The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)

Michael Gambon: Albert

Photos 

Quotes 

• Albert : What you've got to realize is that the clever cook puts unlikely things together, like duck and orange, like pineapple and ham. It's called 'artistry'. You know, I am an artist the way I combine my business and my pleasure: Money's my business, eating's my pleasure and Georgie's my pleasure, too, though in a more private kind of way than stuffing the mouth and feeding the sewers, though the pleasures are related because the naughty bits and the dirty bits are so close together that it just goes to show how eating and sex are related. Georgie's naughty bits are nicely related, aren't they, Georgie?

• Georgina : Yes! He's a man. He's Jewish and he's from Ethiopia!

  Albert : What?

  Georgina : His mother is a Roman Catholic, he's been imprisoned in South Africa, he's as black as the ace of spades and he probably drinks his own pee!

• Albert : Looks like catfood for constipated French rabbits!

• Albert : What are you doing in there, Georgie? You playin' with yourself? That's not allowed. That's my property, you're not allowed to fiddle with it. Now come on, open the door, I'll show you how to wipe yourself.

• Albert : Circumsized mediocrity is screwing my wife!

• Albert : I think those Ethiopians enjoy starving. Keeps them thin and graceful.

• Albert : God!

  Georgina : It's not God, Albert. It's Michael, my lover. You vowed you would kill him, and you did. And you vowed you would eat him. Now eat him. What's the matter, Albert? You have your knife and fork. You do know how to use them. Or have all those carefully learned table manners gone to waste?

• Georgina : You know what they say about men who hang around ladies' lavatories?

  Albert : What do they say about men who hang around ladies' lavatories?

  Georgina : They're asking to have their illusions shattered.

• Albert : Georgina, try a little harder please!

  Georgina : I go to a good hairdresser.

  Albert : Yes, the best there is.

  Georgina : I go to a good dentist.

  Albert : Yes, yeah, oh yeah. He's Jewish.

  Georgina : I go to a good gynaecologist.

  Albert : You what?

• Albert : Now I've given you a good dinner, you can have a nice drink.

• Albert : This custard's salty!

  Richard Borst : It is sauce Hollandaise.

• Albert : Now, drink up Michael, let's talk about you. What do you do?

  Michael : I'm a gynaecologist.

• Georgina : Happy anniversary, Albert.

  Albert : What are you talking about, happy anniversary? It's not my birthday.

  Georgina : No, that's true but it's an anniversary that I shall always celebrate, even if you won't. And you won't.

• [Cut to opening scene, Albert's gang has Roy nude, smeared feces on his body, strapped to the ground, and Albert pisses on him] 

  Albert : Now, I'll give you a good dinner. You're gonna have a nice clean. Now, you behave yourself in the future and pay for what I ask you or next time I'm gonna make you eat your own shit.