The Happy Ending (1969)

Shirley Jones: Flo Harrigan

Photos 

Quotes 

• Mary Wilson : I've found the secret formula: IF you look and smell right, IF your hair is the right color, if you drive the right car, smoke the right cigarette, if your bosom is big, and firm, and fully packed, and your breath is sweet and your teeth are bright, then you'll find love, marriage, and be happy forever... if - IF - you promise never, but never, to grow old.

  Sam : Why not? It's the American Dream.

  Mary Wilson : I thought that was money?

  Sam : Love and money are related by marriage.

  Flo : Daddy, what's marriage?

  Sam : Business. BIG business. The U.S. economy depends on marriage.

  Mary Wilson : Not U.S. Steel?

  Sam : Marriage. Once, people saved up to get married. Now, there's credit. Credit means buying. That means stores, shipping, buildings, factories... Marriage means sex. Beauty. Luxury. Diamonds. Furs. Perfumes. Cars. Gifts for her. Gifts for him. Gifts for Them. Marriage means a home. That means painters, plumbers, carpenters, furniture, rugs, curtains, linens, silver, dishes, electric washers, driers, mixers, fixers, stoves, clocks, radios, T.V.'s - thirty billion dollars every year, just to get married... If marriage is made in heaven, a broken marriage is financial blasphemy. Bachelors, divorcees, widows and homosexuals are unprofitable... and that makes them Un-American.

• Flo : Lucky my mother hated breast-feeding or I'd've been alcoholic before I could walk.

• Flo : Some girls work their way through college selling magazines. I sold *me*.

  Sam : I don't want to hear it.

  Flo : It's a success story with a bang finish. Lucky my mother hated breast-feeding, or I'd been alcoholic before I could walk. Finally killed her. Every Sunday, drunk or sober, she'd give me the same lecture: "Girl, ya' gotta' go to college. Because without an education, you either end up a big-mouthed housewife, or a big-assed whore." My freshman year, she dropped dead - smack in the middle of praying to win a fortune in the Irish Sweepstakes... I sure didn't intend to be a big-mouthed housewife, so I went to work. I graduated with a "master's degree" - in men.

• Mary Wilson : What's the secret formula? Why do you look 28, and I'm afraid to look in the mirror?

  Flo : Power, baby. There's white power, green power, black power, electric, horse, and man-power!

  Flo : [they both laugh]  I've got staying power. I've been massaged, barraged, creamed and reamed with every slop and goo on the market. I've tried the Yogi bit. Ying and yang, biff and bang, the works. You name it, I've done it. All in the name of youth and beauty. God knows, I've even prayed for it.

  Flo : Baby, there's one big difference between us: *you* got married.

• Flo : If there's one thing a man won't tolerate, it's a crying mistress. He gets that at home.