The Prince and the Showgirl (1957)

Laurence Olivier: The Regent

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Quotes 

• Charles, the Prince Regent : Here am I, having reached the age of 40. And I have never known what it is to love or be loved. It is like the legend of the sleeping princess. Only here, it is the prince who sleeps and awaits the kiss of the beautiful young maiden that will bring him back to life.

  Elsie Marina : You mean you want me to kiss you?

  Charles, the Prince Regent : You are so literal.

• Charles, the Prince Regent : [of the theatre]  So many doors. Like an audience with the Japanese emperor!

• Charles, the Prince Regent : Do you know what your hair reminds me of? Summer corn kissed by the winds into enchantingly exciting furrows. Your eyes...

  Elsie Marina : Hey! Where's that music coming from?

  Charles, the Prince Regent : Music? One of my servants, a Hungarian, always plays at this hour. He's lamenting his lost love.

  Elsie Marina : Ah, poor boy. Isn't life awful? Go back to my eyes.

  Charles, the Prince Regent : Twin pools of gladness and joy in which any man would be happy to drown himself.

  Elsie Marina : In both of them?

  Charles, the Prince Regent : In either.

  Elsie Marina : Oh, I like that. "Twin pools. " Go on.

  Charles, the Prince Regent : Your chin...

  Elsie Marina : Oh, you skipped my nose because you noticed the bump on the end?

  Charles, the Prince Regent : Oh, no, no, no, no. I left it out because there is nothing to say of perfection.

  Elsie Marina : Oh, that's nice. Back to my chin.

  Charles, the Prince Regent : This is what I think of your chin.

  [kisses her neck] 

  Charles, the Prince Regent : My darling. Oh, my darling.

• Charles, the Prince Regent : Love! What a universe of joy and pain lies in that little word.

• Elsie Marina : I got a solemn word of warning for you.

  Charles, the Prince Regent : What is that, my beloved?

  Elsie Marina : You know what's going to happen? I'm gonna fall in love with you. Because I always, always do.

  Charles, the Prince Regent : Always?

  Elsie Marina : Both times. So you better watch out. You better watch out.

• Elsie Marina : What's the matter?

  Charles, the Prince Regent : Someone might come in, you know.

  Elsie Marina : Oh, this is Times Square. I found that out last night, but who cares?

  Charles, the Prince Regent : But this is the morning. It's different, you know.

  Elsie Marina : What's different about it? Unless maybe it's you.

  Charles, the Prince Regent : I assure you, my dear, I'm exactly the same person.

  Elsie Marina : You're not acting exactly the same.

  Charles, the Prince Regent : But this is the morning!

  Elsie Marina : You keep saying that. I remember last night the way you kept repeating yourself. Tell me, my darling Grand Duke, is it only very late at night that you're such a lonely person? You feel the need to share your life with a pure young woman? Whose bright faith...

  Charles, the Prince Regent : No, no, please.

  Elsie Marina : Ennobling love...

  Charles, the Prince Regent : There's certain phrases should never be quoted out of context.

  Elsie Marina : I don't know what that means. Oh! Yes, I do. It means it's the morning. Doesn't it? Anyway, to me it's still dream time.

• Charles, the Prince Regent : She cannot be seen here at this hour of the morning. She will make a scandal. Suppose the Queen sees her like that?

  Northbrook : I'm sure, Sir, her sense of comme il faut...

  Northbrook : She has as much sense of comme il faut as a rhinoceros.

• Charles, the Prince Regent : Who did you think I meant, if not you?

  Elsie Marina : Well, Maisie Springfield.

  Charles, the Prince Regent : No, no, no. Maisie Springfield, she's quite what I would call 'old hat.'

  Elsie Marina : Oh? And am I what you'd call 'new hat?'

• Charles, the Prince Regent : What is the matter?

  Elsie Marina : That time I burned my witty little tongue.

• Charles, the Prince Regent : It is love that I need! The ennobling love of a pure young woman. Her bright faith in me as I am and as I might yet be. Her... self-sacrifice to my little weaknesses and desires. For love is sacrifice, is it not? Ys. There is the mystic kiss which might bring this sleeping prince to life.

  Elsie Marina : I got you!

• Charles, the Prince Regent : You know, Northbrook, what I think is the trouble with Lady Sunningdale?

  Northbrook : She has not enough love in her life, Sir?

  Charles, the Prince Regent : Too much. One should keep a balance in these things.

• Charles, the Prince Regent : What a charming character is this Coconut Gal.

