How to Steal a Million (1966)

Hugh Griffith: Charles Bonnet

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Quotes 

• Nicole Bonnet : I keep telling you, Papa, when you sell a fake masterpiece, that is a crime!

  Charles Bonnet : But I don't sell them to poor people, only to millionaires.

• Charles Bonnet : Don't you know that in his lifetime Van Gogh only sold one painting? While I, in loving memory of his tragic genius, have already sold two.

• Charles Bonnet : This tall, good-looking ruffian with blue eyes, he didn't, er, molest you in any way, did he?

  [Nicole is staring off dreamily] 

  Charles Bonnet : Well, did he?

  Nicole Bonnet : Not much.

• Charles Bonnet : I doubt very much if Van Gogh himself would have gone through so much trouble.

  Nicole Bonnet : He didn't have to. He was Van Gogh!

• Charles Bonnet : American millionaires must be all quite mad. Perhaps it's something they put in the ink when they print the money.

• Charles Bonnet : What have I done? I've given the world a precious opportunity of studying and viewing the Cellini Venus.

  Nicole Bonnet : Which is not by Cellini!

  Charles Bonnet : Ahh, labels, labels. It's working with the Americans that's given you this obsession with labels and brand names. I wish you'd give up that ridiculous job.

• Charles Bonnet : Our Cellini Venus is really our own. So, be proud of it. Your own grandfather made it, and your own grandmother posed for it. For months she stood without moving a muscle while your grandfather perpetuated her in marble. That was, naturally, before she started eating those enormous lunches.

• Charles Bonnet : Come along, you'll like Monsieur Grammont. He's impeccably honest and extremely dull.

• Charles Bonnet : Didn't he tell you that he's got the great Toulouse-Lautrec from the Bonnet collection?

  Nicole Bonnet : Your Lautrec or Lautrec's Lautrec?

  Charles Bonnet : Mine, naturally.

• Charles Bonnet : My dirt!

• Nicole Bonnet : Papa, I caught a burglar!

  Charles Bonnet : Of course you did!

• Charles Bonnet : I am pleased and proud that our Cellini Venus is a forgery. If it were genuine, what would it be? A piece of sculpture made centuries ago by some over-sexed Italian.

• Charles Bonnet : We live in a crass, commercial world, with no faith or trust!

  Nicole Bonnet : We must keep Prof. Bauer from examining the Venus.

  Charles Bonnet : But how? I've just given my permission. I've not only put my head into the guillotine, I've unloosened my collar and tie so that they can chop it off.

• Charles Bonnet : Our Venus! Don't you feel a kind of thrilling glow in that?

  Nicole Bonnet : I have chills run up and down my spine.

• Marcel : A Señor Paravideo to see you, Sir.

  Charles Bonnet : Who?

  Marcel : A South American gentleman, I believe, Sir. Of an excitable nature.

• Charles Bonnet : This will not be a scandal, but a triumph! Let the experts come pouring in! Let them bring their X-rays, their microscopes - even their nuclear weapons if they like.

• Insurance Clerk : By the way sir, would you like to be present at the technical examination?

  Nicole Bonnet , Charles Bonnet : Tech-technical examination?

• Charles Bonnet : Extraordinary! Is he always so abrupt?

  Nicole Bonnet : Not in a closet.