Rhapsody in Blue (1945)

Charles Coburn: Max Dreyfus

Photos 

Quotes 

• Max Dreyfus : [referring to "Porgy and Bess", which has just opened]  You've made opera entertaining.

• George Gershwin : Well, how do you like my music?

  Max Dreyfus : Well, how do you like it?

  George Gershwin : Me?

  Max Dreyfus : Yes, you.

  George Gershwin : Well, I wrote it. Of course I like it.

  Max Dreyfus : Don't say of course. I've written plenty I didn't like at all.

• Max Dreyfus : [occurs at about 1:49:45, after success 'Of Thee I Sing', George wants to write an opera, pushing people to continue working at 4 a.m]  Well, George, what is it you're trying to forget?

  George Gershwin : Forget?

  Max Dreyfus : Don't tell me you've turned yourself into a dynamo just for the fun of grinding out one hit after another. Success is coming out of your ears. Why don't you relax and just be a human being again?

  George Gershwin : I don't know what you're talking about.

  Max Dreyfus : I'm talking about you. I can see a boy way down in those streets who dreamed himself a long way from the ground he started on. Came up like an elevator. Now he's looking for new buttons to push. Seems to have an idea that happiness is vertical. And the last stop is heaven.

• Oscar Levant : With a little more suffering, I could become a great singer.

  Max Dreyfus : We've been doing the suffering, my boy.

• Paul Whiteman : I think I'm going to give a jazz concert smack-dab in Aeolian Hall. I'm going to make a lady out of jazz.

  Ira Gershwin : The "Blue Monday Blues" in Aeolian Hall?

  Paul Whiteman : Better than that. George, I want you to write a serious concert piece. Based on the blues.

  George Gershwin : A serious piece that's blue, too? Blue themes and jazz rhythms? Of course.

  Max Dreyfus : You'll lose your shirt, Whiteman. Those highbrows will laugh you right out of Aeolian Hall.

  George Gershwin : A Rhapsody in Blue.

• Max Dreyfus : George, you can give America a voice.

• Paul Whiteman : I may be kind of batty, but this looks mighty good to me.

  Max Dreyfus : Why, it's as blue as blue Monday.

  Ira Gershwin : Hey, that's a good title.

  George Gershwin : Not bad. "Blue Monday Blues". Let's go down on the stage and run it through.