  Maisie Springfield : I'm so happy to hear Your Grand Duke Highness say so. It is a character that goes a little deeper than most in musical comedy.

  Charles, the Prince Regent : Ah, yes. Yes, indeed. Quite so.

  Maisie Springfield : I have been so anxious to find a role that offered an emotional challenge

  Charles, the Prince Regent : Most charming it is. I began to feel that we had lost a gay person that I knew in Paris.

  Maisie Springfield : How gracious of you, sir, to remember.

• Charles, the Prince Regent : You like--vodka?

  Elsie Marina : I never tried it. I don't think I better.

  Charles, the Prince Regent : Oh, you must! This is *very* special.

• Charles, the Prince Regent : Excellent! I can see you have a witty little tongue, Miss Marina.

• Charles, the Prince Regent : What has chiefly disturbed Sir Edward is the fact that these stupid Americans have protested. Some nonsense about political freedom and democratic rights. You know what children Americans are in matters of this kind. Their diplomacy makes me think of the Minotaur legend reversed, you know. The bull chasing Theseus through the labyrinth.

• Charles, the Prince Regent : When will these crazy Americans grow up?

• Northbrook : Do I gather, Sir, that the evening was not an entirely happy one?

  Charles, the Prince Regent : Northbrook, this British understatement of yours, I begin to find irritating. The evening was an unqualified nightmare.

  Northbrook : I'm so sorry, Sir.

  Charles, the Prince Regent : I have only one evening in London. One single evening in which to arrange for myself relaxation. And what happens? Out of the whole of this vast, teeming city, teeming with beautiful, intelligent women, you find me what? A little American ninnycompoop.

  Northbrook : With respect, Sir, either ninny, by itself, or nincompoop.

  Charles, the Prince Regent : Ninnycompoop will serve. She fully deserves a new word.

• Charles, the Prince Regent : The mind of a backward child, the muscles of a boxer, and an approach to life of such stomach-turning sentimentality that I found myself, Northbrook, I found myself last night uttering phrases which had they been overheard would make me the laughingstock of Europe. To crown it all, she's rendered insensible by an amount of vodka, which in Carpathia, you would add to the morning milk of a 4-year-old child as a mild tonic!

• Charles, the Prince Regent : To think how overjoyed Lucy Sunningdale would have been if I had asked her to have a little supper with me here last night.

  Northbrook : I have to remind your Grand Duke Highness, I think I heard you remark that you found Lady Sunningdale 'old hat'.

  Charles, the Prince Regent : I have no doubt at all that I did. Nevertheless, my dear Northbrook, there is an old Russian saying: "Better an old hat than a bare head."

• Charles, the Prince Regent : With such a girl like that, anything can happen. Anything.

• Elsie Marina : [while dancing]  I don't know why you object. General elections are good things. They're democratic!

  Charles, the Prince Regent : You're very pretty, my dear, but you would be wise to think twice before entering the political arena. You may find the role of Madame de Pompadour may be a little beyond your range. And your range is so charming as it is. Do you reverse?

  Elsie Marina : Just try me!

• Charles, the Prince Regent : She's here in the building?

  Northbrook : Yes, Sir. She is with the King in the steward's room.

  Charles, the Prince Regent : What is it they are doing in the steward's room?

  Northbrook : She is teaching the King an American dance called a foxtrot. Your valet Franz is playing for them, with one or two others of the household. In ragtime.

• Elsie Marina : You have some more.

  Charles, the Prince Regent : Not so much, please.

  Elsie Marina : You don't want to spoil my illusions of you, do you?

  Charles, the Prince Regent : What are your illusions of me?

  Elsie Marina : Well, your capacity for vodka is certainly one of them. Here's to: More love in everybody's life.

• Charles, the Prince Regent : Brilliant, brilliant! Quite, quite brilliant. Ah, I can see they don't call you the Fox of the Balkans for nothing, do they?

  Charles, the Prince Regent : Am I called so?

  Elsie Marina : Didn't you know it?

  Charles, the Prince Regent : The Fox of the Balkan.

  Elsie Marina : Oh, and you look so like a fox with those eyebrows. Yes. Like a sleek, dangerous animal. But such a lonely one.

  Charles, the Prince Regent : Oh, my child. It is my lot to be lonely.

  Elsie Marina : But must it always be so?

  Charles, the Prince Regent : It must. It must. Darling, if you could only under - Where is that music coming from?

  Elsie Marina : Oh, never mind, darling. It's just that Hungarian.