Daily Dialogue — June 5, 2013

Macaulay Connor: You’ve got all the arrogance of your class, haven’t you?
Tracy Lord: What have classes to do with it? What do they matter except for the people in them? George comes from the so-called lower class, Dexter, the upper. Well?
Macaulay Connor: Well…
Tracy Lord: Mac the night watchman is a prince among men, Uncle Willie is a… pincher. Upper and lower my eye. I’ll take the lower, thanks.
Macaulay Connor: If you can’t get a drawing room.
Tracy Lord: What does that mean?
Macaulay Connor: My mistake.
Tracy Lord: Decidedly. You’re insulting!
Macaulay Connor: Sorry.
Tracy Lord: Oh, don’t apologize!
Macaulay Connor: Well, who’s apologizing?
Tracy Lord: I never knew such a man.
Macaulay Connor: You wouldn’t be likely to, from where you sit!
Tracy Lord: Talk about arrogance.
Macaulay Connor: Tracy.
Tracy Lord: What do you want?
Macaulay Connor: [pause] You’re wonderful.

— The Philadelphia Story (1940), screen play by Donald Ogden Stewart, play by Philip Barry

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is witty banter, suggested by stoneinthesling.

Trivia: Katharine Hepburn starred in the Broadway production of the play on which this film was based and owned the film rights to the material; they were purchased for her by billionaire Howard Hughes, then given to her as a gift.

Dialogue On Dialogue: This movie is perhaps the apex the play-adapted-into-movie era that reigned for the first four decades of the 20th century. No wonder with such brilliant dialogue.

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