These classic Hollywood movie quotes still make us laugh. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the snappiest and most gut-busting movie lines from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
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00:00 "I feel like everybody's staring at me."
00:01 "With those legs, are you crazy? Now come on."
00:03 Welcome to Miss Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the snappiest
00:07 and most gut-busting movie lines from the golden age of Hollywood.
00:11 "Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello?
00:14 Of course I like to speak to you. Of course I like to say hello."
00:20 Number 10, "I'm Hysterical and I'm Wet." The producers.
00:24 "May I speak to you?"
00:25 "Yes, Prince Mishkin. What can we do for you?"
00:29 It's so tough to pick out the funniest quote from this classic Mel Brooks-directed comedy,
00:34 but you simply can't go wrong with this hilarious moment from Gene Wilder's Leo Bloom.
00:39 You may even say,
00:40 "I'm hysterical! I'm having hysterics! I'm hysterical!"
00:44 as Bloom panics his partner in crime, Bialystock, does everything he can to snap him back into
00:50 shape. He splashes him with water, which, as you might expect, does not improve Leo's emotional
00:55 state.
00:56 "I'm wet! I'm wet! I'm hysterical and I'm wet! I'm in pain!"
01:04 The delivery of each line in this scene is nothing short of comedic
01:08 genius, as Wilder perfectly captures his character's madness and anxiety.
01:13 Number 9, "Oh, I Couldn't Take the Last Piece. Vivacious Lady."
01:18 "Peter needs protection against a certain type of woman. I could work on that."
01:22 Nobody embodied the grit and class of the old Hollywood dames like Ginger Rogers.
01:27 This fish-out-of-water romantic comedy finds Ginger playing a nightclub singer who meets
01:32 and secretly marries a dorky professor, played by James Stewart.
01:35 "We say we feel like we've been hit by a truck."
01:37 "Oh, well, it's the same idea."
01:41 "Yeah."
01:43 Ginger tries her best to fit in with her new husband's high-society family.
01:48 However, Stewart's snooty and jealous fiancé, played by Frances Mercer, threatens to give
01:53 the new girl on the block a piece of her mind.
01:56 "Oh, I couldn't take the last piece."
01:57 "Now, what did you do that for?"
02:03 "I'm only gonna have to hit you right back."
02:04 Rogers' response is priceless, igniting their battle of wits into an actual battle.
02:11 Number 8, "It Must Have Been Tough on Your Mother Not Having Any Children."
02:16 42nd Street
02:17 Ginger Rogers earns another spot on our list, this time playing the cheeky Anytime Annie,
02:22 a chorus girl jockeying for position in the cutthroat world of Broadway.
02:26 "Say, who could forget her? She only said no once and then she didn't hear the question."
02:30 In this classic backstage musical, every woman who isn't a friend is a bitter enemy.
02:35 That's the case here when Annie and her pal Lorraine are having a laugh
02:38 over their affected, hoity-toity accents.
02:42 When a backstage rival makes a snide comment, Annie replies with this timeless zinger.
02:47 "Get a load of men in the mountain near."
02:49 "Must have been tough on your mother not having any children."
02:51 "That's telling 'em."
02:54 It's clever, biting, and devastating.
02:56 Let's just say we're glad we'll never be on the receiving end of Rogers' razor-sharp insults.
03:02 "Oh dear, not a calf in the carload."
03:05 Number 7, "She Looked Better Than You Do Now."
03:08 "The Man Who Came To Dinner."
03:09 A rude dinner guest is bad enough, but imagine if they were staying for weeks.
03:14 That's the situation for one unfortunate family in this 1942 adaptation of the hit Broadway play.
03:20 "Close the doors, John. We don't want a lot of people prying on their bedders."
03:24 After breaking his hip on the Stanley family's front stoop, Sheridan Whiteside,
03:29 played by Monty Woolley, demands to recuperate in their living room.
03:33 Whiteside subjects them to the most venomous of wisecracks the Hays Code would allow.
03:38 "He's a very sensitive boy. You'll be kind to him, won't you?"
03:41 "Confounded Jewel, what have you learned that I am always kind and courteous?
03:45 Bring this idiot in."
03:46 He saves his best insults, or worst, depending on how you look at it, for his poor nurse,
03:52 Miss Preen.
03:53 When she chides him for eating candy, he launches into a drawn-out monologue
03:57 about his great-aunt Jennifer, who ate a box of candy every day.
04:01 "She lived to be 102, and when she'd been dead three days, she looked better than you do now."
04:06 Monty Woolley could have taught a masterclass on landing a punchline.
04:10 6. He Didn't Come Anywhere Near My Tabloids - The Thin Man
04:15 "It was spring in Venice, and I was so young I didn't know what I was doing.
04:18 We're all like that on my father's side."
04:22 "By the way, how is your father's side?"
04:23 "Oh, it's much better, thanks. And yours?"
04:25 "Say, how many drinks have you had?"
04:27 When they're not solving mysteries together, the super-chic, wealthy Nick and Nora Charles
04:31 are trading quips and downing martinis.
04:34 On Christmas morning, as they unwrap presents and discuss their run-in with a gunman the night
04:38 before, the subject turns to the press coverage of the event.
04:42 "Oh, I'm a hero. I was shot twice in the Tribune."
04:45 "I remember you were shot five times in the tabloids."
04:48 "It's not true. He didn't come anywhere near my tabloids."
04:51 Let's just say it doesn't take a genius to understand the wordplay going on here.
04:56 By 1934, the Hays Code prohibiting obscenity had taken effect in Hollywood,
05:01 and writers had to find increasingly clever ways to say things without actually saying them.
05:07 In a weird way, it sometimes made the dirty jokes feel even more scandalous.
05:12 "Is this true?"
05:13 "I don't know."
05:14 "Then why are you saying it?"
05:15 "It's the only way it makes sense."
05:17 Number 5. While sometimes, there's just no other possible explanation.
05:21 Gentlemen prefer blondes.
05:23 "Pardon me, is this the way to Europe, France?"
05:25 "To where?"
05:26 "Not Europe, France, honey. France is in Europe."
05:30 "Well, who said it wasn't?"
05:32 "Well, you wouldn't say, 'Is this the way to North America, Mexico?' would you?"
05:35 "If that's where I wanted to go, I would."
05:37 "The dealer passes."
05:38 Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell star in this classic musical comedy
05:42 as two single globe-trotting nightclub performers on a transatlantic cruise.
05:47 As the slightly dim but good-hearted blonde Lorelei Lee,
05:50 Monroe is fascinated by a rich woman's diamond tiara.
05:54 "Did you ever, anywhere, anything like it?"
05:57 Her friend Dorothy, a sassy brunette, is amused when Lorelei doesn't realise
06:02 that tiaras are meant to be worn on your head, not around your neck.
06:07 Lorelei's disbelief prompts Dorothy's gem of a one-liner.
06:10 "You must think I was born yesterday."
06:12 "Well, sometimes there's just no other possible explanation."
06:16 It's Lorelei's indignance, coupled with Dorothy's complete exasperation at her friend,
06:21 that makes their on-screen friendship and dialogues so believable and hilarious.
06:27 4. That's Something You Need Never Worry About - Dinner at Eight
06:32 Jean Harlow was one of MGM's biggest stars,
06:35 and one of American films' first blonde bombshells.
06:39 In the classic comedy Dinner at Eight, Harlow plays a gold-digging platinum blonde
06:43 who finds herself the butt of many a joke amongst the high-society world she's married into.
06:49 "It's so wonderful to have nothing to do, just to lie all day in the sun.
06:53 Yes, but you've got to be awful careful that you don't get blistered.
06:56 You know, my skin's terribly delicate, and I don't dare expose it."
07:00 The final scene sees her telling a society matron about a book she read,
07:05 which predicts machinery will take the place of every human profession.
07:09 The matron eyes her up and down before responding,
07:12 "Oh, my dear. That's something you need never worry about."
07:16 Once again, sometimes classic Hollywood movies just said it better without saying it at all.
07:22 "Don't crack about this to Mr. Packard. I want to spring it on him at the right time."
07:26 Number 3. Well, nobody's perfect. Some Like It Hot.
