Downstairs (1932)

Virginia Bruce: Anna - Albert's Wife

Photos 

Quotes 

• Karl Schneider : They do tickle, don't they?

  Anna, Albert's Wife : What tickles?

  Karl Schneider : Albert's sideburns!

  [both laugh giddily] 

• Anna, Albert's Wife : [about her evening with Karl]  Now you just wait a minute! I don't deserve to have you and me go all to smash. I've found out for the first time in my life - for the first time - that there are more than two kinds of feelings in the world. Is that my fault? There's a kind of way of making love that drives you mad and crazy, so that you don't know what you're doing. Are you going to throw me out in the street because I never knew this before?

  Albert, the Baron's Butler : Now you stop this kind of talk! And stop it right now! You learned something vile from a rat, and you forget that you're my wife - that I love you, and you bring him in here!

  Anna, Albert's Wife : All right, you good, good man. I'll stop this kind of talk. You believe exactly what you want to believe. But you listen! Whatever's happened, some of it's your fault - some of it. You think you can make love in the same frozen way you do everything else. And you think that's all I'd ever have any wish for. Well, I tell you plain and straight right now - it's nothing of the kind. I meant no harm. I don't want anything but you in my home. But if you're going to be so good and so perfect and so unforgiving - that I can't have that, then I thank heaven I found that there is something else. Something that makes you so dizzy you don't know what's happened and you don't care. Now you go ahead and believe anything you like!

  [Storms off, leaving Albert with look of shock and amazement] 

• Anna, Albert's Wife : You're so distinguished looking with your handsome sideburns.

  Albert, the Baron's Butler : Well, you better mind your Ps and Qs, young lady. Or you'll lose your handsome husband.

  Anna, Albert's Wife : Oh, you don't frighten me a bit! You're just a gruff old bear. Oh, but a sweet one!

• Albert, the Baron's Butler : Oh, buzz, buzz, buzz. They can't look at a bell button without pushing it!

  Anna, Albert's Wife : Isn't Françoise looking after things tonight?

  [buzz] 

  Albert, the Baron's Butler : Yes, dear, but something must have happened.

  [buzz] 

  Albert, the Baron's Butler : Oh, all right, all right. But, don't worry, darling. My father was a butler and he had nine children between buzzes.

• Anna, Albert's Wife : If I were a man, I'd just want to keep on traveling and traveling.

• Anna, Albert's Wife : Oh.

  [rubbing her stomach] 

  Anna, Albert's Wife : I feel so good. So warm and tight. I wonder what makes me feel so warm and tight? Couldn't be the wine, could it?

• Karl Schneider : I know where you like to be kissed.

  Anna, Albert's Wife : What do you mean?

  Karl Schneider : It's all marked out, right here, this little mole. It looks like a drop of chocolate. Didn't Albert ever tell ya how cute it looked?

  Anna, Albert's Wife : Albert never looks at the back of my neck.

  Karl Schneider : Not even to see if it was clean?

  [both giggle]