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The Country Girl (1954 film)

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The Country Girl is a 1954 film about an alcoholic has-been who is hired by a director who also strikes up a stormy relationship with the actor's wife, who he believes is the cause of all the man's problems.

Directed and written by George Seaton, based on the play by Clifford Odets.
How far should a woman go...to redeem the man she loves?  taglines

Frank Elgin

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  • I faced a crisis up there in Boston, and I got away with it. Just about anybody can face a crisis. It's that everyday living that's rough. I'm not sure I can lick it, but I think I got a chance.
  • Instead of selling a patent of medicine or something like that, I was selling a philosophy. You know, a sort of a sunshine salesman.

Georgie Elgin

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  • Mr. Dodd, when I was a child, we had a town idiot who kept insisting that elephant tusks came from piano keys, but he had nothing on you.
  • No pity. I like that. Now at least he knows what to expect.
  • Flattery is cheap, Mr. Dodd. How about a little costly truth?
  • Certain men are very strange. Business couldn't be better, wife and kiddies are fine, jokes with the boys at the club. And the next day you read he's hung himself from the chandelier.
  • If you're not careful you're going to have him full of whisky before morning. He's getting a cold and that's a respectable surface reason for any drinker to jump down the well.
  • He hates himself. Consequently, he'll do or say anything to be liked by others. People like Frank ought to have two votes. Then they could mark their ballot: Democrat and Republican. That way, everybody would love them.

Bernie Dodd

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  • It's bad enough to go to Hollywood to cast. Now you suggest I go to heaven!
  • They can get awful bent out of shape, can't they? You know, my wife was so twisted, she once said to me, "I hope your next play's a flop, so the world can see how much I love you even though you're a failure."
  • We've got a lot of hard work ahead of us and I haven't time to outmaneuver frustrated females.

Philip Cook

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  • Bernie, every time you nod your head like that, it costs us a couple a hundred dollars. You're going to nod us right out of business.

Dialogue

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Georgie Elgin: You're even younger than I thought.
Bernie Dodd: And you try to look like an old lady. You're not. You shouldn't wear your hair like that. There are two kinds of women: those who pay too much attention to themselves and those who don't pay enough.
Georgie Elgin: [sarcastically] Say, that's quite a pearl of wisdom. May I quote you?
Georgie Elgin: Let's say I try my small way to help.
Bernie Dodd: That's what my ex-wife used to keep me reminding of, cheerfully. She had a theory that behind every great man there was a great woman. She also was thoroughly convinced that she was great and all I needed to qualify was guidance on her part.
Georgie Elgin: Still does not prove that the theory is completely wrong. I imagine one can go through history and find a few good examples.
Bernie Dodd: It's a pity that Leonardo da Vinci never had a wife to guide him; he might have really gotten somewhere.
Bernie Dodd: Does your wife really want you to play this part?
Frank Elgin: Yeah, she's all for it.
Bernie Dodd: I was just wondering. The day I met her, she seemed a little difficult about terms and rather domineering, I thought.
Frank Elgin: She wasn't always like that.
Bernie Dodd: Oh I know, I know. They all start out as Juliets and wind up as Lady Macbeths.
Georgie Elgin: For your edification, he's heading for a bender.
Bernie Dodd: Why is it that women always think they understand men better than men do?
Georgie Elgin: Maybe because they live with them.
Georgie Elgin: How's Frank?
Bernie Dodd: Okay. How's it been back here?
Georgie Elgin: He was a little uneasy with the curtain going up so late.
Bernie Dodd: If only the first few rows had the balcony's manners, what a wonderful world this would be.
Bernie Dodd: I'm just trying to find out if you were ever an actress?
Georgie Elgin: Oh, no. Not me. Thank you. I'm just a girl from the country. The theatre and its people have always been a complete mystery to me. They still are.
Bernie Dodd: Are you for him or against him?
Georgie Elgin: I'm his wife.
Bernie Dodd: Frank? Having trouble at home?
Frank Elgin: No, nothing like that. What's the matter? Don't you believe me?
Bernie Dodd: Everyone has trouble at home. The only ones who deny it are those that have too much of it.
Georgie Elgin: You're sure I'm not in the way?
Bernie Dodd: No, no. We're just closing up shop, giving it back to the theatre ghosts.
Georgie Elgin: There's nothing quite so mysterious and silent as a dark theatre. A night without a star.
Georgie Elgin: I try to be careful, Mr. Dodd, but being an actor's wife is not the easiest of jobs. If I tell him he's magnificent, he says I'm not honest. If I tell him he's not magnificent, he says I don't love him.
Bernie Dodd: Why don't you tell him he's good but can be better.
Georgie Elgin: Is that what the critics will tell him?
Bernie Dodd: Are you a critic or a wife?
Georgie Elgin: Frank's weak. He's a leaner! I happen to be the one he leans on.
Bernie Dodd: The good, strong helpmate. Did it ever occur to you that you and your strength might be the very reason he is weak. I don't like strong women, Mrs. Elgin.
Philip Cook: The dame in this paper puts her finger on it. Right on it. She says, "Elgin lacks authority in a role that cries for it." No authority. That's it.
Bernie Dodd: You know why he lacks authority? Because his wife has too much of it.
Bernie Dodd: You make him tense and uneasy. You never stop handling him and now you're trying to handle me too!
Georgie Elgin: And don't think I couldn't, after handling a cunning drunkard for 10 years.
Bernie Dodd: If you had any compassion or love whatsoever for this man, you could never call him a cunning drunkard.
Georgie Elgin: Maybe I have a greater love for the truth. That's what he is and I'm a drunkard's wife. That's the truth, too. And I think it's high time you stop looking at everything as if it were a musical comedy!
Georgie Elgin: How could you be so angry at someone you didn't even know?
Bernie Dodd: Maybe I really wasn't. Maybe I screamed at you to keep myself at an angry distance.

Taglines

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  • How far should a woman go...to redeem the man she loves?
  • A Complete Triumph!

Cast

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Wikipedia
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