lee Meighan : Oh, honey.

  Baby Doll : My daddy would turn over in his grave if he knew! He would just turn over in his grave!

  Archie Lee Meighan : Baby Doll, if your daddy turned in his grave as often as you say he'd turn in his grave, that old man would plow up the graveyard!

• Baby Doll : Excuse me, Mr. Vacarro, but I wouldn't dream of eatin' a nut which a man had cracked in his mouth.

  Silva Vacarro : You've got many refinements.

  Baby Doll : Thank you.

• [last lines] 

  Baby Doll : Well, let's go in now. We got nothin' to do but wait for tomorrow and see if we're remembered or forgotten.

  Aunt Rose Comfort : Oh, my. Oh, my.

• Baby Doll : He went off and left me without a Coke in the house!

• Archie Lee Meighan : Today is the fifth day of November. Tomorrow is the sixth day of November, and the day after that is November seventh. And you know what day that is, don't you? November seventh is your 20th birthday.

  Baby Doll : Ain't that sweet of you to remember. Where's my birthday present?

  Archie Lee Meighan : Oh, you'll get your birthday present, providin' you haven't forgotten the agreement between us, which comes due on that day.

  Baby Doll : Oh, the agreement?

  Archie Lee Meighan : Yeah, the agreement, that you swore on a Bible to keep your side of.

  Baby Doll : Providin' you kept yours.

  Archie Lee Meighan : Have I ever laid hands on you since we've been married?

  Baby Doll : Yeah, as often as possible.

• Baby Doll : Small dogs have a loud bark.

  Archie Lee Meighan : No one is going to whistle at any woman of mine.

  Baby Doll : You take an awful lot for granted when you say mine. I came to you today for protection. What did I get? Slapped, sent home. Now, I'm telling you the agreement between us is over.

• Silva Vacarro : I find you different this evening in some way.

  Baby Doll : Never mind that.

  Silva Vacarro : Grown up suddenly.

  Baby Doll : I feel cool and rested for the first time in my life. That's the way I feel. Rested and cool.

• Baby Doll : [after being told to make him comfortable]  Ain't nobody comfortable in that house. Lucky if you can find a chair to sit down on. You want coffee?

  Silva Vacarro : No, just a nice cool drink of water.

  Baby Doll : Oh, well the house water runs warm. But if you've got the energy to run that old pump over there you can get yourself a nice cool drink from that there cistern.

  Silva Vacarro : I've got energy to burn.

• Baby Doll : I feel so weak. Oh, my head is buzzy.

  Silva Vacarro : Fuzzy?

  Baby Doll : Hmm. Fuzzy and buzzy. My head is swingin' round. Must have been that swingin' that done it.

• Baby Doll : [Silva caresses her neck]  Don't touch me. Please, don't touch me. I don't like to be touched.

  Silva Vacarro : Well, why do you giggle?

  Baby Doll : Cause you make me feel kinda hysterical, Mr. Vacarro.

  Silva Vacarro : [knowing smile]  I do?

  Baby Doll : [starts to get up]  Mr. Vacarro, I think I'll go make us some lemonade.

  [he holds her back] 

  Baby Doll : What did you do that for?

  Silva Vacarro : I don't want to be deprived of the pleasure of your company. Not yet.

  Baby Doll : Mr. Vacarro, you certainly are getting familiar.

  Silva Vacarro : Don't you have any fun loving spirit about you?

  Baby Doll : Well, this isn't fun.

  [laughs breathlessly and smiles] 

  Silva Vacarro : Why do you giggle then? Hmm?

  Baby Doll : Because I'm ticklish.

• Archie Lee Meighan : People know the situation between us. Yesterday on Front Street a man yelled to me and said, "Hey, Archie Lee, has yer wife outgrown the crib yet?" And three or four others hawed at me. Public. Humiliation.

  Baby Doll : Private humiliation is just as painful.

• Baby Doll : We had an agreement that - I mean, I told him that on my twentieth birthday I'd be ready.

  Silva Vacarro : That's tomorrow.

  Baby Doll : Uh-huh.

  Silva Vacarro : And, are you - will you be ready?

  Baby Doll : Well, that all depends.

  Silva Vacarro : What on?

  Baby Doll : Whether or not the furniture comes back. I guess.

