The Comedy of Terrors (1963)

Vincent Price: Trumbull

Photos 

Quotes 

• Felix Gillie : And what if I tell them the truth and say it was all your idea in the first place?

  Trumbull : Mr. Gillie... Felix... friend... I put it to you, who in your discerning estimation are the police most likely to believe, hm? Mr. W. Trumble, respected local citizen and entrepreneur of death, or Mr. Felix Gillie... wanted fugitive and confessed bank robber?

  Felix Gillie : I never confessed!

  [pause, then] 

  Felix Gillie : They just proved it.

• Mr. Black : [as he's dying again]  "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more..."

  Trumbull : I'll believe that when I see it.

• Felix Gillie : Mr. Turnbull...

  Trumbull : Trumbull.

  Felix Gillie : I *said* "Tremble".

• Trumbull : Get away from me!

  Amaryllis : Am I so repulsive?

  Trumbull : That's the word, yes.

  Amaryllis : Couldn't you find it in your heart to love me, Waldo?

  Trumbull : Get up, you're sitting on my money!

  Amaryllis : So you reject me?

  Trumbull : As long as there's liquor in the house!

• Trumbull : [realizing he's been cheated of his fee by Mrs. Phipps]  Is there no morality left in this world?

• Felix Gillie : [as they're hiding from the rampaging Mr. Black]  It's better in the dark.

  Trumbull : What is? Decapitation?

• Trumbull : [gesturing toward the body of Mr. Phipps]  I'm afraid, madam, he has made his final journey towards that stygian shore.

  Mrs. Phipps : [blankly]  What?

  Trumbull : [pause, then sharply]  He's dead.

• Mr. Black : [fighting to get out of the coffin into which Trumbull and Gillie have put him and which they are fighting to keep closed]  Let me out of here!

  Trumbull : We most certainly will *not* let you out of here, sir!

  Mr. Black : Confound you, sir!

  Trumbull : Confound you too, sir! Will you KINDLY have the goodness to die?

  Mr. Black : *Never!*

• Trumbull : [during the struggle with Mr. Black]  He bit me! The son-of-a bit me!

• Trumbull : To... uh... paraphrase the venerable adage: we shall kill two birds, with one... pillow.

• Amaryllis : If my father chose to spend his hard-earned money in the collection of curious objects...

  Trumbull : [interrupting]  He did more than collect curious objects, madam, he also fathered one!

• Felix Gillie : [he and Trumbuill are sitting on the coffin, trying to keep it closed and referring to Mr. Black, who's inside the coffin]  For a man in his condition, he certainly has a lot of energy!

  Trumbull : The stubborn crackpot! I could have sworn that he was dead!

  Felix Gillie : It's about time!

  Trumbull : I've never had such an uncooperative customer in my whole life!

• Trumbull : [Impatiently waiting for Gillie to pick the lock of a heavy door]  You having a little trouble, Mr. Gillie?

  Felix Gillie : Oh, this dirty lock was never meant for picking.

  Trumbull : Well, why don't you take an axe, and chop it open?

  Felix Gillie : [getting angry]  Nobody, but nobody, tells Gillie what to do with locks!

  Trumbull : [amusedly]  No, I take it back. What you need is a keg of gunpowder.

  Felix Gillie : Hey, I have an idea... Maybe there is a bolt on the inside?

  Trumbull : There's a bolt on the inside of your head, Mr. Gillie, and it's *loose*!

• Trumbull : Allow me, Madam, in this moment of your most desolate bereavement to lift from your sorrow-laden shoulders the burdens and tasks of exequy and sepulture.

  Mrs. Phipps : [confused]  What?

  Trumbull : I'll bury him for you.

• Felix Gillie : [to Mr. Trumbull, referring to Mr. Black]  I don't think he's quite dead yet enough to bury.

  Trumbull : [walking over to him]  You don't think he's quite dead enough to...

  Trumbull : [seeing Black moving]  ... *ahhhhhh*!

• Trumbull : [to Mr. Gillie while giving him a boost up]  *What did you step in?*

• Trumbull : [to a stuffed bear]  What are you grinning at?

• Amaryllis : Don't you think you've had...

  Trumbull : Shut your mouth. Women! As soon put your trust in them as put a pistol to your head.

