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Camille (1936 film)

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Greta Garbo as Marguerite Gautier and Robert Taylor as Armand Duval.

Camille is a 1936 film about a Parisian courtesan who must choose between the young man who loves her and the callous baron who wants her, even as her own health begins to fail.

Directed by George Cukor. Written by James Hilton, Zoë Akins, and Frances Marion, based on the 1848 novel and 1852 play La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils.
You who are so young--where can you have learned all you know about women like me?

Marguerite 'Camille' Gautier

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  • [about Armand] His eyes have made love to me all evening.
  • I always look well when I'm near death.
  • I'm afraid of nothing except being bored.

Armand Duval

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  • The past is dead. Heaven rest its soul - if it had one.

Dialogue

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Olympe: If you don't stop being so easy-going with your money, you'll land in the gutter before you're through or back on that farm where you came from milking cows and cleaning out hen houses.
Marguerite: Cows and chickens make better friends than I've ever met in Paris.
Marguerite: Are you following me?
Armand: Yes, you, well you did smile at me a moment ago, didn't you?
Marguerite: [about Olympe] Well, you tell me first whether you smiled at me or at my friend.
Armand: What friend?
Marguerite: You didn't even see her?
Armand: No.
Marguerite: That's very nice.
Armand: I was just wondering if you'd ask me to sit down if I knocked at the door of the box.
Marguerite: Why not? We really seemed fated to meet this evening, didn't we?
Armand: Fate must have had something to do with this. I've hoped for it so long. You don't believe me.
Marguerite: No.
Armand: The first time I saw you was a year and a half ago. You were in an open carriage and dressed in white. I saw you get out and go into a shop in La Place de la Bourse.
Marguerite: Yes, it might have happened. I used to go to a dressmaker in La Place de la Bourse.
Armand: You were wearing a thin dress with miles of ruffles, a large straw hat, an embroidered shawl, a single bracelet and heavy gold chain. And, of course, the camellias at your waist.
Marguerite: You have a marvelous memory, haven't you?
Armand: The next time was at the Opera La Comique. You were sitting in a box with a fur coat on, and Gaston - a chap whom I know who knows you, said Marguerite's been ill. And it hurt me. Next time...
Marguerite: Well, tell me, if all you say is true, why have you never spoken to me before?
Armand: In the first place, I didn't know you.
Marguerite: You didn't know me tonight.
Armand: No, but after you smiled at me, I knew you wouldn't mind.
Marguerite: And now, since you've met me?
Armand: Now I know that I love you - and have loved you since that first day.
Marguerite: Even if you're not Baron de Varville, sit down.
Armand: I can scarcely believe I'm wanted now that my unimportance has been discovered.
Marguerite: Don't be silly. Who are you, anyhow?
Armand: My name is Armand Duval. I've never had any reason to be ashamed of it.
Marguerite: [smiling] Oh, Armand Duval. I'm not always sincere. One can't be in this world, you know. But I am not sorry the mistake happened.
Armand: Nor am I.
Marguerite: Now what shall I give you to remember me by?
Baron: You can't give me anything I'd like?
Marguerite: What's that?
Baron: A tear. You're not sorry enough I'm going.
Marguerite: Oh, but I am sorry.
Gaston: You really have a heart, Marguerite.
Olympe: Yes, it's gonna cost her a lot before she's through. I hope mine never gets that soft.
Gaston: Don't worry, it won't.
Prudence: It's a great mistake for any woman to have a heart bigger than her purse.
Marguerite: [about her handkerchief] And you kept it with you all this time?
Armand: Yes.
Marguerite: Always with you?
Armand: Always with me, like an old friend - to remind me that I'm not the Baron de Varville.
Marguerite: Hmm. Not a very romantic reason.
Armand: No, I kept it as a warning against romance.
Marguerite: How sensible! Has it made you very cynical?
Armand: Yes, very.
Marguerite: Is that why you've never taken the trouble to call on me?
Armand: Perhaps.
Marguerite: I'm sorry. One needs friends.
Marguerite: Oh, it's you. What's happened? You look ill too.
Armand: No, it's seeing you like this, suffering.
Marguerite: It's nothing. It lasts only a minute.
Armand: You're killing yourself.
