Daily Dialogue — May 11, 2012

Alfred: Oh, hello, Miss Novak.

Klara: Good evening, Mr. Kralik.

Alfred: It’s quite a coincidence. I had an appointment here, too. You haven’t seen Mr. Pirovitch by chance?

Klara: No, no, I haven’t.

Alfred: All right. Well, I think I’ll wait. Do you mind if I sit down?

Klara: Yes, I do. You know, I have an appointment, too, Mr. Kralik.

Alfred: Oh, yes, I remember. Yes. My, your friend seems to be a little late.

Klara: And I’ll thank you not to be sarcastic. I know you’ve had a bad day, and you probably feel very bitter. Still, that’s no reason –

Alfred: Bitter? Me? About leaving Matuschek and Company? When I got home and sat at the phone, in five minutes I had what amounts to two offers.

Klara: Well, I congratulate you. I wish you good luck.

Alfred: I see you’re reading Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.

Klara: Yes, do you mind?

Alfred: No, no, I just didn’t expect to meet you in a café with Tolstoy, that’s all. It’s quite a surprise. I didn’t know you cared for high literature.

Klara: There are many things you don’t know about me, Mr. Kralik.

Alfred: Have you read Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky?

Klara: No, I haven’t.

Alfred: I have. There are many things you don’t know about me, Miss Novak. As a matter of fact there might be a lot we don’t know about each other. You know, people seldom go to the trouble of scratching the surface of things to find the inner truth.

Klara: I really wouldn’t care to scratch your surface, Mr. Kralik, because I know exactly what I’d find. Instead of a heart, a handbag. Instead of a soul, a suitcase. And instead of an intellect, a cigarette lighter which doesn’t work.

Alfred: That’s very nicely put. Yes. Comparing my intellect with a cigarette lighter that doesn’t work. Yeah, that’s a very interesting mixture of poetry and meanness.

Klara: Meanness? Let me –

Alfred: Don’t misunderstand me, Miss Novak, I’m only trying to pay you a compliment.

Klara: Mr. Kralik, please! I told you I was expecting somebody.

Alfred: Look, if your party doesn’t show up, would I –

Klara: Don’t worry about that. My party will show up. So you don’t have to entertain me.

Alfred: Have you read Zola’s Madame Bovary?

Klara: Madame Bovary is not by Zola. Mr. Kralik, are you still here? Are you deliberately trying to spoil my evening? Why do you want to do me harm? Why do you hate me so?

Alfred: I don’t hate you.

Klara: Oh, I suppose you love me.

Alfred: Why should I? What’ve you done to make me love you?

Klara: I don’t want you to love me.

Alfred: I don’t! Do you know what that tune reminds me of?

Klara: Yes, thank you. Two dozen unsold cigarette boxes.

Alfred: No, no. Wrong again. It reminds me of a girl out of a job. A very nice girl, too, I thought.

Klara: You thought that? How you can lie.

Alfred: But that was before you started to make fun of me and giving imitations of me in the locker room. And I’d like to take this opportunity, Miss Novak, to inform you that I don’t walk like a duck and I’m not bowlegged.

Klara: Aren’t you?

Alfred: No, I’m not.

Klara: Well, I have information to the contrary. Mr. Vadas assured me that you have your trousers specially made.

Alfred: Well, that’s a lie! Mr. Vadas? So that’s the kind of a man you trust, huh? I’ve never been to a tailor in my life. If you think I’m bowlegged, come on out to the sidewalk and I’ll pull up my trousers. How would you like it if start making remarks about how red your hands are?

Klara: That’s just exactly what you did.

Alfred: After you started making fun of my legs.

Klara: My hands aren’t red at all.

Alfred: No, now after I called your attention to them. Now let me tell you something, Miss Novak, you may have very beautiful thoughts, but you certainly hide them. As far as your actions are concerned, you’re cold and snippy like an old maid and you’re gonna have a tough time getting a man to fall in love with you.

Klara: I, an old maid? So, no man could fall in love with me? Mr. Kralik, you’re getting funnier every minute. I could show you letters that would open your eyes. No, I guess not. You probably wouldn’t understand what’s in them. They’re written by a type of man so far superior to you that it isn’t even funny. I have to laugh when I think of you calling me an old maid. You! You little insignificant clerk.

Alfred: Goodbye, Miss Novak.

Klara: Goodbye, Mr. Kralik.

— — Alfred (James Stewart), Klara (Margaret Sullivan), The Shop Around The Corner (1940), screenplay by Samson Raphaelson, based on a play by Miklós László

You can see the actual scene here.

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is first date, suggested by churnage. Today’s suggestion is from Teddy Pasternak.

Trivia: In the Book “Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise”, Ernst Lubitsch called this film “the best picture I ever made in my life.”

Dialogue On Dialogue: Tolstoy? Dostoyevsky? First things I think about when I’m writing dialogue for a first date!

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