Daily Dialogue — May 12, 2016

Annie (exiting shower): What a joint. No more hot water.
Bart: It’s a roof anyway.
Annie: Yeah, it’s a roof, all right.
Bart: I could still get that job at Remington.
Annie: Forty dollars a week?
Bart: We can get by on that.
Annie: Maybe you can, but not me. It’s too slow, Bart. I want to do a little living.
Bart: What’s your idea of living?
Annie: It’s not forty bucks a week.
Bart: Tell me, when did you get this idea.
Annie: Oh, I’ve always had it since I can remember. If I don’t get it one way, I’ll get it another.
Bart: I didn’t think we had it figured out that way.
Annie: So I’ve changed my mind. I told you I was no good. I didn’t kid you, did I? Now you know. I’ve been kicked around my whole life. From now on, I’m gonna start kicking back.
Bart: What is it you want?
Annie (moving to him): When are you going to live? Four years in reform school. Then the army. I should think they’d owe you something for a change. What’s it got you being so particular?
Bart: Look, let’s not argue. I… I’ll hock my guns. It’ll give us enough dough to make another start.
Annie: There’s not enough money in those guns for the kind of start I want. I want things, a lot of things, big things. I don’t want to be afraid of life or anything else. I want a guy with spirit and guts. A guy who’ll laugh at anything, do anything. A guy who can kick over the traces and win the world for me.
Bart (hits wall): Look, I don’t want to look at that mirror and see nothing but a stickup man staring back at me.
Annie: (moves away) You’d better kiss me goodbye, Bart. (lies down in bed) Because I won’t be here when you get back. C’mon, Bart. Let’s finish it the way we started it. On the level.

He crosses the room and kisses her.

— Gun Crazy (1950), screenplay by MacKinlay Kantor and Dalton Trumbo (front Millard Kaufman), story by MacKinlay Kantor

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Femme Fatale.

Trivia: Included among the “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die”, edited by Steven Schneider.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Critical scene in which Annie ‘seduces’ Bart to go against his commitment to avoid breaking the law. That’s a femme fatale for you.