Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

Jack Carson: Gooper Pollitt

Quotes 

• Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : Look, Mama, he's wearing Brick's birthday present. I haven't given you my present yet, but I will now. I have an announcement to make.

  Mae Pollitt : What kind of an announcement?

  Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : An announcement of life beginning. A child is coming, sired by Brick out of Maggie the cat. I have Brick's child in my body, and that is my present to you.

  Mae Pollitt : Did you ever in all your born days hear such a bold-faced lie?

  Gooper Pollitt : Shut up.

  Ida 'Big Momma' Pollitt : [kissing Maggie]  Thank you. Thank you very much.

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Yes indeed, this girl has life in her body. And that's no lie. Gooper, I want to talk to my lawyer in the morning. Brick?

  Brick Pollitt : Yes, Big Daddy?

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : I'm going to go out and look this place over before I give it up. The place and the people on it.

• Brick Pollitt : A family crisis brings out the best and the worst in every member of the family.

  Gooper Pollitt : That's the truth.

  Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : Amen.

  Mae Pollitt : You want to talk about the truth? You're not pregnant!

  Gooper Pollitt : Keep still, Mae.

  Mae Pollitt : She's making it up!

  Gooper Pollitt : I said shut up.

  Mae Pollitt : Don't you try to kid us, Maggie!

  Brick Pollitt : Mae, she's not kidding you.

  Mae Pollitt : How can she be pregnant by you when you won't even...

  Gooper Pollitt : Mae, will you be quiet!

  Mae Pollitt : We occupy the next room and the walls between aren't soundproof. We hear the nightly pleadings and the nightly refusals!

  Brick Pollitt : Not everybody makes as much noise about love as you do.

  Mae Pollitt : Brick, I never thought you would stoop to her level!

  Brick Pollitt : You heard what Big Daddy said. That girl's got life in her body.

  Mae Pollitt : That's a lie!

• Ida 'Big Momma' Pollitt : I'm talking in Big Daddy's languge now. I'm his wife, not his widow. I'm still his wif!

  Gooper Pollitt : What we've got here...

  Mae Pollitt : What Gooper's saying is just a plan, a basis.

  Ida 'Big Momma' Pollitt : I'll tell you what your plan is. Margaret, what is it Big Daddy always says when he's disgusted?

  Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : He says bull when he's disgusted.

  Ida 'Big Momma' Pollitt : Yes, that's right. I say bull too, like Big Daddy.

  Mae Pollitt : Well, coarse language don't seem called for to me.

  Ida 'Big Momma' Pollitt : Bull!

• Gooper Pollitt : I don't give a damn whether Big Daddy likes me, or don't likes me. Or did or never did. Or will or will never.

• Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : This is a deliberate campaign to ruin Brick!

  Mae Pollitt : He don't need no help.

  Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : [crying]  And for the most sordid reasons on earth! Greed! Avarice and greed!

  Ida 'Big Momma' Pollitt : Margaret, darling, don't cry.

  Mae Pollitt : Well, that takes the cake! Who are the tears for? Brick? Big Daddy? Or are they for yourself? Are you crying cause you're childless? You know why she's got no kids? Ask her big, beautiful husband!

  Gooper Pollitt : Mae!

• Gooper Pollitt : You said I never loved Big Daddy. How would you know? How would he know? Did he ever let anybody love him? It was always Brick, always. From the day he was born, he was always partial to Brick. Why? Big Daddy wanted me to become a lawyer. I became a lawyer. He said to get married, I got married. He said to have kids, I had kids. He said to live in Memphis, I lived in Memphis. Whatever he said to do, I did.

• Gooper Pollitt : [to Maggie]  Why don't you go up there and drink with Brick if the conquerin' hero hasn't passed out already? He may have to pass up the Sugar Bowl this year or was it the Rose Bowl he made his famous run in?

  Mae Pollitt : It was the punch bowl, Honey, the cut-glass punch bowl.

• Gooper Pollitt : The point is I won't see this place run into the ground by a drunken ex-football hero.

  Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : You shut up about my husband!

  Mae Pollitt : You shut up!

• Ida 'Big Momma' Pollitt : What's all this about?

  Gooper Pollitt : Doc, Big Mama wants the whole truth about the report we got from the clinic today.

  Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : The truth, the truth! Everybody keeps hollering about the truth. Well, the truth is as dirty as lies!

  Ida 'Big Momma' Pollitt : Is there something I don't know, Doc?

  Dr. Baugh : Well, Ida...

  Ida 'Big Momma' Pollitt : I want to know! Somebody must be lying! I want to know about my husand!

  Dr. Baugh : He had the most thorough examination ever given at the Oppenheim clinic.

  Gooper Pollitt : It's one of the best in the country.

  Mae Pollitt : It's the best in the country, bar none.

  Gooper Pollitt : They were ninety-nine percent sure before they even started.

  Ida 'Big Momma' Pollitt : Sure of what?

  Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : Not now!

  Mae Pollitt : The test was positive!

  Gooper Pollitt : Mae, shut up.

  Dr. Baugh : It's helpless, Ida. He knows it, too.

• Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : Did the storm cause any damage, Big Daddy?

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Which storm you talking about, the one on the outside or the hullabaloo I heard going on in here? Heard some mighty loud talking. What's the powwow about?

  Mae Pollitt : Nothing, Big Daddy, nothing at all.

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : What's in them important-looking documents you got there, Gooper?

  Gooper Pollitt : Nothing, sir, nothing much of anything at all.

• Mae Pollitt : Gooper?

  [calling his name inquisitively] 

  Mae Pollitt : What have all the chil'ens been shot for?

  Gooper Pollitt : Everything 'cept shootin' chickens, I guess.