Favorite Classic Movie Bitchiness, Phrases & Downright Gayness

Chanteuse Lizabeth Scott asking her audience if they have any song requests in I WALK ALONE:

Kristine Miller (who's also fucking Kirk Douglas): I LOST MY MAN.

Lizabeth Scott: I don't think I know the words to that.

Kristine Miller: You'd better learn them!

Joan Crawford in "The Women": "There's a name for you ladies, but it's not used in high society - outside of a kennel."

Anjelica Huston as Morticia, [italic]Addams Family Values:[/italic]

"You have married Fester, you have destroyed his spirit, you have taken him from us—[bold]all that I could forgive.[/bold] But Debbie . . . [italic]pastels?[/italic]

Birdie: And the bartender wants to know if Miss Channing is aware that she ordered domestic gin by mistake?

Margo: The only thing I ordered by mistake are the guests. They’ll drink anything as long as it burns.

Joan Crawford to her drunken, bitter husband Barry Sullivan in QUEEN BEE:

"Darling, parties are to women what battlefields are to men. But, then... you weren't in the war, were you? Something about drinking, wasn't it?"

Joan Crawford when (former lover/her sister-in-law's finance) John Ireland rebuffs her advances for cock in QUEEN BEE.....

Joan: "I'll make you pay for this!"

John: "Will you?"

Joan: "You know I will!"

Jean Brodie (Miss): “For those who like that sort of thing...that is the sort of thing they like.”

Actually, all of MJB’s dialogue.

John Ireland was pretty bitchy himself in Queen Bee when he said to Joan as she tried to seduce him "You're like some fancy kind of disease. I had you once; now I'm immune!"

Joan to Jeff Chandler in "Female on the Beach": Jeff: "How do you like your coffee?" Joan: "Alone."

Also Joan to Jeff Chandler in "Female on the Beach": "I wouldn't have you if you were hung upside down with diamonds!"

You're maudlin and full of self-pity. You're magnificent!

Joan in "Berserk!" as Monica Rivers, owner of the Rivers Circus, to circus co-owner Michael Gough: "We're running a circus, not a charm school!"

Vic Tayback to employee Diane Ladd in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore": "I don't want to get too close to you, honey. It will get you all bothered up early in the morning."

Her response: "I could lay under you, eat fried chicken, and do a crossword puzzle at the same time. That's how much you bother me."

"Twenty years of PURE HELL!" - Miss Joan Crawford

Liz in Butterfield 8: Mama, face it. I was the slut of all time!

Susan Hayward in Where Love Has Gone: "When you're dying of thirst, you'll drink from a mudhole!"

From "A Night in Casablanca":

an indignant Mr. Smythe: "Sir, this lady is my wife! You should be ashamed!"

Ronald Kornblow (Groucho Marx): "If this lady is your wife, YOU should be ashamed.”

One last Groucho, this from "The Coconuts":

Margaret Dumont: "I was with him until the very end."

Groucho: "No wonder he passed away."

This exchange in "Cabaret" (1972)

Brian: "Screw Maximilian!"

Sally: "I do."

Brian: "So do I."

Sally: "You two bastards!"

Brian: "Two? Two?! Shouldn't that be three?"

"When I want a sneak, I'll hire the best and get a Jap."

The ever-classy Joan in "They All Kissed the Bride"

That's fucked up R18. LOL. And for the record, I HATED that movie. And it takes a lot for me to hate a Joan Crawford flick.

"You've never fooled me. You're nothing but trash washed over the Canadian border."

--Charles Busch, DIE, MOMMIE, DIE!

“You know what you look like to me, with your good bag, and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube. A well scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste. Good nutrition has given you some length of bone, but you’re not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling?

“The day I need a friend like you, I’ll just have myself a little squat and shit one out.”

--Marcia Gay Harden, The Mist

"You're not so special, honey. Blues singers like you are as common on Broadway as brunettes in Africa."

chorus girl repartee in MURDER AT THE VANITIES (1934)

From SENSATION HUNTERS (1933): [Trixie comes upon one of her girls, a blonde, looking through her purse for her gin flask]

Trixie Snell: "You'd forget your rosy cheeks if they weren't slapped on with a paintbrush!"

