The Memorable Quotes: The 1930s

It's the perfect combination: star power combined with classic writing, mixed in with the right amount of direction. The perfect storm combines to make a memorable moment, and a film quote that lives on for the ages.


"Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side. And don't be stingy baby."
          --Greta Garbo's first on-screen words, in Anna Christie (1930)


"Oh no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast."
          --the final lines of King Kong (1933)


"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in there I'll never know."
          --Groucho Marx, as Captain Spaulding, Animal Crackers (1930)


"I never drink...wine."
          --Bela Lugosi, explaining his unusual manners, Dracula (1931)


"Goodness what beautiful diamonds!"
"Goodness had nothing to do with it."
         --Mae West, explaining how a girl gets what she wants, in Night After Night (1932) (It was West's film debut, and the studio wanted her so badly she was allowed to write her own dialogue.)

"The calla lillies are in bloom again."
          --The line that every Katherine Hepburn impersonator used, from Stage Door (1937)


"Sawyer, you're going to go out there a youngster. But you're going to come back a star!"
          --And the understudy becomes a star, in 42nd Street (1933)

"I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no babies!"
          --One of many classic lines from Gone With The Wind (1939)


"I proved once and for all that the limb is mightier than the thumb."
          --Claudette Colbert teaches Clark Gable how to hitchhike, in It Happened One Night (1934)

And more to come.....

For more info on one of our favorite comedies, Animal Crackers, in DVD, click on this link: