Herman Mankiewicz Quotes

A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn't think he'd remember. You take me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn't see me at all, but I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl.

Although Grandpa hits on the blonde next door, he does it with such charm and perkiness that Brennan gets away with playing what is essentially a dirty old man part. It is worth watching the movie to see him dance with his blonde pickup, clicking his heels, and then sitting her down at a table and showing her his $32,000 bank account—actually just a little notebook, although he claims to have the money (which turns out to be Confederate currency) hidden under his bed. When his date rejects his advances, he says, “The night is young. Why don’t you be like the night?” When she pleads to be taken home and is willing do anything he wants in return, he says, “Then what’s the use of going home?” But of course his role dictates that he resign himself to playing the grouchy guy who drives her home. Brennan’s lines came from one of Hollywood’s greatest screenwriters, Herman Mankiewicz, who wrote Citizen Kane.

The house we were renting that spring belonged to Sara Mankiewicz, Herman Mankiewicz’s widow, who was traveling for six months, and although she had packed away the china she did not want used along with Herman Mankiewicz’s Academy Award for Citizen Kane (you’ll have friends over, she had said, they’ll get drunk, they’ll want to play with it) she had left out her Minton dinner plates, the same pattern as the Minton tiles that line the arcade south of Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, for me to use.

Even Herman’s public persona began to fray, sinking from a Johnsonian wit admired for his insightful aphorisms to a Falstaffian character with amusing foibles—or tragic flaws.

The dramatic critic of a paper is invariably a lazy fellow, related to the owner of the paper or the sole possessor of a shameful secret concerning him—which is how the aforesaid critic usually got his job. He frequently has to attend as many as three of the most important openines in a week. .. and then his moans are loud in the land and he makes signs to the fair ladies that would indicate that he gets very tired of going to the theatre night after night and what are they going to do about it." Herman J. Mankiewicz, “The Life of an Assistant Dramatic Editor” March 1925