The Grass Is Greener (1960)

Cary Grant: Victor Rhyall

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Quotes 

• Victor Rhyall : Sellers, have you seen my Bible?

  Trevor Sellers : I'm afraid I've got it. I wanted to look something up.

  Victor Rhyall : First you borrow my Times, now you pinch my Bible. That's democracy running amok!

  Trevor Sellers : I'm extremely sorry, my lord. I'll put it back beside your bed.

  Victor Rhyall : Anyway, you should have a Bible of your own!

  Trevor Sellers : Well, the one you're using is mine, my lord.

• Victor Rhyall : Well, so long, be seeing you, as you say in America.

  Charles Delacro : Cheerio, as you say in England.

• Trevor Sellers : I wonder if I might have a word with you, my lord.

  Victor Rhyall : So do I, so we're both probably right. Now what's the matter, Sellers?

  Trevor Sellers : As I told you, my lord, I haven't any work to do.

  Victor Rhyall : What about your novel, why aren't you working at that?

  Trevor Sellers : I'm stuck badly. Nearly tore the whole thing up last night.

  Victor Rhyall : Oh, now, now, you mustn't do that! What's the trouble?

  Trevor Sellers : Almost certainly the basic trouble is myself. I'm fundamentally happy and contented. That's bad enough, of course. But on top of that, I'm normal. And that's fatal.

  Victor Rhyall : Oh. You mean you prefer to be unhappy and abnormal.

  Trevor Sellers : Of course! You see, I want to be a success, and to be a success, one must at least start off by being modern. And like yourself, my lord, I'm not. It means I have no feeling of insecurity or frustration. No despair.

  Victor Rhyall : And that's essential?

  Trevor Sellers : The first essential! I feel perfectly contented, really rather blameless, and hardly resent anything at all!

  Victor Rhyall : Well, you are in a pickle, aren't you? Well now, you must have known all that when you gave up teaching to become a writer! You answered my advertisement for a butler, and when I asked you what your qualifications were you said you had a degree in science. Now in spite of such a ludicrous recommendation I engaged you, partly because you told me you wanted to write a novel. Luckily you turned out very well. Now why don't you go back to your typewriter and take another crack at this, Sellers, might do you good. You might feel better now!

• Hilary Rhyall : Darling? I'm afraid I want to work on you, too.

  Victor Rhyall : Hmm, it's unlike you to warn me; but, work on me.

  Hilary Rhyall : Oh, you're so good to me.

• Victor Rhyall : [reading aloud, "Spring-Time" by William Ernest Henley]  "Oh, this gracious and thirsting and aching unrest, All life's at the bud, And my heart, full of April, Is breaking my breast."

  Victor Rhyall : Well, it's May the 9th. At least that's what I'm going to write on your check.

  Hilary Rhyall : Who said anything about a check?

  Victor Rhyall : You did: "this gracious and thirsting and aching unrest". That can only mean one thing, darling. New clothes.

• Trevor Sellers : Well, you see, my lord. You're a contemporary.

  Victor Rhyall : Oh, what does that mean?

  Trevor Sellers : You're not modern.

  Victor Rhyall : You mean I'm an antique.

  Trevor Sellers : No, my lord. You're traditional.

• Victor Rhyall : You know something.

  Hilary Rhyall : What?

  Victor Rhyall : I wish to make a statement.

  Hilary Rhyall : What is it?

  Victor Rhyall : I adore you.

  Hilary Rhyall : Oh do you, darling. I'm so glad.

• Victor Rhyall : What you're saying is, in effect, is that I'm old fashioned, out-of-date, and clinging to a way of life that's had dry rot in it for years.

• Hilary Rhyall : Oh, you are clever, aren't you.

  Victor Rhyall : On the contrary, you're the one whose clever.

• Victor Rhyall : [tour bus honks it's horn]  Oh, here they come. Laughing and scratching. Spreading apple cores and nutshells all over the place. And little bits of sticky paper.

• Victor Rhyall : You seem to be quite an Anglophile.

  Charles Delacro : Well, there are a number of things I find attractive in this country.

  Victor Rhyall : And how do you rate current Anglo-American relations?

  Charles Delacro : I like to think that they haven't been better since the War of Independence. Course there's always room for improvement.

• Victor Rhyall : How was the fishing?

  Charles Delacro : Well, on the whole, it was pretty fair. There were some big fish around, but I'm afraid your friend, Josh Peters, did a lot better than I did.

  Victor Rhyall : Well, and so he should. He knows that water as well as he know his own wife. Much prefers it, too.

  Hilary Rhyall : Oh, Victor, don't be vulgar.

