Lady L (1965)

David Niven: Lord Dicky Lendale

Photos 

Quotes 

• Lord Dicky Lendale : My sister Lettice likes to light small fires on the buildings. Specially when they are full of people. She tried it at Buckingham Palace once during the garden party. Luckily, it always rains on that day.

• Lord Dicky Lendale : You think that money corrupts, don't you? It specially corrupts those who don't have any. People like you.

• Lord Dicky Lendale : Life is sometime exquisite in its choice of punishments. And what better punishment for you, that your son should one day be a Duke.

  Armand Denis : A Duke! Never!

  Louise : Thank you. It's a good career for a boy.

• Lord Dicky Lendale : I deliberately led you to temptation. But then, after all, I am a Duke. You know what that means. My family started stealing earlier than most others, that's all.

• Lord Dicky Lendale : Are you accusing me of lying?

  Inspector Mercier : A duke is incapable of lying, Your Grace. He has... lapses of memory.

• Louise : Is this by you?

  Lord Dicky Lendale : No, that is a Rembrandt. Not a very good one; so, your mistake is understandable... Now, this - this is a Boucher!

  [shows a painting of bare bottomed woman laying on a bed] 

  Lord Dicky Lendale : A minor master painting, but, a major master of the erotic. Just look at that glorious - I don't know, it has something!

  Louise : We had many such paintings in our - house in Paris.

• Lord Dicky Lendale : Now, these - these are very interesting. These are Egyptian scarabs of the third millennium. My late father stole them from various temples while he was liberating Egypt from the Turks. Their size makes them very easy to steal.

  Louise : Why do you say that?

  Lord Dicky Lendale : Because my father stole them.

• Louise : How can you afford it?

  Lord Dicky Lendale : Well, how can I put this, I have - independent means.

  Louise : And no wife? I thought you said...

  Lord Dicky Lendale : I had, alas, I had a wife. A magnificent figure of a woman. But, I couldn't take her home. Her Majesty wouldn't hear of a gypsy at the Court of St. James. Maybe she was right. England would have killed Dolores. All that soap and chlorinated water and no rhythm in the whole wretched country - except for the snoring in the clubs.

• Lord Dicky Lendale : I think you're exactly what you thought I was: a liar, a confidence trickster, a thief.

  Louise : [stands up]  How dare you!

  [faints] 

  Louise : Oh, my God.

  Lord Dicky Lendale : You're pregnant, are you? My dear, Countess, you simply must marry me.

• Armand Denis : I suppose she forgot to tell you that she's carrying my child?

  Lord Dicky Lendale : Not at all. It was I that suggested the child might need a father instead of an overgrown schoolboy.

• Lord Dicky Lendale : Louise, the world is not divided into the rich and the poor; it's divided into the helpers and the helped. You and I are both helpers.

• Lord Dicky Lendale : He may come back.

  Louise : Who?

  Lord Dicky Lendale : Oh, that good-looking, incompetent, muddle-headed, jackass. He may.

• Louise : Duke, are you telling me the truth?

  Lord Dicky Lendale : Countess, would you recognize the truth if you heard it?

• Lord Dicky Lendale : [jokingly to Louise not knowing that there is a bomb in the bag]  What have you got in that bag? A bomb?

• Louise : Are you a professional painter?

  Lord Dicky Lendale : No, I'm a professional Duke. Which means that I'm an amateur at everything else. Lendale's the name, Dicky Lendale.

  Louise : Enchanted. I am the Countess of Camõens.

  Lord Dicky Lendale : Camõens! Ah, the great Portuguese poet!

  Louise : He was my husband.

  Lord Dicky Lendale : And you're still in mourning? What devotion. He died in 1580.

• Louise : How long haven't you seen your mother, Dicky?

  Lord Dicky Lendale : Oh, eighteen years?

  Louise : And you don't kiss her?