Cocktail Hour (1933)

Sidney Blackmer: William Lawton

Photos 

Quotes 

• Cynthia Warren : Are you going to England on business?

  William Lawton : Well, no. No, not exactly. My grandfather had business interests there. He had a branch factory. You see, he made corsets. Yes, skads of them.

  Cynthia Warren : So, you owe your success to corsets.

  William Lawton : Quite. I'm afraid if the old gentleman were alive today, he would be forced to manufacture, eh...

  Cynthia Warren : I know. I wear them.

• William Lawton : I shall see you at dinner, if I may.

  Cynthia Warren : Order me a plate of moonlight on the half shell.

  [wink] 

• William Lawton : Oh, Cynthia, I want so much to show you England in spring when the first primroses crowd the riverbanks.

  Cynthia Warren : I must be *lovely*.

• William Lawton : At night it's so quiet. No one about to watch. You can slip into the water with scarcely a ripple and swim silently like a white ghost. And the water caresses your body with the - like the soft touch of a woman's hand.

  Cynthia Warren : Oh, Billy. You don't know what you're doing to me.

• Cynthia Warren : A little late with your moonlight, Billy.

  William Lawton : I shall have some caught up in bottles, Cynthia, so you'll always have moonbeams to sprinkle in your hair.

  Cynthia Warren : You're sure your grandfather made corsets? He didn't write poetry, did he?

  William Lawton : As a matter of fact, he did. Secretly, of course. So many men are ashamed of any refinements they have.

  Cynthia Warren : [looking down at Billy's crotch]  You don't parade yours.

  William Lawton : Mine wants developing. You could do that easily, Cynthia.

• William Lawton : The river runs clear. Rupert Brooke, the poet, swam there. Before him, Alfred Lord Byron.

  Cynthia Warren : Egotists. Both of them.

  William Lawton : Yes. But women love them greatly.

• Cynthia Warren : I wonder what a man would do in a case like this?

  William Lawton : Grab himself the first dizzy blonde he met, go somewhere, and get ossified.

  Cynthia Warren : Not a bad idea.

• William Lawton : I'll go. Only I don't believe you can shed off the memory of that night, like old clothes put away with mothballs. You'll take them out sometime and dust them off. And when you do, I should like to be around.