• Victor Rhyall : Astonishing, isn't it? Here's a reasonable, decent sort of man who'd no more think of stealing my cuff links than he would of taking my umbrella. Yet he'll pay half a crown at the door, walk into my house, and without disturbing his conscience in anyway, calmly endeavor to steal my wife.

  Hattie Durant : By the same token, Hilary wouldn't cheat at cards. There's no honor where there's *sex*.

  Victor Rhyall : You are happy to say.

• Victor Rhyall : It was curiousity, wasn't it? You wanted to see how I reacted to my wife falling in love with another man.

  Hattie Durant : He's not just another man, darling. He's a millionaire!

• Victor Rhyall : Did you say you had rather a lot to do, darling?

  Hilary Rhyall : Oh! Yes, yes, I have. I must go and finish the mushrooms.

  Victor Rhyall : [reading aloud]  "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors wife, nor his ox, nor his ass..."

• Hattie Durant : Well, good luck.

  Victor Rhyall : Well you say that as if you think I'm going to need it.

  Hattie Durant : Hmm, don't we all? Can't do a blasted thing without good luck. You need it from the moment you get out of bed in the morning, til the moment you get back in at night. Particularly when you get back in again at night.

  Victor Rhyall : You are a wanton.

  Hattie Durant : What else?

• Hattie Durant : What did Shakespeare say? A cuckoo then on every tree mocks married men.

  Victor Rhyall : Yes. Yes. Yes.

• Victor Rhyall : I ought to shoot him.

  Hattie Durant : Oh, I do think we should try and avoid bloodshed, darling. It's a little old-fashioned.

  Victor Rhyall : Well, it's time it was brought up to date.

• Victor Rhyall : The fundamental difference between men and women, is that what's sauce for the goose is *not* sauce for the gander. That's why women wear wedding rings and men don't.

  Hattie Durant : First proud, now arrogant. And exceedingly immoral.

  Victor Rhyall : Oh, come, come.

• Victor Rhyall : I take it you're staying the weekend. Did you bring a bag?

  Hattie Durant : When you're addressing me, I prefer the word suitcase.

• Victor Rhyall : Without her I don't say I would be lost, but it certainly wouldn't be very clear in my mind which way to turn.

• Victor Rhyall : [singing]  And with the girls be handy, Yankee Doodle came to London, Riding on a pony, Stuck a feather in his hat, And called it macaroni...

• Victor Rhyall : [on the phone]  Is that the Savoy? I want to speak to Charles Delacro, please. No, no. Da. D. Delacro. That's right. Oh, this is Rock Hudson calling.

• Victor Rhyall : I can't see you on what's called the international set, my darling. Not the glitter and glare of St Moritz and Nassau, and Palm Beach. You're English. And you need the gentleness of the rain and the soft winds of England.

• Hattie Durant : [referring to the unknown contents inside a mysterious suitcase]  You couldn't really get a body in there, could you? I mean not unless it was cut up, of course.

  Victor Rhyall : Now Hattie, don't be disgusting.

  Hattie Durant : Oh, alright then, dismembered.

  Victor Rhyall : Well, that's even worse.

  Hattie Durant : I expect that's why they always use it in the newspapers.

• Victor Rhyall : If your mistress is unfaithful. She should be discarded. If your wife is - she should be befriended.

  Hilary Rhyall : Befriended? Meaning helped and patronized?

  Victor Rhyall : Meaning beloved and cherished. Unless she's a promiscuous trollop of course. Then the situation's out of control and quite hopeless.

  Hilary Rhyall : I am not a promiscuous trollop!

• Hilary Rhyall : Surely, you must see it's very tempting.

  Victor Rhyall : Oh yes, indeed. The grass is always greener on the other side of the hedge. You ought to think it over very carefully.

• Victor Rhyall : Whatever you do, you do.

• Victor Rhyall : Who said anything about divorce? I never mentioned it. I don't like divorce. What's more, I don't think adultery is a sufficient ground for it.

  Hilary Rhyall : Oh, what a masculine attitude.

  Victor Rhyall : I don't think marriage is just a liaison to be terminated when the sexual side of it gets boring or irksome to either party.

  Hilary Rhyall : Oh, it's never been boring or irksome. Not for me, it hasn't.

• Hilary Rhyall : I see. And wash that man right out of my hair. Is that the idea?

  Victor Rhyall : Mmm-hmm. I think the next line was: and send him on his way. Which I sincerely hope you'll do. The bloody tourist. Let him go sightseeing somewhere else.

• Victor Rhyall : But there it is. Marriage isn't like a tray of hors-d'oeuvres. You can't just pick what you fancy. You've got to take the lot or nothing.

• Victor Rhyall : I've always believed that the happy ending justifies the means.