The Wheeler Dealers (1963)

Lee Remick: Molly Thatcher

Photos 

Quotes 

• Molly Thatcher : I don't understand. How can you buy something when you don't even know what it is?

  Ray J. Fox : Well, you see, ma'am, Henry here is a real wheeler dealer. And a wheeler dealer is somebody that loves to find places for money to go. It's like hitchin' on to a star. You may zoom up to the sky on a mighty pretty ride.

  Molly Thatcher : And if the star falls?

  Henry Tyroon : Well, then I find some way for the, uh, government to take three-quarters of the loss.

  Jay R. Spinelby : You see, Miss Thatcher, that's the mark of a REAL wheeler dealer.

• [they have discovered that Universal Widgets has no factory, but Molly is still supposed to sell their stock and Henry says he'll help her] 

  Molly Thatcher : Henry, you're an operator; but do you know anything about the stock market?

  Henry Tyroon : Well, I know the stock market is money and emotion. There's hope when you start out, greed on the way up, fear on the way down. I know that, uh, the stock market is people... and if there's anything you can't sell people, I've yet to find out what it is. These people need a reason to buy. The beauty of it is: the reason doesn't have to make sense.

  Molly Thatcher : You're not thinking of anything illegal are you?

  Henry Tyroon : I'm never illegal. I'm just close to it.

• Molly Thatcher : Now, why do you suppose Mr. Bear wants me to fight off a large Texan?

  Eloise Cott : You think he's got more than business on his mind?

  Molly Thatcher : Every man has sex on the brain, like it's some sort of wonder drug... a cure-all for everything: colds, pleurisy, arthritis. I even had a guy once tell me that sex prevents cavities.

  Eloise Cott : Cavities? In your teeth?

  Molly Thatcher : Sure. When you're tense, you have more acids in your mouth; and acids eat enamel. When you get rid of the tension, you get rid of the acids. And the best way to get rid of tension...

  Eloise Cott : Don't tell me! let me guess.

• Molly Thatcher : Oh, isn't it amazing how I sparkle so early in the morning?

  Eloise Cott : Why bother sparkling? When a girl sparkles down on Wall Street, she's a threat. When she sparkles uptown - in *my* territory - she's a promise.

• Molly Thatcher : Leonard's a pastime, not a project. It's comfortable to have him around. He helps me ward off the grabbers.

• Eloise Cott : Say, where are you and this "cowboy" gonna chow down?

  Molly Thatcher : I don't know. Someplace where he can't put his boots on the table and order a burnt steak.

  Eloise Cott : Try "Le Cochon Très Cher." It is so swank, you're not even allowed to use your teeth. You just gum the food.

  Molly Thatcher : That's about the best idea you've had all day.

• Thaddeus Whipple : Young lady, I don't know why you're up here fussing about our stock. We Whipples control it anyway. We haven't made a widget since 1854. Any fool knows that. Flying clippers went out years ago.

  Molly Thatcher : But you must make something?

  Thaddeus Whipple : Why?

  Henry Tyroon : Well, it seems to me, if you don't make something, you've got no call to stay in business.

  Thaddeus Whipple : I'm a busy man, and I'd like this to be the last word on the subject. Our company owns just two things: that bog out there and some stock we bought. Only thing that keeps us from dissolving the corporation is my brother Lemuel says we'd have to pay a tax on the stock.

  Molly Thatcher : I don't understand.

  Henry Tyroon : Well, what Mr. Whipple is saying is that when they went out of widget production, they took whatever was left in the treasury and invested it in another stock. And that's where it is now.

  Thaddeus Whipple : That's right. We bought American Telephone and Telegraph just before the war.

  Henry Tyroon : Back in the '30s?

  Thaddeus Whipple : The day before they sank the "Lusitania".

  Henry Tyroon : [incredulous]  You bought AT&T in 1915?

  Molly Thatcher : You have a fortune in hidden assets!

  Thaddeus Whipple : Young lady, don't you fuss with our stock. It's selling now just about the way it ought to. Uh, you'd better go on home and get yourself a husband... and a cookbook.

• Bullard Bear : Miss Thatcher, I've been wanting to talk to you for some time, like a father to a daughter. I've been watching what's been happening to you. You've grown hard. That tender, lovely look you used to have in your eyes is gone. Now they glint. No, I have to come right out and say it. This crass commercial world has coarsened you.

  Molly Thatcher : What do you mean?

  Bullard Bear : No, Miss Thatcher, I wouldn't want it on my conscience that I took a lovely young girl and let her work transform her into a heartless, grasping dealer in the marketplace. I, I can't just bear sitting by and watching while I see all that is wonderful and tender in you wrung out and cast aside... You can clean out your desk.

• Molly Thatcher : [angrily]  Do you remember the first time I told you about Henry Tyroon? I said he was a three dollar bill if I ever saw one.

  Eloise Cott : Then you went through a period of inflation.

• Molly Thatcher : Why that phony was born and bred in Boston. He went to Yale!

  Eloise Cott : Nobody's perfect.