The Member of the Wedding (1952)

Ethel Waters: Berenice Sadie Brown

Photos 

Quotes 

• Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Oh, I'm sick unto death! Oh, I wish they'd taken me with them to Winter Hill this afternoon! I wish tomorrow was Sunday instead of Saturday!

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Sunday will come.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I doubt it! I wish I was going somewhere for good! I wish I had a hundred dollars and could just LIGHT OUT and never see this town again!

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Seems to me like you wishing for a lot of things.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I wish I was somebody else except me.

• Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Why can't I be a member?

  Berenice Sadie Brown : I wouldn't pay them club girls no mind. All my life, I been wanting things I ain't been getting. Besides, them club girls are fully two years older than you.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I think they've been spreading it all over town that I smell bad. When I had those boils and had to use that black, bitter-smelling ointment...

  Berenice Sadie Brown : I know.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : And old Helen Fletcher asked me what was that funny smell I had. I could shoot every one of them with a pistol!

  [collapses on kitchen table] 

  John Henry : [strokes her hair]  I don't think you smell so bad. You smell sweet, like a hundred flowers.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I bet I use more perfume than anybody else in town. Crooks!

• Berenice Sadie Brown : [Frankie threatens her with a knife]  Put it down, devil. Well, throw it!

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : [throws the knife into the kitchen door]  I'm the best knife thrower in this town. If they would have a contest, I would win!

• Berenice Sadie Brown : Look at your hair to begin with. Done had all your hair shaved off like a convict. You tie this ribbon around this head with no hair, it looks peculiar.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : But I'm going to wash and try to stretch my hair tonight.

• Frances 'Frankie' Addams : [about Jarvis and Janice]  They were the two prettiest people I ever saw. I just can't understand how it happened.

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Whatever ails you? Acting so queer!

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I don't know. I bet they have a good time every minute of the day.

  John Henry : Let's us have a good time!

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Us have a good time? Us?

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Yes, us. Come on, let us play a three-hand game of bridge.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Janice and Jarvis. Winter Hill. The wedding. It's all so queer.

• Frances 'Frankie' Addams : [playing bridge]  Even with this trick, I can't win.

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Well, just where is the cards? Three days, I ain't had a decent hand. Getting to suspicion something, too. Come on, let's count these old cards.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : We've worn these old cards out. If you'd eat these old cards, they would taste like a combination of all the dinners of the summer, together with a sweaty-handed nasty taste.

  [they turn all the cards face-up] 

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Why, the jacks and the queens are missing.

  [John Henry sinks in his chair] 

  Berenice Sadie Brown : John Henry, how come you do a thing like that? So, that's why you asked for the scissors and stole off quiet behind the arbor. Why you take our playing cards and cut out all the pictures?

  John Henry : 'Cause I wanted 'em. They're cute.

• Berenice Sadie Brown : Frankie, the whole idea of a club is that there are members who are included and the non-members who are not included. Then what you ought to do is round you up a club of your own. That way, you'd be the president yourself.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Who would I get?

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Oh, the little boys and girls you hear playing around here in the neighborhood.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I don't want to be the president of all those little young, leftover people.

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Well, go on and enjoy your misery.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I bet Janice and Jarvis are members of a lot of clubs. In fact, the Army is kind of like a club.

• Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Janice and Jarvis. It gives me this pain just to think about them.

  Berenice Sadie Brown : It's a known truth: gray-eyed people is jealous.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I told you I wasn't jealous! I couldn't be jealous of one of them, 'less I was jealous of them both. I 'sociate the two of them together.

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Well, I was jealous when my foster brother, Honey, married Clorina. I sent a warning I'd tear the ears clear off of her head. But you see I didn't. She got ears just like everybody else.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : J-a. Janice and Jarvis. Isn't that the strangest thing?

  Berenice Sadie Brown : What?

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : J-a. Both their names begin with J-a.

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Well, what about it?

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : If only my name was Jane or... Jasmine!

  Berenice Sadie Brown : I don't follow your frame of mind.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Jarvis and Janice and Jasmine! See?

  Berenice Sadie Brown : No, I don't see.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I wonder if it's against the law to change your name, or add to it?

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Naturally, it's against the law.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Well, I don't care. F. Jasmine Addams!

• John Henry : Berenice, which eye's your mind's eye?

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Don't yank my head back like that, Candy. Me and Frankie ain't going to float through the ceiling and leave you.

• John Henry : Mean old bossy Frankie!

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Just what is she doing that's so mean? Just trying to get some rest.