- Becky Langner: Pure silk. That's all she'd ever wear, Bart said. Imagine that. Friends she had, straight from the gutter, but next to her skin - it had to be silk!
- Barney Sheean: I need nobody!
- Mark Peter Sheean: You do need some good films. Maybe Zarken can give you one.
- Barney Sheean: "Films"? "Films"? What the hell ever happened to movies? What do you think you're in, the art business? Tell Lewis the's dead - retroactively dead. Now you tell him I'll take a look at this broad of his, but, that I'm not really interested. And, just remind him - I make *movies* - not "films".
- Lewis Zarken: [Upon nearing a large greenhouse, while giving Elsa a walking tour of his estate] You might say that that greenhouse is something of a memorial to her. We had a Japanese gardener that used to look after it. Nice little fellow - quiet as a cherry blossom. Worked out here the best part of ten years, then suddenly one day we were at war. And the Government - who know a dangerous man when they see one - gave him a few hours to pack up before they shipped him off to some god-forsaken concentration camp in the middle of a desert. Lylah was so upset, she came down here to say good-bye to him. You can take my word for it, that gardener had the most *unexpected* going away present he ever had in his life.
- Lewis Zarken: [pauses, noticing that Elsa looks somewhat taken aback] Don't look so shocked... She wasn't married at the time.
- Elsa Brinkmann: Do you really believe that you have a licence to ask any dirty question that slimes into that snake's nest between your ears?
- Lewis Zarken: Elsa, be careful, don't...
- Rossella: Brava.
- Elsa Brinkmann: And nobody challenges you. Why? Because they are gentleman?
- [guttural laugh]
- Elsa Brinkmann: I'll tell you why. Molly Luther's magic wand.
- [twirls Molly Luther's cane]
- Elsa Brinkmann: It keeps keeps her safe from
- [two thumps against Molly Luther's leg brace]
- Elsa Brinkmann: dragons!
- Lewis Zarken: [Talking about choosing a stage name for Elsa] Elsa Brinkmann. "John Foster Brinksmanship." It's horrible. We'll have to change your name.
- Elsa Brinkmann: Thank you, but I'm happy with the name I have.
- Lewis Zarken: Well, I'm not! And neither will the public be! Anyway, what's in a name? Why are you so sensitive? If it's any consolation to you, I rejoiced in the name of "Flack." Louie Flack, F-L-A-C-K, Flack. How does *that* grab you? Then one day I saw this magician: "Zarkan the Magnificent." He was a terrible act. I think he finished up cutting his throat in a Hungarian boarding house. Anyway, I lifted his name. Sounds a bit like a Transylvanian pox doctor, but it serves to impress the natives. We'll do the same for you.
- Bart Langner: Here's a picture she liked very much, a wardrobe still from The Love That Flamed. They were rehearsing for it when they got married.
- Becky Langner: The worst thing he ever did, believe me.
- Elsa Brinkmann: What, not making the picture?
- Becky Langner: No, marrying Lylah. Lewis Zarken is no Boy Scout, but *that* girl - *whew* - tramp, degenerate; there's no other word for her!
- Rossella: He may some small talent as a film director, but, his real strength lies in his amazing instinct for the jugular.
- Lewis Zarken: Very interesting. Oh, that's really brilliant. We are moving like a deeply offended Tibetan yak! Aren't we?
- Elsa Brinkmann: Now, you get your ass out there - and tell 'em Lylah's coming as soon as she gets her harness on. And when she whistles, they squat! All of the them! Every damn last one!
- Elsa Brinkmann: Hear me, Barney? Squat and wait! Ha! Just wait for Lylah!
- [guttural laugh]
- Elsa Brinkmann: Wardrobe!
- Rossella: [Rossella describes her version of Lylah Clare's death] Up till then, I mean, before she married Lewis, we had our own quarters together. The day it happened, she had moved her things up there.
- [points upstairs]
- Rossella: She had gone for a drive along the coast. That afternoon, I was asleep. I heard a scream. Coming back at the front gate, this young man - wild, insane, hysterical - jumped onto her car. She drove fast up the drive to throw him off, but she couldn't: he clung like an animal. She ran up to the door. There, as she burst inside, she was screaming. He caught her on the stairs! She fought to get away from him! She ran to find Lewis; he chased after her. He was like a crazy man - he grabbed her. She cried out for help again and again, but... nobody came to help. Lewis was in another part of the house. At first he couldn't hear her. It was like a... nightmare, an insane dream! He wanted her as an animal wants, as an animal thinks! From somewhere, she found the strength to strike back at him, to push him away.
