Fran, my head is so itchy.
I think I'm allergic to this hat.
Oh, sweetie, I hope not. I mean, it is so adorable.
Oh, you know what?
Maybe you are allergic to it.
- Bye, angel. Mwah! - Bye, Fran.
Oh, how dare you order me about in that manner, sir.
After 30 years of loyal service,
I think I deserve a little more respect.
God, I wish he was home.
- MAXWELL:I am. - [GASPS]
Oh, why don't you cut him some slack?
I mean, he is your boss
and he's under a lot of pressure.
Oh, stop trying to butter up the pompous brat.
I turned it off.
No, you turned it up.
Oh, life is just not fair.
I'm as smart as he is, as talented as he is.
Who thought up this system of the haves
and the have-nots anyway?
Eh, That would be the haves.
Doesn't working as a menial laborer ever get to you?
No, this nanny gig is only temporary.
I got bigger dreams, baby.
Someday I'm gonna be Mrs. Have.
Hmm. And I'll be Mrs. Have's butler.
Not with that attitude, mister.
I'm sorry. I'm being a pill.
I can be peppy and make those chocolate cakes you like--
Oh, this is what it's come to. I'm sucking up to the maid.
And you were this close to working for us.
You know, all this anger and bitterness
is just a mask for low self-esteem.
Where does all this come from?
Hey, Niles, could you wash my underwear?
[THEME SONG PLAYING]
♪♪ She was working in a bridal shop in Flushing, Queens ♪♪
♪♪ 'Til her boyfriend kicked her out ♪♪
♪♪ In one of those crushing scenes ♪♪
♪♪ What was she to do? Where was she to go? ♪♪
♪♪ She was out on her fanny ♪♪
♪♪ So over the bridge from Flushing to the Sheffield's door ♪♪
♪♪ She was there to sell makeup but the father saw more ♪♪
♪♪ She had style! She had flair! She was there! ♪♪
♪♪ That's how she became the nanny ♪♪
♪♪ Who would have guessed that the girl we've described ♪♪
♪♪ Was just exactly what the doctor prescribed? ♪♪
♪♪ Now the father finds her beguiling ♪♪
♪♪ Watch out, C.C.! ♪♪
♪♪ And the kids are actually smiling ♪♪
♪♪ Such♪♪
♪♪ She's the lady in red ♪♪
♪♪ When everybody else is wearing tan ♪♪
♪♪ The flashy girl from Flushing ♪♪
♪♪ The nanny named Fran ♪♪
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Oh, would you look at this.
Brighton leaves a half-eaten 3Musketeers bar in his pants.
I love him.
I can tell you, your mother never left any food in her pockets.
Although, I once found a chicken carcass.
[PLAYING SOUR NOTES]
- [APPLAUDING] - Oh, God.
Beautiful.
Thank you.
No wonder the joint is empty.
Oh, Yetta, and to what do we owe the pleasure?
Sylvia told me to meet her for lunch.
I assumed here.
Ms. Fine, I have an important meeting tonight
so I'm afraid I'm gonna have to reschedule family night.
Reschedule?
But this is when you were gonna spend quality time with me and the kids.
Don't you remember dinner and a romantic carriage ride
after we dumped the kids at the movies?
Well, uh, listen, why don't you take them somewhere?
There you go. I'm sure you'll all have a wonderful time.
You're spending less and less time with the kids
and they need a masculine influence.
I'll go. I don't have any estrogen.
I'm sorry, but I just think that it's important
that parents spend time with their children.
They should talk to them and take them shopping
and visit them all the time, and eat them out of house and home
and nag them about not being married.
When is Ma moving to Boca?
- [DOORBELL CHIMES] - Oh, I'll get it!
Oh, hi, Ma.
Fran, I'm sorry I'm late picking up Yetta.
I was at the gym.
- When did you join a gym? - When they put in a muffin bar.
Ma, you know, when they say do 100 crunches,
they don't mean Nestlés.
Oh, hi, sweetie.
Baby, stop scratching your head like that.
People are gonna think you've got lice.
I do. They sent me home from school.
Oh, my God!
[GASPS, SHRIEKS]
It's a lice epidemic at your $14,000-a-year school.
Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!
Vermin, they give you, but you still gotta bring your own juice.
You better be careful.
Your father got lice from his poker cronies.
Fortunately, I just threw his hair out.
Oh, Ma, this doesn't reflect well on me at all.
I mean, how can I not know this?
I'm the closest person in the world to these kids.
- Fran, it itches-- - That's close enough. Bugs jump.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Okay, kids, you heard the doctor. We've all got lice.
Take off your sheets and pillow cases. We gotta boil them.
- Well, you want me to get yours? - No, mine has to be burned.
I want that gorgeous Bill Blass comforter set.
Well, isn't it amazing?
The doctor confirmed that all three of your children have lice and me.
But you don't. Now, what does that say to you?
It says, "Welcome to the Four Seasons, Maui, Mr. Sheffield."
No. It says you don't spend enough time at home.
If you cared about your children,
you'd be covered in lice like I am.
How did they penetrate six layers of Final Net?
It's like a biosphere up there.
