Manhattan (1979) - "People should mate for life - like pigeons, or catholics

In this scene, Ike vents his frustration about "pseudointellectual garbage" and delivers the famous pigeon line.


Actors:

Tracy - Mariel Hemingway
Issac - Woody Allen

Script:

(get the full script here)

IKE (Sighing) What a creep! Could you believe her? I mean, she was really—

TRACY (Interrupting) Oh, she seemed real nervous.

IKE Nervous? She was overbearing. She was, mm, you know, mm, terrible. She was all cerebral (Sighing and pointing to bis head) you know. Wh-was—where the hell does that little Radcliffe tootsie come off rating, mm, Scott Fitzgerald and Gustav Mahler and then Heinrich Boll?

TRACY (Putting a can in her basket) I don't understand why you're getting so mad.

IKE I'm mad because I don't like that pseudointellectual garbage. And she was pedantic. Van Gogh. (Prouncing it "Goch") Did you hear that? She said "Van Goch." I couldn't— Like an Arab she spoke. I couldn't. . . and if she had made one more remark about Bergman, I would've knocked her other contact lens out.
He makes a fist in the air.

TRACY (Putting a container of cocoa in her basket) Oh, is she Yale's mistress?
IKE (Shaking his head) That will never cease to mystify me. I mean, he's got a wonderful wife and he prefers to—to, mm, diddle this little yo-yo that—that. . . you know. Uh, but—but he was always a sucker for, uh, th-th-those kind of women, you know, the kind, uh, who'd involve him in discussions of existential reality, you know. They probably sit around on the floor with wine and cheese and mispronounce "allegorical" and "didacticism." He sighs.

TRACY Well, I get the feeling that Yale really likes her.

IKE Well, I'm old-fashioned. I don't believe in extramarital relation¬ships. I think people should mate for life, like pigeons or Catholics.