Blonde: "I know I had it when I was with that traveling man last night."

Trixie Snell: "Well, did you look in the First National?"

[Blonde lifts up her skirt to check one of her garters. It is not there]

Trixie Snell: "Well, try the other branch, ya simp."

"I see that in addition to your other charms, you have that insolence generated by an inferior upbringing."

--Katharine Hepburn, STAGE DOOR

Thomas 'Tom' Ransome: (George Brent): " a... I'm afraid I've come to spill jam on your party dress."

Lady a Esketh: (Myra Loy) "What do you mean?"

Thomas 'Tom' Ransome: "The Maharani is sending you away in the morning."

THE RAINS CAME (1939)

"Outside, countess! As long as they've got sidewalks, YOU'VE got a job!"

--Joan Blondell, STAGE DOOR

Valerie Hayden Miller: [receiving the advances of her drunken husband] You're not the first today, I'm just getting warmed up!

not an exact quote from The Unsuspected.

Ted North: You must be Miss Moynihan.

Constance Bennett: I am, but MUST I be?

Joan Blondell wasn’t in Stage Door.

Miss Jean Brody (Maggie Smith) purposefully fingering the flower petals of an arrangement as she leaves her tormentor's office:

[quote] Ah, chrysanthemums. Such a serviceable flower.

[quote] Joan Blondell wasn’t in Stage Door.

You're right. I meant FOOTLIGHT PARADE--please forgive my dumb error.

More from Joan Crawford:

"Torch Song," Joan as Broadway star Jenny Stewart, to blind rehearsal-pianist Michael Wilding upon his arrival at her apartment: "What took you so long?"

"Torch Song": Joan as Jenny Stewart takes a seat for lunch at a restaurant. A waiter arrives and Joan/Jenny tersely requests "Lobster Newburg and coffee!"

Doris Day: "Officer, arrest this man! He's trying to take me up to his apartment!!"

Officer: "Can't say as I blame him, ma'am!"

"You're too short for that gesture."

(looking at Elizabeth Taylor's outlandish purple-and-white outfit, complete with sprigged turban, at a big reception)

KIM NOVAK: (through gritted teeth) "What are you supposed to be? A birthday cake? Too bad everybody's had a slice..."

GATOR: "You can suck my dick!"

TAFFY: "I wouldn't suck your lousy dick if I was suffocating and there was oxygen in your balls!"

"You have no power here! Be gone, before somebody drops a house on you too!"

‘When you’re slapped, you’ll take it and like it.’

Humphrey Bogart to Peter Lorre in The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Aw, com'on, 38 responses and no one's done the bitchiest, gayest line of all time?...

"Don't fuck with me fellas! This ain't my first time at the rodeo"

Miss cunt herself, Faye Dunaway, playing the bitch of all time, Miss Joan Crawford, which is peak bitch in any Gay man's book

"What shall we hang — the holly, or each other?"

The Lion in Winter

"Get away from her, you BITCH!"

"Oh, my dear, that's something YOU need never worry about."

Marie Dressler to Jean Harlow in "Dinner at Eight", as Harlow complains about automation taking over every profession.

Just about all of the dialog in "Lion in Winter" drips bitchiness!!

“I’d like to ask you to stay and have a drink, but I’m afraid you might accept.”

Joan Crawford - “Female on the Beach.”

Liz as Gloria in Butterfield 8 in conversation with the girlfriend of her friend Steve played by Eddie Fisher :

By the way, just for the record, what did happen to your dress?

Well, it's a funny thing. One minute it was there....and the next minute it wasn't.

Much like your virtue, I presume.

Somehow....I get the feeling that you don't like me.

And I tried so hard to conceal it.

"You can be had."

Mae West to Cary Grant, SHE DONE HIM WRONG (33)

"I see you do not believe in lipstick. And what a curious way to do your hair. Or rather not to do it."

