Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)

Paul Newman: Chance Wayne

Photos 

Quotes 

• Chance Wayne : I like you. You are a nice monster.

• Chance Wayne : The big difference between people is not between the rich and the poor, the good and the evil. The biggest of all differences between people is between those that have had pleasure and love and those who haven't.

• Chance Wayne : This is pretty high-class pot. Where'd you get it?

  Alexandra Del Lago : You beautiful, stupid young man. That is not pot. It's hashish, Moroccan, and the finest.

• Chance Wayne : .I appeared in the biggest stage hit on Broadway. I had my picture on the cover of Life magazine! Woo-ha! And at the same time I was - employing my other talent: lovemaking.

  Alexandra Del Lago : That may be the only talent you were ever truly meant for.

• Chance Wayne : [Parting words to Alexandra del Lago]  Princess, each of us has his own private hell to go to.

• Scotty : Leroy, did you know this is Chance Wayne... the famous Hollywood and Broadway celebrity?

  Leroy : Really?

  Bud : Sure. All bartenders become movie stars. Right, Chance?

  Chance Wayne : Oh, well. What he's trying to say is that I had your job for too long. You know, I designed that uniform you've got on. I copied it from an outfit Cary Grant wore in his Foreign Legion picture. It looks great on you, kid.

• Chance Wayne : Well, some more oxygen?

  Alexandra Del Lago : No. No, I must look hideous in it.

  Chance Wayne : Oh, no, honey. You just look exotic. Yeah. Like a princess from Mars or a... big magnified insect.

• Dr. George Scudder : [He's just observed Chance popping a pill]  What is that you just took?

  Chance Wayne : [Indifferently]  A pill.

  Dr. George Scudder : What kind of pill?

  Chance Wayne : Oh, Benny. Benzedrine.

  Dr. George Scudder : On prescription?

  Chance Wayne : Yeah, sort of...

  Chance Wayne : [Cynically]  A goofball makes the world keep its balance.

• Chance Wayne : George, George. You're the only grown man I know that still says "gee" and "golly" and "gosh."

  Dr. George Scudder : Well, I'm not as sophisticated as you.

• Chance Wayne : Oh, man. Don't you know only squares drink gin martinis with olives?

• Alexandra Del Lago : Did we spend the night together?

  Chance Wayne : Oh, yes, ma'am. But I did not molest you.

  Alexandra Del Lago : Well, should I thank you for that or accuse you of cheating?

• Chance Wayne : [intervening as he sees Fly the bellboy unzipping Princess's/Alexandra's luggage]  Hey! What're you doin'?

  Fly : Don't you want these unpacked, sir?

  Chance Wayne : Oh, well, uh, the Princess is kinda finicky about her things; I'll take care-a that later.

  Fly : Yes sir.

  Chance Wayne : And, uh, about that bottle...

  Fly : [without looking back and obviously showing friendly discretion]  I didn't see any bottle, Mr. Wayne.

  Chance Wayne : How'd you know my name?

  Fly : I used to wait tables at the Country Club when you'd come dancing with the same young lady; that pretty young lady, Boss Finley's daughter.

  Chance Wayne : Yeah. What're you called?

  Fly : Fly, just like the fly, sir.

  Chance Wayne : Fly, now when you haul up the rest of the things, could you, uh, bring up a bottle-a vodka and some ice?

  Fly : Yes sir.

  Chance Wayne : And, uh, write yourself a five dolla tip on the check.

  Fly : Yes sir.

  Chance Wayne : Now, uh, shoo Fly.

  [Fly leaves the hotel suite] 

• Chance Wayne : Princess, just smoke.

  Alexandra Del Lago : Oh, yes. Smoke. And after this - the mercenary young lovers.

  Chance Wayne : Like me?

  Alexandra Del Lago : Yes, like you.

• Alexandra Del Lago : That water. Is that the Pacific Ocean?

  Chance Wayne : No, ma'am, that's the Gulf.

  Alexandra Del Lago : What Gulf?

  Chance Wayne : The gulf of misunderstanding between you and me.

• Chance Wayne : Don't you trust me?

  Alexandra Del Lago : Who taught you to rub desperate ladies the right way? And you say all you did was manipulate the papaya cream?

  Chance Wayne : Well, more or less.

  Alexandra Del Lago : How much more?

  Chance Wayne : Ma'am, if we'd made love, you'd have remembered it.

  Alexandra Del Lago : Well, what stopped you? Certainly not I. And certainly not *your* ethics.

• Chance Wayne : Aren't you ashamed a little?

  Alexandra Del Lago : Yes. Aren't you?

  Chance Wayne : More than a little.

  Alexandra Del Lago : Close the curtains, please. Then come here to me. And make me almost believe that we are a pair of young lovers without any shame.

• Chance Wayne : My trade was youth. And war either makes you age fast or die fast.

• Chance Wayne : Don't ask me to give up my dream.

• Chance Wayne : Princess, now, look, you've gotta open the right doors for me. I know you're gonna do this for me, Princess. Because, I have been knocking on those doors of success till my insides are bloody. Because that's the way I've been knocking on those doors, see, with my bare insides!

