Two for the Seesaw (1962)

Shirley MacLaine: Gittel Mosca

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Jerry Ryan : It's true. Half of me hasn't even been in this town.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : I tried Jake.

  Jerry Ryan : Of course.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : So we're both flops.

  Jerry Ryan : No. Not both of us. Not you. I've tried to make you over so you'd be more like me - like everyone, I guess. Stingy, holding back, guarding what we have because we've got so little. Everything you get, you give back double. No, you're not a flop. You're a gift, infant. Underneath that beautiful face there's a street brawler. But underneath that there's someone... that no one, nothing has ever dirtied. The way people were meant to be. That's what you are.

• Jerry Ryan : Well... so long, honey.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : I love you, Jerry. As long as you live, remember the last thing you heard outta me was I love you.

  Jerry Ryan : I love you too, infant.

• Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Things look a lot different to me now. You did me a worid of good, Jerry.

  Jerry Ryan : Did I, Gittel? Really? Because if I could think that...

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : You helped me. This is the first time I come out with more than I went in. Whoever this guy is, he'll owe you.

  Jerry Ryan : Thank you. She'll owe you, too. More than she'll ever know.

• Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Why so sore? 'Cause I feel sorry for ya?

  Jerry Ryan : I don't think I can afford you. I'm not ready for a whole human, complete with weaknesses...

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Who asked ya? Who made an offer?

  Jerry Ryan : I did, but I take it back. I'm neither ready nor able to be responsible for anything these days. Least of all an ingenuous nitwit. That's why I'm sore. Disappointment.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : What does ingenuous mean? Smart?

  Jerry Ryan : Dumb. Naive.

• Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : I gotta get outta here before you slug me.

  Jerry Ryan : Slug you? That what you expect from your romances?

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : When it comes to men, I expect the worst.

• Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Listen, Jerry, I'm the one in a trap. You move in with me, I'll... I'll nudja you into marrying me, I know I will. And then what'll I have? I don't wanna have to spend the rest of my life begging. It's not good enough for me, Jerry. Not any more. I want somebody who'll feel about me... what you said about her before. What do you say we give each other the gate, huh?

  Jerry Ryan : For my sake? So I can go back?

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : No. Whether you go or stay. To tell you the God's honest truth, Jerry, I didn't take one free breath since that hemorrhage. I wanna get outta here so I can breathe.

• Jerry Ryan : You've nothing better to do.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : I've eleven different things I could be doing!

  Jerry Ryan : Different isn't better. Why aren't you doing them?

• Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : How'd I get in the wrong? Did you call about the icebox or not?

  Jerry Ryan : Not.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Well, I can't follow this. You called.

  Jerry Ryan : I called because I was going out of my head in solitary.

  Jerry Ryan : I called to make contact with someone of the weaker sex, who's weaker.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : OK, here I am. Contact.

  Jerry Ryan : I called to ask you to dinner tonight. And a show, if you like.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Well, why didn't ya?

  Jerry Ryan : I was afraid you'd say yes or no.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : I would have said "Sure"!

  Jerry Ryan : Right away we have problems. What show? Where to eat?

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Wait! Now I'm not so sure. I don't know if I want to get involved. You sound complicated.

  Jerry Ryan : Oh.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : I'm the girl, right? And you're the man. Make up your mind, ask me, and I'll make up mine.

  Jerry Ryan : Been trying for a month.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : To ask me to dinner?

  Jerry Ryan : No, to get unstuck from a piece of flypaper. After you've broken your leg in five places you hesitate to make that first step. Reason I hung up on you was because I didn't want to say, "Please, help me"

• Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : I'm late.

  Jerry Ryan : Yeah, I know.

  Jerry Ryan : Next time I'll make sarcastic remarks.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : We're on next time already!

• Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : What have you been doing in New York?

  Jerry Ryan : Mostly walking, by day and by night.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Monotonous but healthy.

• Jerry Ryan : I'd say you were a born victim.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Of what?

  Jerry Ryan : Yourself.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : I feel sorry for you. What's so terrible?

  Jerry Ryan : You feel sorry for me?

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Sure.

  Jerry Ryan : Gittel, how old are you?

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : 29.

  Jerry Ryan : Stop talking like 28. Start worrying about your own worries.

• Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : First thing you said was "Help me", on the telephone!

  Jerry Ryan : No. I said I wouldn't say...

