Playmates (1941)

John Barrymore: John Barrymore

Quotes 

• John Barrymore : Kay Kyser. Kay Kyser! What Machiavellian mental gymnastics led you to associate me with an ether polluting, ear drum destroying, mob haranguing, buffoon - like Kay Kyser!

  Lulu Monahan : Will you stop screaming and listen for a minute.

  John Barrymore : Get away from me! Foul harpy! I have played "Hamlet" before Kings and Queens. Had them groveling at me feet in abject worship.

  Lulu Monahan : Yes, I know that...

  John Barrymore : And you sacrilegiously affiliate me magic name with a barefoot bumpkin, a bifocal billy goat, from the hills of North Carolina! Where to this day, civilization has not yet penetrated.

• Mrs. Penelope Pennypacker : [to John Barrymore]  Do sit down.

  Grandma Kyser : My, my! Have an accident?

  John Barrymore : No, thanks. I just had one.

  [hollers as he sits down] 

  Mrs. Penelope Pennypacker : Oh, he must have sprained his back! I hope I have some liniments in the house!

  Grandma Kyser : Have you ever tried rubbing alcohol?

  John Barrymore : Not since prohibition.

• Lulu Monahan : Look, Pennypacker wants to sign you for two years at big dough. You have got to get back in the public eye!

  John Barrymore : I have been in the public eye so long, it is permanently bloodshot!

• John Barrymore : Don't mind my secretary, Mr. Tremble, she is a thyroid patient.

  Philip Tremble : I hope I haven't upset her.

  John Barrymore : Oh, no. Not at all. Not at all. She loves getting hysterical!

• John Barrymore : I'm dying and you're telling jokes!

• Lulu Monahan : You help me build up this gag with Kyser and you'll have a nice, juicy, big radio deal and your worries'll be over!

  John Barrymore : But, why Kyser? I would rather be found lying on a flop house floor getting stiff with rigor mortis.

  Lulu Monahan : You can get stiff with anybody you want; but, Kyser has news value. And we're gonna cash in on it if I have to bust a girdle trying!

• John Barrymore : It's not right! I am being persecuted by a successful hill-billy. The name of Barrymore linked with that of a corn-fed dialectician. How could I ever - face me public - again?

• John Barrymore : This is the most unkindest cut of all!

• Prince Maharoohu : The clouds are lifting now. Yes. I am peering into your future.

  John Barrymore : What do you see?

  Prince Maharoohu : There are many beautiful women. Much trouble.

  John Barrymore : Are you sure that isn't my past?

• John Barrymore : Under no conditions will I ever appear on the same stage with that nurse maid to a bass tuba.

• Kay Kyser : This is my grandmother from Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Grandma, Mr. John Barrymore.

  Grandma Kyser : How do you do, Mr. Barrymore?

  John Barrymore : My dear, dear lady. I am honored to meet the glorious fountainhead from which spring this sparkling brook of wit, your grandson, came.

• Kay Kyser : I think I better stick to comedy.

  John Barrymore : The line between comedy and tragedy is thinner than a hair. When you play the Professor of the College of Musical Knowledge, that is comedy. When you play Hamlet or Macbeth, that, me dear lad, is tragedy.

  Kay Kyser : That's what I'm afraid of.

  Grandma Kyser : Oh, Kay, don't be so namby-pamby! One would think you'd never been on the stage before.

  Kay Kyser : Yes, but, Shakespeare!

  Grandma Kyser : Acting is acting!

• John Barrymore : It has been a long time: "To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer, The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them. To die-to sleep, No more; and by a sleep to say we end, The heart-ache and thousand natural shocks, That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation, Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; Perchance to dream-ay, there's the rub."

• John Barrymore : Watch your diction. Use the lips, the tongue.

• Lulu Monahan : Incidentally, you're supposed to be playing up to Kyser, not his girl.

  John Barrymore : An occasional tête-à-tête with Miss Simms is nothing that should arouse your evangelistic fervor. I am entitled to some compensation for associating with this Dixieland Macbeth.

  Lulu Monahan : Hmm. Love finds Andy hardening of the arteries.

• Lulu Monahan : If you must play Romeo, pick out a Juliet in your own division. Canvas his grandma.

  John Barrymore : You would have me encourage that Confederate Mother Machree?

• John Barrymore : Relax, little artichoke! Never trouble, trouble, till trouble, trouble's trouble.

• John Barrymore : You are looking at man, at peace with the world, me little jellybean, at peace with the world.

• Carmen del Toro : I'm sorry, baby. But, you know how it is with a bullfighter. I lose my temper sometimes.

  John Barrymore : I am glad I'm not a bull.

  Carmen del Toro : Oh, I wouldn't let anybody in the world hurt you, angel. Except me!

• Carmen del Toro : What can I do to help you?

  John Barrymore : Well, it's this Kyser fellow, Enchilada. If you could wear him down a bit. A sort of jangle his nerves.

• Carmen del Toro : You want Carmen to make him suffer?

  John Barrymore : Could you?

  Carmen del Toro : The man never live that I cannot make suffer. And because I love you, I will make Kyser suffer - even more than I made you suffer.

• Carmen del Toro : Did you tell him to get in the mud with Shakespeare?

  John Barrymore : Not, mud. Mood!

• Ish Kabibble : What did the Mama Bullet say to the Papa Bullet?

  John Barrymore : What did the Mama Bullet say to the Papa Bullet?

  Ish Kabibble : I think we're gonna have a BB.

• John Barrymore : If I have to take desperate measures, I will.

  Lulu Monahan : Now, don't do anything that might get you in trouble later.

  John Barrymore : What could get me in more trouble than playing Shakespeare with that syncopated cotton picker?

• John Barrymore : Contract or no contract. I will not appear on the stage with that detour from Tobacco Road.

• John Barrymore : On to Mecca!

• Ginny Simms - Band Singer : Whatever would make a girl like that want to fight with bulls?

  John Barrymore : Probably, a sense of fairness, my dear child. Any animal smaller than a bull would be outmatched.

• John Barrymore : [Carmen kicks Barrymore in the behind]  What was that for?

  Carmen del Toro : That's to remind you not to make any goo-goo eyes at that Simms dame.

  John Barrymore : Carmen, I never laid a finger on Ginny.

  Carmen del Toro : Well, see that you don't, baby. You wouldn't look so good playing Hamlet with no head! Vamonos!

• John Barrymore : Privacy, at last! Come in, wench.

• John Barrymore : I agreed to appear in a festival in return for a promised contract with Mr. Nickelstasher.

  Lulu Monahan : That's Pennypacker!