Hugh Griffith credited as playing...
Charles Bonnet
- Nicole Bonnet: I keep telling you, Papa, when you sell a fake masterpiece, that is a crime!
- Charles Bonnet: But I don't sell them to poor people, only to millionaires.
- Charles Bonnet: Don't you know that in his lifetime Van Gogh only sold one painting? While I, in loving memory of his tragic genius, have already sold two.
- Charles Bonnet: This tall, good-looking ruffian with blue eyes, he didn't, er, molest you in any way, did he?
- [Nicole is staring off dreamily]
- Charles Bonnet: Well, did he?
- Nicole Bonnet: Not much.
- Charles Bonnet: I doubt very much if Van Gogh himself would have gone through so much trouble.
- Nicole Bonnet: He didn't have to. He was Van Gogh!
- Charles Bonnet: American millionaires must be all quite mad. Perhaps it's something they put in the ink when they print the money.
- Charles Bonnet: What have I done? I've given the world a precious opportunity of studying and viewing the Cellini Venus.
- Nicole Bonnet: Which is not by Cellini!
- Charles Bonnet: Ahh, labels, labels. It's working with the Americans that's given you this obsession with labels and brand names. I wish you'd give up that ridiculous job.
- Charles Bonnet: Our Cellini Venus is really our own. So, be proud of it. Your own grandfather made it, and your own grandmother posed for it. For months she stood without moving a muscle while your grandfather perpetuated her in marble. That was, naturally, before she started eating those enormous lunches.
- Charles Bonnet: Come along, you'll like Monsieur Grammont. He's impeccably honest and extremely dull.
- Charles Bonnet: Didn't he tell you that he's got the great Toulouse-Lautrec from the Bonnet collection?
- Nicole Bonnet: Your Lautrec or Lautrec's Lautrec?
- Charles Bonnet: Mine, naturally.
- Charles Bonnet: I am pleased and proud that our Cellini Venus is a forgery. If it were genuine, what would it be? A piece of sculpture made centuries ago by some over-sexed Italian.
- Charles Bonnet: We live in a crass, commercial world, with no faith or trust!
- Nicole Bonnet: We must keep Prof. Bauer from examining the Venus.
- Charles Bonnet: But how? I've just given my permission. I've not only put my head into the guillotine, I've unloosened my collar and tie so that they can chop it off.
- Charles Bonnet: Our Venus! Don't you feel a kind of thrilling glow in that?
- Nicole Bonnet: I have chills run up and down my spine.
- Marcel: A Señor Paravideo to see you, Sir.
- Charles Bonnet: Who?
- Marcel: A South American gentleman, I believe, Sir. Of an excitable nature.
- Charles Bonnet: This will not be a scandal, but a triumph! Let the experts come pouring in! Let them bring their X-rays, their microscopes - even their nuclear weapons if they like.
- Insurance Clerk: By the way sir, would you like to be present at the technical examination?
- Nicole Bonnet, Charles Bonnet: Tech-technical examination?