Vitamin Flintheart Asks for Lemonade
Our family loves watching the Dick Tracy movies with Ralph Byrd as the homicide detective from the classic comic strip. Our favorite character is Vitamin Flintheart (played by Ian Keith), a voluble Shakespearean actor who takes handfuls of supplements with dramatic flourish. In one of our favorite scenes Vitamin, working undercover as a blind beggar, asks Jigger the barkeeper for lemonade.
Jigger: On your way, brother. No moochers.
Vitamin: That epithet is applicable only to him who is inflicted with impecuniosity.
Jigger: Come again?
Vitamin: Come again? I haven’t left. [tosses coins on bar counter] There, keeper of the hooch.
Jigger: Okay, name it.
Vitamin: Fetch me something savory and salubrious, concocted perhaps from citrus grown in the gardens of Granada, consumed by the snows of San Berita, served in a chalice spiced with chilena [?]. [waits expectantly]
Jigger: I’m sorry, bub, but we ain’t got any.
Vitamin: In language comporting with your intelligence—lemonade.
Jigger: Lemonade?
Vitamin: Dear me, doesn’t anyone understand English anymore?
Someday I’ll ask for lemonade just like that.
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LITTLEST SISTER said...
Vitamin is my favorite character from Dick Tracy. His dramatic personality is very funny. This is one of my favorite quotes.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012 05:56 PM
LITTLEST SISTER said...
Another favorite: (speaking about an antique vase with which he is not pleased) “Return it to the obscurity that it deserves.”
Wednesday, March 21, 2012 05:59 PM
HANDMAIDEN said...
More favorite lines from Vitamin: “You are speaking of the man I love,” when his impersonation of a society girl was criticized.
And: “I am speechless. Fortunately, I prepared a little speech in anticipation...””
Friday, March 23, 2012 01:46 PM
Friday, February 24, 2012