Luv (1967)

Elaine May: Ellen Manville

Photos 

Quotes 

• Milt Manville : Look, El, now I've never told you this before; but I couldn't start school until I was 8 years old because I didn't have a pair of shoes to wear. Now, lucky for me, the kid downstairs got hit by an ice-cream truck and I got his shoes. But even then they were too tight for my feet. I couldn't walk. I was put into a special class for disabled children.

  Harry Berlin : Do you think that was bad? Whenever it snowed, my grandparents locked me out of the house. Skinny kid with a torn jacket, a paper bag for a hat, knocking and yelling, "Let me in, please let me in..."

  Milt Manville : Paradise! What did they used to feed you for breakfast?

  Harry Berlin : Glass, filled with two thirds water and one third milk.

  Milt Manville : Coffee grounds. That's what I got.

  Harry Berlin : With sugar.

  Milt Manville : Not on your life. I ate it straight, like oatmeal.

  Harry Berlin : Your old man ever beat you?

  Milt Manville : He did.

  Harry Berlin : With what?

  Milt Manville : A strap.

  Harry Berlin : [pointing to himself]  A chain.

  Ellen Manville : [she chuckles]  You were both lucky and you didn't know it.

  Harry Berlin : Lucky? Did anybody ever call you a "bastard"?

  Ellen Manville : A relative or a stranger?

  Harry Berlin : Relative.

  Milt Manville : I never even had a birthday party.

  Harry Berlin : I never even knew when my birthday was till I got a notice from my Draft Board.

  Milt Manville : What kind of presents did they used to give you for Christmas?

  Ellen Manville : [she scoffs]  Presents?

  Harry Berlin : When I was 5 years old my grandparents bought a dozen donuts every Christmas till I was 17. I got a donut.

• Ellen Manville : I've always been lonely, Harry. You see, on the one had I possess a cold, calculating mind, sharp as a razor, incisive, penetrating, and men are afraid of that. It's a threat to their feelings of masculine superiority; my power of analysis, my photographic memory. They resent all that.

  Harry Berlin : Yeah. Well some men are like that.

  Ellen Manville : Ask me a question, Harry.

  Harry Berlin : Eh?

  Ellen Manville : Ask me a question.

  Harry Berlin : Um, how many states did Al Smith win in the election in 1928?

  Ellen Manville : In 1928, the presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith won eight states: Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Rhode Island and South Carolina.

  Harry Berlin : You're right. I resent that.

  Ellen Manville : You see!