Daily Dialogue — January 12, 2016

JANET (now PAULA): C’mon, everybody, I want you to meet Mr. Big Stuff. I was showing Nikos property in Florida; he goes, if I’m going invest 16 million bucks, I wanna do it someplace new. I say, like where? He goes, how about Australia? And then it hits me, boom, Australia, what are you kidding me? We gotta go meet Mr. Australia himself, I say. So he goes, why not; I go, why not; pretty soon the whole group goes…
GROUP (in unison): Why not?
JANET: So, here we are. (beat) So, Nikos Papadrapolous, I’d like you to meet the favorite son of Australia, Chips O’Toole.

Complete and total silence.

JANET: Well, aren’t you going to say anything?

Silence continues until…

LAWRENCE (now CHIPS): G’day, Nikos. How’s it going, sport? Good on ya, cobber. Chips O’Toole, hotels and oil from Down Under.
JANET: You still have any of those situations available in Sydney?
LAWRENCE: No, it’s all gone, Paula. Never mind, Nikos, people drop out, don’t they? Anyway, come on up to the house, we’ll put a couple of shrimps on the barbie for ya.
JANET: Hey, I almost forgot somebody. Mr. Junior Partner, the man Chips can’t do without. The whiz kid, Randy Bentwick. Unfortunately, Randy is a mute.

— Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), written by Dale Launer and Stanley Shapiro & Paul Henning

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Surprise.

Trivia: This film is a remake of the comedy Bedtime Story (1964) and was made and released about twenty-four years after the original. Michael Caine and Steve Martin play the parts which were originated by David Niven and Marlon Brando respectively. The names of their two lead characters in this remake basically stayed the same as those from the original but have their spellings slightly altered. In the original, the lead characters were Freddy Benson and Lawrence Jameson, whilst in this remake, they are Freddie Benson and Lawrence Jamieson. Moreover, Fanny Eubank in the original is Fanny Eubank from Omaha in this remake whilst Janet Walker (Shirley Jones) in the original became Janet Colgate (Glenne Headly) in this remake.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Melinda: “When Janet shows up at the end of the film, Lawrence and Freddy are taken completely by surprise. But it’s also a surprise for the audience whether or not these guys can get it together to pull this final ruse off. The scene works because of what’s said but also because of what’s not — the painfully long silence.”