Marguerite: If I am, you're the only one who objects. Now, why don't you go back and dance with one of those pretty girls. [laughs] Come, I'll go with you. [he embraces and kisses her hand] What a child you are.
Armand: Your hand's so hot.
Marguerite: Is that why you put tears on it and cool it?
Armand: I know I don't mean anything to you. I don't count. But someone ought to look after you. And I could if you'd let me.
Marguerite: Too much wine has made you sentimental.
Armand: It wasn't wine that made me come here every day for months to find out how you were.
Marguerite: No, it couldn't have been wine. So you'd really like to take care of me?
Armand: Yes.
Marguerite: All day, every day?
Armand: All day, every day. Why not?
Marguerite: [laughs] Why should you care for a woman like me? I'm always nervous or sick, or sad or too gay.
Armand: I do care for you.
Marguerite: You know what you should do. You should get married. Ah. Come, come. You're young and sensitive. The sort of company you're in tonight doesn't suit you at all.
Armand: Nor you.
Marguerite: No. These are the only friends I have and I'm no better than they are. However, I've given you some very good advice. Now let's go back. [notices his hesitation and laughs] Oh, what on earth am I going to do with you?
Armand: No one has ever loved you as I love you.
Marguerite: That may be true, but what can I do about it? You should go away and not see me anymore. But don't go in anger. Well, why don't you laugh at yourself a little as I laugh at myself, and come and talk to me once in a while in a friendly way?
Armand: That's too much and not enough. Don't you believe in love, Marguerite?
Marguerite: I don't think I know what it is.
Armand: Oh, thank you.
Marguerite: For what?
Armand: For never having been in love.
[She laughs at him.]
Armand: I was dreaming...of you...We were in the country alone, far away.
Marguerite: Oh, I wish we were.
Armand: Marguerite. Let me take you to the country.
Marguerite: Yes, any day you like.
Armand: No, no, I mean, let me take you for a long time till you're well and strong again.
Marguerite: Oh, what nonsense.
Armand: Why is it nonsense?
Marguerite: Because it costs money to go to the country.
Armand: I have money.
Marguerite: Yes. How much?
Armand: Seven thousand francs a year.
Marguerite: I spend more than that in a month, and I've never been too particular where it came from, as you probably know.
Armand: Don't say such things.
Marguerite: Well it's true.
Armand: Give up the Baron.
Marguerite: I must give you up. I've told you before that you should forget me. So you go on your trip around the world and put me out of your mind.
Armand: I thought I meant something to you.
Marguerite: You mean too much already. But you're young and your life is before you. You know what mine has been already.
Armand: It doesn't matter.
Marguerite: Doesn't it?
Armand: Marguerite, you need love more than you need money, just now. You need care even more than love. I can take such good care of you if you'd let me.
Marguerite: How can one change one's entire life and build a new one on one moment of love? And yet, that's what you make me want to close my eyes and do.
Armand: Then close your eyes and say yes. I command you.
Marguerite: Yes, yes, yes.
Marguerite: Do you know what I asked Prudence to do tomorrow?
Armand: No, what?
Marguerite: Sell everything, pay everything so I could take a flat like Nichette's with what I have left.
Armand: Really? You mean you'd give up everything for me?
Marguerite: Everything in the world. Everything. Never be jealous again. Never doubt that I love you more than the world. More than myself.
Armand: Then, marry me.
Marguerite: What?
Armand: I married you today. Every word the priest said was meant for us. In my heart, I made all the vows to you.
Marguerite: And I to you.
Armand: Then...
Marguerite: No, no, that isn't fitting. Let me love you. Let me live for you. But don't let me ask any more from Heaven than that - God might get angry.
Marguerite: I think I know my own heart better than you can, Monsieur, and I can trust it not to change.
Monsieur Duval: No woman unprotected as you are can afford to give the best years of her life to a man who when he leaves her will leave her with nothing. And who is certain to leave her in the end.
Marguerite: I don't suppose you can understand how any woman, unprotected as you say I am, can be lifted above self-interest by a sentiment so delicate and pure that she feels only humiliation when you speak of such things.
Monsieur Duval: I realize now that you do love him unselfishly. But even so, I say it can't go on.
Marguerite: But it will go on!