- [flashback voice of Lylah: 'Let go, keep your filthy hands off me!']
- Rossella: Suddenly, there was a knife. He started towards her, defiantly... showing her how foolish it was to try to stop him. Poor Lylah was so afraid, so terrified! 'He could do it, right there and then', he seemed to say as he caressed her stomach with the knife. But Lylah Clare was a movie queen, a love goddess; and he did not come to this house to kill a goddess. 'She must not be frightened of him', the boy seemed to be saying. He wanted her to understand how he felt: that she could trust him, that she had nothing to fear. He just stood there - arrogant, obsessed with lust. But Lylah was not a goddess, just a frightened girl; and in her terror, she stabbed him... stabbed him, again and again! He fell. Lylah couldn't believe what she had done. She stepped forward to look; I called out to her.
- [flashback voice of Rossella: 'Don't look, stop! Stop, stop!' as Lylah also falls off the tall staircase]
- Rossella: [rushing over to her, the flashback voices of Lewis and Lylah: 'Lylah, I love you.'... 'I love you, Lewis.']
- Bart Langner: Her heights made her dizzy, she looked down.
- Rossella: It was their wedding day, Lewis and Lylah's.
- [first lines]
- Bart Langner: [showing Elsa Brinkmann old studio photos of the late movie star Lylah Clare] Oh, this lousy projector - I hope it still works. There, I think I've got it. This is the only picture I have of Lylah in color. Despite what you may have heard, this is the only time she ever posed in the nude. You can't imagine what a really big star she was, I mean really big! Everybody loved her, worshipped her.
- Elsa Brinkmann: She had a strange kind of appeal, didn't she.
- Rossella: [to Lewis and Bart] Lover's quarrel? Maybe you two should move to England. They have legalized this kind of thing there. I always knew you were fond of each other, but this is too much.
- Bart Langner: I found Lylah, remember? Maybe you don't want to remember. Too long ago, huh? The first time I saw her in that little Berlin butcher shop, I said that...
- Lewis Zarken: Oh, come on! Butcher shop! You lifted that straight out of he official biogragraphy. You found her in a brothel - and one that specialized in catering to some pretty peculiar fantasies. As a matter of fact, I've always meant to ask you, what were you doing there?
- Lewis Zarken: [to Bart] Stop pouncing about like an over-sexed dwarf. We're about to interview an actress, not test her sexual capabilities.
- Rossella: You are looking unusually hopeful, too, Mio Caro.
- Lewis Zarken: Don't be so superior, Mia Cara. Maybe there's something here for you, too.
- Elsa Brinkmann: She's dead. I'm alive. You just got to have to get used to me.
- Rossella: I think that could be arranged.
- Lewis Zarken: Without a Director, you're just a vulgar little exhibitionist. You haven't the remotest idea what you're doing.
- Elsa Brinkmann: You really believe that, don't you, little man? Alright, little man, I'll show you. We'll see who's number one.
- Reporter with thick glasses: What do you know about Stanislavsky?
- Elsa Brinkmann: [giving a previously rehearsed answer] Didn't he used to play second base for the Dodgers?
- Lewis Zarken: Alright, Bart, if it'll make you happy. Trot out your Cinderella. Chances are she'll turn out to be one of the ugly sisters anyway.
- Bart Langner: You said you were interested in acting.
- Elsa Brinkmann: But as myself. As me. I'm all wrong for her. Wrong. I just wouldn't want to - I couldn't be like her.
- Bart Langner: You don't have to *be* like her, just act like her.
- Becky Langner: God forbid.
- Rossella: You think you created her? Can create her again? No. You can't. She's - herself. Unique.
- Barney Sheean: Was.
- Rossella: Was? Is. Take a look around this house. She wouldn't leave us all. Supposing you did find some cheap imitation of her, don't you think the results might be a little dangerous? Dangerous for all of us. Reporters, photographers. They bring up all the old muck. The old lies.
- Bart Langner: That's what I've been trying to tell you all night. I found someone. I found someone. I can show her to you.
- Lewis Zarken: No. I've seen it before. Dreary little pussycats come mincing in here like bitches in heart - move over there - billing their dirty little business up-and-down.
- Bart Langner: Don't tell me you haven't enjoyed yourself with them on occasion.
- Lewis Zarken: That's hardly the point.
- Bart Langner: Shoulders, hips, cheek bones - just like Lylah's. It's uncanny.
- Lewis Zarken: Stop weeping into your strawberries.
- Lewis Zarken: Nobody ever finds a star. You didn't find Lylah.
- Bart Langner: Then who did? Who?
