A Song Is Born (1948)
Danny Kaye: Professor Hobart Frisbee
Photos
Quotes
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Professor Magenbruch : Is this the music here?
Mel Powell : Oh, no. We don't use any music.
Lionel Hampton : We haven't got anything written down, Professor.
Professor Magenbruch : Well, we can't play without music.
Lionel Hampton : Well, Benny Goodman used to.
Professor Magenbruch : Benny Goodman? I never - Frisbee, did you ever hear of him?
Professor Hobart Frisbee : No, no, I haven't.
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Professor Hobart Frisbee : Yes, what is it?
Miss Bragg : The taxi is here.
Professor Hobart Frisbee : Taxi? What taxi?
Miss Bragg : Miss Swanson's or mine?
Professor Hobart Frisbee : It's all yours, Crabapple Annie!
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Professor Hobart Frisbee : What are you gonna do?
Honey Swanson : I'm going to show you what yum-yum is. Here's yum.
[kisses him]
Honey Swanson : And here's the other yum.
[kisses him again]
Honey Swanson : And here's yumyum.
[gives a long kiss that knocks him backwards onto a chair]
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Professor Traumer : Wonderful thing: research.
Professor Oddly : It is the searchlight of truth.
Dr. Elfini : Without research, people would still think the earth was flat.
Professor Hobart Frisbee : Oh, that's ridiculous.
Dr. Elfini : And they would still look upon the tomato - as a poisonous fruit.
Honey Swanson : There, you see! And I want you to look at me, Professor Frisbee, as another tomato.
Professor Hobart Frisbee : What?
Honey Swanson : Just another tomato.
[turns around, sashays up the stairs]
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Professor Hobart Frisbee : The Germans, of course, use the letter H for our B natural, meaning B flat when they say B.
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Professor Hobart Frisbee : If you'll just stand here, Miss Totten, and when I give you the mating call...
Miss Totten : Yes!
Professor Hobart Frisbee : You - give it right back to me.
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Professor Hobart Frisbee : I actually heard Rimsky-Korsakov played on a washboard...
Professor Gerkikoff : A washboard?
Professor Hobart Frisbee : A bicycle pump...
Professor Traumer : Bicycle pump?
Professor Hobart Frisbee : A plunger of some sort and pots and pans.
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Honey Swanson : Okay, where do I sleep?
Professor Hobart Frisbee : I beg your pardon.
Honey Swanson : Where do I sleep?
Professor Hobart Frisbee : I don't know. Where do you usually sleep?
Honey Swanson : I'm usually in Brooklyn, but tonight I'm going to sleep here.
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Professor Hobart Frisbee : What are you reading here, Magenbruch?
Professor Magenbruch : That's one of the books I procured this afternoon.
Professor Hobart Frisbee : "Jazz: Hot and Hybrid". That's very interesting. I should like to read it after you're through with it.
Professor Magenbruch : Yeah. I particularly like the chapter on hot rhythm. Holds strange fascination for me.
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Professor Hobart Frisbee : That's good. Now that we're all agreed, in the vernacular I heard last night, let's start on the down beat and take off. Is that the correct way of phrasing it?
Louis Armstrong : That's a good deal.
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Professor Hobart Frisbee : Miss Honey, may I present Miss Bragg, our housekeeper.
Honey Swanson : Hi. This must be your apron I'm wearing.
Professor Hobart Frisbee : Oh, this suitcase came for you with a message.
Honey Swanson : Yeah? What message?
Professor Hobart Frisbee : I don't know.
Miss Bragg : The message was it's getting hotter and hotter and stay in the icebox like a good little salad.
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Honey Swanson : What are you talking about? This is research, isn't it?
Professor Hobart Frisbee : Is it?
Honey Swanson : Sure and I'm the guinea pig.
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Tommy Dorsey : It could have been Mel Powell or Hamp.
Lionel Hampton : Yeah, they're experts at that jive.
Professor Hobart Frisbee : Well, then perhaps you gentlemen could help me.
Lionel Hampton : Oh, sure. Mel and I used to play a lot of that stuff with Benny Goodman.
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Tommy Dorsey : Can anyone here blow a clarinet?
