They Said It About Claude Rains

"He was a terrific father. He adored me, and I absolutely adored him."

"He was born on the wrong side of the Thames. He was one of twelve children and all but three of them died from poverty-related illnesses. He never went to school beyond second grade, had a strong Cockney accent and a terrible lisp. But he fixed all that by himself when he was 18 or 19."

"She never knew her grandfather, but she's convinced he's sitting on her shoulder."

"I was in awe. I was thrown for a loop. At the time he scared the life out of me."

"I had some very difficult scenes to do with Claude Rains, and Mr. Rains was, indeed, a very formal man. You didn't call him Claude! He always came in very prepared with his lines learned right down to the last apostrophe. We would run through the scenes at night on the set with new lines added. We would have a fresh scene written every night, and we would rush to our dressing rooms to relearn the newly added lines because this had been done at night and we were doing the scenes in the morning. Claude Rains found this difficult to adapt to. He was never bad tempered but was a very structured actor, a splendid actor. He brought nuances to the part of the husband which were just incredible."

"I found him enormously helpful and encouraging to work with and was always trying to copy him in my first years as an actor, until I decided to imitate Noel Coward instead."

"Claude Rains led the cast, acting three different parts with his usual versatility"

"He acted with striking virtuoisity and the London stage suffered a great loss when he deserted it for ever."

"He lacked inches and wore lifts in his shoes to increase his height. Stocky but handsome, with broad shoulders and a mop of thick brown hair which he brushed over one eye, he wore beautifully cut double-breasted suits, starched shirts with pointed collars and big cuffs, and wide satin ties. He had piercing dark eyes and a beautiful throaty voice, though he had, like Marlene Dietrich, some trouble with the letter "R"."

"Extremely attractice to women, he was divorced several times, and once appeared ...with Beatrix Thomson, to whom he was then married, in a cast that included two of his former wives. Needless to say, all the girls in my class at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he was one of the best and most popular teachers, were hopelessly in love with him."

"I am a person. Claude. Claude Rains, after the actor Claude Rains, whom I admire very much and wish to emulate. I watch all his movies when they appear on TV....Tellenbeck...was reading from the TV schedule about one of Claude Rains's last movies. The TV schedule did not recommend the movie. The TV schedule was in error."

"I have recorded several of my favorite movies and now watch them when I please. It is wonderful. I have six Claude Rains films. I am studying his mannerisms and his speech. The way he raises his eyebrows. The way he smiles, as if he has special knowledge of an enduring sadness but has learned to accommodate it with good humor and a civilized disposition. He is small and frail and I am large and powerful, but I do not think our qualities of mind are far removed from each other. At least I like to think they are not."

"I can't eat my notices."

"Good Lord, it must be lunch time!"

(Captain Louis Renault) "Realizing the importance of the case, my men are rounding up twice the usual number of suspects."

(Renault) "I am only a poor corrupt official"

(Renault) "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!"

(Renault) "I blow with the wind and the prevailing wind is from Vichy."

(Renault) "Round up the usual suspects."

(Renault) "What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?"
(Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine) "My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters."
(Renault)"Waters? What waters? We are in the desert."
(Blaine) "I was misinformed."

Renault (talking to Major Strasser) "You enjoy war. I enjoy women. We are both very good at our jobs."

(Dr. Jaquith)"There's nothing shameful in my work--or frightening, or anything else. It's very simple, really, what I try to do. People walk along a road. They come to a fork in the road. They are confused, they don't know which way to take. I just put up a signpost: not that way, this way."

(Gladys Cooper as Mrs. Henry Windle Vale)"Well, it's what I said, isn't it? Just nonsense?"
(Jaquith) "She is most seriously ill."
(Mrs. Vale) "Charlotte is--"
(Jaquith) "Thanks to you."
(Mrs. Vale) "Did you say--"
(Jaquith) "My dear Mrs. Vale, if you had deliberately and maliciously planned to destroy your daughter's life, you couldn't have done it more completely."
(Mrs. Vale) "How? By having exercised a mother's rights?"
(Jaquith) "A mother's rights, twaddle. A child has rights. A person has rights--to discover her own mistakes, to make her own way, to grow and blossom in her own particular soil."
(Mrs. Vale) "Are we getting into botany, Doctor? Are we flowers?"

(Mrs. Vale)"No member of the Vale family has ever had a nervous breakdown."
(Jaquith) "Well there's one having one now."

(Jaquith) "I thought you came up here to have a nervous breakdown."
(Bette Davis as Charlotte Vale) "I've decided not to have it, if it's all the same to you."
(Jaquith) "Well, since you're no longer my patient--since you've become a member of my staff, Doctor--"
(Charlotte) "Oh, I know I've been impertinent--"
(Jaquith) "Go ahead, maybe I like it."

(Jaquith) "Remember what it says in the Bible, 'The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away!'"
(Jaquith) "Not so very wonderful, since the Free Will Bill was passed. Too little power."

(Dryden)"A man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth. But a man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it."

(Dryden)"Lawrence, only two kinds of creatures get fun of the desert--Bedouins and Gods, and you're neither. Take it from me: for ordinary men, it's a burning fiery furnace."
(Peter O' Toole as Lawrence). "No, Dryden, it's going to be fun."
(Dryden)"It is recognized that you have a funny sense of fun."

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