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Daily Inspiration Quote by Cary Grant

"We have our factory, which is called a stage. We make a product, we color it, we title it and we ship it out in cans"

About this Quote

Hollywood glamour gets gutted in one brisk production memo. Cary Grant takes the “dream factory” nickname literally, then twists the knife: a stage is a factory floor, a performance is a product, and the movie itself is something you “ship… out in cans.” The line lands because it’s so unsentimental coming from the man who embodied effortless sophistication. Grant isn’t just puncturing romance; he’s reminding you that the romance was manufactured with expert care.

The phrasing is pointedly industrial. “We make,” “we color,” “we title,” “we ship” reads like an assembly line checklist, reducing artistry to process and logistics. “Color it” is doing double duty: the literal tinting of film stock in an era of technical shifts, and the narrative varnish that makes a story marketable. Then the clincher: “cans.” Not reels, not films, not stories. Cans. The magic is sealed, labeled, and distributed like soup.

Subtext-wise, Grant is also speaking as a worker who knew how constructed his own persona was. Born Archibald Leach, he became “Cary Grant” through the same pipeline he’s describing: branding, packaging, export. There’s a cool self-awareness here, even a defensive pride. If it’s a factory, it’s one staffed by craftspeople who understand consistency, timing, and quality control - which is exactly what Grant specialized in.

Context matters: mid-century studio Hollywood really did run like a vertically integrated machine, where stars were contracts, scripts were commodities, and movies were units. Grant’s line doesn’t mourn that system; it exposes it, then dares you to admit you still want the product.

Quote Details

TopicMovie
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Grant, Cary. (2026, January 17). We have our factory, which is called a stage. We make a product, we color it, we title it and we ship it out in cans. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-have-our-factory-which-is-called-a-stage-we-48412/

Chicago Style
Grant, Cary. "We have our factory, which is called a stage. We make a product, we color it, we title it and we ship it out in cans." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-have-our-factory-which-is-called-a-stage-we-48412/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"We have our factory, which is called a stage. We make a product, we color it, we title it and we ship it out in cans." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-have-our-factory-which-is-called-a-stage-we-48412/. Accessed 7 Feb. 2026.

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Cary Grant on Hollywood as a Factory
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Cary Grant

Cary Grant (January 18, 1904 - November 29, 1986) was a Actor from USA.

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