07:30 "Jerry, you can't be serious."
07:32 "Why not? He keeps marrying girls all the time."
07:34 "I am, uh, I am..."
07:37 An audience more savvy to problematic tropes in pop culture
07:40 might cringe at the thought of Some Like It Hot today,
07:43 a comedy about two male jazz musicians who disguise themselves as women
07:48 after they witness a mob hit.
07:49 The movie has plenty of potentially offensive landmines to avoid.
07:53 Modern viewers may debate how successfully it does that,
07:56 but it's the final scene that is surprisingly fun.
07:59 "Osgood, I'm gonna level with you. We can't get married at all."
08:02 "Why not?"
08:03 "Well, in the first place, I'm not a natural blonde."
08:07 "Uh-huh. Doesn't matter."
08:09 As the movie comes to an end, star Jack Lemmon tries to talk his way out of an engagement
08:14 to Osgood Fielding, the man who's fallen in love with him.
08:17 No matter what reason he gives, Osgood is unbothered,
08:21 until finally Lemmon reveals his true identity,
08:24 leading to one of the most unexpected endings of a classic comedy.
08:29 "But you don't understand, Osgood! I'm a man!"
08:33 "Well, nobody's perfect."
08:36 Number two, Chickalini here may talk like an idiot, Duck Soup.
08:40 "You wanna be a public nuisance?"
08:42 "Sure, how much does the job pay?"
08:44 "I've got a good mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it."
08:46 The Marx Brothers were early Hollywood's most influential funny guys,
08:50 bringing their unique, fast-paced, and punny sense of humor to every single comedy they made together.
08:56 You can make an entire list like this for Groucho Marx quotes alone.
09:00 "One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know."
09:04 In 1933's Duck Soup, Groucho plays a crooked president who catches a dimwitted spy in his
09:10 administration, played by his brother Chico Marx. During Chico's trial, Groucho lands what may be
09:17 one of his simplest and effective bait-and-switch jokes.
09:20 "Gentlemen, Chickalini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot,
09:24 but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot."
09:27 We mean, why settle for just calling someone an idiot when you can really twist the knife?
09:32 Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
09:36 I'm Not One of You Anemic Creatures, The Great Lie
09:40 Mary Astor has a few thoughts about dieting in this 1941 drama.
09:44 "I'm not one of you anemic creatures who can get nourishment from a lettuce leaf.
09:48 I'm a musician, I'm an artist. I have zest and appetite and I like food."
09:52 You're Going Bald, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
09:56 Real-life married couple Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton tear each other apart.
10:01 "I've got more teeth than you have."
10:03 "Two more."
10:04 "Oh, you're going bald."
10:08 "So are you."
10:10 His Grandfather Was a Snake, Here's Girl Friday.
10:13 Rosalind Russell has some choice words about Cary Grant's charm.
10:17 "He's not the man for you, I can see that. But I sort of like him. He's got a lot of charm."
10:22 "Well, it comes about naturally. His grandfather was a snake."
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10:40 1. Gentlemen, You Can't Fight In Here, This Is The War Room
10:45 Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
10:49 Yes, it's about nuclear war, but it's also hilarious.
10:53 "I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened.
10:57 It's a friendly call, of course it's a friendly call. Listen, if it wasn't friendly,
11:02 you probably wouldn't have even got it."
11:05 Will the US President and his band of kooky politicians and war-hungry generals
11:09 attempt to stop Armageddon, a fight breaks out between a general and an accused Russian spy.
11:15 The President, played by comedic powerhouse Peter Sellers,
11:18 breaks it up by shouting out one of the most ironic lines in film history.
11:23 "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
11:25 In just one moment, master director Stanley Kubrick and his co-writers manage to find the
11:30 irony in mutually assured destruction, pointing out the folly of the Cold War
11:35 and the insanity that nuclear weapons represent.
11:38 "My conclusion was that this idea was not a practical deterrent,
11:43 for reasons which at this moment must be all too obvious."
11:47 What classic Hollywood quote still makes you laugh out loud?
11:51 Drop your fave one-liner in the comments.
11:54 "You do wear it on your head. I just love finding new places to wear diamonds."
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