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : You said "Help me"! I said "Sure"

• Jerry Ryan : Will you stop walking up and down?

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : I'm nervous.

  Jerry Ryan : So am I, but this walking around isn't helping us any.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : I was just waiting to be stopped.

• Jerry Ryan : Gittel, when you've been married to somebody for 12 years, lived together for 12 years, you don't just break up. You can't just forget it like it was... Well, anyway, I cut out. Ran.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Stop running, it's the Atlantic Ocean already.

  Jerry Ryan : I'm not running any more.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Don't you see? If you can't talk to her, you're running.

• Jerry Ryan : Didn't you understand one word I said?

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Sure! As a juror I'd give me five years.

  Jerry Ryan : I'm not kidding. Need someone.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Let go!

  Jerry Ryan : Need someone.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Or what? Let me go or I'll yell.

  Jerry Ryan : No, you won't.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Help!

  Jerry Ryan : You lunatic. Somebody'll come.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Nobody'll come, it's New York.

• Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : So then you say, "need you". I need you. Who says these things in black and white? You care about somebody, you don't make 'em ask. Like a bill that's gotta be paid. What kind of giving is that? So when you ask me to hand myself over on a platter... Well, what do you hand over, Jerry? What'll I get? Jake, I pay a penny, I get a penny candy. But you... You're a big 10-buck box and all I'll get is the cellophane. You short-change people. You make it look like you're giving but you don't.

• Jerry Ryan : 3.30, Friday, and any time thereafter.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Any time thereafter for how long?

  Jerry Ryan : You say something?

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : I said I love you.

  Jerry Ryan : When you have something like that to say, don't mumble.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : All right, I'll holler it.

• Jerry Ryan : I told you to make a claim on me, to depend on me. I practically forced you. Gittel, I care for you. I don't want to see you hurt or lost or short-changed.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : So what's the future, Jerry? You gonna think any less about her? A little time'll pass, everything'll be hunky-dory? How am I gonna give her competition? Have a hemorrhage twice a year? Trap you that way? I got half of you by being a wreck, is that how we'll go on? Oh, you gotta short-change me, Jerry.

  Jerry Ryan : I've tried not to.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : That's what's outta whack. How hard you try. Who works that hard if everything's OK?

• Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Things aren't even-Steven with us, Jerry. You do all the giving. What I have to give, you don't want. And what I want, you can't give. Doesn't matter if I learn shorthand or to play a bugle standing on my head. If you don't love me, you don't love me. And time isn't gonna make one lousy bit of difference.

• Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Nebraska. That's right next to California, isn't it?

  Jerry Ryan : No, I think that's Nevada you're thinking about.

• Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Is it OK enough to?

  Jerry Ryan : Is what OK enough to?

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Your leg?

  Jerry Ryan : It may have affected my head!

• Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Pick up the phone if you're so strong.

  Jerry Ryan : Do you want me to?

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Sure I want you to. I don't know where I stand. I could scream my head off and nobody comes. Who can I count on besides me?

  Jerry Ryan : Me!

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Yeah. Lean on you and I'll fall in that big hole, someplace in Nevada!

• Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Jerry?

  Jerry Ryan : What?

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : You don't like me any more?

  Jerry Ryan : I hate you. Is that passionate enough?

• Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : It's like when I was a kid, we used to neck in the vestibule. She's inside you and I'm always outside in the vestibule. Everything you did here was to prove something to her.

  Jerry Ryan : To you. To myself.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : To her. With her you couldn't stand on your own two feet, so with me you will, only I gotta stand on them too. You'll show her. With her you took handouts, with me you'll give handouts. Lofts, presents. Never mind if I want 'em, you'll show her. When you're blue, I don't have to worry what I did wrong. She called, she didn't call. She wrote a letter, she didn't write a letter. It's always her.

• Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : All my life I never yet been able to beat up one lousy man.

• Jerry Ryan : Do you sleep with Mr. America?

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Larry? I told ya, he's a dancer. I mean we're very good friends and all that. But what'd ya think, I'm peculiar or somethin'?

  [Turns toward Larry] 

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Hey! Are you?

  Jerry Ryan : Am I what?

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Queer.

  Jerry Ryan : [Rolls his eyes, sighs]  Now you've gone too far.

  [Walks over to Gittel and kisses her deeply] 

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Brother, how long have you been on the wagon?

  Jerry Ryan : A year.

  Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz : Where ya been... in jail?

  [They kiss again - passionately]