Mr. Deeds Goes to Town Quotes
Shmoop will make you a better lover...of quotes
ALL QUOTES POPULAR BROWSE BY AUTHOR BROWSE BY SOURCE BROWSE BY TOPIC BROWSE BY SUBJECT
Source: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Speaker: Judge May
"You're the sanest man that ever walked into this courtroom."
But in the opinion of the court, you are not only sane, but you're the sanest man that ever walked into this courtroom.
Context
This line is spoken by Judge May, played by H.B. Warner, in the movie Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, directed by Frank Capra (1936).
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is a Depression-era story of an average small-town tuba player who inherits 20 million dollars and heads off to NYC. Eventually though, Mr. Deeds decides to use this money to buy farms for the poor. His scheming lawyer freaks out and tries to get Deeds declared mentally incompetent by a judge. In the end, though, Deeds convinces the judge that he's totally sane, which, as you can probably guess, leads the judge to say this line.
Where you've heard it
This particular quote doesn't really pop up all that much, but the movie as a whole has gotten some pretty recent shout-outs. The most obvious of these being Mr. Deeds, Adam Sandler's remake of the original film.
Pretentious Factor
If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.
Not many people now would get your reference, but it still wouldn't be all that pretentious. Just a little confusing.