A Very Special Favor (1965)
Charles Boyer: Michel Boullard
Quotes
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Etienne, Restaurant Proprietor : Two people armed, suspicious, disliking each other - what have you got?
Michel Boullard : Marriage - American style.
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Michel Boullard : Mr Chadwick, many years ago in my youth, wanting to taste all of life's pleasures, I did a very foolhardy thing... I bit into a marriage licence
Paul Chadwick : A lot of good men have choked on that
Michel Boullard : [having coffee poured into his cup] Thank you. She was an American. Oh, it was an ideal marriage - until we left the wedding chapel
Paul Chadwick : That's as much happiness as any man has the right to expect
Michel Boullard : It was raining. Her gown got wet. And somehow she made me feel that I had failed in my first act as a husband; I had permitted the rain to fall
Paul Chadwick : She lost confidence. If you couldn't stop the rain, what would you do if an earthquake came?
Michel Boullard : I continued to fail her when she needed me most. Where was I when the pilot light went out on the stove? When her car ran out of gas? And what was I doing at the office, the day the plumbing got clogged?
Paul Chadwick : An American husband would never be at the office when the plumbing got clogged - he'd rush home to share it with his wife
Michel Boullard : Then, one evening, we were sitting there enjoying a delightful dinner, when suddenly, my wife spoiled everything...
Paul Chadwick : ...She showed up
Michel Boullard : How did you know I was with another woman?
Paul Chadwick : You said you were enjoying dinner, didn't you?
Michel Boullard : Oh, it was a harmless flirtation. I tried to explain to my wife. But all she could do was stand there - and say, 'Well'! It would not have helped to have dropped a thousand apologies into that well
Paul Chadwick : A wife's well is bottomless
Michel Boullard : Now with a French wife, when I got home I would have found her in tears - and a new negligee. But with my wife, when I knocked on the bedroom door...
Paul Chadwick : ...you found her with her lawyer...
Michel Boullard : ...and a travel agent
Michel Boullard : The next morning, she and the child were on a plane back to America. Fini!
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Michel Boullard : Monsieur, a father with a daughter who is a thirty year old spinster... do you know what it means?
Paul Chadwick : Yeah, it means that any able-bodied man who can run, walk or crawl should avoid you
Michel Boullard : Of course, when a daughter posseses a certain innocence at eighteen, for a father it's a joy to behold. When she's twenty-one, you're still happy but, er, thoughtful. When she's twenty-five, you are no longer smiling...
Paul Chadwick : ...It's getting grim
Michel Boullard : When she's twenty-nine, going on thirty, what does a father do?
Paul Chadwick : Turns to prayer. There's nothing left
Michel Boullard : There is one hope - a man. A very special man; worldly, sophisticated. One who will gently lead her into a romantic adventure, an emotional interlude from whose fires a woman shall be born. Such a man is hard to find...
Paul Chadwick : I will be, if you give me a ten minute head start!
Michel Boullard : Please, Monsieur, I'm desperate. Can a man abandon his only child?
Paul Chadwick : I think, in this case, society will forgive you
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Paul Chadwick : What does she look like now? Today? This minute?
Michel Boullard : How does one describe inner beauty?
Paul Chadwick : Forget the inside. Let's stay on the outside for a while
Michel Boullard : I feel safe in saying, she's attractive
Paul Chadwick : You feel safe? Would it be risky for anyone else to say it?
Michel Boullard : I'm trying to be objective. You don't like heavy women?
Paul Chadwick : No
Michel Boullard : You like them slim...?
Paul Chadwick : How slim?
Michel Boullard : She's not the type of woman with the large hips and the over-developed bosoms that is so distasteful to men
Paul Chadwick : What men?
Michel Boullard : An animated face, expressive eyes, a dazzling smile, exceptional teeth - outstanding
Paul Chadwick : Big
Michel Boullard : A matter of semantics
Paul Chadwick : She's a skinny, flat-chested girl with buckteeth. And so far you've only been talking about her good points
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Michel Boullard : She's almost 30.
Etienne, Restaurant Proprietor : She's looking around.
Michel Boullard : At 18 when a girl looks around, there is usually a man following her. At 30, when you look around, the only thing coming is 40.
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Etienne, Restaurant Proprietor : But you said he had to be destroyed.
Michel Boullard : I was thinking of a normal revenge. In France, what happens? The woman shoots the man. That's civilized.
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Michel Boullard : Tell me, why don't you wear your blue suit tonight?
Arnold Plum : It accentuates my bad posture. I have very round shoulders. She noticed that on our first date.
Michel Boullard : You're lucky. You might have gone all through life without ever having known it.
Arnold Plum : That's true.
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Paul Chadwick : Married to her for life?
Michel Boullard : Would I make such a bad father-in-law?
Paul Chadwick : You're a slippery, cagey old fiend - but likable. I can take you as a father-in-law, but how do we keep her out of it?
Michel Boullard : She works every day. Goes to meetings. How often would you have to see her?
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Michel Boullard : Ah, youth. You get apartment keys and I get saccharine.
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Arnold Plum : And if it weren't for her, I wouldn't be wearing these corrective shoes. She had the outside of all my shoes lined with lead to give me balance.
Michel Boullard : She's done a lot for you.
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Michel Boullard : For what she did, make her suffer, my son - marry her.
Paul Chadwick : I'm being broadsided. You said 'my son' again and my stomach didn't turn. There's something evil going on and I don't know how to fight it.