- Lewis Zarken: You found a moderately attractive piece of clay. I admit she had some basic qualities, but it took my work to bring out the finished product.
- Rossella: You delude yourself. It was all there in the first place. Any one of a dozen competent Directors could have given her the necessary polish.
- Lewis Zarken: On the contrary, any one of a dozen competent Directors would have ruined her before she began.
- Countess Bozo Bedoni: Lewis wants this in silk. I told him it's a trifle vulgar, but at least it should appeal to you, Darling.
- Lewis Zarken: How much can you see without those glasses you keep trying to hide? Never mind. Hair, teeth, that's easy. Wardrobe, we can fix that. I've had your clothes moved. You'll live here.
- Elsa Brinkmann: You've done what?
- Lewis Zarken: You'll live here!
- Elsa Brinkmann: Look, I decide where I live. My things belong to me!
- Lewis Zarken: If you're not interested, there ae the stairs.
- Elsa Brinkmann: I'm wrong. You don't want *me*.
- Lewis Zarken: No. I want someone that'll walk, talk, and go through the motions that I taught Lylah. It'll be a 24-hour job. I'll rummage through your soul like a pickpocket through a stolen purse. "Always Beloved," 1937.
- Lewis Zarken: A young lady like you, who wants to make a sale, the buyer has a right to examine the goods.
- Elsa Brinkmann: Let go of me!
- Lewis Zarken: Did you hear that, Bart? She has dramatic talent. She doesn't wanna be touched!
- Elsa Brinkmann: Keep your filthy hands off me!
- Rossella: Lylah.
- Elsa Brinkmann: I'm not her. I'm not.
- Lewis Zarken: No, you're not, are you. But, you'll do for now.
- Countess Bozo Bedoni: For a man who sticks his initials on everything, including the toilet seat, you're pretty critical of other people's vanities, aren't you?
- Elsa Brinkmann: Considering the kinds of pictures the public wants, I think my best side is going to turn out to be horizontal.
- Barney Sheean: As long as I'm alive, there's only one boss.
- Mark Peter Sheean: You're never going to die, Pop.
- Barney Sheean: You're damn right!
- Bart Langner: Elsa's measurements are really the same. Lewis says they're identical.
- Barney Sheean: Oh yeah? How does he know? Been fingering the merchandise already, huh?
- Elsa Brinkmann: Don't worry. I'll curtsy and say my peace.
- Lewis Zarken: Do and I'll kiss your hand.
- Elsa Brinkmann: As Lylah would say, it won't be my hand you can kiss.
- Lewis Zarken: Don't try to be funny! You haven't the brains for it!
- Molly Luther: Another staircase entrance?
- Lewis Zarken: Mind the step, please.
- Molly Luther: Aren't you borrowing a little heavily from "Sunset Boulevard"?
- Lewis Zarken: I've always said, there's nothing like a staircase for a grand entrance.
- Molly Luther: Really, I thought DeMille said that.
- Lewis Zarken: What makes you think you're involved in a business that's concerned with innovation? The only thing invented in the last 30 years is buttered popcorn and cross-collateralization. Anything novel is anathema!
- Molly Luther: You grubby little slut!
- Elsa Brinkmann: Molly Luther, the Wicked Witch of the West! You throw water on her and she shrivels. She melts!
- [guttural laugh]
- Elsa Brinkmann: Imagine that! She really melts! And all that's left is a little phony flower and a dried up, disappointed freak!
- Molly Luther: I presume you know what kind of an establishment Lewis' last performer came from. Are we to take it that your background is equally unfortunate? Oh, come along, child, surely, you're not retarded. I'm asking you do you sleep with him?
- Elsa Brinkmann: Why, you miserable son of a bitch. What makes you think that because once, yes, Miss Luther, maybe just once you spent a cozy hour with Lewis Zarkan the you have a right to be jealous of him?
- Countess Bozo Bedoni: Whatever happened to Genghis Khan? I thought this orgy was laid on for your father's benefit.
- Mark Peter Sheean: Yeah, well, if he'd have known it was gonna be an orgy, he'd have been here.
- Lewis Zarken: [walking int the garden with Elsa, wearing a bra - no shirt - and pants] That kind of semipublic exposure never troubled Lylah.
- Elsa Brinkmann: You mean she was never ashamed of anything?
- Lewis Zarken: In the ancient tradition, she wasn't coy, no girdles, deodorants. Proud of what she was - a woman. Whatever a man needed of her, she gave.
- Elsa Brinkmann: Of course - the mermaid. Every man thinks he wants one of those.