  Amaryllis : You really should...

  Trumbull : Be still!

• Felix Gillie : [talking about Amarylliis' singing during Mr. Black's funeral service]  I wish she would have picked another song.

  Trumbull : I wish her vocal cords would snap.

• Mr. Black : [after awakening from a cataleptic trance in the mortuary basement]  Mr. Trumbull... this man... what... what am I doing here?

  Trumbull : [recovering from his shock]  Well, you're here because you're dead, Mr. Black.

  Mr. Black : The hell I am!

  Trumbull : Oh yes you are. Everybody else knows you're dead, Mr. Black, except apparently you.

  Mr. Black : What jiggery-pokery is this?

  Trumbull : Not jiggery-pokery, Mr. Black... Hinchley and Trumbull, Funeral Parlor.

  Mr. Black : [realizing what Trumbull means]  You wouldn't dare!

  Trumbull : [after a pause]  Have we a choice, Mr. Black?

• Trumbull : If you could or would, for one brief moment, shut that vast resounding chasm of a mouth, I should be grateful, madam. Grateful.

• Amaryllis : I could have been the greatest opera singer in the world.

  Trumbull : What world? Would the vocal emissions of a laryngitic crow be qualifications? Yes, then maybe you could have been.

• Felix Gillie : We are not going to embalm him tonight?

  Trumbull : We haven't embalmed anybody in six years. Why should we start now?

• Trumbull : I wonder what idiot ever thought of putting bodies in a crypt instead of in the ground where they belong.

  Felix Gillie : Yeah, and they fertilize plants too.

  Trumbull : What a terrible thing to say. Shut up!

• Trumbull : Your mouth, madam. Shut it.

• Felix Gillie : There must be a little more honest way to conduct a funeral business.

  Trumbull : I might have expected that kind of talk from a criminal.

• Felix Gillie : I just thought...

  Trumbull : Well, don't ! You don't do it very well.

• Amaryllis : Couldn't you find it in your heart to love me, Waldo?

  Trumbull : Get up! You're sitting on my money.

• Felix Gillie : [as he and Trumbull about to break into Mr. Phipps' house]  You know, the next time they catch me with these tools it'll be thirty years.

  Trumbull : It's no wonder they caught you the last time... you're probably the most inept house-breaker in all of New England.

  Felix Gillie : That's true.

• Trumbull : [after Gillie has knocked over a long line of busts on a staircase, Trumbull forces him to sit down in a chair]  Now you sit there, Mr. Gillie, and don't you make a sound, Mr. Gillie; as a matter of fact, don't you even *breathe*, Mr. Gillie, do you understand me?

  [Gillie makes a wheezing inhalation as a reply] 

  Trumbull : Exactly.

• Trumbull : [worn out from having killed Black, Amaryllis and Gillie]  Well, if you can't lick 'em, join 'em.

  [Trumbull slumps down to the floor at the foot of the staircase and goes to sleep] 

• Felix Gillie : [Trumbull has decided that another customer is needed after the Phipps fiasco]  What is the same thing happens that happened to us the other night?

  Trumbull : Well, it's never happened before, has it?

  Felix Gillie : But what if it does happen? Are we going to go out another night and another night and look for another man and another man and -...

  Trumbull : We'll pick someone who isn't married, Mr. Gillie.

  Felix Gillie : And how are you going to do that, huh? Wake up everybody before you do that horrible thing to him and ask him whether he's married? Or are you just going to kill off any old man that comes your way?

• Trumbull : [noticing the rather primitive-looking coffin that Mr. Gillie has just built]  What in the name of all that's holy is *that* thing?

  Felix Gillie : This? This is the new coffin. I don't like to see anybody buried naked. I don't. I just don't.

  Trumbull : No one in their right mind would be caught *dead* in that thing.

  [gives it a swift kick, causing it to fall apart] 

  Felix Gillie : [looking downhearted]  My coffin...

  Trumbull : How gratifying, Mr. Gillie, to have a, a "master craftsman" in one's employ. Well, I'm going out and drink myself into a state of stupefaction.

• Amaryllis : My father had a thriving undertaking business until you proceeded to get a-hold of it and run it into the ground.

  Trumbull : Where else?

• Trumbull : No self-respecting corpse would be seen dead in this coffin!