Ms. Fine, the reason I'm not with my children
is that I happen to work very hard.
You don't see me lounging around the house in my underwear.
And would it kill you to give it a shot?
You know, my father was a butler for 44 years
and I don't remember him doing any of this crap.
Wait a minute, you dropped this.
Oh, "Secure alibi, cut phone line
put on gloves, tape mouth...
clean up blood, dispose of evidence...
pick up bananas"?
Niles, what's with this cockamamie list?
Oh, give me that. You didn't read it, did you?
Oh... well, suppose for argument's sake I did,
what would you do?
Ms. Fine, this is very private.
And if you read it, I would be very, very upset with you.
Well, that's why I didn't read it. Bye-bye.
[♪♪♪♪♪♪]
I'll tell you, Val, when I saw that list,
I just got chills up my spine.
Well, Fran, your suspicions are valid.
Obviously, his schizophrenic tendencies
are about to manifest themselves in a homicidal rage.
Yeah, but what about the bananas?
Well, I'm no expert,
but I'm thinking... a pie.
Excuse me.
I called earlier about picking up
the special shampoos.
The name's Fran Fine.
[OVER INTERCOM] Hey, Rick, Fran Fine's here
for her head lice shampoo.
Oh, here it is.
"Fran Fine. Kills lice, ticks, fleas--"
Shhh!
Look at this. I'm getting attitude from a man holding a Fleet enema?
I'm telling you, Fran, Niles fits the profile.
Serial killers usually have menial jobs,
no long-term relationships
and deep-seated issues with their mother.
[GASPS]
No. Wait, wait. They usually have high IQs.
- Oh, Val-- - Oh, God....
I'm with you.
Okay. Okay. Let's see.
Most serial killers have three names.
John Wayne Gacy, Richard Alan Speck, Son of Sam.
Oh, Val, what are we talking about here?
We're not dealing with some sicko stranger.
- Yeah. - It's Niles. I know him very well.
I stand behind Mr. Niles...
- ...the killer. - [GASPS]
Fran, I cannot believe that you have lived
in the same house with Niles for four years
and you know nothing about him.
Have you ever even been in his bedroom?
Val, that wasn't the bedroom
I was concentrating on getting into.
Oh, yeah.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Oh, Niles's room is so....
so small and depressing.
No wonder he's always walking past your room
and looking in, he's envious.
No, he's horny.
Come on, we gotta find some incriminating evidence.
- [GASPS] - What?
Look at this. Duct tape.
Oh, wait a minute. He's not Jewish.
He knows how to fix things.
Yeah.
- [PHONE RINGS] - BOTH: Oooh!
Hey, this is Niles.
Leave me a message and I'll call you back. Ciao.
[BEEPS]
MAN:It's Jim from the morgue, returning your call.
In answer to your question, it takes 24 hours for rigor mortis to set in.
- [LINE CLICKS] - [DIAL TONE]
Oh, my God, what does he need to know that for?
Maybe it's to bake a banana pie, Val.
- [SCREAMS] - What? What?
His closet's twice as big as mine!
Look at this. He wears the same thing every day.
He's like Fred Flintstone.
- NILES: I'll be right there, sir. - [BOTH GASP]
I'm just getting my coat!
So I can trudge six blocks through snow and sludge
because you had a craving for bloody string cheese.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
You know, Nanny Fine, I always suspected
you studied child care with Dian Fossey.
Yeah, honey, I think the tar shampoo took care of all of the lice.
[SNIFFS] And it smells so nice and fresh too,
like a newly filled pothole.
- Thanks, Fran. - Love you.
- Oh, look at this. - What?
No coffee. Where the heck is Rubbermaid?
Shh!
Ms. Babcock, don't antagonize him. He's on the edge.
Good. How can we get him to jump?
Ms. Babcock, I'm serious. He hasn't been himself.
He's acting very weird, strange. Haven't you noticed?
There's not one toilet bowl in this entire house
with blue water in it.
You know, Nanny Fine, listening to you talk about Niles
makes me just want to hit my head against a brick wall.
Ms. Babcock, you know, I am not going to tell you what I know
if you're not a little bit nicer to me.
- Oh, buzz off. - That's close enough.
I think Niles might be a murderer.
Nanny Fine, Niles would never kill anyone.
Because then he'd make a mess and he'd have to clean it up.
I'm serious. I read the list.
It had gloves, wire cutters, blood and....
You bake it in a nine-inch pan at 300 degrees
and you got yourself a gorgeous kugel.
Ms. Fine.
Miss Fine, what were you doing in my room?
Um, what makes you think I was in your room?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Oh, I gotta tell Mr. Sheffield.
Out of my way! Dead man walking!
Oh, my God, this is all so surreal.
How am I gonna tell him?
I'll just have to lay the whole thing out in black and white.
[SULTRY JAZZ PLAYING]
Oh, boss, thank God, you're here.
[IN CARY GRANT ACCENT] Hello, monkey face. How's tricks?
Well, you look frightened. Whatever's the matter?
Oh, for one thing, there's no venetian blinds in here.
I'll have the butler fix you a highball.
No, no. Not the butler.
I think our butler's trying to ice me.
