Hold Back the Dawn (1941)

Olivia de Havilland: Emmy Brown

Photos 

Quotes 

• Emmy Brown : This is America! For the Rockefellers and the Joneses. For the Mcgonigles and the Frankfurters. For the Jeffersons and the Slavinskies. You see, its, its like, um, like a lake. Clear and fresh and it'll never get stagnant while new streams are flowing in.

  Georges Iscovescu : Well, your people are building pretty high dams to stop those streams.

  Emmy Brown : Just to keep out the scum, Georges.

• Georges Iscovescu : Emmy, I've always been full of words. You know, big ones, fancy ones. Just one more word: thanks.

  Emmy Brown : No. You see, I come from a small town. We don't have any of those fine hotels. We eat at the drugstore. But, we leave a tip just the same.

• Georges Iscovescu : You needn't be afraid. Its like a classroom, isn't it? The pupils and their teacher, the rules of deportment, schedules, discipline. You are very conscientious, Miss Brown. No infringement of the regulations for you. No abandons. No violent desires. If you found one in your sober little mind, you would tell it to go and stand in the corner, wouldn't you Miss Brown?

  Emmy Brown : I don't know?

• Emmy Brown : When they heard that I had married a foreigner, there was only one person who said anything nasty about you and that was Mrs. Bigelow who runs "Ye Ol' Pilgrim Tea Shopping". She said, "I suppose he's just one of those foreigners coming with empty hands to grab from America everything he can." Mr. McAdams put her in her place. He said, "I suppose your great great grandmother was Pocahontas, Mrs. Bigelow?" Funny?

• Emmy Brown : I'm like a cucumber in an icebox... feel my cheek.

• Emmy Brown : Who did that? I said, who did that?

  Tony : It was me.

  Emmy Brown : You mean, it was I, Tony.

  Tony : No, it wasn't you Miss Brown, it was me!

• Emmy Brown : No, thank you, I don't smoke. The school board doesn't approve. To tell you the truth, I don't like them much.

• Georges Iscovescu : I am in your debt. For there is no way I can pay you for the loveliness of these few minutes. I thank you, Miss Brown.

  [Kisses her hand] 

  Emmy Brown : You're the strangest man.

  Emmy Brown : Perhaps, the loneliest man.

• Emmy Brown : Good night.

  Georges Iscovescu : It's better than good! Somehow, these walls will not seem so empty inside. You will be here very close to me. Breathing in the same night.

  Emmy Brown : Yes. Good night.

  Georges Iscovescu : Good night.

• Emmy Brown : [Waking in morning]  What is it? What are you doing here? You have no right to be here.

  Georges Iscovescu : Of course, I have no right to be here. No right to sit watching your face, longing to write it a poem. No right to listen to disturb your heart. No right to tell you that - I love you very much.

• Emmy Brown : Oh, please don't come near.

  Georges Iscovescu : You needn't be afraid, Miss Brown. Not of a dead man. I am dead, you see. I've asked myself a thousand times why they shouldn't bury me. Why I should go on breathing and talking and walking - when I was dead. Perhaps I know now. Perhaps it was - to see the sunrise once more, to hear enchantment in a woman's voice, to feel her yearnings, the warmth of her lips.

• Emmy Brown : It was a perfect madhouse back home! Nobody could believe it. And the questions they asked! How it happened and who you were and what you did? I had to make up a lot of the answers. And you ought to hear how they pronounce our name: Itskybitsky and Itskywhiskey.

• Emmy Brown : Did you ever notice how they talk sometimes? Listen to those windshield wipers. Together. Together. Together. Together. Can you hear it?

• Emmy Brown : I don't worry about you. Only for one thing, Georges.

  Georges Iscovescu : Yes?

  Emmy Brown : You smoke too much.

• Emmy Brown : If it hurts too much, you blow the horn, promise?

• Emmy Brown : Perhaps, when I first met you, I shouldn't have been so vain. I should have looked at your face more closely.