Daily Dialogue — June 23, 2012

He buries himself behind the Wall Street Journal again. Sugar hesitates for a second, then throws the ball back to the girls. She steps closer to Joe, peers around the paper, studying him.

SUGAR : Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?
JOE: (without looking up) Not very likely.
SUGAR: Are you staying at the hotel?
JOE: Not at all.
SUGAR: Your face is familiar.
JOE: Possible you saw it in a newspaper — or magazine — Vanity Fair –
SUGAR: That must be it.
JOE: (waving her aside) Would you mind moving just a little? You’re blocking my view.
SUGAR: Your view of what?
JOE : They run up a red-and-white flag on the yacht when it’s time for cocktails.
SUGAR: (snapping at the bait) You have a yacht? Which one is yours — the big one?
JOE: Certainly not. With all that unrest in the world, I don’t think anybody should have a yacht that sleeps more than twelve.
SUGAR: I quite agree. Tell me, who runs up that flag — your wife?
JOE: No, my flag steward.
SUGAR: And who mixes the cocktails — your wife?
JOE : No, my cocktail steward. Look, if you’re interested in whether I’m married or not –
SUGAR: I’m not interested at all.
JOE: Well, I’m not.
SUGAR: That’s very interesting.
Joe resumes reading the paper. Sugar sits on the sand beside his chair.
SUGAR: How’s the stock market?
JOE: (lackadaisically) Up, up, up.
SUGAR: I’ll bet just while we were talking, you made like a hundred thousand dollars.
JOE : Could be. Do you play the market?
SUGAR : No — the ukulele. And I sing.
JOE: For your own amusement?
SUGAR : Well — a group of us are appearing at the hotel. Sweet Sue and Her Society Syncopators.
JOE: You’re society girls?
SUGAR : Oh, yes. Quite. You know — Vassar, Bryn Mawr — we’re only doing this for a lark.
JOE : Syncopators — does that mean you play that fast music — jazz?
SUGAR: Yeah. Real hot.
JOE : Oh. Well, I guess some like it hot. But personally, I prefer classical music.
SUGAR: So do I. As a matter of fact, I spent three years at the Sheboygan Conservatory of Music.
JOE : Good school! And your family doesn’t object to your career?
SUGAR : They do indeed. Daddy threatened to cut me off without a cent, but I don’t care. It was such a bore — coming-out parties, cotillions –
JOE: Inauguration balls –
SUGAR: Opening of the Opera –
JOE: Riding to hounds –
SUGAR: — and always the same Four Hundred.
JOE : You know, it’s amazing we never ran into each other before. I’m sure I would have remembered anybody as attractive as you.
SUGAR : You’re very kind. I’ll bet you’re also very gentle — and helpless –
JOE: I beg your pardon?
SUGAR: You see, I have this theory about men with glasses.
JOE: What theory?
SUGAR: Maybe I’ll tell you when I know you a little better. What are you doing tonight?
JOE: Tonight?
SUGAR: I thought you might like to come to the hotel and hear us play.
JOE: I’d like to — but it may be rather difficult.
SUGAR: Why?
JOE: (his eyes on the pail with the shells) I only come ashore twice a day — when the tide goes out.
SUGAR: Oh?
JOE : It’s on the account of the shells. That’s my hobby.
SUGAR: You collect shells?
JOE: (taking a handful of shells from the pail) Yes. So did my father and my grandfather — we’ve all had this passion for shells — that’s why we named the oil company after it.
SUGAR: (wide-eyed) Shell Oil?
JOE : Please — no names. Just call me Junior.

Joe (Tony Curtis), Sugar (Marilyn Monroe), Some Like It Hot (1959), screenplay by Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond, based on a story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is bragging suggested by churnage. Today’s suggestion by Traci Nell Peterson

Trivia: Jack Lemmon wrote that the first sneak preview had a bad reaction with many audience walkouts. Many studio personnel and agents offered advice to Billy Wilder on what scenes to reshoot, add and cut. Lemmon asked Wilder what he was going to do. Wilder responded: “Why, nothing. This is a very funny movie and I believe in it just as it is. Maybe this is the wrong neighborhood in which to have shown it. At any rate, I don’t panic over one preview. It’s a hell of a movie.” Wilder held the next preview in the Westwood section of Los Angeles, and the audience stood up and cheered.

Dialogue On Dialogue: A nice bit of business where both participants in the scene are bragging and lying at the same time.