Marlebe Dietrich to Jean Arthur, A FOREIGN AFFAIR (48)

I don't know the exact films, I think both might be from the same one, but I love the scene w Joan where she's in a cab and tells the driver to drop off her fellow passenger. The address? "Any dark bar."

And then she yells at her married lover" "You and your rabbit faced wife can go to HELL!" *slams down phone a half beat before she's done talking*

I'm MELTING! Oh what a world, what a world , who would have thought a good little girl like you , could DESTROY MY BEAUTIFUL WICKEDNESS ?!!

You have a child to think about. A child's worth ten of the mother .

[quote] A child's worth ten of the mother .

Not ALL children are precious. They can change from angel to harlot in, well, the blink of an eye.

We only carry sizes one, three and five. You could try Sears.

"We're not in love. We just make love. And damn little of that." Jean Simmons, "The Happy Ending"

So true, R43.

My favorite is Prince John's "MARY!" moment and his mother's response:

John: "A KNIFE! He's got a KNIFE!"

Eleanor: "Of COURSE he has a knife. He ALWAYS has a knife! We ALL have knives! It's 1183 and we're barbarians!"

Stan Gable: [to Booger] What are you looking at, nerd?

Booger: [to himself] I thought I was looking at my mother's old douche-bag, but that's in Ohio.

"Revenge of the Nerds"

About the movie "Harper".

As the hated daughter and stepmother, [Pamela] Tiffin and [Lauren] Bacall have a number of great catty moments. After hearing that Miranda [Tiffin] has been rejected by her husband’s bodyguard (Robert Wagner), Elaine [Bacall] maliciously quips to Miranda-

“I should think you’d be accustomed to not being loved by now.”

Miranda responds, “I love your wrinkles. I revel in them.”

When an unmoved Elaine learns that her husband has been murdered, she calls out to Miranda in a singsong voice, “Miranda! Mommy has something to tell you!”

A conversation between Marie Dressler and the stuttering Roscoe Ates in "Reducing" (1931), a very funny pre-code comedy.

Stuttering Ticket Agent: Where are you going?

Marie Truffle: New York. I want to go to New York.

Stuttering Ticket Agent: You'll want to go by Buffalo.

Marie Truffle: No, I want to go by *train*!

Speaking of Marie Dressler...

Not a line or a phrase, but the best double-take in all moviedom in "Dinner At Eight" after Harlow announces, "I was reading a book the other day."

"Dinner at Eight" has another great exchange between Marie Dressler and Lionel Barrymore's secretary, Elizabeth Patterson, aka Mrs. Trumball, talking about a play that Marie was in that Elizabeth had seen. Elizabeth was 59 at the time, and Marie was 65.

Miss Copeland: You were wonderful!

Carlotta Vance: Yes, that was the last thing I did.

Miss Copeland: I remember it as plain as if it were yesterday.

Carlotta Vance: Hmm.

Miss Copeland: Though I was only a little girl at the time.

Carlotta Vance: How extraordinary!

Miss Copeland: Oh, it's wonderful, seeing you like this.

Carlotta Vance: Yes, it 'tis. You know, we must have a long talk about the Civil War sometime. Just you and I.

R54 Hush dear, mother's fighting.

So ... are we all LIT?

Ever since I came here, you've done nothin' but treat me like shit! Who the HELL do you think you are? Yeah, I was a dance hall girl, but what makes [italic]you[/italic] so high and mighty? You own a whorehouse! A [italic]whorehouse,[/italic] and with only three whores in it! One of ’em's just a senile old cow—no offense, honey—and the other one's so new at it, she doesn't know which end to use! So what does that make [italic]you[italic]?[/italic] THE ONLY WHORE IN CHILE VERDE!

[/italic]

Also from The Women:

*

“I hate to tell you, dear, but your skin makes the Rocky Mountains look like chiffon velvet!”

Anything Clifton Webb ever said on film!

R65 One of my favorites which I hope to use as soon as I buy a cane: "If you come a little bit closer, my boy, I can just crack your skull with my walking stick."

