Questionable Taste Theatre: "Soapdish"

This week I am in love with Not Bakula and enjoying the endorphins from discovering something new and amazing. I can't even bring myself to be snarky about a movie this week; I'm filled with that much love. Today, I am 85% love. (And 15% dorkosity.)

So this week in Questionable Taste Theatre, I present SOAPDISH. Soapdish is more or less the soundtrack to my life; not one day goes by wherein I can't quote this movie. Having a family of performers, way more theatre experience than is healthy, and a work history that includes working next to soap-opera writers convinced me that this movie, while it may seem to be a comedy, is in fact exactly like life.

Nutshell: There's a soap opera, which is hilariously bad. Everyone involved? Hilariously bad. Dialogue? Best ever.



Join us for some of my favorite quotes from this movie, partly because the plot defies description, so I won't bother, and partly because, no joke, some of the funniest lines I've ever heard.





[an audition]

Betsy Faye Sharon: Very, very good, Mark. And very true. I love what you're doing. I just, I think if we could try it one more time, and this time... I don't know... maybe try one without your shirt.
Mark: Sure.
[Removes it and reviews the script]
Mark: "Will you be having wine with dinner?"
Betsy Faye Sharon: ...I think we've found our waiter.

*

[Studio head Edwards lays down the law.]

Edwards: I would like to voice my strong concern about this show's spiraling decline in ratings. David, ever since you took us to the Caribbean, it's been Jamaica homeless people sucking soup, and a big wave outside that cost a hundred thousand dollars. That's depressing and it's expensive, two words I hate. You know the words I like? I like the word "peppy" and the word "cheap". Peppy and cheap.

*

[Lori Craven, Celeste's "niece", tries to get her start.]

Lori Craven: Hi. Uh, I'm Lori Craven and... I'm an actress.
Betsy Faye Sharon: An actress! Really! How nice for you! I'm Betsy Faye Sharon and I'm a bitch. Now get out of here.

*

[On bringing back Celeste's ex, Jeffrey Anderson]

David Barnes: I was under orders.
Celeste Talbert: So - was - Hitler! Oh, no, I don't mean Hitler, I mean the other guy, the other one.
David Barnes: Himmler.
Celeste Talbert: No, no, no.
David Barnes: Hess.
Rose Schwartz: Eichmann.
David Barnes: Eichmann.

*

[If you have ever seen a soap opera, you've heard these lines.]

Ariel Maloney: Why, Bolt! I didn't realize you were here.
Bolt: Well... I am.

*

[Montana and David share a tender moment.]

Montana Moorehead: YOU - promised me you would get rid of Celeste. WE WERE BOTH NAKED AND YOU PROMISED! NAKED!
David Barnes: Hey! We were never naked.
Montana Moorehead: Well, we could have been!

*

[Lori has found out she's Celeste's daughter.]

Celeste Talbert: I never said I was the best mother in the world. Give me a little credit, will you, credit for being someone who tried... to love you the only way she knew how?
Lori Craven: I know that speech.
Celeste Talbert: You do?
Lori Craven: Yeah, it was the, uh, the Thanksgiving show, when Maggie meets Bolt's blind nephew.

*



[Their live episode goes all to shit.]

Mr. Edwards: There's a nurse in the restuarant...did I miss a meeting?

*

[Best movie conversation ever. No joke.]

[Reading unrehearsed lines off the TelePrompTer]
Celeste Talbert: [as Maggie] Dr. Randall, what a surprise! Are you having lunch here?
Jeffrey Anderson: [as Dr. Randall] I will if it's that sample. Huh... I wish it was that simple.
Edmund Edwards: [offstage] This guy never heard of contact lenses?
Jeffrey Anderson: [as Dr. Randall] The test results have come back.
Celeste Talbert: [as Maggie] And?
Jeffrey Anderson: [as Dr. Randall] And I'm afraid the results are very disturbing. It seems that Angelique has a rare case of brake fluid...
[pause]
Jeffrey Anderson: Bran... fluid. Bran flavor.
Burton White: What the hell?
David Barnes: [offstage] Brain fever!
Edmund Edwards: [offstage, loudly] Say it!
Celeste Talbert: [as Maggie] Brain fever!
Jeffrey Anderson: [as Dr. Randall] Yes. Brain fever. Or what we call in Austria...
[they both goggle at the word]
Jeffrey Anderson: Kopfgeschlagen. At the current rate of inflation, her brain will laterally explore the...
Celeste Talbert: [as Maggie] Literally explode?
Jeffrey Anderson: [as Dr. Randall] Exactly, within the next three houses.
Celeste Talbert: [as Maggie] Hours?
Jeffrey Anderson: [as Dr. Randall] Yes, will literally explode within next three hours. I would suggest leaving the restraint.
Celeste Talbert: [as Maggie] Restaurant?
Jeffrey Anderson: [as Dr. Randall] Restaurant, yes.
Celeste Talbert: [as Maggie] Her brain will actually explode?
Jeffrey Anderson: [as Dr. Randall] Yes, yes, I've, um, seen it happen. It's a dreadful, dreadful thug. Thing.


I dare you to find a situation in which the suggestion "Peppy and cheap" is not useful. You can't! There isn't one!

Say what you will about the enduring artistic merits of this movie, there has not been a movie before or since with dialogue like this. I love you, movie.