Swing! (1938)

Cora Green: Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Oh, Lordy! Why did they invent alarm clocks anyway.

• Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : I might as well get up and cook those white folks some breakfast.

• Cornell Jenkins : Hi ya, baby.

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Oh, so it's you!

  Cornell Jenkins : Well, what's the matter, honey?

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Out all night, layin' around with other women!

  Cornell Jenkins : Now, you know that isn't so. I was out tryin' to win a little money. You know how it is.

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Yes and I got to go to work and take care of you. Get outta my way!

• Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : He's a big business man. The white folks dun hired him to sell and demonstrate cars.

  Liza Freeman : No, well, I declare.

• Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Cornell is an automobile salesman and his duty it is to sell and demonstrate cars. So, that's the reason why you might seen him ridin' pretty women around town.

  Liza Freeman : You don't say so? That's funny.

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : What's funny, Liza?

  Liza Freeman : Your man and Lem Jackson's gal and he wasn't ridin' her around. She was ridin' him around and it wasn't no white folks car they was ridin' around in neither. It was Lem Jackson's car! The car he gave her last Spring!

• Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : You just jealous, that's all. My man's a big business man, while your's is a loafer! You just jealous and I won't listen to you.

  Liza Freeman : You're right about my man, Mandy. He's a loafer, too. Just like the most of 'em. But, we women got to have a man. And as long as he's only a no-count, I'll put up with that. But, when they take your money and start a lyin' and flyin' around here with a high, yellow hussy like that 'Loise, then we ought to know about it.

• Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : What a man! My, my. I think I could like him.

  Eloise Jackson : You could what?

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Oh, I mean I think I'd like to cook for him. You know, make him some hot biscuits like I used to make for Miss Hewitts back there in Birmingham. You remember.

  Eloise Jackson : Now, you limit your likes for him to hot biscuits, sister! Cause he's my man and I don't allow no woman lookin' at him like you was lookin' at him jes then or you'll be going back to Birmingham in a pine box. Do you get me?

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Yessim. I get ya.

• Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Well, you sho does look fine, chile. New York certainly does agree with you.

• Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : She told me all about you.

  Lena Powell : Really?

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Yes. She told me that you'd gone through school and graduated from college and you knows everything!

  Lena Powell : Oh, no, Mandy. Not everything. Just a few things.

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Well, most everything! She says how you was a telegrapher and work in a office and what do you do, honey? Run one of them typewriters? Ticky Ticky. Tick. Like a white girl?

  Lena Powell : Oh, but they're plenty of colored girls operating typewriters now, Mandy.

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Sho nuff?

  Lena Powell : Oh, yes!

• Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Does you work for white folks, honey, or colored?

  Lena Powell : A colored man! The producer of this show.

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : That's grand. I sho glad to see our folks gettin' on.

• Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Oh, I forgot to tell ya. You know your Mammy done moved out of Alley C since you left.

  Lena Powell : Oh, yes, she wrote me.

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : A better house - in Alley G.

  Lena Powell : That's fine.

• Lena Powell : Don't you know it's not dignified or becoming for a lady to go around fighting?

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Oh, of course, it ain't, honey. I never did before. But, when I see'd them with their heads together, a browsing' and a cooin', and their eyes closed like they were so much in love with each other, I just went crazy and crazier. He all dressed up in suits that I bought him with money in his pocket! And she turns around and calls me a funny lookin' greasy cook. Mmm, chile, you'd fought too if you felt like I did.

• Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : But, you know, it's funny, sometimes I find myself thinkin' about him now and wonderin' what he's doin' and who's takin' care of him and given him their money.

  Lena Powell : Terrible.

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : What way?

  Lena Powell : Why, giving a man your money. What manner of a man isn't that would accept money from a woman?

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Hmm, all manners of men in Birmingham, honey.

  Lena Powell : Oh, no, Mandy, not all. You'd just been going with the wrong kind.

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : I guess yous right. But, thems the only kind that would pay any attention to poor me.

  Lena Powell : Now, you mustn't see things that way at all, Mandy. No real man would ever think of such a thing. If he really cared for you, he'd rather give you some of his money.

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Sho 'nuff?

  Lena Powell : Of course! And that's the kind you're going with from now on.

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Sho nuff! You know, I'd like to have a good man, honey.

  Lena Powell : Well, you just be patient. You'll meet him someday. Who knows? He may be waiting for you now. Just around the corner.

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Sho 'nuff. What corner, honey?

• Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Lordy, mercy!

• Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : I know'd how you feel. Him all raggedy and no good for nothin' but playin' the piano.

  Lena Powell : Oh, can he play the piano? I mean, does he play good and swing and jazz?

  Amanda 'Mandy' Jenkins : Oh, he can play anything, honey. That's why they talk about him so. You know what they says about a man that plays a piano, he ain't good for nothin' else.