I'm the Mary, you're the Rhoda.

"Why you don't look a day over 35! [exits through the swinging door] "Why that old gasoline truck, she's 60 if she's a minute."

"[Veda] hardly speaks to me anymore except to ask for money, or poke fun at me in French because I work for a living."

The show's not filmed in CinemaScope.

And speaking of GWTW:

"She'd walk the streets nekked from dawn till dark if she thought anyone would pay attention to her."

Scarlett to India Wilkes.

"Ah ain't noticed Mr Ashley askin' fer to marry you." Mammy to Scarlett when Scarlett protests at being stuffed with food before the Wilkes barbecue, and insisting that Ashley Wilkes said he LIKED to see a girl with a healthy appetite.

"I see she writes as badly as she dresses."

Glenn Close, as the Marquise de Merteuil, reading a personal letter from Mme. de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer) to Valmont.

r66=wannabe lesbian

Perhaps OP should clarify - has anyone ever seen a *female* Hyacinth Bucket?

Because half the Datalounge is a male version!

From "The Lion in Winter":

Richard to King Philip of France(his erstwhile lover): "I've been in every street in Hell."

To which the king replied: "Strange, I never saw you there."

And:

Philip to Henry: "No man calls me boy. I am a king!"

Henry to Philip: "You think you're a king because your ass sits on purple cushions?!?!?"

Eleanor to Henry(pointing out their sons): "Execute them. They're assassins, aren't they?"

We should just post the entire script, make it easier and quicker.

“Oh, can the sob story, Mrs. Haines. You noble wives and mothers bore me; you probably bore your husbands, as well”

Joan Crawford “The Women” 1939.

How vivid.

Maleficent : "*Well*, quite a glittering assemblage, King Stefan. Royalty, nobility, the gentry, and...

[sees the three good fairies, laughs softly]

Maleficent : ...how quaint - even the rabble."

You left the window open and I caught cold in my shoulder. OOOOOooo...(slap)...get out, you hurt!

Vince Stone: (Lee Marvin) "Hey, that's nice perfume." Debby Marsh: (Gloria Grahame) " Something new. It attracts mosquitoes and repels men."

THE BIG HEAT (1952)

"What a dump."

"You wouldn't believe how much trouble it is to dispose of a dead elephant."

Joan Crawford to Sydney Greenstreet, FLAMINGO ROAD (49).

[quote]We are all busy little bees, full of stings, making honey day and night. Aren't we, honey?

[quote]You know, if I like a man I remember him... and if I don't like him I never forget him.

--Edward Everett Horton, "Trouble in Paradise"

In case anyone is having a hard time with the "downright gayness" category.

Willy Wonka being a bitch from the 1971 film:

Mrs. Gloop: [Augustus having fallen into the chocolate river] Don't just stand there do something! Wonka: [pause] Help....Police...Murder. Mrs. Gloop: He can't swim! Wonka: There's no better time to learn.

Wonka: [After Augustus gets sucked into a tube] Oh the pressure will get him out. Terrific pressure is building up behind the blockage.... The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

Mike TeeVee: HOW DO YOU MAKE 'EM?!! Wonka: I'm a trifle deaf in this ear. Speak a little louder next time.

Wonka: Well, well, well, two naughty, nasty little children gone. Three good, sweet little children left.

Baroness Schraeder regarding those horrible Von Trapp children: "Darling, haven't you ever heard of a delightful little thing called boarding school?"

"I may not know my flowers, but I know a bitch when I see one" - Malcolm from The Gay Deceivers, 1969

"My, my. It certainly is Noël Cowardish how you and your rival are such pals! "

Carole Landis to Ann Rutherford i ORCHESTRA WIVES (1942)

(chorus girl peroxiding another chorus girls hair)

"Hey, is this gonna make me look like a REAL blonde?" "Sure! As long as no one looks at your hair." "How are the roots?" "Still black."