Our?
Ours, yours, don't mince words with me now, you chump.
He's trying to kill me. I think he poisoned me.
I'm seeing spots in front of my eyes.
Well, maybe he's not poisoning me,
but I want him out of the house I tell you, out of the house.
Darling, I've known the butler 30 years.
We've had many gay times together.
Shared a fag or two between us.
And I can tell you, if there was anything queer about him, I'd know it.
In other words, you had some fun, smoked a few cigarettes
and there's nothing strange about him?
- Of course. - Just making sure.
Oh, you think I'm ready for the looney bin, don't you?
The booby hatch, the rubber room.
Don't ya? Don't ya?
[SOBBING]
Frankly, darling, yes.
And I find it very disconcerting.
I was thinking of asking you to be my wife.
But I could never marry someone I thought was insane.
No sense opening up that can of worms.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[THUNDER CRASHING]
Oh, Val, Val, he's not gonna try anything with a house full of people.
I mean, what's he gonna do, sneak up behind me and grab me?
Oh, let's stop talking about Mr. Sheffield already.
Niles knows we were in his room.
- [THUNDER RUMBLING] - Val?
Val?
Oy.
Boo!
Well, I sort of had that coming.
Ms. Fine, I've been thinking about what you said
and you're absolutely right.
I do need to spend more time alone with the children.
Oh, that's great, Mr. Sheffield,
because, you know, children really need
the attention of their father.
So you and Niles have the house to yourselves tonight.
- I'm taking them out. - Oh, you're smothering them!
You are gonna turn them into wimps, mister.
What are you talking about? This was your idea.
Need I say more?
Ms. Fine, I have cleared my entire evening to bond with my children.
Now move it! We're going for seafood!
- We're going for lobster. - Here we go. Great.
- Bye. - Oh, Mr. Sheffield,
I don't care if you do think I'm insane. I'm coming with you.
I believe Niles is a murderer.
And if you leave me alone here, I'm in danger of being killed.
Is there anything you wouldn't do for a four-pound lobster?
I don't care what you say. I'm going with you.
There is no way you are leaving me alone with that man
- because it's just too... - [DOOR SHUTS]
[THUNDER CRASHES]
You're not going anywhere, are you?
No. What makes you say that?
I'm glad we're alone.
Oh, yeah. You, me and that piercing voice
that carries to the neighbors.
- Miss Fine, I know you know. - Nothing, I know nothing.
Oh, Ms. Fine, you found my list.
You went into my closet.
It's obvious you figured it out.
Oh! Ooh, look at this. Texas has the death penalty.
Boy, they're frying them like chickens down there.
So you are going to be my first victim.
Who knows? If tonight goes really well,
you might be the first of many.
I think I finally found my true calling.
Oh, but you make a great cheesecake.
I say stick with what you know.
[THUNDERCLAP]
Ms. Fine? Ms. Fine?
[SCREAMING]
[THUDDING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Oh, Ms. Fine, Ms. Fine, please wake up.
Why is she acting like such a lunatic?
Well, have you gotten a load of the birth mother?
She thinks you're a killer. She even thought you were trying to kill me.
Oh, I wouldn't dream of touching you,
like any other normal man.
- Oh, Ms. Fine. - Stay away from me.
Oh, Ms. Fine, I'm not a murderer.
All I did was write a play.
I was going to ask you to read it.
Oh, please, you expect me to believe that?
I read the list. You explain "secure alibi."
- That was the title. - Why'd you call the morgue?
- I was doing research. - Well, what about the bananas?
I was making a pie!
Well, where is it?
Your mother was here.
Oh, I'm so embarrassed.
Boy, I see everything so clearly now.
- [CHUCKLES] - How could I be such a yenta?
Meanwhile, what was that magazineS&M
Oh, Ms. Fine, that is a professional publication
for butlers, sweeping and mopping?
Oh. [LAUGHS]
Now that we're friends again,
I would be honored if you read my play.
After all, you were the inspiration.
Oh, you mean my newfound independence
gave you the confidence to try something new?
Well, that and the main character is driven to madness
by unrequited love for her employer,
for whom she gives up her youth and beauty.
Oh, Mr. Sheffield, what are you doing home so early?
Well, unfortunately, some uninvited pests joined us for dinner.
Oh, you ran into my parents?
No. Lice.
Oh, Mr. Sheffield,
you've got lice.
Mazel tov.
That means you've really bonded with your children.
Dad, we're starving. Can't we at least order a pizza?
Sweetie, your father promised you lobster
and lobster you shall have,
even if I've gotta take you for it myself.
No, that's okay. Pizza's fine.
Honey, we don't wanna insult your father. Let's go, let's go.
Sure you don't wanna come?
Ms. Fine, I've got lice. It itches like mad.
I've just got home. Why on earth would I want to go back out?
[QUIETLY] Because Niles wrote a play.
After you.
You know, Niles, this heroine that you loosely based off of me, I'm not seeing it.
Well, why? She's exactly like you.
New Yorker, street smart, brunette, 24 years old....
Seeing it.
Isn't it time to pick up Yetta at the amusement park?
Oh, let her have a few more rides.
Whee!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]