- Clark Gable: One moment, madam. In my birthday suit, I look like a Greek god.
- Amelia Bonetti: Then get back to the museum. Goodbye.
- Amelia Bonetti: It might be wise to drop some moves, you know, like the lift. I don't want to end up on the floor.
- Pippo Botticella: You'd still be in my arms.
- Pippo Botticella: Unquestionably, we descend from the apes. The trouble is we can't get back to them, to their gift of instinct, of natural innocence.
- Amelia Bonetti: I meant to ask you, why didn't your wife come with you?
- Pippo Botticella: She just didn't come. Isn't it better?
- Amelia Bonetti: A handsome fellow, but drugs, armed robbery, kidnapping. A big crook and still so young.
- Pippo Botticella: Good for him.
- Amelia Bonetti: So many crimes already!
- Pippo Botticella: Good for him!
- Pippo Botticella: You with your little bourgeois baby face, you make your bundle off the sweat of others.
- Amelia Bonetti: What are you ranting about?
- Pippo Botticella: That young man refuses to be exploited, he rebels and I a'm on his side. He wages a just war against the system's abuses. That's all I have to say!
- Amelia Bonetti: This is the voice of raging senility! You're going through mental-pause! So I'm an exploitive boss?
- Pippo Botticella: You have a business with employees who work for you?
- Amelia Bonetti: I break my neck from 6am till midnight in a two-bit outfit with a tiny staff and I'm a slave driver?
- Pippo Botticella: Amelia, we've got to rebel! I'm on the rebels' side. We've got to rebel against all this too. I burn when I see injustice. I burn!
- Amelia Bonetti: So, go ahead and burn!
- Pippo Botticella: Just let me up on that stage. Let me up on that stage and you'll see! Tonight, I talk, I spill the beans, to 60 million Italians. I'll say it all.
- Amelia Bonetti: What are you going to say?
- Pippo Botticella: You're all sheep!--You're all sheep! You're all sheep! You're all sheep! You're all sheep! You're all sheep! You're all sheep! You think I'm here for the 800,000 lire? I don't give a shit! So you invented television? You watch television day and night? You pay attention only to television? Then tonight, listen to me. To me!
- Pippo Botticella: It's kind of nice here. It's like a dream, far from reality. You have no idea where you are.
- Amelia Bonetti: I tell myself that I'm doing it for my little nephews or for my friends or on an impulse. The truth is, I really wanted to see you again.
- Pippo Botticella: Ah. Very romantic. I was looking forward to seeing you too.
- Amelia Bonetti: We were very successful and our impresario insisted we be advertised as "Ginger and Fred."
- Interviewer: How many years have you been retired? 20? 25? People want to know.
- Amelia Bonetti: Maybe. We were very, very popular. To this day people sometimes stop me on the street.
- Interviewer: Why agree to a comeback? Fans could be disappointed.
- Amelia Bonetti: I don't know why I accepted. Because my grandchildren kept insisting, and friends, or because of television's magic spell. Anyway, here I am.
- Pippo Botticella: You always got this part wrong. Not the steps--the expression of the face. You smile. It's just the opposite, much more subtle. Here the melody ends, embracing, oblivious, like a dream. Do you get it?
- Amelia Bonetti: Who asked you for a sermon?
- Pippo Botticella: The midget in orange--she looks just like you.
- Amelia Bonetti: I see you after 30 years and this is the thanks I get?
- Pippo Botticella: Finally! It's about time for a serious discussion of tap-dancing.
- Amelia Bonetti: Bravo!
- Pippo Botticella: Tap-dancing is not just a dance. It's more, much more. Much more
- Amelia Bonetti: Be more specific! I agree that tap-dancing is much more, much more.
- Pippo Botticella: Yes! It's much more! Yes.
- Pippo Botticella: At first, tap was not a dance at all.
- Amelia Bonetti: What was it?
- Pippo Botticella: The Morse code of black slaves. A wireless telegraph.
- Amelia Bonetti: How so?
- Pippo Botticella: On the cotton plantations, when slaves talked instead of worked, the slave driver whipped their skin off. So what does your black slave do? He communes with his brother like this.
- [taps with this hands on his legs]
- Pippo Botticella: "Watch it, the guard's around!"
- [taps a different rhythm]
- Pippo Botticella: "I have a knife"
- [taps a different rhythm]
- Pippo Botticella: "Shall I do him in?"
- [taps a different rhythm]
- Pippo Botticella: "I love you"
- [taps a similar rhythm, Amelia smiles]
- Pippo Botticella: "I love you too".
- Journalist: Very interesting! The language of love and death!
- Pippo Botticella: [begins undressing] I feel a bit shy. Yet we slept together so many times!
- Amelia Bonetti: You're so sweet! Are we in such bad shape?
- Pippo Botticella: These days, when I undress in front of a woman I avoid it, if I can. And you?
- Amelia Bonetti: Who, me? I don't have those problems. Boy, you ask some questions!
- Pippo Botticella: Pardon moi, madame. Once upon a time, when I undressed, I'd get a round of applause from the lucky girl! Oh, yes. No slouch was old Pippo--stage name, Fred!
- Amelia Bonetti: In fact, I lasted 15 years with the sexual nomad, as you defined yourself.
- Pippo Botticella: What was it like--with your husband?
- Amelia Bonetti: It was all very different. You and I were so young back then.
- Manufacturer: I'm the manufacturer of edible panties and he is the inspired inventor. I made them in 11 fruit flavors, plus tuna and onion.
- Inventor of the underpants: [model bends over and pushes up her robe to her waist] One hemisphere is peach, the other, apricot. It's a matter of taste. The epicure chooses
- [demonstrates]
- Inventor of the underpants: - bites - chews. We use only quality ingredients. Once he's stimulated, he feels...
- Manufacturer: Eventually, we expect to add beneficial ingredients: vitamins, mineral salts.
- Show host: Heroic individuals have always existed. I place in this category an obscure housewife who agreed to experience, for pay, life without television for one month. After signing a contract with us, our technical team thoroughly sealed her set and removed her antenna from the roof. Her house was isolated from any and all television reception. You're saying, "Impossible! I couldn't believe such a person exists." We present Pietruzza Silvestri!
- [television studio audience claps]
- Show host: Would you do it again?
- Mrs. Silvestri: Never again! Never again! It was horrible! We were paid a tidy sum, but that money is cursed! It's not fair to do these things to poor people, especially when there are children and the elderly.
- Show host: Friends, come with me down memory lane. Many of you remember the war years, the blackouts, the fear.
- Amelia Bonetti: [backstage, to Pippo] That's us!
- Show host: All of that returns to mind with a song! Music that conjures up the memory of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Our producers tracked down two former dancers who performed in 40s variety shows. Billed as "Ginger and Fred" they achieved fame imitating that famous team. We are proud to present Ginger and Fred!
- Pippo Botticella: Toto told you I flipped? Who knows what possessed me after you left? Separation anxiety, loneliness.
- Amelia Bonetti: I swear I didn't know. I'd have come immediately.
- Pippo Botticella: What for? We broke up, we weren't working anymore. Only these lunatics could remember us. We're phantoms. We arise from the darkness and vanish.
- Journalist: Our show picks up where we left off. The ship is about to sail, the whistle blows, Ginger rushes off. In each other's arms they swear never to part again. The music, as seductive as the book for Francesca enfolds the lovers, and they dance together again.
- Midget Boy: It's true! There's the cow with 20 tits!
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