Hail, Caesar! Quotes

Hobie Doyle: Would that it were so simple?

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Hobie Doyle: Would that it were so simple.
Laurence Laurentz: Would that it were so simple!
Hobie Doyle: Would that it were so simple.
Laurence Laurentz: Would that it were so simple!
Hobie Doyle: Would that it were so simple.
Laurence Laurentz: Would that it were so simple!

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Carlotta Valdez: It's all in the hips, the lips, and the eyes and the thighs.

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Catholic Clergyman: God has children.
Rabbi: What? And a dog? A collie, maybe? God doesn't have children. He's a bachelor. And very angry.
Catholic Clergyman: No! No! He used to be angry!
Rabbi: What? He got over it?
Protestant Clergyman: You worship the god of another age!
Catholic Clergyman: Who has no love!
Rabbi: Not true! He likes Jews.

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Director: Squint against the grandeur!

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Hobie Doyle: It's complicated.

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Baird Whitlock: Hobie Doyle?... You're a Communist too?

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Eastern Orthodox Clergyman: Perhaps, Sir, you are forgetting is telling in the Holy Bible.
Eddie Mannix: You're quite right, Patriarch. The Bible, of course, is terrific.

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Eddie Mannix: Tell them, Thanks, but no thanks. That short enough for you?

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Eddie Mannix: Baird Whitlock has been kidnapped.
Hobie Doyle: This is bad. Bad for movie stars everywhere.

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Eddie Mannix: Let me see if Arne is open to matrimony. You sure he's the father?
DeeAnna Moran: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, he's the father, yes! [Mannix starts to walk away]
DeeAnna Moran: ... Pretty sure.

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Baird Whitlock: He didn't see a Roman or a Slave, but a man.

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Eddie Mannix: Here at Capitol Pictures, as you know, an army of technicians, actors, and top notch artistic people are working hard to bring to the screen the story of the Christ. It's a swell story.

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
DeeAnna Moran: Hey, Maxie, bring me my ass back!

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Protestant Clergyman: Who plays Christ?
Eddie Mannix: A kid we're all very excited about, Todd Hocheiser, a wonderful young actor we found in Akron, Ohio, after a nationwide talent hunt. But Hocheiser is seen only fleetingly and with extreme taste. Our story is told through the eyes of a Roman tribune, Autochlus Antonius, an ordinary man, skeptical at first, but who comes to a grudging respect for this swell figure from the East.

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Burt Gurney: We are heading out to sea and however it will be, it ain't gonna be the same. cause no matter what we see, when we're out there on the sea, we ain't gonna see a dame. we'll be searching high and low on the deck and down below but it's a crying shame. Oh, we'll see a lot of fish but we'll never clock a dish. We ain't gonna see a dame. No dames! we might see some octopuses No dames! or a half a dozen clams No dames! we might even see a mermaid But mermaids got no gams! No gams! Have I got a girl for you! out there on the sea! Here's how it will be i'm gonna dance with you, pal you're gonna dance with me! When we're out there on the sea we'll be happy as can be Or so the Captain claims! But we have to disagree. Cause the only guarantee Is I'll see a lot of you And you'll see a lot of me! And it's absolutely certain That we'll see a lot of sea. But we ain't gonna see no dames. No dames! We're going to sea! No dames! We're going to sea! No dames! We're going to sea! We ain't gonna see no Dames!

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Young Women at Bar: [in a scene being filmed at Capitol Pictures, a bar full of sailors is closing for the night, and the young women are going home]So long, fellas. See ya in eight months.
Bartender: Eight months?
Sailor: Yeah, we're shippin' out in the morning.
Sailor: Golly, eight months without a dame.
Burt Gurney (as Sailor in Bar Scene): Can you beat it?
Bartender: You're gonna have to beat it!

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Hobie Doyle: Uh, is it hard to dance with all them bernanners on your head?

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Baird Whitlock: *That's* who benefits!

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
DeeAnna Moran: [Watching Joe working the seal to notarize]You must have very strong forearms. Is it hard... squeezing that thing like that?
Joe Silverman: Comes with the job, ma'am.

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Catholic Clergyman: It's the foundation of our belief that Christ is most properly referred to as the Son of God. It's the Son of God who takes the sins of the world upon himself, so that the rest of God's children, we imperfect beings, through faith, may enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Eddie Mannix: So, God is - split?
Catholic Clergyman: Yes! And no.
Eastern Orthodox Clergyman: There is unity in division.
Protestant Clergyman: And division in unity.
Eddie Mannix: I'm not sure I follow padre.
Rabbi: Young man, you don't follow for a very simple reason. These men are screwballs.

