This Happy Breed (1944)

Kay Walsh: Queenie

Photos 

Quotes 

• Ethel Gibbons : Poor old Sylvia, she's a bit of a trial sometimes.

  Queenie : Well, I don't know how you stand her, Mum.

  Ethel Gibbons : If it hadn't for poor Bertie getting killed in the war, she'd have been alright I expect.

  Queenie : What was he like?

  Ethel Gibbons : Bit soppy I always thought, still, she seemed to like him.

  Queenie : How awful to be so dependent on a man living or dying it could ruin your whole life.

• Sam Leadbitter : But as you well know there are millions and millions of 'omes in this country today where Christmas is naught but a mockery, where there's neither warmth nor food nor even the bare necessities of life, where little children, old before their time, huddle round a fireless grate.

  Queenie : Well, they'd be just as well off if they stayed in the middle of the room then, wouldn't they?

  Reg : Oh shut up Queenie, Sam's quite right.

  Sam Leadbitter : That sort of remark, Queenie, springs from complacency, arrogance and a full stomach.

  Queenie : You leave my stomach out of it.

  Sam Leadbitter : It is people like you, apathetic, unthinking, docile supporters of a capitalistic system which is a disgrace to civilization who are responsible for at least three quarters of the cruelest sufferings of the world. As long as you can earn your miserable little salaries and go to the pictures and enjoy yourselves, the rest of society can go hang, can't it. You're too busy getting all weepy over Rudolph Valentino to spare any tears for the workers of the world!

  Vi : Don't get excited, Sam. Queenie didn't mean it.

  Sam Leadbitter : I am not excited, and Queenie doesn't mean anything to me anyway.

  Queenie : Oh, pardon me all while I go and commit suicide.

• Queenie : You haven't any right to ask me things like that.

  Billy Mitchell : Now listen here Queenie. We haven't seen much of each other on account of me bein' away at sea, but you've known all the time that I've been thinking of you and hoping that as the years went by you might grow out of some of your high-falutin' ideas and think me good enough to be your husband. All that gives me the right to ask anything I like.

  Queenie : No it doesn't.

  Billy Mitchell : Is there someone else or isn't there?

  Queenie : Yes there is if you want to know, so there.

  Billy Mitchell : You going to marry him?

  Queenie : No.

  Billy Mitchell : Why not?

  Queenie : That's my affair.

  Billy Mitchell : Is he married already?

  Queenie : Leave me alone!

  Billy Mitchell : Is he?

  Queenie : Yes he is! Now are you satisfied?

  Billy Mitchell : Oh Queenie. You're an awful fool. I do wish you weren't.

  Queenie : Who are you calling a fool? People can't help their feelings.

  Billy Mitchell : No, but they can have enough sense not to let their feelings get the better of them!

• Ethel Gibbons : Have you got your mac, Queenie?

  Queenie : It's not a mac, it's a Burberry.

• Queenie : I want too much. I'm always thinking about the kind of things I want, and they wouldn't be the kind of things you'd want me to want.

• Ethel Gibbons : We haven't got any plans. We're just going to have a jolly good time.

  Queenie : Well, are we going, or are we gonna stand here all day talking about it?

  Ethel Gibbons : Don't be saucy, Queenie.

• Billy Mitchell : I haven't done anything wrong, have I?

  Queenie : Well, I don't like being taken for granted. No girl does.

  Billy Mitchell : How do you mean, taken for granted? You can't hold hands with someone all through "Desert Love" and the next minute expect them to treat you like the Empress of Russia.

  Queenie : Don't talk so silly.

• Queenie : I'll tell you something awful. I hate living here. I hate living in a house that's exactly like hundreds of other houses. I hate coming home from work on tube. I hate washing up and helping Mum darn Dad's socks and listening to Aunt Syl keeping on about how ill she is all the time. And what's more, I know why I hate it. It's because it's all so common. There. I suppose you'll think I'm getting above myself and I can't blame you. Maybe I am. But I can't help it.

• Queenie : I'm going upstairs to wash a pair of stockings out for the morning.