Butterflies Are Free (1972)

Edward Albert: Don

Photos 

Quotes 

• Jill : I'm auditioning for a part in a new play with a little theatre group called The Cosmic Workshop. It's about this girl who gets all hung up when she marries a homosexual. Originally he was an alcoholic, but homosexuals are very in now in movies and books and plays, so they changed it.

  [pause] 

  Jill : Are you homosexual?

  Don : No, just blind.

• Jill : Is blindness hereditary?

  Don : I never heard that.

  Jill : Can your father see?

  Don : I doubt it. He's been dead for six years. Up till then he didn't have any trouble though.

• Don : Mother, you have to laugh sometime, or people will think you're a lesbian.

• Mrs. Baker : [trying to make Don come home]  If you insist on staying here, I will not support you.

  [Don goes to the phone] 

  Mrs. Baker : What're you doing?

  Don : Calling The Chronicle. What a story! 'Florence Baker Refuses to Help the Handicapped!'

  Mrs. Baker : Donnie, I'm serious.

  Don : Oh, well, then I'll call the New York Times.

  Mrs. Baker : What are you going to do for money? The little you saved must be gone now.

  Don : I can always walk along the streets with a tin cup.

  Mrs. Baker : Now you're embarrassing me.

  Don : Oh, no, I'll stay away from Saks.

• Don : Well hate me! Or love me! But don't leave because I'm blind... and don't stay because I'm blind.

• Jill : Boy, I thought I was sloppy!

  Don : What do you mean?

  Jill : Well, unless you know something I don't. Like, ashes are good for the table. Is that why you keep dropping them on there?

  Don : Have you moved the ashtray?

  Jill : It's right here, what're ya blind?

  Don : Yes.

  Jill : What do you mean, yes?

  Don : I mean, yes, I'm blind.

• Don : [sings]  I knew the day you met me, I could love you if you'd let me, Though you touched my cheek and said how easy you'd forget me. You said: butterflies are free, and so are we.

• [Don and Mrs. Baker are arguing over his decision to support himself as a singer] 

  Mrs. Baker : May I ask how you arrived at this brilliant decision?

  Don : It was elementary, my dear mother - by the process of elimination. I made a lengthy list of all the things I couldn't do... like commercial pilot. I don't think TWA would be too thrilled to have me fly their planes... nor United... nor Pan Am. Photographer? A definite out, along with ball player and cab driver. Matador didn't strike me as too promising. I half-considered becoming an eye doctor, but that would just be a case of the blind leading the blind.

• Don : [phone rings]  I'm fine, thank you. How are you? It's warm here. How is it in Hillsborough? Well, it's warm here too.

  [picks up phone] 

  Don : Hello, Mother.

  Mrs. Baker : [on the other end]  How did you know?

  Don : When you call, the phone doesn't ring. It says 'M is for the million things she gave me. O is for... ' I forgot what O is for.

  Mrs. Baker : You seem to have forgotten a lot of things lately. How are you feeling?

  Don : I'm fine, thank you. How are you?

  Mrs. Baker : Very well. How's the weather?

  Don : It's warm here. How is it in Hillsborough?

  Mrs. Baker : Warm.

  Don : Well, it's warm here too.

• Don : Shh... i'm counting so I don't step in the picnic on the way back!

• Don : I could love you if you'd let me.

• Mrs. Baker : [looking around Don's apartment]  Where did this furniture come from?

  Don : Some of it came with the apartment, the rest I picked up at a junk shop.

  Mrs. Baker : Well, don't tell me which is which, let me guess.

• Don : [when Jill says she's moving in with Ralph]  Tell me, Jill, with Ralph, is it like the Fourth of July and like Christmas?

  Jill : Not exactly. He has a kind of... strength. With him it's more like Labor Day.

• Don : [to mod shopkeeper, after picking out some clothes]  Do you have any dirty books?

  Roy : [startled]  No.

  Don : Aww, too bad: that's the only thing they don't publish in Braille.

• Don : Just ask me if I've felt any good books lately.

• Jill : Am I not the image of Elizabeth Taylor?

  Don : Well, I've never felt Elizabeth Taylor.

• Mrs. Baker : And what is that on your head?

  Don : [wearing the hat he bought with Jill]  French foreign legion cap.

  Mrs. Baker : Oh, have you enlisted?

  Don : No, I was drafted.

• Don : I don't want you talking to my friends when i'm not around.

  Mrs. Baker : I'll make a note of that.