José Ferrer credited as playing...
Sigmund Romberg
- Dorothy Donnelly: You have talent. That's very rare in the theater.
- Sigmund Romberg: You have a warm smile. That's even rarer.
- Dorothy Donnelly: You don't know how to handle this.
- Sigmund Romberg: But you do, eh? I took your advice once. "Wait until you get in a bargaining position," you said. How long do I have to wait to get in it, until I'm too old to bargain?
- Dorothy Donnelly: You're in it now, but you shouldn't talk to Townsend; talk to Schubert. Meet me at the Astor for lunch tomorrow.
- Sigmund Romberg: I'm dying, and she's talking about eating.
- Dorothy Donnelly: On Broadway, Romy, you should've learnt by now lunch is not for eating... lunch is for conniving.
- Sigmund Romberg: This time I'm really through.
- Bert Townsend: You'll be back.
- Sigmund Romberg: Only for "Maytime"; nothing else. Only "Maytime".
- [Pulls papers from pocket.]
- Sigmund Romberg: Read it once.
- Bert Townsend: Who needs it?
- Sigmund Romberg: I do!
- Bert Townsend: Look, Romy, if I want to do a Viennese operetta, all I have to do is send a cablegram and get the whole works. Composer, book sets, costumes, everything. Why should I gamble on a new production?
- Sigmund Romberg: Because with a new production, maybe you could have a work of art.
- Bert Townsend: I'm only interested in making money.
- Sigmund Romberg: People who collect garbage also make money.
- Bert Townsend: I deserve better than that from you.
- [Walks away.]
- Sigmund Romberg: Music is like vests or ladies' wear? It should be stylish?
- Lazar Berrison, Sr.: Don't be such a high roller! You're doing good. It's the novelty, it'll wear off. This place has a chance to get in the hotsy-totsy time, like Shanley's, Bustanoby's, if you give the people what they want. This kind of stuff I've sold to the best publishers in town.
- Sigmund Romberg: [reads sheet music song title handed to him by Berrison] "Choo Choo to Chicago." "Hennessy Hop." "Boiled Shirt."
- Lazar Berrison, Sr.: Best catalog I represented and I'm a kind of agent like this. I not only sell songs for my boys, I try to get them played.
- Sigmund Romberg: Baboons play songs like this. Also write them.
- Lazar Berrison, Sr.: Baboons with rhythm! Baboons who like to do the bunny hug and the squeeze. The way they're dancing now isn't 1-2-3, 1-2-3. It's 1-2, 1-2. Gotta be that way with the hobble skirts! Otherwise the ladies hit the grid when they tinkle their toes. Today a song's gotta be a grizzly bear stepping on a tack - with the kind of zip that will make a leg of mutton dance.
- Sigmund Romberg: How does a leg of mutton dance?
- Sigmund Romberg: Give me a listen.
- [singing]
- Sigmund Romberg: You jazz to the left, Then you jazz to the right, Then you tickle your toe, You tickle your toe and. Then you go into a bunny hug, Hold her tight as a bug in a rug and, Then you step on the tack, Like you're balling the Jack, With the grizzly bear in your stance and, If you be my honey lamb, We can yammy yam, The leg of mutton dance...
- Anna Mueller: Romy's only the greatest composer in the whole world.
- Sigmund Romberg: Whoever heard of a slouch like Beethoven?
- Sigmund Romberg: Success? What is that? The only important place for a show to be a success is in one's own heart.
- Sigmund Romberg: [singing] Stop your sighs and grievin', All those pretty tears you're sheddin', Wipe away, For my pals shall be gay...
- Ben Judson: In the first scene, he's having his bachelor's dinner.
- Sigmund Romberg: Yes, saying goodbye to all his loose-living friends.
- Harold Butterfield: But, here's the switch. All those loose-living friends are dames.
- Ben Judson: You get it, Bertie? No men! A bachelor's dinner with dames. Dames all over the place! In the corners, on the piano, hanging from the chandelier.
- Sigmund Romberg: [singing] You ought to see my fat, fat Fatima, She is gentle and mild, And not very wild, Fatima's size is really out of bounds, She's a good 200 pounds, This is just a guess, maybe more or less, Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, My Fatima's neat and nifty, Oh, my fat, fat Fatima, She is very voluminous, Fill up a roominous, From top to bottomous, She's a hippopotamus, So ginger-snapable, Sit-on-her-lapable, Fatima's a fabulous girl!
- Sigmund Romberg: It's too bad, really. This is quite the perfect setting for a love scene. A painted backdrop with a canvas sky. And a papier-mâché lake shimmering from the light of a cardboard moon. Music drifting across the water. You, the leading lady with your eyes shining and your heart ready. And mine ready too. It's too bad, really.
- Sigmund Romberg: [singing, in blackface] So let me introduce to you, The jazza jazza doo doo doo, It's got me goofy, The jazza jazza doo doo doo, I'm going daffy, The jazza jazza doo doo doo, Mammy! The jazza jazza, Jazza jazza doo doo doo, Yeah!
- Sigmund Romberg: I can hardly look at you. For that matter, I can hardly look in the mirror at myself. I didn't want to do it. I was maneuvered into it. It turned out pretty awful.
- Sigmund Romberg: You've got to get with the 20th century.
- Florenz Ziegfeld: I don't got to get with anything, Mr. Romberg.