The Member of the Wedding (1952)

Julie Harris: Frankie Addams

Photos 

Quotes 

• Frances 'Frankie' Addams : We'll just walk up to people and know them right away. We'll be walking down a dark road, and see a lighted house and knock on the door, and strangers will rush to meet us and say, "Come in! Come in!" We'll know decorated aviators and New York people and movie stars. And we'll have thousands and thousands of friends. We'll belong to so many clubs that we can't even keep track of them all. We'll be members of the WHOLE WORLD!

• Narration : It happened that green and crazy summer, when Frankie was twelve years old. This was the summer when for a long time she had not been a member. She belonged to no club and was a member of nothing in the world. Frankie had become an unjoined person and she was afraid. And then, on the last Friday of August, all this was changed: it was so sudden that Frankie puzzled the whole blank afternoon, and still she did not understand.

• Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Oh, I'm sick unto death! Oh, I wish they'd taken me with them to Winter Hill this afternoon! I wish tomorrow was Sunday instead of Saturday!

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Sunday will come.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I doubt it! I wish I was going somewhere for good! I wish I had a hundred dollars and could just LIGHT OUT and never see this town again!

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Seems to me like you wishing for a lot of things.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I wish I was somebody else except me.

• Jarvis Addams : Pretty soon we should be pushing off for Winter Hill. I have to be at the barracks tonight.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Winter Hill is such a lovely cold name! It reminds me of ice and snow.

  Jarvis Addams : Ice and snow? It was 102 at the base yesterday!

• Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Why can't I be a member?

  Berenice Sadie Brown : I wouldn't pay them club girls no mind. All my life, I been wanting things I ain't been getting. Besides, them club girls are fully two years older than you.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I think they've been spreading it all over town that I smell bad. When I had those boils and had to use that black, bitter-smelling ointment...

  Berenice Sadie Brown : I know.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : And old Helen Fletcher asked me what was that funny smell I had. I could shoot every one of them with a pistol!

  [collapses on kitchen table] 

  John Henry : [strokes her hair]  I don't think you smell so bad. You smell sweet, like a hundred flowers.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I bet I use more perfume than anybody else in town. Crooks!

• Berenice Sadie Brown : [Frankie threatens her with a knife]  Put it down, devil. Well, throw it!

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : [throws the knife into the kitchen door]  I'm the best knife thrower in this town. If they would have a contest, I would win!

• Berenice Sadie Brown : Look at your hair to begin with. Done had all your hair shaved off like a convict. You tie this ribbon around this head with no hair, it looks peculiar.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : But I'm going to wash and try to stretch my hair tonight.

• Jarvis Addams : I never saw a human grow as fast as Frankie in all my life. Last time I saw her she was only up to here on me. I think we should tie a brick to her head.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Jarvis, don't!

  Janice : Don't tease your little sister like that. Why, I don't think Frankie's too tall, and she probably won't grow much more. I had the biggest portion of my growth by the time I was thirteen.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : But I'm just twelve! When I think of all the growing years ahead of me, I get scared.

  Janice : I wouldn't worry.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : You see, I never believed in love, until now.

• Frances 'Frankie' Addams : [about Jarvis and Janice]  They were the two prettiest people I ever saw. I just can't understand how it happened.

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Whatever ails you? Acting so queer!

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I don't know. I bet they have a good time every minute of the day.

  John Henry : Let's us have a good time!

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Us have a good time? Us?

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Yes, us. Come on, let us play a three-hand game of bridge.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Janice and Jarvis. Winter Hill. The wedding. It's all so queer.

• Frances 'Frankie' Addams : [playing bridge]  Even with this trick, I can't win.

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Well, just where is the cards? Three days, I ain't had a decent hand. Getting to suspicion something, too. Come on, let's count these old cards.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : We've worn these old cards out. If you'd eat these old cards, they would taste like a combination of all the dinners of the summer, together with a sweaty-handed nasty taste.

  [they turn all the cards face-up] 

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Why, the jacks and the queens are missing.

  [John Henry sinks in his chair] 

  Berenice Sadie Brown : John Henry, how come you do a thing like that? So, that's why you asked for the scissors and stole off quiet behind the arbor. Why you take our playing cards and cut out all the pictures?

  John Henry : 'Cause I wanted 'em. They're cute.

• Frances 'Frankie' Addams : [running the girls' club off after they elected a new girl instead of her as a member]  What're you doing in my yard? You're never to set foot on my papa's property again. You crooks! I could shoot you with my papa's pistol!

  John Henry : Crooks!

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : WHY DIDN'T YOU ELECT ME?

• Berenice Sadie Brown : Frankie, the whole idea of a club is that there are members who are included and the non-members who are not included. Then what you ought to do is round you up a club of your own. That way, you'd be the president yourself.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Who would I get?

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Oh, the little boys and girls you hear playing around here in the neighborhood.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I don't want to be the president of all those little young, leftover people.

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Well, go on and enjoy your misery.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I bet Janice and Jarvis are members of a lot of clubs. In fact, the Army is kind of like a club.

• Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Janice and Jarvis. It gives me this pain just to think about them.

  Berenice Sadie Brown : It's a known truth: gray-eyed people is jealous.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I told you I wasn't jealous! I couldn't be jealous of one of them, 'less I was jealous of them both. I 'sociate the two of them together.

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Well, I was jealous when my foster brother, Honey, married Clorina. I sent a warning I'd tear the ears clear off of her head. But you see I didn't. She got ears just like everybody else.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : J-a. Janice and Jarvis. Isn't that the strangest thing?

  Berenice Sadie Brown : What?

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : J-a. Both their names begin with J-a.

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Well, what about it?

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : If only my name was Jane or... Jasmine!

  Berenice Sadie Brown : I don't follow your frame of mind.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Jarvis and Janice and Jasmine! See?

  Berenice Sadie Brown : No, I don't see.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : I wonder if it's against the law to change your name, or add to it?

  Berenice Sadie Brown : Naturally, it's against the law.

  Frances 'Frankie' Addams : Well, I don't care. F. Jasmine Addams!