Withering Glance: Here's quoting from you, movie classics

Rick Nelson and Claude Peck dispense unasked-for advice about clothing, etiquette, culture, relationships, grooming and more.

CP: Frankly, I'm frustrated.

RN: Because I have more Twitter followers than you?

CP: There is that. No, it's about how you come up with perky, pertinent and hilarious quotes from movies at the drop of a hat. Me, I can't remember a thing, although I see as many movies as you do. Not fair.

RN: Consider yourself fortunate. You don't have the voice of Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford forever screaming, "Barbara, please!" in your ear, the way I do. That's just a for instance. From "Mommie Dearest," in case you didn't know. And if you didn't, hand me your Gay Card, right now.

CP: I remember big visuals — the severed horse head in the bed in "Godfather," the car chase under the elevated tracks in "The French Connection," the camping scene in "Brokeback Mountain." But an actual quip? Forget about it. Do you practice those at home in front of a mirror, waving a cigarette?

RN: No, I've just watched "All About Eve" approximately 7,287 times. Try it. Soon you'll be reciting handy quips in your sleep. You know, "What a story. Everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." Or, "Cut, print it. What happens in the next reel? Do I get dragged off, screaming, to the snake pit?" But that's what happens when you're dealing with the best screenplay ever written. Thank you, Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

RN: Scratch a gay man, find a wannabe Robert Osborne.

CP: Riddle me this? Why are the vast majority of lines redelivered over small plates ones that were spoken on the silver screen by women, not men?

RN: You mean, other than, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn"; "Here's looking at you, kid"; "Take the gun, leave the cannoli"; "Plastics"; "Nobody puts Baby in a corner"; "Stella!" and "Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape"?

CP: "You talkin' to me?"

RN: That said, I do get your point. Who among us hasn't at one time or another relied upon the universal truths of "Hello, gorgeous," "But you are, Blanche," "You had me at 'hello,' " "What a dump," "I'll have what she's having" and "Snap out of it!" Or am I speaking only for myself?

RN: That's the spirit. Here, I'm going to give you an assignment. Take these DVDs — there's a Rosalind Russell movie, a Hayley Mills flick and one featuring both of them — memorize a dozen lines and then incorporate them into your everyday conversation. I'll start: "I've got the most scathingly brilliant idea."

CP: OK, Auntie Mame, whatever you say. "When you're from Pittsburgh, you have to do something."

RN: Look at you, quoting with the best of them. I couldn't be more proud.

E-mail: witheringglance@startribune.com