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Eddie Mannix: We don't need to agree on the nature of the deity here. If we could focus on the Christ, whatever his parentage. My question is: is our depiction fair?
Eastern Orthodox Clergyman: I have seen worse.
Eddie Mannix: Reverend?
Protestant Clergyman: There's nothing to offend a - reasonable man.
Eddie Mannix: Father?
Catholic Clergyman: The motion picture teleplay was respectful and exhibited tastefulness and class.
Rabbi: Who made you an expert all of the sudden?
Eddie Mannix: And, what do you think, Rabbi?
Rabbi: Eh? I haven't an opinion.

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Baird Whitlock: The whole setup only works if I play along, right? If I don't let on that I know who kidnapped me.
John Howard Hermann, Head Communist Writer: Well, yes, that's right.
Baird Whitlock: Well, what if I name names?

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Baird Whitlock: That's what happened to me when I went to Reno with Danny Kaye and he asked me to shave his back. Exact same thing. Because, I'm thinkin', who benefits? So, let me tell ya, everybody thinks that Danny's a jerk, he's not really a jerk. That's just a theory generating its own anti-theory. Anyway, there we were, it's me and Danny and I'm wondering what the hell am I doin' with a razor in my hand? And he says its for a Norman Taurog picture. But, Judy Canova's there and she knows Norman and she say's Danny's not doing a Norman Taurog picture! He just wants you to shave his back! And that's who benefits!

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Baird Whitlock: These guys are pretty interesting, though. They've actually figured out the laws that dictate - everything! History! Sociology! Politics! Morality! Everything! It's all in a book called Capital - with a K.
Eddie Mannix: Is that right?
Baird Whitlock: Yeah. You're not going to believe this. These guys even figured out what's going on here at the Studio. Because the Studio is nothing more than an instrument of capitalism. Yeah, so we blindly follow these laws like any any other institution. Laws that these guys figured out. The Studio makes pictures to serve the System. That is it's function! That's really what we're up to here.
Eddie Mannix: Is it?
Baird Whitlock: Yeah. Its just confirming what they call - the status quo. I mean, we may tell ourselves that we're creating something of artistic value or there's some sort of spiritual dimension to the picture business. But, what it really is, is this fat cat, Nick Skank, out in New York, running this factory, serving up these lollipops to the - what they used to call the bread and circuses for the...
Eddie Mannix: [Grabs Baird and slaps him]Now, you listen to me, buster. Nick Skank and the Studio have been good to you and to everyone else who works here. If I ever hear you bad mouthing Mr. Skank again, it'll be the last thing you say before I have you tossed in jail for colluding in your own abduction.
Baird Whitlock: Eddie, I wouldn't, I would never do that!
Eddie Mannix: [Slaps Baird some more]Shut up! You're gonna go out there and you're going to finish Hail Caesar! You're gonna give that speech at the feet of the penitent thief and you're gonna believe every word you say. [slaps Baird some more]
Eddie Mannix: You're going to do it because you're an actor and that's what you do. Just like the director does what he does and the writer and the script girl and th

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Narrator: Ancient Rome. Twelve years into the rule of Tiberius, ruler maximus. Rome's legions are masters of the world, the stomp of its sandals heard from the Iberian peninsula in the west through the halls of the great library of Alexandria in the east. As oppressed people everywhere writhe under the Roman lash, freeman and vassal are united in one compulsory worship. The emperor, Caesar, is Godhead, lord of every man's body and spirit. For those who will not submit, the galleys, the arenas, even crucifixion await. But there is a new wind, blowing from the east, from the dusty streets of Bethlehem, that will soon challenge the vast house of Caesar, that edifice wrought of brick and blood which now seems so secure!

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Eddie Mannix: [cops bust starlet posing for French postcard snaps]Mary Jo was a guest at a costume party. This isn't even her dirndl.

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Gloria DeLamour: Jesus Christ on a scooter! Are you here?

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Eddie Mannix: As for the religious aspect, does the depiction of Christ Jesus cut the mustard?
Catholic Clergyman: Well, the nature of Christ is not quite as simple as your photoplay would have it.
Eddie Mannix: How so, father?
Catholic Clergyman: It's not the case, simply, that Christ is God or God - Christ.
Rabbi: You can say that again! The Nazarene was not God.
Eastern Orthodox Clergyman: He was not not God.
Rabbi: He was a man.
Protestant Clergyman: Part God.
Rabbi: No, sir!
Eddie Mannix: Rabbi, all of us have a little bit of God in us, don't we?

Movie: Hail, Caesar!
Protestant Clergyman: God loves everyone!
Catholic Clergyman: God is love!
Eastern Orthodox Clergyman: God is who he is.
Rabbi: This is special? Who isn't who he is?
Catholic Clergyman: But, how should God be rendered in a motion picture?
Rabbi: God isn't in the motion picture!

Movie: Hail, Caesar!