Baby Doll (1956)

Karl Malden: Archie Lee Meighan

Photos 

Quotes 

• Baby Doll : I don't wanna be in the same room with a man that would make me live in a house with no furniture in it!

  Archie Lee Meighan : Oh, honey.

  Baby Doll : My daddy would turn over in his grave if he knew! He would just turn over in his grave!

  Archie Lee Meighan : Baby Doll, if your daddy turned in his grave as often as you say he'd turn in his grave, that old man would plow up the graveyard!

• Archie Lee Meighan : Today is the fifth day of November. Tomorrow is the sixth day of November, and the day after that is November seventh. And you know what day that is, don't you? November seventh is your 20th birthday.

  Baby Doll : Ain't that sweet of you to remember. Where's my birthday present?

  Archie Lee Meighan : Oh, you'll get your birthday present, providin' you haven't forgotten the agreement between us, which comes due on that day.

  Baby Doll : Oh, the agreement?

  Archie Lee Meighan : Yeah, the agreement, that you swore on a Bible to keep your side of.

  Baby Doll : Providin' you kept yours.

  Archie Lee Meighan : Have I ever laid hands on you since we've been married?

  Baby Doll : Yeah, as often as possible.

• Baby Doll : Small dogs have a loud bark.

  Archie Lee Meighan : No one is going to whistle at any woman of mine.

  Baby Doll : You take an awful lot for granted when you say mine. I came to you today for protection. What did I get? Slapped, sent home. Now, I'm telling you the agreement between us is over.

• Archie Lee Meighan : Is that what they call a Mona Lisa smile you got on your puss?

• Archie Lee Meighan : People know the situation between us. Yesterday on Front Street a man yelled to me and said, "Hey, Archie Lee, has yer wife outgrown the crib yet?" And three or four others hawed at me. Public. Humiliation.

  Baby Doll : Private humiliation is just as painful.

• Archie Lee Meighan : I am servin' you notice. If that ole woman breaks down and dies on my place, I ain't gonna get stuck with her funeral expenses. I'll have her burned up! Cremated is what they call it. And I'll pack her ashes in an ole Coca-Cola bottle and I'll pitch that bottle in the Tiger Tail bayou!

• Archie Lee Meighan : They's no torture on earth to equal the torture which a cold woman inflicts on a man. They's no torture to compare with it! What I've done is staked out a lot in hell, a lot with a rotten house on it and five complete sets of furniture not paid for.

  Baby Doll : What you done is bit off more'n you can chew.

  [takes a long, slow lick of her ice cream cone with her tongue] 

• Archie Lee Meighan : You know, there's a new bureau in Washington, D. C. It's called the U.W. Bureau. You know what U.W. stands for? It stands for Useless Women! They got secret plans afoot to -

  [takes a swig of liquor] 

  Archie Lee Meighan : to round 'em all up and shoot 'em. That's funny. Shoot 'em. Now, you heard me. I said shoot 'em.

  Baby Doll : How 'bout men that's destructive? Ain't they got some plan to round up destructive men and shoot 'em?

• Archie Lee Meighan : Where is that wop, Vacarro?

• [repeated lines] 

  Archie Lee Meighan : Baby Doll!

• Baby Doll : Archie Lee, you're a mess. Do you know what they call such people? Peepin' Toms!

  Archie Lee Meighan : Ain't that somethin' for a woman who sleeps in a baby's crib to stay away from her husband!

  Baby Doll : Now, I'm gonna plug up the hole in that wall with chewin' gum and if I ever catch you pokin' a knife through it again to peek at me in my sleep, I'm movin' into the Cotton King Hotel.

• Baby Doll : You put me in Tiger Tail - the biggest old wreck of a place in the whole delta. You told my daddy you was gonna restore this place, exactly like it was when the Deauvines owned it, only betta. "Make a show place," you said. Yeah, a freak show!

  Archie Lee Meighan : I gotta boy on the roof right now. I got my man on the roof right now. Can't you hear the hammer on the roof?