  Alexandra Del Lago : You will open only one door: The door to my car as my chauffeur. You will wake me in the morning, as my butler or my lover, depending on what *I* want. In a few years, you will be through with your good looks and I will be through with you. And that is the truth. Can you face the truth?

• Chance Wayne : It's okay, Princess.

• Chance Wayne : Hello, Doc. How'd you know I was back?

  Dr. George Scudder : Bad news travels fast.

• [first lines] 

  Alexandra Del Lago : Hey. Hey, you, whoever you are.

  Chance Wayne : Are you awake now, princess?

  Alexandra Del Lago : I want a drink.

  Chance Wayne : Oh, soon, princess.

  Alexandra Del Lago : I want it now! Oh, please, please get me a drink. For Gods sake, baby, don't hold out on me.

• Chance Wayne : Don't tell me that man with the middle-age spread is Dan Hatcher. Chance. Chance Wayne.

  Dan Hatcher : I never expected to see you again. Not in these hereabouts anyway.

  Chance Wayne : Well, just because a man's *successful* is no reason to forget his old hometown.

• Chance Wayne : Do you remember where we met?

  Alexandra Del Lago : Well, this much I do remember: that I like bodies - to be silky-smooth, hard gold.

• Chance Wayne : What's the matter?

  Alexandra Del Lago : I remembered the thing I wanted to forget. The stupid, senseless end of my life, that's all. No wonder I didn't want to remember.

• Chance Wayne : Your comeback. I mean, what happened? You just didn't have it anymore?

  Alexandra Del Lago : Oh, I had it. I had the will and I had the talent to go with it. But the camera. The camera doesn't know how to lie. The screen is a very clear mirror. There is a thing, God help us, called a close-up.

• Chance Wayne : First, we - we let the hash take effect. And, then, we apply the magic formula.

  Alexandra Del Lago : What?

  Chance Wayne : Like we did in Palm Beach, remember? That soothing, magical formula called papaya cream.

  Alexandra Del Lago : Ah, yes. Yes. Papaya-cream rubs...

• Alexandra Del Lago : Boy, I doubt very much if I have any vice, old or new, that I could introduce to you.

  Chance Wayne : Ma'am, don't call me boy.

• Alexandra Del Lago : The hashish came later. In Tangier.

  Chance Wayne : How'd you get it into the States, smuggle it?

  Alexandra Del Lago : Know another way?

• Chance Wayne : That's very ugly language.

  Alexandra Del Lago : The language of the gutter is understood by anyone who ever fell in it.

• Chance Wayne : I've been an extra in movies long enough to know that I can be as big a star as some of them she-men that have made it.

• Alexandra Del Lago : Why did you still hold out?

  Chance Wayne : I wanted to hold your interest.

  Alexandra Del Lago : Well, you miscalculated. My interest always increases with satisfaction.

• Heavenly Finley : What are you thinking?

  Chance Wayne : I was just - I was just feeling kind of peaceful and easy, listening to those freewheeling birds coming home. If we could just be like one of them out there - just free as a bird.

  Heavenly Finley : No one in love is free or even wants to be.

• Chance Wayne : All my life, I've been on the outside. And time is running out. Now, look around you. Boy, they got places for the old and the sick and the homeless, but no place for the failures. And failure is a highly contagious disease.

• Chance Wayne : I've wallowed in a social register of New York - with discreet wives in the millionaire set and debutante daughters in the horsy set.

  Alexandra Del Lago : Did they foot the bills too?

  Chance Wayne : Yeah. But I always gave them much more than I took. To older women, I gave back a feeling of excitement and youth. To sad, lost women - a merciful display of affection and temporary hope. Eccentrics? Understanding, tolerance.

  Alexandra Del Lago : You must have been quite a successful enterprise.

• Alexandra Del Lago : What are those lovely bells?

  Chance Wayne : Why, madam, it is Easter Sunday.

  Alexandra Del Lago : How fitting. I feel absolutely reborn. Yes. The world and I are on very good terms this morning.

• Chance Wayne : Imagine, a whole lifetime full of hopes and dreams and ambition being wiped out by a 2-ounce accident like a bullet. A bullet shot off into space by anybody. And my head and that bullet at the same place at the same time.

• Chance Wayne : That Hollywood merry-go-round is a pushover. Today they're stepping on your feet, tomorrow they're kissing your feet.

• Chance Wayne : Boy, you still look like a million dollars, there, Miss Lucy.

  Miss Lucy : Ah-huh? Confederate money.

  [chuckles] 

• Chance Wayne : That man has an irresistible passion to see other people traveling.

• Miss Lucy : What's in the pill, honey?

  Chance Wayne : Well, when you are having fun, this makes you have even more.

  Miss Lucy : Are you? Having fun?

  Chance Wayne : Baby, I'm having a ball.

  Miss Lucy : Honey, I'm an expert at pretending to have fun. You are having a wake, not a ball.

• Chance Wayne : Just look at yourself. What do you see in there?

  Alexandra Del Lago : I see me. Alexandra Del Lago, artist and star.