Professor Hobart Frisbee : That's quite simple. Our Professor Magenbruch plays the clarinet.
Charlie Barnet : Well, does he, Professor? I hardly think...
Tommy Dorsey : He's apt to be a little too square.
Professor Hobart Frisbee : He's quite proficient. I assure you.
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Honey Swanson : What about your work? It isn't even finished. There are a lot of things we haven't even touched on.
Professor Hobart Frisbee : Well, make no mistake, Miss Honey, I shall regret deeply the absence of your keen mind. But, unfortunately, it's inseparable from an extremely disturbing body.
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Professor Hobart Frisbee : I'm afraid I must ask you to leave.
Honey Swanson : Leave here? Why?
Professor Hobart Frisbee : I want you to look at this project, this history of music, as a voyage, a long, hard tedious voyage. And when the Foundation first launched its vessel, it wisely followed an old rule of the sea. No women aboard. Consequently, they chose a crew of single men with nothing to distract them from the course they were about to sail.
Honey Swanson : Say, Junior, you couldn't stop walking up and down here?
Professor Hobart Frisbee : For the last four days, Miss Honey, we have been doing nothing but just drifting. The needle of the compass no longer points to the magnetic pole. It points, if I may say so, to your ankles.
Honey Swanson : Oh, come now, Admiral, a bunch of grown men. They've all seen a pair of ankles before.
Professor Hobart Frisbee : Not in nine years, they haven't. Except for the singularly uninspired underpinnings of Miss Bragg.
Honey Swanson : Well, if you think I'm bothering them, I'll sit on my legs.
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Professor Hobart Frisbee : I, too, have been acutely aware of your presence.
Honey Swanson : You have?
Professor Hobart Frisbee : But fortunately, I'm strong enough to be able to resist its demoralizing effects.
Honey Swanson : Oh, really?
Professor Hobart Frisbee : I admit at times it was quite a struggle, but...
Honey Swanson : Like when?
Professor Hobart Frisbee : Well, twice to be exact. The first time when you leaned over my shoulder to explain the meaning of the word riff.
Honey Swanson : And the second time?
Professor Hobart Frisbee : I'm not finished with the first time. You leaned over my shoulder, and I felt your breath on my ear.
Honey Swanson : And?
Professor Hobart Frisbee : And the second time, you were standing up against the window with the sunlight in your hair.
Honey Swanson : But you didn't do anything about it.
Professor Hobart Frisbee : Yes, I did. I left the room.
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Professor Hobart Frisbee : Very interesting gentlemen, but our whole project seems to be suffering from some sort of vibration.
Dr. Elfini : What do you mean?
Professor Hobart Frisbee : I'd like to talk to Miss Honey alone.
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Miss Bragg : Professor Frisbee, either that woman leaves this house, or I do.
Professor Hobart Frisbee : Are you speaking of Miss Honey?
Miss Bragg : I am. Ever since that woman crossed this threshold, a prairie fire of orgiastic events has swept through this house.
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Professor Hobart Frisbee : I'm a perfectly normal man with perfectly normal instincts.
Honey Swanson : An awful high boiling point.
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Professor Hobart Frisbee : Miss Honey, I - it will probably be a long time and I thought perhaps - well, that is - I - would you yum me just once more?
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Honey Swanson : Maybe it sounds crazy, but to me, you're a regular yumyum type.
Professor Hobart Frisbee : A yumyum?
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Professor Hobart Frisbee : I always thought I was married to my music. I thought the only thing could stir me was Piatigorsky on the cello, Heifetz on the violin, Toscanini conducting a symphony. And then - then you.
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Professor Hobart Frisbee : [pouring coffee in a cup] How do you take it?
Miss Bragg : Just jav, no cow.
Professor Hobart Frisbee : Just what?
Miss Bragg : Black.
Professor Hobart Frisbee : Oh. Sugar?
Miss Bragg : Straight.
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Professor Hobart Frisbee : Now, our hope is, in the words of Mr. Armstrong, that this particular music might send you out of this world.
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Professor Hobart Frisbee : You've given us a fine course in the theory and practice of being a sucker.