One, Two, Three
Put your pants on, Spartacus!
One, Two, Three is a 1961 American comedy film about a Coca Cola salesman set in a Berlin divided between the capitalist west and Communist East.
- Written by Billy Wilder and written by him and I.A.L. Diamond, based on the 1929 Hungarian one-act play Egy, kettö, három by Ferenc Molnár.
Dialogue
[edit]C.R. MacNamara, the Coca-Cola (Berlin) boss, and Schlemmer, his German assistant
[edit]
- C.R. MacNamara: Just between us, Schlemmer, what did you do during the war?
- Schlemmer: I was in der Untergrund: the underground.
- C.R. MacNamara: Resistance fighter?
- Schlemmer: No, motorman. In the underground, you know, the subway.
- C.R. MacNamara: Of course you were anti-Nazi and you never liked Adolf.
- Schlemmer: Adolf who?
- [But later, Schlemmer recognizes the reporter Untermeyer]
- Schlemmer: Herr Oberleutnant!
- C.R. MacNamara: You two know each other?
- Schlemmer: He was my commanding officer.
- C.R. MacNamara: In the subway?
- Schlemmer: No, after that, when I was drafted.
- C.R. MacNamara: Aha! Gestapo!
- Schlemmer: No, no, SS.
Otto, the young East German communist, Scarlet, his (to begin with secret) wife and daughter of the Coca-Cola top boss, the MacNamara's should take care of
[edit]- Otto: I will not have my son grow up to be a capitalist.
- Scarlet: When he's 18 he can make his mind up whether he wants to be a capitalist or a rich communist.
- Otto: They have assigned us a magnificent apartment. Just a short walk from the bathroom.
- Scarlett: Tell daddy I'm going to the U.S.S.R. That's short for Russia.
- C.R. MacNamara: Are you out of your seventeen year old mind? Russia is to get out of, not to get into!
- Otto: [bursts into room wearing boxers, shirt, tie and morning coat] I'm going to like this job!
- C.R. MacNamara: It's about time you started cooperating.
- Otto: You know what the first thing is I'm going to do? I'm going to lead the workers down there in revolt!
- C.R. MacNamara: Put your pants on, Spartacus!
C.R. MacNamara dealing with Russian biznismeni of East Berlin, and they with him, with a brief comment by Otto
[edit]- C.R. MacNamara: Cigarette? Cigar?
- Peripetchikoff: Here, take one of these.
- C.R. Macnamara: Thanks. Hm, 'Made in Havana'.
- Peripetchikoff: We have trade agreement with Cuba. They send us cigars, we send them rockets.
- C.R. Macnamara: Good thinking.
- C.R. MacNamara: You know something? You guys got cheated. This is a pretty crummy cigar.
- Peripetchikoff: Do not worry. We send them pretty crummy rockets.
- Borodenko: When will papers be ready?
- C.R. Macnamara: I'll put my secretary right to work on it.
- Mishkin: Your secretary? She's that blond lady?
- C.R. Macnamara: That's the one.
- Peripetchikoff: [after conferring with the others] You will send papers to East Berlin with blond lady in triplicate.
- C.R. Macnamara: You want the papers in triplicate, or the blond in triplicate?
- Peripetchikoff: See what you can do.
- Peripetchikoff: Well, Comrades, what are we going to do? He's got it - we want it. Are we going to accept this blackmailing capitalist's deal?
- Mishkin: Let's take a vote.
- Peripetchikoff: I vote yes.
- Mishkin: I vote yes.
- Peripetchikoff: Two out of three. Deal is on!
- Borodenko: Comrades, before you get in trouble, I must warn you, I am not really from Soft Drink Secretariat. I am undercover agent assigned to watch you.
- Mishkin: In that case I vote no. Deal is off.
- Borodenko: But I vote yes!
- Peripetchikoff: Two out of three again! Deal is on!
- Otto Ludwig Piffl: Is everybody in this world corrupt?
- Peripetchikoff: I don't know everybody.
- MacNamara: You've defected?
- Peripetchikoff: Is old Russian proverb: "go west young man."
Quotes
[edit]Otto on the space race
[edit]
- Soviet missiles (shoots hand into the air) fffffffffffwwwwwwwwwwoooooosssh.
Venus!
American missiles (hand goes up then down) phft phft.
Miami Beach.
Otto on the US
[edit]- Otto: Capitalism is like a dead herring in the moonlight. It shines, but it stinks!
- C.R. MacNamara: Schlemmer!! [Last line in movie as MacNamara finds a Pepsi-Cola in the Coke machine.]
- Otto: I spit on your money. I spit on Fort Knox. I spit on Wall Street.
- C.R. MacNamara: Unsanitary little jerk, isn't he?
Cast
[edit]- James Cagney – C.R. "Mac" MacNamara
- Horst Buchholz – Otto Ludwig Piffl
- Pamela Tiffin – Scarlett Hazeltine
- Arlene Francis – Phyllis MacNamara
- Leon Askin – Peripetchikoff
- Howard St. John – Wendell P. Hazeltine