BROADWAY BAD (1932)

You cad, you dirty swine! I never cared for ya—not ONCE! I was always makin' a fool of ya! Ya bored me stiff! I HATED ya! It made me SICK when I had to let ya kiss me! I only did it because you begged me—ya hounded me and drove me crazy! And after you kissed me, I always used to wipe my mouth! [bold]WIPE MY MOUTH!!![/bold]

DL wholeheartedly relates, r91.

R91 wins!

Almost 100 responses and NOTHING from "The Boys in the Band?" (Unless I missed something.)

I wouldn't think that one suggested your personality at all. It's called, uh, Oomph!

The Women: The dressing room scene; Mary confronts Crystal over a risque dress

Mary(Norma Shearer): I'm sorry, not that one. Stephen doesn't go for such obvious effects.

Crystal(Joan Crawford): Thanks for the tip. But if what I'm wearing doesn't please Stephen...I take it off.

"What a story. Everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end."

In re: R97, (Birdie zips up and brushes Margo’s dress) Voila!

Margo: That French ventriloquist really taught you a lot.

Birdie, wistfully : There was nothin’ he didn’t know.

Love this exchange in Hitchcock's Stage Freight between Dietrich & Jane Wyman:

Charlotte: "Oh, this is a pleasure. Where have you been? I thought you were dead."

Eve: "Oh, no, Madame. I wasn't. As a matter of fact . . ."

Charlotte: "You needn't go into detail, darling. I hope you're not going to turn into one of those explicit people who always tell you exactly how they feel when you ask them."

Oh dear, r99 - I'm fond of:

" Stop acting like a silly school girl! The only murderer here is the Orchestra Leader."

No it isn't suspenseful, but for me that doesn't make it any less enjoyable.

It's Stage *Fright*, r101, not Stage *Freight*.

"You cad, you dirty swine! I never cared for ya—not ONCE! I was always makin' a fool of ya! Ya bored me stiff! I HATED ya! It made me SICK when I had to let ya kiss me! I only did it because you begged me—ya hounded me and drove me crazy! And after you kissed me, I always used to wipe my mouth! WIPE MY MOUTH!!!"

I'm picturing Melania saying this to Donald, in a thick Slovenian accent

"I don't take whores in taxis."

Dirk Bogarde to Julie Christie in DARLING (65).

R95, love that exchange, which also includes:

As yo say, yo have so many men.

And

It will be out tomorrow, Mrs Prowler.

R99, i though of that scene too, which ends in Marlene Dietrich saying ‘Dont confide in me,just pour the tea’.

The bitchiest moment, though, is left unsaid. Jane Wyman goes to great lengths to disguise herself as a credible working class woman to be employed by Dietrich. In the garden party scene, Wyman is caught at her supposedly normal clothes and hair and is terrified of being find out as an impostor. Except for saying her dress is good, Dietrich does not bat an eye and starts bossing her around as usual.

There's a little known Columbia Pictures "B" Movie called "Nine Girls" (1944) that's very entertaining. It's about 9 sorority sisters (Jinx Falkenburg, Evelyn Keyes, Jeff Donnell, etc) all suspected of murder, when the beautiful, bitchy sorority sister (played by Anita Louise) ends up dead.

During one scene Anita Louise does something particularly shady & evil to headmistress Ann Harding, and quickly dashes off. Miss Harding is left flabbergasted & appalled by the shear CUNTINESS of Miss Louise's behavior and remarks to one of the other sisters "I'd like to rip that girl apart, to see what makes her tick!" LOL.

I couldn't find a clip of that particular scene but the clip I've attached is a fine example of what a bitch Anita Louise's character is.

"Put on your snood and let's get this thing finished, huh?"

Wish I could watch the entire movie.

R107 That's a good little B movie. Anita Louise usually played heroines so her being so nasty came as quite a surprise. Jeff Donnell, aka "Butch", was a busy Columbia contract player who played Quartermain housekeeper Stella on "General Hospital" for years.

Found it guys (R108, R109)! Ok.ru is a treasure trove of obscure old movies that TCM has never gotten around to.