  Silva Vacarro : Your husband sweats more than any man I know and now I can understand why.

• Baby Doll : Just look at yourself. You're not exactly a young girl's dream come true, Archie Lee Meighan. "There was an old witch named Granny Crow, Wherever she spit, No grass would grow."

  [laughs] 

  Baby Doll : That old witch must've spit right on the top your head, Archie Lee.

• Archie Lee Meighan : They's no torture on earth to equal the torture which a cold woman inflicts on a man. They's no torture to compare with it! What I've done is staked out a lot in hell, a lot with a rotten house on it and five complete sets of furniture not paid for.

  Baby Doll : What you done is bit off more'n you can chew.

  [takes a long, slow lick of her ice cream cone with her tongue] 

• Baby Doll : I get so depressed goin' through all them empty rooms.

  Silva Vacarro : All the rooms empty?

  Baby Doll : All except the nursery and the kitchen. The stuff in them rooms is paid for.

  Silva Vacarro : You have a child in the nursery?

  Baby Doll : Me? No! I sleep in the nursery myself. I let the slats down on the crib.

  Silva Vacarro : Why do you sleep in the nursery?

  Baby Doll : Mr. Vacarro, that's a personal question.

• Archie Lee Meighan : You know, there's a new bureau in Washington, D. C. It's called the U.W. Bureau. You know what U.W. stands for? It stands for Useless Women! They got secret plans afoot to -

  [takes a swig of liquor] 

  Archie Lee Meighan : to round 'em all up and shoot 'em. That's funny. Shoot 'em. Now, you heard me. I said shoot 'em.

  Baby Doll : How 'bout men that's destructive? Ain't they got some plan to round up destructive men and shoot 'em?

• [repeated lines] 

  Baby Doll : [to Archie]  Big shot!

• Baby Doll : Archie Lee, you're a mess. Do you know what they call such people? Peepin' Toms!

  Archie Lee Meighan : Ain't that somethin' for a woman who sleeps in a baby's crib to stay away from her husband!

  Baby Doll : Now, I'm gonna plug up the hole in that wall with chewin' gum and if I ever catch you pokin' a knife through it again to peek at me in my sleep, I'm movin' into the Cotton King Hotel.

• Baby Doll : You put me in Tiger Tail - the biggest old wreck of a place in the whole delta. You told my daddy you was gonna restore this place, exactly like it was when the Deauvines owned it, only betta. "Make a show place," you said. Yeah, a freak show!

  Archie Lee Meighan : I gotta boy on the roof right now. I got my man on the roof right now. Can't you hear the hammer on the roof?

  Baby Doll : Is that a hammer? Why I thought that was a king-size termite.

• Baby Doll : You told a mouthful of lies to my daddy in order to get me.

  Archie Lee Meighan : Get you? I ain't got you yet.

  Baby Doll : No and you ain't about to either.

• Archie Lee Meighan : What are you waitin' for? Oh, now, come on, git into the car!

  Baby Doll : I will git in the backseat of that scatter-boat when you git out and walk around and open the door for me like a gentleman.

  Archie Lee Meighan : Well, you gonna wait a long time, if that's what your waitin' for.

  Baby Doll : Well, I declare! My father would turn over in his grave.

  Archie Lee Meighan : I never once saw your father git and open the car door for any woman and especially not your water-leggin' mother! Now, git on in!

• Baby Doll : If you don't like Aunt Rose Comfort's cookin, then get me a regular servant! You don't think that I am gonna cook for a big, fat ole thing like you!

  Archie Lee Meighan : Quit sayin' fat or...

  Baby Doll : Well, then you get young and thin and I'll quit sayin' fat ole thing.

• Baby Doll : [Archie Lee brings. Baby Doll an ice cream cone]  Why didn't you bring me a double-dip?

  [starts licking the ice cream] 

• Baby Doll : I'm gonna get me a good payin' job. The manager of the Cotton King Hotel helped carry my daddy's coffin. He'll give me work.

  Archie Lee Meighan : What sort of work do you think you could do?

  Baby Doll : I could curl hair in a beauty parlor.

  Archie Lee Meighan : Oh, I can't see that.

  Baby Doll : I reckon I could be a hostess - and smile at people comin' in a place.

