The Ladykillers (2004)

Irma P. Hall: Marva Munson

Photos 

Quotes 

• Marva Munson : Niggas! Two thousand years after Jesus, thirty years after Martin Luther King, the age of Montel; sweet Lord of mercy is that where we at?

• Marva Munson : [walking in after the explosion in the basement]  Professor, I'm surprised!

  Professor G.H. Dorr : Well... uh... properly speaking, madam, we are surprised. You are taken aback. Though I do acknowledge that the sense that you intend is gaining increasing currency through its use, yes.

• Marva Munson : This is a Christian house, boy. No hippity-hop language in here.

• Marva Munson : Now I want to know what's goin' on.

  Professor G.H. Dorr : Oh, indeed, indeed. The thirst for knowledge is a very commendable thing. Though I do believe that when you hear the explanation you shall laugh riotously, slappin' your knee and perhaps even wipin' away a giddy tear, relieved of your former concern. Lump here is an avid collector of Indian arrowheads, and having found one simply lying on your cellar floor - a particularly rare artifact of the Natchez tribe?

  Lump Hudson : Nats... what?

  Professor G.H. Dorr : He enlisted the entire ensemble in an all-out effort to sift through the subsoil in search of others. And apparently, in doing so, we hit a mother lode of natural gas. I myself became acutely aware of the smell of "rotten eggs." And it was just at this inopportune moment that the General here violated the cardinal rule of this house and lit himself a cigarette.

  The General : So sorry.

  Marva Munson : Well, what about all that money?

  Professor G.H. Dorr : Ah. The money. Well, the money is Mr. Pancake's.

  Garth Pancake : That's right.

  Professor G.H. Dorr : Who only just remortgaged his home in order to raise the money for a surgical procedure that will correct the wandering eye of his common-law wife, Mountain Water, who suffers from astigmia, strabismus and a general curdling of the vitreous jelly. Mr. Pancake is an ardent foe of the Federal Reserve, and is, in fact, one of those eccentrics one often reads about hoardin' his entire life savings, in Mr. Pancake's case, in a Hefty bag that is his constant companion. The Steel Sak.

  Garth Pancake : Don't trust the banks. Never have.

• Professor G.H. Dorr : Allow me to introduce myself formally. Goldthwait Higginson Dorr, Ph.D

  Marva Munson : Like Elmer?

  Professor G.H. Dorr : I beg your pardon, madam?

  Marva Munson : Fudd.

• Marva Munson : You are a readin' fool, aren't you, Mr. Dorr?

  Professor G.H. Dorr : Yes, I must confess. I often find myself more at home in these ancient volumes than I do in the hustle-bustle of the modern world. To me, paradoxically, the literature of the so-called "dead tongues" holds more currency than this morning's newspaper. In these books, in these volumes, there is the accumulated wisdom of mankind, which succors me when the day is hard and the night lonely and long.

  Marva Munson : Mm. The wisdom of mankind, huh? What about the wisdom of the Lord?

  Professor G.H. Dorr : Oh... Yes, yes. The Good Book, mm. I have found reward in its pages. But, to me, there are other good books as well. Heavy volumes of antiquity freighted with the insights of man's glorious age. And then, of course, I just love, love, love the works of Mr. Edgar Allan Poe.

  Marva Munson : Oh, I know who he was. Kinda spooky.

  Professor G.H. Dorr : No, madam, no, no. Not of this world, it's true. He... he lived in a dream. An ancient dream. Helen, thy beauty is to me like those Nicean barks of yore, that gently, o'er a perfumed sea, the weary, wayworn wanderer bore to his own native shore.

  Marva Munson : Who was Helen? Some kinda whore of Babylon?

  Professor G.H. Dorr : One doesn't know who Helen was... but I picture her as being very, very... extremely... pale. Mrs. Munson, I have been trying to figure out some way of expressin' my gratitude to you for takin' in this weary, wayworn wanderer. It's just a little old present. Why, it's hardly anything at all.

  Marva Munson : Oh, why, Mr. Dorr! You are a gallant man.

  Professor G.H. Dorr : Oh, madam, I blush, I melt. No... I just happened to hear of this gospel concert tomorrow night, "The Mighty, Mighty Clouds of Joy", and I thought you and a friend from church perhaps would...?

  Marva Munson : Yes, I have a widow lady friend.

  Professor G.H. Dorr : The concert is up in Memphis, so I have arranged a car service to transport you thither.

• Marva Munson : The world's got two kind of folks. Them that's got the piles and them that's goin' get 'em.

• Marva Munson : Sheriff, you got to hep that boy.

  Sheriff Wyner : You want me to hep him?

  Marva Munson : Extend that hepping hand.

• Marva Munson : Don't make me wanna go hippety-hop.

• Marva Munson : The apostle John said, "Behold, there is a stranger in our midst come to destroy us."

• [last lines] 

  Marva Munson : Pickles! Oh, Lord. Pickles!

• Marva Munson : And Othar don't like it neither!

  Deputy Sheriff : [Slightly mocking and sarcastic]  It's been disturbing Othar, then, has it?

  Marva Munson : Well, how could it hep but do?

• Professor G.H. Dorr : [soon after he has fallen from a tree]  I also hold a number of other advanced degrees, including the baccalaureate from a school in Paris, France, called the Sorbonne.

  Marva Munson : Sore bone. Well, that fits.

• [first lines] 

  Sheriff Wyner : Unh... Oh! Afternoon, Miss Munson.

  Marva Munson : Afternoon, Sheriff. You know the Funthes boy?