Yes, R110. Although Anita Louise usually played straight heroines, she also played a bitch superbly in the early Lana Turner flick "These Glamour Girls".

Here's the excellent "These Glamour Girls" staring Lana Turner, Ann Ruthorford, Jane Bryan, Mary Beth Hughes & Anita Louise, etc ). Marsha Hunt also has a very showy role in this (one of her best IMO), as a once popular society girl, who's style has fell out of favor.

20th Century Fox's "Orchestra Wives" is filled to the brim with catty bitchiness, whenever the women (Ann Ruthorford, Lynn Bari, Carole Landis, Mary Beth Hughes & Virginia Gilmore) all cram into a scene together. LOL.

Thank you, thank you, r111!

An example of the "Orchestra Wives" bitchiness. Ann Rutherford has just eloped with lead trumpet player George Montgomery and is spending her wedding night on a train. The others wives all know that he's been screwing band singer Lynn Bari.

You're welcome R114. Anita Louise was SO BEAUTIFUL.

In the 1955 Republic B picture "No Man's Woman", Marie Windsor is fantastic (as usual) as a mean-spirited bitch, who's perfectly happy being married but separated from her husband; all while she entertains other men. As long as her husband continues to fund her lavish lifestyle. In one scene, her husband invites her to his family's home for a cocktail & to discuss the possibility of divorcing, so he's free to marry his new sweetheart. Things get ugly when Marie rejects his "lame" financial settlement proposals.

At one point her father in law steps in and offers Marie $30,000 (almost $300,000 in 2020 numbers). Marie, laughs at the foolish old man & tells him "That's not a settlement, Pops. That's a tip!" LOL.

The whole movie's up on YouTube. I've attached and cued it up to the scene I've discussed.

Oops! Error @ r75 I gave Philip and Richard each other's lines. Took me all this time to realize it.

r116 Going for the Joan Crawford look there.

Is Gladys Cooper in the pantheon of bitches for how she treated Bette Davis in "Now, Voyager?"

"Oh, I think that [hat] is a dream on you. You know, it does something for your face. It gives you a chin."

Claudette Colbert to Mary Astor, MIDNIGHT (39).

Thank you to the fellow fans of NINE GIRLS and ORCHESTRA WIVES! I saw the former years ago at a private screening and it's delicious...and a very good little film too.

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

(Chorus girls on a train with the stage manager - from BROADWAY BAD)

Stage manager: "Where's Toni?"

Girl: "She's back in New Haven. An old boyfriend of hers barged in on her with some of his college football buddies...With a song in his heart - --"

Girl #2: ".......and a snootful of gin in his throat. And boy, was he tight!"

Girl #1: "But it's OK - Fllp Daley's with her."

Stage manager: "So thats why Flip said she couldn't make the train, eh?"

Girl #1: "Sure. She was too busy makin' the team."

[quote]who's style has fell out of favor.

Double "oh, dear."

“You floor scrubbin’ old hag! You got nothin’ on me, and even if you did, who’d believe you? You’re a liar, a drunk, and a cheat!” - Angela Arden, Die Mommy Die

He tosses a ten to all the tramps at Christmas.

One of my favorites is from a film called "Bachelor Mother." Ginger Roger's boss, David Niven, takes Ginger out to a swanky NYE party and they join the table that includes his ex girlfriend. Ginger is too nervous to speak so she tells Niven to tell everyone she doesn't speak or understand English, and spends the evening talking Swedish gibberish. As they are leaving, the ex says to Niven about Ginger, "She's fine, I suppose, but if I were you, I'd have gone stag." To which Ginger replies, exiting: "Well, you sure got the shoulders for it!"

"Addison DeWit! I distinctly remember crossing you off my guest list!

"Ah Margo, you were a delightful Peter Pan. You must play it again soon!"

“Shit on your mother!!!!!”

Peggy Gravel from Desperate Living:

[the phone rings] Hello? What number are you calling? You've dialed the wrong number! SORRY? What good is that? How can you ever repay the 30 seconds you have STOLEN FROM MY LIFE! I hate you, your husband, your children and your relatives!