The Great Race Quotations

The Great Race is a 1965 film about an automobile race around the world.

Directed by Blake Edwards. Written by Blake Edwards and Arthur A. Ross.

Professor Fate

[covered in feathers after crashing during a stunt] I'd like to see the Great Leslie try THAT one!"

[covered in hot slurry after crashing during another stunt] Well, there's another one Leslie can try on for size!

Push the button, Max! [on numerous occasions.]

You have a brain the size of a carbuncle! Get outta here before Leslie spots us! Dive, crash dive! [to Max]

Thieves, brigans and cut-throats of all nations may hound us... but we are ready for them, we shall blast them into Kingdom Come.

Why you thimble headed gherkin! Do you realize the odds against a storm in this part of the ocean at this time of the year? [to Max]

You bumbling idiots, you will answer to my government for this outrage, outrage! You are kidnapping Fate the Magnificent! Look, let's get practical. I don't care what you do to the others, as long as you let me go. What do you say to five HUNDRED dollars?" [to the Baron's guards]

[after winning the race] I am king! I am the king....no I'm not! I didn't beat him! He let me win! I can't win this way! I can only win one way - my way! He let me win! I can't win your way! You cheated, you cheated, you cheated, you cheated! You cheated, cheated, I hate you! I refuse to accept! I won't win any way but my way! You'll ruin my reputation, do you hear! *You* I hate! You with your hair that's always combed and your suit that's always white and your car that's always clean! I refuse to accept! I challenge you to another race!

Prince Hapnik

[after getting a pie in the face] Ulp? Brandy? Hah-hah, throw more brandy! Throw brandy! More Brandy!

[gets a second pie in the face] Rum! I never mix my pies. I want to play, too.

You! You're the cause of it all! It was your idea! You're banished! I'm getting a new tucker-inner! Banished, banished, banished!" [to General Kuhster]

Goodbye! Farewell, you good Leslie you! I hope you win! I hope you win! [laughs] I miss him ..."

The Great Leslie

[to Maggie DuBois] You talk a good fight, but when it comes down to it, you're as emancipated as a confirmed spinster in a knitting bee.

[to Maggie DuBois, who is sitting on a desolate rock] I'm offering you a lift. Or would you prefer an engraved invitation?

Others

Lily Olay: I ain't no native, I was born here!

Texas Jack: NOW can I have me some fightin' room?! [several times during a saloon fight]

Baron von Stuppe As a very wise English gentleman once said, 'He who fights and runs away may live to fight another day'. So, until another day, Mr. Leslie, please excuse me, I have a boat waiting!

Dialogue

The Great Leslie: It's been my experience, General, that there is little advantage to winning if one wins too easily.

General Kuhster: In my profession, to win is imperative; to win easily is a blessing.

Professor Fate: Rise and shine?

Max: It's 7:30.

Professor Fate: Then You rise, you shine!

Professor Fate: My apologies, there's a polar bear in our car.

The Great Leslie: If you don't leave this car immediately, I shall personally feed you to the bear.

Professor Fate: Genius, Max, positive genius! What's next?

Max: Car number 5, the engine falls out!

Professor Fate: Car number 5, hah hah hah hah! Uh Max . . . we're number 5.

Max: Professor, Where are you?

Professor Fate: Behind the rock!

Max: Behind which rock? [falls over the professor]

Professor Fate: This rock you idiot!

The Great Leslie: I once went on an anthropological expedition, to study the Kwakiutl Indians. In winter, one Kwakiutl in a blanket froze. But two Kwakiutls, in the same blanket ...

Maggie DuBois: Yeeeesss?

The Great Leslie: Were warmer.

Max: What, we gotta do somethin'.

Professor Fate: Oh, don't worry. Before this iceberg melts and we drown like rats, we're going to do plenty, ha!

Max: Yeah? What?

Professor Fate: We're gonna starve!

The Great Leslie: [measuring the iceberg] Thirty seven inches to go.

Professor Fate: Oh, 37 inches to go. Huzzah! At the rate we've been melting, that's good for about one more week!

The Great Leslie: You'd better keep it to yourself.

Professor Fate: Oh, of course I'll keep it to myself. Until the water reaches my lower lip, and then I'm gonna mention it to SOMEBODY!

Professor Fate: Escaped?

General Kushter: With a small friar.

Professor Fate: Leslie escaped with a chicken?

Cast

Jack Lemmon — Professor Fate/Crown Prince Frederick Hapnick
Tony Curtis — Leslie 'The Great Leslie' Gallant III
Natalie Wood — Maggie DuBois
Peter Falk — Maximillian 'Max' Meen
Dorothy Provine - Lilly Olay
Larry Storch - Texas Jack
Ross Martin - Baron Von Stuppe
George Macready - General Kuhster

Quoternity