A Very Special Favor (1965)

Charles Boyer: Michel Boullard

Quotes 

• Etienne, Restaurant Proprietor : Two people armed, suspicious, disliking each other - what have you got?

  Michel Boullard : Marriage - American style.

• Michel Boullard : Mr Chadwick, many years ago in my youth, wanting to taste all of life's pleasures, I did a very foolhardy thing... I bit into a marriage licence

  Paul Chadwick : A lot of good men have choked on that

  Michel Boullard : [having coffee poured into his cup]  Thank you. She was an American. Oh, it was an ideal marriage - until we left the wedding chapel

  Paul Chadwick : That's as much happiness as any man has the right to expect

  Michel Boullard : It was raining. Her gown got wet. And somehow she made me feel that I had failed in my first act as a husband; I had permitted the rain to fall

  Paul Chadwick : She lost confidence. If you couldn't stop the rain, what would you do if an earthquake came?

  Michel Boullard : I continued to fail her when she needed me most. Where was I when the pilot light went out on the stove? When her car ran out of gas? And what was I doing at the office, the day the plumbing got clogged?

  Paul Chadwick : An American husband would never be at the office when the plumbing got clogged - he'd rush home to share it with his wife

  Michel Boullard : Then, one evening, we were sitting there enjoying a delightful dinner, when suddenly, my wife spoiled everything...

  Paul Chadwick : ...She showed up

  Michel Boullard : How did you know I was with another woman?

  Paul Chadwick : You said you were enjoying dinner, didn't you?

  Michel Boullard : Oh, it was a harmless flirtation. I tried to explain to my wife. But all she could do was stand there - and say, 'Well'! It would not have helped to have dropped a thousand apologies into that well

  Paul Chadwick : A wife's well is bottomless

  Michel Boullard : Now with a French wife, when I got home I would have found her in tears - and a new negligee. But with my wife, when I knocked on the bedroom door...

  Paul Chadwick : ...you found her with her lawyer...

  Michel Boullard : ...and a travel agent

  Michel Boullard : The next morning, she and the child were on a plane back to America. Fini!

• Michel Boullard : Monsieur, a father with a daughter who is a thirty year old spinster... do you know what it means?

  Paul Chadwick : Yeah, it means that any able-bodied man who can run, walk or crawl should avoid you

  Michel Boullard : Of course, when a daughter posseses a certain innocence at eighteen, for a father it's a joy to behold. When she's twenty-one, you're still happy but, er, thoughtful. When she's twenty-five, you are no longer smiling...

  Paul Chadwick : ...It's getting grim

  Michel Boullard : When she's twenty-nine, going on thirty, what does a father do?

  Paul Chadwick : Turns to prayer. There's nothing left

  Michel Boullard : There is one hope - a man. A very special man; worldly, sophisticated. One who will gently lead her into a romantic adventure, an emotional interlude from whose fires a woman shall be born. Such a man is hard to find...

  Paul Chadwick : I will be, if you give me a ten minute head start!

  Michel Boullard : Please, Monsieur, I'm desperate. Can a man abandon his only child?

  Paul Chadwick : I think, in this case, society will forgive you

• Paul Chadwick : What does she look like now? Today? This minute?

  Michel Boullard : How does one describe inner beauty?

  Paul Chadwick : Forget the inside. Let's stay on the outside for a while

  Michel Boullard : I feel safe in saying, she's attractive

  Paul Chadwick : You feel safe? Would it be risky for anyone else to say it?

  Michel Boullard : I'm trying to be objective. You don't like heavy women?

  Paul Chadwick : No

  Michel Boullard : You like them slim...?

  Paul Chadwick : How slim?

  Michel Boullard : She's not the type of woman with the large hips and the over-developed bosoms that is so distasteful to men

  Paul Chadwick : What men?

  Michel Boullard : An animated face, expressive eyes, a dazzling smile, exceptional teeth - outstanding

  Paul Chadwick : Big

  Michel Boullard : A matter of semantics

  Paul Chadwick : She's a skinny, flat-chested girl with buckteeth. And so far you've only been talking about her good points

• Michel Boullard : She's almost 30.

  Etienne, Restaurant Proprietor : She's looking around.

  Michel Boullard : At 18 when a girl looks around, there is usually a man following her. At 30, when you look around, the only thing coming is 40.

• Etienne, Restaurant Proprietor : But you said he had to be destroyed.

  Michel Boullard : I was thinking of a normal revenge. In France, what happens? The woman shoots the man. That's civilized.

• Michel Boullard : Tell me, why don't you wear your blue suit tonight?

  Arnold Plum : It accentuates my bad posture. I have very round shoulders. She noticed that on our first date.

  Michel Boullard : You're lucky. You might have gone all through life without ever having known it.

  Arnold Plum : That's true.

• Paul Chadwick : Married to her for life?

  Michel Boullard : Would I make such a bad father-in-law?

  Paul Chadwick : You're a slippery, cagey old fiend - but likable. I can take you as a father-in-law, but how do we keep her out of it?

  Michel Boullard : She works every day. Goes to meetings. How often would you have to see her?

• Michel Boullard : Ah, youth. You get apartment keys and I get saccharine.

• Arnold Plum : And if it weren't for her, I wouldn't be wearing these corrective shoes. She had the outside of all my shoes lined with lead to give me balance.

  Michel Boullard : She's done a lot for you.

• Michel Boullard : For what she did, make her suffer, my son - marry her.

  Paul Chadwick : I'm being broadsided. You said 'my son' again and my stomach didn't turn. There's something evil going on and I don't know how to fight it.