Monsieur Duval: Armand is a young man with his way to make, with a career waiting for him. And in his case, he can't serve his best interest by being tied to a woman he can't present to his family or his friends.
Marguerite: Armand is no different than other men.
Monsieur Duval: Oh, come Mme. Be honest. Haven't you found him different? Haven't you found him more sensitive, more loyal? Or am I prejudiced because I'm his father?
Marguerite: No. I know Armand was different.
Monsieur Duval: So you see, as long as Armand loves you, he'll not enter rooms that you can't.
Marguerite: But a man can go back. He can always go back. Monsieur, suppose I told you I have a feeling I shan't live very long.
Monsieur Duval: Well then I scold you for being fanciful and a little foolish. What you probably feel is the melancholy of happiness, that mood that comes over all of us when we realize that even love can't remain at flood tide forever.
Marguerite: Oh Armand, I'm doomed.
Monsieur Duval: With him, you're both doomed. Without a profession of any sort, what can he do, unless he sinks so low, he's willing to let some other man foot the bills for his life with you.
Marguerite: You don't know Armand. He wouldn't say that.
Monsieur Duval: No one knows the man he might become if he loses his self-respect. But I think that's too high a price to pay even for love. I want Armand to enjoy life, not to be sacrificed to it. You see, my son is as dear to me as he can possibly be to you.
Marguerite: Yes, but you have others who are dear to you. I have only Armand. You don't know how I've changed. And he taught me that love is not always selfish, nor goodness dull, nor men faithless. No, no, you can't expect me to give up such love as his.
Marguerite: Baron de Varville is not a patient man. And you're in the mood to quarrel with him tonight.
Armand: Naturally you don't want to lose your rich admirer, I understand. Your own fortune would fall with him.
Marguerite: Armand, he's not to blame for what happened - that I swear.
Armand: Then how could you do what you did? I'll tell you. Because your heart is a thing that can be bought and sold. Yes, I know you gave it to me for a whole summer, but when it came to a choice, the jewels and carriages he could give you were worth more than my love, my devotion, my life.
Marguerite: Yes, that's true. I'm a completely worthless woman and no man should risk his life for me. For that reason alone, I beg you leave this place at once.
Armand: I will. I will on one condition - that you'll go with me.
Marguerite: No.
Armand: I came back to Paris to tell you that I despise you, and I do. But I love you too.
Marguerite: [falls limp back into his arms] No.
Armand: Say you'll go away with me, we'll forget the past. We'll never turn back.
Marguerite: No, no.
Armand: I doubled my fortune tonight at his expense. And when that's gone, I'll work, I'll beg, borrow, I'll steal, but I must be with you always, always.
Marguerite: When I hear you talking such a future, I realize I'm right in doing what I did. Look. Do you suppose we could ever be happy together even if I were free to act as I choose?
Armand: But you are free. We're both free.
Marguerite: I've given a solemn promise never to return to you.
Armand: To whom?
Marguerite: To someone that had the right to ask you.
Armand: To the Baron de Varville?
Marguerite: [painfully lying] Yes.
Armand: [angrily] Then you do love him. Dare to tell me that you love him. You're free of me forever.
Marguerite: I love him.
[Armand has returned]
Marguerite: [relieved, but frail] It's you. It's not a dream.
Armand: [walks up to her] No, it's not a dream. I'm here with you in my arms, at last.
Marguerite: At last.
Armand: You're weak.
Marguerite: No, no. Strong. [collapses into a chair] It's my heart. It's not used to being happy.
[Last lines]
Marguerite: [dying] The doctor? If you can't make me live, how can he?
Armand: No. Don't say such things, Marguerite. You'll live, you must live.
Marguerite: [last words] Perhaps it's better if I live in your heart, where the world can't see me. If I'm dead, there'll be no staying of our love.
Armand: Shhh. Don't say such things, Marguerite, even if we can't go to the country today. Think of how happy we were once, how happy we shall be again. [she crumbles and falls lifeless, with a gentle smile on her face] Think of the day you found the four leaf clover, and all the good luck it's going to bring us. Think of the vows we heard Nichette and Gustave make and that we're going to make to each other. This is for life, Marguerite. [realizes that she's dead] Marguerite? Marguerite?! No, don't leave me! [cries on her shoulder] Marguerite, come back! Come back...

Cast

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