Life with Father (1947)

Jimmy Lydon: Clarence

Photos 

Quotes 

• Vinnie : Is that suit of your father's too tight for you?

  Clarence Day : No, it's not too tight.

  Vinnie : Well, what is it?

  Clarence Day : Mother, very peculiar things have happened since I started to wear this suit. I can't seem to make these clothes do anything Father wouldn't do.

  Vinnie : Oh, that's nonsense. And not to kneel in church is a sacrilege.

  Clarence Day : Making Father's trousers kneel seemed like more of a sacrilege.

• Vinnie : Why didn't you kneel in the church today?

  Clarence Day : I... I just couldn't.

  Vinnie : Just because your father doesn't kneel, you must remember he wasn't brought up to kneel in church, but you *were*. Has it anything to do with Mary? I know that she is a Methodist.

  Clarence Day : Oh, no, mother. Methodists kneel, Mary told me. They don't get up and down so much, but they stay down longer.

• Father : [advising his son on man-woman relationships]  All a man has to do is be firm. You know how some times *I* have had to be firm with your mother.

  Clarence Day : Yes, but father, but what can you do when they cry?

  Father : Hmm... well, uh... that's quite a question. You just have to make them understand that what you are doing is for their good.

  Clarence Day : I see...

  Father : Now, Clarence, you know all about women.

  Father : [stands up to signal the end of the conversation] 

  Clarence Day : But father...

  Father : Yes, Clarence?

  Clarence Day : I thought you were going to tell me about...

  Father : About what?

  Clarence Day : About... women.

  Father : Clarence, there are some things gentlemen don't discuss! I told you all you need to know.

• Mary : That's funny. The words are the same, but it's the wrong tune.

  Clarence Day : Oh, it can't be the wrong tune. We sing it exactly that way in church.

  Mary : We don't sing it that way in the Methodist Church. You see, we're Methodist.

  Clarence Day : Oh, that's too bad. Oh, I don't mean it's too bad that you're a Methodist. Anybody's got a right to be anything they want, but what I mean is, we're... *Episcopalians*.

• Clarence Day : Jiminy, another wreck on the New Haven. That always disturbs the stock market. Father won't like that.

  Vinnie : I do wish the New Haven would stop having wrecks. If they knew how much it upsets your father.