Hired Wife (1940)

Rosalind Russell: Kendal Browning

Photos 

Quotes 

• Jose de Briganza : Miss Walden is a close friend?

  Kendal Browning : Of Stephen's.

  Jose de Briganza : I will kill him.

  Kendal Browning : That wouldn't help me.

  Jose de Briganza : I will kill her.

  Kendal Browning : Now you're talking. But no thank you.

• Stephen Dexter : Who thought up this unsavory scheme?

  Kendal Browning : What's so unsavory about my being your house guest?

  Roger Van Horn : Well, then treat her as a boarder. You two don't have to act married, unless somebody's looking.

  Stephen Dexter : But think of the position it puts me in!

  Kendal Browning : 'We Dexters prefer death to dishonor.' Well, what about me? What am I going to tell my husband?

  Stephen Dexter : Huh?

  Kendal Browning : Not you. The good one I'm going to marry next.

  Roger Van Horn : Well, have it your own way. I advise you to grit your teeth and go through with it.

  Stephen Dexter : No!

  Kendal Browning : No!

  Roger Van Horn : Very well, very well. If that's your attitude, I will see you in the bankrupcy courts. Goodbye, prudes!

• Roger Van Horn : Hey, which one of you bought a cockatoo?

  Stephen Dexter : Huh?

  Kendal Browning : Oh, I did. My old one died.

  Roger Van Horn : One cockatoo, charged off to living expenses. Yep.

• Kendal Browning : Why don't you send Kelly to Kansas City? He'd be glad to get away from Denver, and that little redhead.

  Stephen Dexter : Oh, is she his secretary?

  Kendal Browning : Ah, I see what you mean.

  Stephen Dexter : Kendal, we can't go on like this. One of us has got to give in.

  Kendal Browning : Well, Stephen, I'm waiting.

• Stephen Dexter : I give you my solemn word, that if I live till I have a beard down here, I'll never lay a hand on you. Except maybe in anger.

  Kendal Browning : You know, if I thought you meant that, Stephen, I'd - I'd quit right away.

• Kendal Browning : If you're sure this is the real thing, my blessings, Stephen. I won't try and stop you. I'm through.

  Stephen Dexter : What? Y, yo, you're not going to leave me with all this work... .

• Kendal Browning : I wish I could afford to strangle you.

• Stephen Dexter : Get ahold of her. I'll see her myself.

  Kendal Browning : [Going out the door]  Wouldn't it be easier and quicker to pay her off right now?

• Kendal Browning : I'm not through working for you. I'm just through caring what you do outside office hours.

  Stephen Dexter : Mmm, well that's better.

  Kendal Browning : For me, not for you.

• Stephen Dexter : What are you doing to me now?

  Kendal Browning : Not to you - for you.

• Kendal Browning : [to Stephen Dexter, as she exits the door with her arms full]  Close it, Butch!

• Kendal Browning : [Going over José's expenses, charged to the company, to lure Phyllis Walden away from Stephen]  What's this item, one cockatoo?

  Jose de Briganza : [Waving one hand behind his head]  You know, cockatoo.

  Kendal Browning : Yeah, I know what they are, but what I wanna know is how do you use them in making love.

  Jose de Briganza : Phyllis want one for the pet, so I give her the bird.

  Kendal Browning : Oh, that's all right by me. But, uh, José, $75 for one bird?

  Jose de Briganza : It talks.

  Kendal Browning : For that amount of money it ought a read, write and vote.

• Kendal Browning : I think you've got something there - Little Annie Cement, that'd be kinda cute.

• Roger Van Horn : All you've got to do is marry someone. It doesn't make any difference who she is or what she is. Of course, it would be better if she was a girl you could trust. But all she's really got to do is say, '"I do."

  Stephen Dexter : [Roger and Stephen both look at Kendal]  Kendall, whatta you say?

  Kendal Browning : I do.

• Roger Van Horn : Well, Kendal, you better go home and start parking.

  Stephen Dexter : You going away?

  Kendal Browning : Oh, heh, your attorney advised me to move.

  Stephen Dexter : Move? Where?

  Kendal Browning : Your house.

  Stephen Dexter : My house? My house!

  Roger Van Horn : Naturally your house, your house. Would Kendal move into my house, my house?

  Stephen Dexter : She's capable of anything.

• Stephen Dexter : Roger, get me a divorce.

  Roger Van Horn : You mind waiting until morning?

  Stephen Dexter : How soon can I get one?

  Roger Van Horn : Well, is Kendal willing?

  Kendal Browning : Uh, no.

  Roger Van Horn : Well, if she fights...

  Kendal Browning : She will.

  Roger Van Horn : Then it'll take years.

  Stephen Dexter : Years?

  Roger Van Horn : Five years. You're best chance is to disappear and be given up for dead. Course, it's just a curbstone opinion.

• Roger Van Horn : [after Kendal makes a racket to wake him up]  Hey, cut that out. I'm asleep.

  Kendal Browning : [to Stephen, pointing to Roger in the window above]  Ask grandma - he was in the house all night.

  Roger Van Horn : Oh, go to bed.

• Stephen Dexter : [Looking at the billboard on the building opposite his office window]  Kendal, uh, who is that girl.

  Kendal Browning : Well, I don't know her name, but her face is on the canned tomatoes I use.

• Stephen Dexter : Mac. I want a new campaign. And it must be warm, and it must be human.

  Kendal Browning : The cement you love to touch.

  Stephen Dexter : Yes, uh, the cem... you love... no, no, no. I mean we must make our cement stand out - give it personality.

• Kendal Browning : I'll tell you what you could do - you could perfume it.