Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Understanding Orchids



MARLOWE
How do you do, sir?

GEN. STERNWOOD
Sit down.

MARLOWE
Thank you.

GEN. STERNWOOD
Brandy, Norris. How do you like your brandy, sir?

MARLOWE
In a glass.

GEN. STERNWOOD
I used to like mine with champagne. The champagne cold as
Valley Forge and with about three ponies of brandy under it.
Oh, come, come, man. Pour a decent one. I like to see people drink.
That'll do, Norris. You may take off your coat, sir.

MARLOWE
Thank you.

GEN. STERNWOOD
It's too hot in here for any men who has blood in his vein. You
may smoke, too. I can still enjoy the smell of it. Hum, nice
state of affair a man who has to indulge his vices by proxy.
You're looking, sir, at a very dull survival of a very gaudy
life, crippled, paralyzed in both legs, barely I eat and my sleep
is so near waking it's hardly worth a name. I seem to exist
largely on heat like a new born spider.

MARLOWE
Yeah.

GEN. STERNWOOD
The orchids are an excuse for the heat. You like orchids?

MARLOWE
Not particularly.

GEN. STERNWOOD
Nasty things. That flesh is too much like the flesh of men. Their
perfume has a rotten sweetness of corruption. Mmm... Tell me
about yourself, Mr. Marlowe.

-- The Big Sleep
1946, MGM,
Directed by Howard Hawks
Screenplay by William Faulkner

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