
Happy Birthday, Wanda June Page #17
- R
- Year:
- 1971
- 105 min
- 497 Views
HAROLD:
Could have happened to anybody.
LOOSELEAF:
First Nagasaki--now this.
HAROLD:
How about breakfast, wife?
PENELOPE:
Breakfast?
HAROLD:
(as though to a waitress)
Scrambled eggs, kippered herring,
fried potatoes--and a whole onion.
I want to eat the onion like an
apple. Do you understand?
PENELOPE turns away.
HAROLD:
And lots of orange juice--oceans of
orange juice.
PENELOPE:
Mrs. Wheeler is dead.
HAROLD:
All right--bring me a side order of
Mrs. Wheeler.
(regarding LOOSELEAF,
resigning himself to
being stuck with his
company for a little
while longer)
Oh, hell--sit down, Colonel.
Penelope will bring you some chow.
PENELOPE:
That is the most heartless
statement I ever heard pass between
human lips.
HAROLD:
(honestly mystified)
Which one?
PENELOPE:
(chokingly)
"Bring me a side order of Mrs.
Wheeler."
HAROLD:
She's up in Heaven now. She didn't
hear. She is experiencing nothing
but pure happiness. There's
nothing nicer than that.
(suddenly, angrily,
slamming a table with
his fist)
PENELOPE:
What a honeymoon.
HAROLD:
Honeymoon temporarily canceled.
(catching sight of
PAUL, whose physical
appearance really
offends him)
The boy should still go out and
exercise. I have the impression he
never gets any exercise. He simply
bloats himself with Fig Newtons and
bakes his brains over steam radiators.
PENELOPE:
You're wrong.
HAROLD:
Then let me see him go out and get
some exercise.
(explosively)
Right now!
PAUL goes reeling in terror to the front door, opens it.
PAUL:
(to HAROLD, abjectly)
What kind of exercise?
HAROLD:
Beat the sh*t out of someone who
hates you.
PAUL exits. HAROLD pounds on a table.
HAROLD:
Chow, chow, chow! God damn it--
nutriment!
PENELOPE:
We're all going to have to go out
for breakfast. The cook quit
yesterday.
HAROLD:
You're a woman, aren't you?
PENELOPE nods.
HAROLD:
Then we have a cook.
PENELOPE hesitates.
HAROLD:
Cook, by God! Cook! You're the
n*gger now.
PENELOPE:
People don't use that word any more.
HAROLD:
Don't lecture me on race relations.
I don't have a molecule of
prejudice. I've been in battle
with every kind of man there is.
I've been in bed with every kind of
woman there is--from a Laplander to
a Tierra del Fuegian.
If I'd ever been to the South Pole,
there'd be a hell of a lot of
penguins who looked like me. Cook!
PENELOPE:
You leave me so--so without--
without dignity.
HAROLD:
People now have dignity when frying
eggs?
PENELOPE:
They don't have to feel like slaves.
HAROLD:
(grandly)
Then go now--and fry with dignity--
sunnyside up.
PENELOPE attempts to respond to this, but is too enraged.
She exits, making a tiny mosquito-like hum.
LOOSELEAF:
I dunno, boy.
HAROLD:
The educational process.
LOOSELEAF:
I guess. You're lucky you don't
have any old people around here.
HAROLD:
She was about to get married again.
She locked me out of the bedroom
last night.
LOOSELEAF starts to laugh. HAROLD shuts him up.
HAROLD:
What's funny about that?
LOOSELEAF:
(apologetically)
You know me, boy.
PENELOPE enters from the kitchen with a question on her lips.
HAROLD:
I should have torn that door off
its hinges. Should have scrogged
her ears off. Should have broken
the bed.
(seeing PENELOPE)
What do you want?
(words fail her)
Well?
PENELOPE:
I--I was wondering--is there
anything you shouldn't eat--because
of jungle fever?
HAROLD:
I could eat a raw baby crocodile.
(turning to LOOSELEAF crassly)
The way to get your wife back is in
bed. Do such a job on her that
she'll be lucky if she can crawl
around on all fours.
(to PENELOPE)
We're starving. Do you mind?
PENELOPE exits dumbly, detesting the word "scrog," which she
has never heard before.
HAROLD:
She had two lovers, by the way.
LOOSELEAF starts to laugh again, stops the laugh as HAROLD
glowers.
LOOSELEAF:
Excuse me.
HAROLD:
One of them is the doctor, whose
weapons are compassion,
unselfishness, peacefulness--
maudlin concern.
LOOSELEAF:
Huh.
HAROLD:
He and his love are like a
retiarius. Do you know what a
retiarius is?
Translation
Translate and read this script in other languages:
Select another language:
- - Select -
- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Românește (Romanian)
- Nederlands (Dutch)
- Ελληνικά (Greek)
- Latinum (Latin)
- Svenska (Swedish)
- Dansk (Danish)
- Suomi (Finnish)
- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Citation
Use the citation below to add this screenplay to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Happy Birthday, Wanda June" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2025. Web. 16 Mar. 2025. <https://www.scripts.com/script/happy_birthday,_wanda_june_473>.
Discuss this script with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In