  Archie Lee Meighan : What place?

  Baby Doll : Any place! I could be a cashier.

  Archie Lee Meighan : No. You can't count change.

  Baby Doll : Well, I could pass out menus or programs or somethin' - and say hello to people.

  Archie Lee Meighan : Oh, now, Baby Doll.

  Baby Doll : I can say hello!

• Archie Lee Meighan : Oh, Baby Doll! Come out here! Come here. Come here, Baby Doll. I want you to come right over here and meet Mr. Vacarro from the Syndicate Plantation. Say, what's your first name Vacarro?

  Silva Vacarro : Silva.

  Archie Lee Meighan : How you spell it?

  Silva Vacarro : Capital s-i-l-v-a.

  Archie Lee Meighan : Sure enough? Like a sliva linin'? Well, every cloud has got a silva linin'!

  Baby Doll : Oh, what's that from - the Bible?

  Silva Vacarro : No, the Mother Goose book.

• Silva Vacarro : Both of us had misfortunes on the same day.

  Baby Doll : Hmm?

  Silva Vacarro : You lost your furniture, my cotton gin burned down!

  Baby Doll : Oh, yeah.

  Silva Vacarro : Quite a coincidence.

  Baby Doll : What's that?

  Silva Vacarro : I said it was a coincidence of misfortune.

  Baby Doll : Oh, sure. I mean, what can you do with a bunch of unfurnished rooms.

  Silva Vacarro : Well, you could play hide-n-seek.

  Baby Doll : Not me. I'm not athletic.

• Baby Doll : Sometimes I don't know where to go or what to do.

  Silva Vacarro : Well, that's not uncommon. People enter this world without instruction.

• Baby Doll : That name sounds foreign.

  Silva Vacarro : It is, Mrs. Meighan. I'm known as a wop!

• Baby Doll : Hey, drive me along the road with all the windows open to cool me off!

• Baby Doll : [Silva gets in the back seat of a broken down car with Baby Doll]  The chauffeur sits in the front seat!

  Silva Vacarro : That seat's got no cushion.

  Baby Doll : Oh, yeah.

• Baby Doll : Excuse my yawn; but, we was up awful late last night. So, you're a wop.

  Silva Vacarro : No, I'm a Sicilian, Mrs. Meighan. A very ancient people.

  Baby Doll : Sish?

  Silva Vacarro : No, Siss-Sicilian. I'm from Corpus Christi.

  Baby Doll : Oh, how unusual.

• Baby Doll : I'll be 20 tomorrow. Tomorrow is Election Day and my Burthday and the day that Mr. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President for his first term.

  Silva Vacarro : It's a great day for the country for both reasons.

  Baby Doll : Oh, he was a man to respect.

  Silva Vacarro : Well, you're a lady to respect, Mrs. Meighan.

  Baby Doll : Me? Oh, I never got past the fourth grade.

  Silva Vacarro : Why'd you quit?

  Baby Doll : Well, I had a great deal of trouble with long division.

• Silva Vacarro : Let's swing a little, huh? You seem all tense. Motion relaxes people. It's like a cradle! A cradle relaxes a baby. They call you Baby, don't they?

  Baby Doll : Oh, that's sort of a nickname.

  Silva Vacarro : Well, in a swing you relax just like in a cradle.

• Silva Vacarro : You're a very delicate woman, Mrs. Meighan.

  Baby Doll : Delicate? Me?

  Silva Vacarro : There isn't much of you; but, what there is - is choice. Delectable, I might say.

  Baby Doll : Huh?

  Silva Vacarro : You're fine fibered. Soft and smooth.

• Silva Vacarro : You make me think of cotton. No! No fabric or cloth, not even satin or silk cloth, and no kind of fiber, not even cotton fiber, has the absolute delicacy to your skin.

  Baby Doll : Well, what should I say? Thanks or somethin'?

  Silva Vacarro : No, you just smile, Mrs. Meighan. You got an attractive smile. Dimples.

  Baby Doll : No.

  Silva Vacarro : Yes, you do. Come on now, smile, Mrs. Meighan. There! You see. You do. You do have 'em.

• Baby Doll : [crying]  She's got no business leavin' me alone here. But, she has a passion for chocolate candy, though. She watches the newspapers just like a hawk to see if anybody she knows is registered at the county hospital.