  Baby Doll : Is that a hammer? Why I thought that was a king-size termite.

• Baby Doll : You told a mouthful of lies to my daddy in order to get me.

  Archie Lee Meighan : Get you? I ain't got you yet.

  Baby Doll : No and you ain't about to either.

• Archie Lee Meighan : You Come On! You get yer cotton-pickin' tail down here.

• Archie Lee Meighan : What are you waitin' for? Oh, now, come on, git into the car!

  Baby Doll : I will git in the backseat of that scatter-boat when you git out and walk around and open the door for me like a gentleman.

  Archie Lee Meighan : Well, you gonna wait a long time, if that's what your waitin' for.

  Baby Doll : Well, I declare! My father would turn over in his grave.

  Archie Lee Meighan : I never once saw your father git and open the car door for any woman and especially not your water-leggin' mother! Now, git on in!

• Baby Doll : If you don't like Aunt Rose Comfort's cookin, then get me a regular servant! You don't think that I am gonna cook for a big, fat ole thing like you!

  Archie Lee Meighan : Quit sayin' fat or...

  Baby Doll : Well, then you get young and thin and I'll quit sayin' fat ole thing.

• Baby Doll : I'm gonna get me a good payin' job. The manager of the Cotton King Hotel helped carry my daddy's coffin. He'll give me work.

  Archie Lee Meighan : What sort of work do you think you could do?

  Baby Doll : I could curl hair in a beauty parlor.

  Archie Lee Meighan : Oh, I can't see that.

  Baby Doll : I reckon I could be a hostess - and smile at people comin' in a place.

  Archie Lee Meighan : What place?

  Baby Doll : Any place! I could be a cashier.

  Archie Lee Meighan : No. You can't count change.

  Baby Doll : Well, I could pass out menus or programs or somethin' - and say hello to people.

  Archie Lee Meighan : Oh, now, Baby Doll.

  Baby Doll : I can say hello!

• Archie Lee Meighan : Oh, Baby Doll! Come out here! Come here. Come here, Baby Doll. I want you to come right over here and meet Mr. Vacarro from the Syndicate Plantation. Say, what's your first name Vacarro?

  Silva Vacarro : Silva.

  Archie Lee Meighan : How you spell it?

  Silva Vacarro : Capital s-i-l-v-a.

  Archie Lee Meighan : Sure enough? Like a sliva linin'? Well, every cloud has got a silva linin'!

  Baby Doll : Oh, what's that from - the Bible?

  Silva Vacarro : No, the Mother Goose book.

• Archie Lee Meighan : I believe in the good neighbor policy. You do me a good turn and I do you a good turn, Mr. Vacarro. Tit for tat and tat for tit is the policy we live on! Yes, sir!

• Archie Lee Meighan : Now, don't go gitten hysterical.

  Silva Vacarro : You gotta lot of wagons out on the roadway.

  Archie Lee Meighan : Now, you I-talians are...

  Silva Vacarro : Never mind about we Italians!

• Baby Doll : Archie Lee, I got somethin' to tell you - you big slob!

  Archie Lee Meighan : What are you doin'?

  Baby Doll : You left me over there!

  Archie Lee Meighan : Didn't I tell you never to cross over to this Gin when n****** are workin' here!

• Archie Lee Meighan : Ain't I told you not to slop around here in a slip? Ain't I told you not to slop around here in a slip!

• Archie Lee Meighan : A man grows old sudden - not gradual. Just all of the sudden - he's old!

• Archie Lee Meighan : You just fixed your wagon - with the smart talk. Oh, you just fixed your wagon. I'm gonna wipe that grin off your greasy wop face for good! Oh,

• Archie Lee Meighan : OK. Put me in that stinking black calaboose. l ain't a white man? No, so throw me in. But, don't you leave my Baby Doll here with him. Don't you leave him here with her. You're a married man. You understand how l feel. Don't you, Sandy? Please. As one white man to another. Just for tonight, don't leave them on the place.