One, Two, Three

One, Two, Three is a 1961 American comedy film about a Coca Cola salesman set in a Berlin divided between the capitalist west and Communist East.

James Cagney
Put your pants on, Spartacus!

Written by Billy Wilder and written by him and I.A.L. Diamond, based on the 1929 Hungarian one-act play Egy, kettö, három by Ferenc Molnár.

Dialogue

C.R. MacNamara, the Coca-Cola (Berlin) boss, and Schlemmer, his German assistant

Adolf who?

C.R. MacNamara: Just between us, Schlemmer, what did you do during the war?

Schlemmer: I was in der Untergrund: the underground.

C.R. MacNamara: Resistance fighter?

Schlemmer: No, motorman. In the underground, you know, the subway.

C.R. MacNamara: Of course you were anti-Nazi and you never liked Adolf.

Schlemmer: Adolf who?

[But later, Schlemmer recognizes the reporter Untermeyer]

Schlemmer: Herr Oberleutnant!

C.R. MacNamara: You two know each other?

Schlemmer: He was my commanding officer.

C.R. MacNamara: In the subway?

Schlemmer: No, after that, when I was drafted.

C.R. MacNamara: Aha! Gestapo!

Schlemmer: No, no, SS.

Otto, the young East German communist, Scarlet, his (to begin with secret) wife and daughter of the Coca-Cola top boss, the MacNamara's should take care of

Otto: I will not have my son grow up to be a capitalist.

Scarlet: When he's 18 he can make his mind up whether he wants to be a capitalist or a rich communist.

Otto: They have assigned us a magnificent apartment. Just a short walk from the bathroom.

Scarlett: Tell daddy I'm going to the U.S.S.R. That's short for Russia.

C.R. MacNamara: Are you out of your seventeen year old mind? Russia is to get out of, not to get into!

Otto: [bursts into room wearing boxers, shirt, tie and morning coat] I'm going to like this job!

C.R. MacNamara: It's about time you started cooperating.

Otto: You know what the first thing is I'm going to do? I'm going to lead the workers down there in revolt!

C.R. MacNamara: Put your pants on, Spartacus!

C.R. MacNamara dealing with Russian biznismeni of East Berlin, and they with him, with a brief comment by Otto

C.R. MacNamara: Cigarette? Cigar?

Peripetchikoff: Here, take one of these.

C.R. Macnamara: Thanks. Hm, 'Made in Havana'.

Peripetchikoff: We have trade agreement with Cuba. They send us cigars, we send them rockets.

C.R. Macnamara: Good thinking.

C.R. MacNamara: You know something? You guys got cheated. This is a pretty crummy cigar.

Peripetchikoff: Do not worry. We send them pretty crummy rockets.

Borodenko: When will papers be ready?

C.R. Macnamara: I'll put my secretary right to work on it.

Mishkin: Your secretary? She's that blond lady?

C.R. Macnamara: That's the one.

Peripetchikoff: [after conferring with the others] You will send papers to East Berlin with blond lady in triplicate.

C.R. Macnamara: You want the papers in triplicate, or the blond in triplicate?

Peripetchikoff: See what you can do.

Peripetchikoff: Well, Comrades, what are we going to do? He's got it - we want it. Are we going to accept this blackmailing capitalist's deal?

Mishkin: Let's take a vote.

Peripetchikoff: I vote yes.

Mishkin: I vote yes.

Peripetchikoff: Two out of three. Deal is on!

Borodenko: Comrades, before you get in trouble, I must warn you, I am not really from Soft Drink Secretariat. I am undercover agent assigned to watch you.

Mishkin: In that case I vote no. Deal is off.

Borodenko: But I vote yes!

Peripetchikoff: Two out of three again! Deal is on!

Otto Ludwig Piffl: Is everybody in this world corrupt?

Peripetchikoff: I don't know everybody.

MacNamara: You've defected?

Peripetchikoff: Is old Russian proverb: "go west young man."

Quotes

Otto on the space race

Piffl!!

Soviet missiles (shoots hand into the air) fffffffffffwwwwwwwwwwoooooosssh.
Venus!
American missiles (hand goes up then down) phft phft.
Miami Beach.

Otto on the US

Otto: Capitalism is like a dead herring in the moonlight. It shines, but it stinks!

C.R. MacNamara: Schlemmer!! [Last line in movie as MacNamara finds a Pepsi-Cola in the Coke machine.]

Otto: I spit on your money. I spit on Fort Knox. I spit on Wall Street.

C.R. MacNamara: Unsanitary little jerk, isn't he?

Cast

• James Cagney – C.R. "Mac" MacNamara
• Horst Buchholz – Otto Ludwig Piffl
• Pamela Tiffin – Scarlett Hazeltine
• Arlene Francis – Phyllis MacNamara
• Leon Askin – Peripetchikoff
• Howard St. John – Wendell P. Hazeltine