Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)

Cary Grant: Jim Blandings

Photos 

Quotes 

• Jim Blandings : What's with this kissing all of a sudden? I don't like it. Every time he goes out of this house, he shakes my hand and kisses you.

  Muriel Blandings : Would you prefer it the other way around?

• Jim Blandings : This little piggy went to market. A meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks. When they slipped him the axe. He KNEW he'd turn out to be Wham!

• Muriel Blandings : I refuse to endanger the lives of my children in a house with less than four bathrooms.

  Jim Blandings : For thirteen hundred dollars they can live in a house with three bathrooms and rough it.

• Jim Blandings : What about the windows?

  Simms : I'm afraid there's been a little slip up. These windows seem to belong to a Mr. Landing in Fishkill. I spoke to him on the phone this morning.

  Jim Blandings : Well, has he got mine?

  Simms : No, he seems to have the windows that belong to a Mr. Blandworth in Peekskill.

  Jim Blandings : Where are *my* windows?

  Simms : Well, near as we can find out, they've either been sent to a Mr. Banning in Danbury, or a Mr. Bamburger in Waterbury.

• Jim Blandings : That's fine. For the rest of my life, I'll have to get up at 5 in the morning to catch the 6:15 train to get to my office at 8. It doesn't even open until 9, and I never get there until 10!

  Muriel Blandings : Well, maybe if you start earlier, you can leave the office earlier.

  Jim Blandings : To get home earlier, to get to bed earlier, to get up earlier, I suppose.

  Bill Cole : Maybe you can get the railroad to push the train up to 4:15. Then you won't have to go to bed at all.

• Muriel Blandings : Mr. Zucca explained he has to use dynamite to blast to get rid of the rock.

  Mr. Zucca : That's no rock. That's a ledge.

  Bill Cole : What Mr. Blandings means is, what precisely is a ledge?

  Mr. Zucca : A ledge is like a big stone. Only it's bigger.

  Jim Blandings : Like a boulder!

  Mr. Zucca : No, like a ledge.

• Muriel Blandings : You remember Bunny Funkhouser, dear, that clever young interior decorator that we met at the Collins' cocktail party.

  Jim Blandings : You mean that young man with the open-toed sandals? What about him?

  Muriel Blandings : Well, you know how long we've said we've got to do something about fixing up this apartment. Well, a couple of weeks ago, he called, and I asked him to come over, and he had some simply wonderful ideas, and I didn't want to bother you with sketches and estimates until I knew whether we could afford it. So I sent them over to Bill.

  Jim Blandings : How much?

  Muriel Blandings : What's the point in asking how much until you know what you're going to get?

  Jim Blandings : I've seen Bunny Funkhouser. I *know* what I'm going to get.

• Muriel Blandings : Darling, I'm going out to the place this afternoon. Bill's driving me up to see about the landscaping.

  Jim Blandings : That'll be nice... What do you mean Bill's driving you?

  Muriel Blandings : Why do you always say 'what do you mean' when you know perfectly well what I mean and you mean?

  Jim Blandings : I mean the moment I turn my back, Bill Cole's driving you someplace or something.

  Muriel Blandings : He's only being helpful.

  Jim Blandings : I thought he was a lawyer. Why isn't he out suing somebody?

• Jim Blandings : [reading eviction notice]  Hmm! Well, we'll just see about that!

  Muriel Blandings : What is it? What's the matter, Jim?

  Jim Blandings : Mr. William Cole, please. Hello, Bill. They can't get away with this! I know my rights as a citizen. Why, this notice from the owner of this building. He wants our apartment. He's ordering us to move in thirty days. Well, that's ridiculous! How can I move into a house that isn't even finished? There are no windows, no plaster, no paint. Now you listen to me: I have no intention of moving in thirty days. This is not legal! I'm going to fight this thing and I don't care if it takes every penny I've got! Yeah. Yeah. Yeah!

  Muriel Blandings : Well?

  Jim Blandings : We're moving in thirty days.

  Bill Cole : [narrating]  So came thirty days, and they moved. That is, we moved.

• Betsy Blandings : Ms. Stellwagon has assigned each of us to take a classified ad and write a human-interest theme about it. I found one typical of the disintegration of our present society.

  Jim Blandings : I wasn't aware of the fact that our society *was* disintegrating.

  Betsy Blandings : I wouldn't expect you to be, Father. Ms. Stellwagon says that middle class people like us are all too prone to overlook...

  Jim Blandings : Muriel, I know this is asking a lot, but just one morning I would like to sit down and have breakfast without social significance.

  Muriel Blandings : Jim, you really must take more interest in your children's education.

  Joan Blandings : Can't squeeze blood from a turnip.