  Silva Vacarro : Hospital?

  Baby Doll : Yeah. They pass out candy to the patients at the county hospital, you know, friends and relatives send them flowers and candy and Aunt Rose Comfort goes to visit them and eats up all their chocolate candy.

• Baby Doll : I like old people. They're crazy!

• Baby Doll : The boys around here are a sorry lot. You know, they ask you to the movies and take you up to the old stone quarry instead. You gotta get out of the car and throw stones at 'em. Oh, I've had some experiences here with boys that would just curl your hair, if I told ya.

• Baby Doll : I told my daddy that I wasn't ready for marriage and my daddy told Archie Lee that I wasn't ready for it and Archie Lee promised my daddy that he would wait until I was ready.

  Silva Vacarro : Then, the marriage was postponed.

  Baby Doll : Oh, no. Not the weddin'! We had the weddin'. My daddy gave me away.

  Silva Vacarro : But, you said Archie Lee waited?

  Baby Doll : Yeah! After the weddin' he waited.

  Silva Vacarro : For what?

  Baby Doll : For me to be ready for marriage.

  Silva Vacarro : Well, how long did he have to wait?

  Baby Doll : Oh, he's still waitin'.

• Silva Vacarro : Do you believe in ghosts, Mrs. Meighan? I do. I believe in the presence of evil spirits.

  Baby Doll : What evil spirits you talkin' about?

  Silva Vacarro : Spirits of violence - and cunning - malevolence - cruelty - treachery - destruction.

  Baby Doll : Them's just human characteristics.

  Silva Vacarro : They're evil spirits that haunt the human heart and take possession of it and spread from one human heart to another human heart - the way that a fire goes springin' from leaf to leaf and branch to branch in a tree till a forest is all aflame with it!

  Baby Doll : You just got fire on the brain.

  Silva Vacarro : I see it as more than it seems to be on the surface. I saw it last night as an explosion of those evil spirits - I fought it! I ran into it, beatin' it, stampin' it, shoutin' a curse of God at it! They dragged me out, suffocatin'. I was defeated! When I came to, lying on the ground - a fire had won the battle and all around was a ring of human figures! I looked up. And they were illuminated! Their eyes, their teeth were shinin' - like this! Yeah, like this!

  Baby Doll : No, don't - don't scare me.

  Silva Vacarro : Like this!

  Baby Doll : Please don't scare me!

  Silva Vacarro : The faces I saw were grinning' and then I knew. I knew the fire was not accidental. And you know it was not accidental too.

• Baby Doll : Archie Lee, I got somethin' to tell you - you big slob!

  Archie Lee Meighan : What are you doin'?

  Baby Doll : You left me over there!

  Archie Lee Meighan : Didn't I tell you never to cross over to this Gin when n****** are workin' here!

• Baby Doll : What am I gonna do?

  Silva Vacarro : You're gonna do what I tell you!

• Baby Doll : You don't have to go all the way home to take a nap. You could take a nap here. I mean, it's gonna rain anyhow.

  Silva Vacarro : But all the furnitures been removed from the house?

  Baby Doll : Not the stuff in the nursery. There's a small bed in there. A crib. You could curl up and let the slats down.

  Silva Vacarro : I'll be happy to accept the invitation. Come on up and see me to sleep.

• Baby Doll : You'll have to take pot luck.

  Silva Vacarro : I wouldn't be putting you out?

  Baby Doll : Oh, excuse me, I better get into my clothes.

• Baby Doll : Archie Lee, I don't think this discussion is necessary in front of company.

  Silva Vacarro : Mrs. Meighan, when someone feels uncomfortable over somethin', it often happens that he takes out his annoyance on some completely innocent person.

• Silva Vacarro : [dips his bread into a pot of soaked greens]  Colored folks call this pot liquor.

  Baby Doll : [laughs]  I love pot liquor!

  [Mr. Vacarro feeds Baby Doll some pot liquor] 

  Silva Vacarro : Good?

  Baby Doll : I'm crazy about pot liquor! Mmmm! Mmmm, It's good!

  [sticks her tongue out and licks her lips] 

  Baby Doll : Mmmm, that's good.

  [Mr. Vacarro feeds her some more]