Laurence Olivier credited as playing...
The Regent
- Charles, the Prince Regent: Here am I, having reached the age of 40. And I have never known what it is to love or be loved. It is like the legend of the sleeping princess. Only here, it is the prince who sleeps and awaits the kiss of the beautiful young maiden that will bring him back to life.
- Elsie Marina: You mean you want me to kiss you?
- Charles, the Prince Regent: You are so literal.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: [of the theatre] So many doors. Like an audience with the Japanese emperor!
- Charles, the Prince Regent: Do you know what your hair reminds me of? Summer corn kissed by the winds into enchantingly exciting furrows. Your eyes...
- Elsie Marina: Hey! Where's that music coming from?
- Charles, the Prince Regent: Music? One of my servants, a Hungarian, always plays at this hour. He's lamenting his lost love.
- Elsie Marina: Ah, poor boy. Isn't life awful? Go back to my eyes.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: Twin pools of gladness and joy in which any man would be happy to drown himself.
- Elsie Marina: In both of them?
- Charles, the Prince Regent: In either.
- Elsie Marina: Oh, I like that. "Twin pools. " Go on.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: Your chin...
- Elsie Marina: Oh, you skipped my nose because you noticed the bump on the end?
- Charles, the Prince Regent: Oh, no, no, no, no. I left it out because there is nothing to say of perfection.
- Elsie Marina: Oh, that's nice. Back to my chin.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: This is what I think of your chin.
- [kisses her neck]
- Charles, the Prince Regent: My darling. Oh, my darling.
- Elsie Marina: I got a solemn word of warning for you.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: What is that, my beloved?
- Elsie Marina: You know what's going to happen? I'm gonna fall in love with you. Because I always, always do.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: Always?
- Elsie Marina: Both times. So you better watch out. You better watch out.
- Elsie Marina: What's the matter?
- Charles, the Prince Regent: Someone might come in, you know.
- Elsie Marina: Oh, this is Times Square. I found that out last night, but who cares?
- Charles, the Prince Regent: But this is the morning. It's different, you know.
- Elsie Marina: What's different about it? Unless maybe it's you.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: I assure you, my dear, I'm exactly the same person.
- Elsie Marina: You're not acting exactly the same.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: But this is the morning!
- Elsie Marina: You keep saying that. I remember last night the way you kept repeating yourself. Tell me, my darling Grand Duke, is it only very late at night that you're such a lonely person? You feel the need to share your life with a pure young woman? Whose bright faith...
- Charles, the Prince Regent: No, no, please.
- Elsie Marina: Ennobling love...
- Charles, the Prince Regent: There's certain phrases should never be quoted out of context.
- Elsie Marina: I don't know what that means. Oh! Yes, I do. It means it's the morning. Doesn't it? Anyway, to me it's still dream time.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: She cannot be seen here at this hour of the morning. She will make a scandal. Suppose the Queen sees her like that?
- Northbrook: I'm sure, Sir, her sense of comme il faut...
- Northbrook: She has as much sense of comme il faut as a rhinoceros.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: Who did you think I meant, if not you?
- Elsie Marina: Well, Maisie Springfield.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: No, no, no. Maisie Springfield, she's quite what I would call 'old hat.'
- Elsie Marina: Oh? And am I what you'd call 'new hat?'
- Charles, the Prince Regent: What is the matter?
- Elsie Marina: That time I burned my witty little tongue.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: It is love that I need! The ennobling love of a pure young woman. Her bright faith in me as I am and as I might yet be. Her... self-sacrifice to my little weaknesses and desires. For love is sacrifice, is it not? Ys. There is the mystic kiss which might bring this sleeping prince to life.
- Elsie Marina: I got you!
- Charles, the Prince Regent: You know, Northbrook, what I think is the trouble with Lady Sunningdale?
- Northbrook: She has not enough love in her life, Sir?
- Charles, the Prince Regent: Too much. One should keep a balance in these things.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: What a charming character is this Coconut Gal.
- Maisie Springfield: I'm so happy to hear Your Grand Duke Highness say so. It is a character that goes a little deeper than most in musical comedy.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: Ah, yes. Yes, indeed. Quite so.
- Maisie Springfield: I have been so anxious to find a role that offered an emotional challenge
- Charles, the Prince Regent: Most charming it is. I began to feel that we had lost a gay person that I knew in Paris.
- Maisie Springfield: How gracious of you, sir, to remember.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: You like--vodka?
- Elsie Marina: I never tried it. I don't think I better.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: Oh, you must! This is *very* special.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: What has chiefly disturbed Sir Edward is the fact that these stupid Americans have protested. Some nonsense about political freedom and democratic rights. You know what children Americans are in matters of this kind. Their diplomacy makes me think of the Minotaur legend reversed, you know. The bull chasing Theseus through the labyrinth.
- Northbrook: Do I gather, Sir, that the evening was not an entirely happy one?
- Charles, the Prince Regent: Northbrook, this British understatement of yours, I begin to find irritating. The evening was an unqualified nightmare.
- Northbrook: I'm so sorry, Sir.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: I have only one evening in London. One single evening in which to arrange for myself relaxation. And what happens? Out of the whole of this vast, teeming city, teeming with beautiful, intelligent women, you find me what? A little American ninnycompoop.
- Northbrook: With respect, Sir, either ninny, by itself, or nincompoop.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: Ninnycompoop will serve. She fully deserves a new word.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: The mind of a backward child, the muscles of a boxer, and an approach to life of such stomach-turning sentimentality that I found myself, Northbrook, I found myself last night uttering phrases which had they been overheard would make me the laughingstock of Europe. To crown it all, she's rendered insensible by an amount of vodka, which in Carpathia, you would add to the morning milk of a 4-year-old child as a mild tonic!
- Charles, the Prince Regent: To think how overjoyed Lucy Sunningdale would have been if I had asked her to have a little supper with me here last night.
- Northbrook: I have to remind your Grand Duke Highness, I think I heard you remark that you found Lady Sunningdale 'old hat'.
- Charles, the Prince Regent: I have no doubt at all that I did. Nevertheless, my dear Northbrook, there is an old Russian saying: "Better an old hat than a bare head."