• Jim Blandings : It's a conspiracy, I tell you. The minute you start they put you on the all-American sucker list. You start out to build a home and wind up in the poorhouse. And if it can happen to me, what about the guys who aren't making $15,000 a year? The ones who want a home of their own. It's a conspiracy, I tell you - -against every boy and girl who were ever in love.

• Muriel Blandings : Why don't you use an electric razor?

  Jim Blandings : Can't get used to them.

  Muriel Blandings : Silly. Bill Cole's been using one for years.

  Jim Blandings : He hasn't got my beard.

  Muriel Blandings : Bill's beard is just as coarse and tough...

  Jim Blandings : I am not interested in discussing the grain and texture of Bill Cole's hair follicles before I've had my breakfast.

• Carpenter Foreman : On them second floor lintels between the lally columns, do you want we should rabbet them or not?

  [Long pause as Jim and Muriel look at him with puzzled frowns on their faces] 

  Jim Blandings : The, uh, second floor lallies?

  Carpenter Foreman : Second floor lintels between the lallies.

  Jim Blandings : Oh, the lintels between the lallies?

  Carpenter Foreman : Yeah, from the blueprints you can't tell. You want they should be rabbeted?

  Jim Blandings : No, no. I guess not.

  Carpenter Foreman : Okay. You're the doctor.

  [He calls out to his workers] 

  Carpenter Foreman : Hey fellas. If you got any of them rabbeted lintels set, rip 'em out.

  [Sound of nails being pried out, and scene of pieces of wood dropping onto the floor around Jim and Muriel] 

  Jim Blandings : It sounded less expensive to say, No!

• Jim Blandings : It just so happened that General... uh... Gates stopped right there at that very house to water his horses.

  Bill Cole : I don't care if General Grant dropped in for a scotch and soda. You're still getting rooked.

  Jim Blandings : That was a different war!

• Jim Blandings : Nothing, Mary. Just a private joke between me and whoever's going to be my analyst.

• Jim Blandings : Now, just a minute. I'm entitled to know what I did. This is America. A man is guilty until proven innocent.

• Jim Blandings : Water, Mr. Tesander.

  Tesander : Yep.

  Jim Blandings : At six feet.

  Tesander : Yep.

  Jim Blandings : And just over there, you had to go down 227 feet to hit the same water.

  Tesander : Yep.

  Jim Blandings : Now, how do you account for that, Mr. Tesander?

  Tesander : Well, the way it appears to me, Mr. Blandings... over here the water is down around six feet. And over there it's down around 227 feet.

  [Bill Cole repeats the last line in unison with Tesander who looks over his should at Cole] 

  Bill Cole : Yep.

• Jim Blandings : Nothing, Mary. Just a private joke between me and whoever my analyst is going to be.

• Muriel Blandings : Look, here's how he sees our living room. Isn't it charming?

  Jim Blandings : What's that? A shoe-shine stand?

  Muriel Blandings : It's a cobbler's bench, dear. The room's Colonial. Breakfront. Hooked rug. Student's lamp. Pie Cooler. And over here is a Martha Washington desk.

  Jim Blandings : And where do I keep my powdered wig?

• Jim Blandings : Why did you marry me?

  Muriel Blandings : I'm beginning to wonder. Maye it was those big wow eyes of yours, or that ridiculous hole in your chin. Maybe I knew you were going to bring me to this $38,000 icebox with a dried up trout stream and no windows. Maybe I happened to fall in love with you, but for goodness sake, don't ask me why.

• Smith : You're buying a piece of American history.

  Jim Blandings : You don't say. How's that?

  Smith : Why, first year she was built, General Gates stopped right here to water his horses.

  Jim Blandings : Old General Gates, huh? Civil War.

  Smith : Huh? Revolutionary War.

  Jim Blandings : Oh, *that* General Gates.

• Gussie : The children like Wham.

  Jim Blandings : Well, there must be other things that we...

  Gussie : Mrs. Blandings likes it, too.

  Jim Blandings : Just the same...

  Gussie : And I consider it very tasty!

• Muriel Blandings : Jim, I wish you wouldn't discuss money in front of the children.

  Jim Blandings : Why not? They spend enough of it.

• Muriel Blandings : Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors.

  Jim Blandings : What for? The windows are all open anyway.

• Jim Blandings : So you hit a spring, a bubbling spring... right here, in our cellar.

• Jim Blandings : I am not interested in discussing the grain and texture of Bill Cole's hair follicles before I've had my breakfast.

• Muriel Blandings : This is our home. Betsy was practically born in this apartment.

  Jim Blandings : That does not make it a national shrine.

• Jim Blandings : I thought he was a lawyer. Why isn't he out suing somebody?

• Jim Blandings : Well, so far it's cost us $13,329.45.

  Muriel Blandings : But we have the nicest vacant lot in the state of Connecticut.