Burt Lancaster Quotes

Sidney Falco Sure, the columnists can't do without us, except our good and great friend J.J. forgets to mention that. You see, we furnish him with items.

J.J. Hunsecker What, some cheap, gruesome gags?

Sidney Falco You print em, don't ya?

J.J. Hunsecker Yes, with your clients names attached. That's the only reason the poor slobs pay you - to see their names in my column all over the world. Now, I make it out, you're doing me a favor?... The day I can't get along without a press agents handouts, I'll close up shop and move to Alaska, lock, stock, and barrel.

Sally Why are you doing this for me?

Lou Hey, it's nothing, Sinatra gives wings to hospitals. We all do what we can.

Joe Patroni The sudden decompression at 30,000 feet is something you gotta see to believe.

Tanya Livingston He'll get sucked out, won't he?

Joe Patroni So will anyone sittin next to him. Until that pressure equalizes, everything within 20 feet of him that's not nailed down or strapped in is gonna get sucked right out of that hole.

Bert Weatherby Is it that powerful, are you sure?

Joe Patroni Yeah, I'm sure. When I was a mechanic in the Air Force, I was being transferred on a MATS plane. At 20,000 feet, one of the windows shattered. The guy sitting next to it was about 170 pounds. He went through that little space like a hunk of hamburger going down a disposal, and right after him coats, pillows, blankets, cups, saucers. Yeah, I'm sure.

Mel Bakersfeld Takes about 3 seconds, doesn't it?

Joe Patroni 3, 4 or 5, depends on the size of the hole. Everything fogs up just like that. And THEN watch out! At that altitude, you can't breathe. So unless they get on oxygen in 45 seconds, it's good-bye!

Ernst Janning Judge Haywood... the reason I asked you to come: Those people, those millions of people... I never knew it would come to that. You must believe it, you must believe it!

Judge Dan Haywood Herr Janning, it "came to that" the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent.

Steve Thompson I take my hat off to you.

Anna Dundee Yeah... yeah, I'm a prize.

Steve Thompson Tramp.

Anna Dundee Tell me all about it.

Steve Thompson Tramp! Cheap little no good tramp!

Anna Dundee Stick around. You make it all so nice and sad.

Cross You'll have to look me in the eye when you kill me, Jean.

Scorpio That won't bother me. Not this time.

Cross No, you're a one-talent man, Frenchman. You took this contract cause you wanted inside, you wanted my job, and you needed a McLeod to carry your sins for you.

Scorpio I was finished with you, Cross. I was going home tomorrow... With her. She was my way out.

Cross I'm sorry about the girl. Truly sorry. But I had no part of her plans. She was a Czech courier, and very good. A lot of hard work went into collecting this. Go ahead, Scorpio. It should be easy. You'd be doing both of us a favor, and there's an outside chance they might let you live. Two for one. There's a room just down the hall from McLeod's office, where grown men play a game. It's a bit like Monopoly, only more people get hurt. There's no good... And no bad. Jesus. The object is not to win, but not to lose, and the only rule is to stay in the game.

Elmer Gantry Sin. Sin, Sin. You're all sinners. You're all doomed to perdition. You're all goin to the painful, stinkin', scaldin', everlastin tortures of a fiery hell, created by God for sinners, unless, unless, unless you repent.

Cross You should have done it in Paris, Jean.

Scorpio The price wasn't right.

Cross And now it is?

Scorpio Yes, now it is.

Cross I could kill you, Jean.

Scorpio Take it, then, Cross. It won't come around again.

Cross Can we talk?

Scorpio Sure.

Cross McLeod name my sin?

Scorpio He said you sold and had more to sell.

Cross And you believe that?

Scorpio Is it true? I want to know.

Cross For your education? No, it isn't true.

Scorpio Zharkov.

Cross What about Zharkov?

Scorpio He is the opposition.

Cross I've known Zharkov for almost 30 years. As an ally, as an enemy and always as a friend. We're both premature antifascists, as they used to say in Washington. But Zharkov hasn't sold out and neither have I.

Scorpio Then why does McLeod want you dead?

Cross Why don't you ask him that?

Scorpio I'm asking you.

Cross You're looking for God's shining face, aren't you, Jean? Something to believe in. Like a young girl in a white Communion dress. But you've got the soul of a torturer, so your need is greater.

Scorpio You lied to me, Cross, and you used me. For that I'm going to kill you.

Cross I never lied to you, Jean. I used you, but I never lied to you.

J.J. Hunsecker Look, Manny, you rode in here on the Senator's shirt tails, so shut your mouth!

Sen. Harvey Walker Now, come, J.J., that's a little too harsh. Anyone seems fair game for you tonight.

J.J. Hunsecker This man is not for you, Harvey, and you shouldn't be seen with him in public. Because that's another part of a press agent's life - he digs up scandal among prominent men and shovels it thin among columnists who give him space.

Sen. Harvey Walker There is some allusion here that escapes me...

J.J. Hunsecker We're friends, Harvey - we go as far back as when you were a fresh kid Congressman, don't we?

Sen. Harvey Walker Why does everything you say sound like a threat?

J.J. Hunsecker Maybe it's a mannerism - because I don't threaten friends, Harvey. But why furnish your enemies with ammunition? You're a family man. Someday, with God willing, you may wanna be President. Now here you are, Harvey, out in the open where any hep person knows that this one...'... is toting THAT one... around for you.

Cross You should let those cats out once in a while.

Scorpio Outside they couldn't survive. They were bred for degeneracy. Like a whore.

Steve Thompson She's all right, she's just young.

Mrs. Thompson Huh! Some ways, she knows more than ].

J.J. Hunsecker I'd hate to take a bite outta you. You're a cookie full of arsenic.

Cross You still don't have any questions?

Zemetkin What answers could you have that would make any difference? I love you, Cross.

Cross And I you, Max. That's why I must tell you there could be pain in this.

Zemetkin I have been inoculated. You know, Cross, I used to think that the only music I would ever hear, no matter what I was really playing, was the music we played each morning when the others went out to work. Or the music for the selection, when the lucky ones went into the showers. Now I can hear Brahms... And not crying. But one image has never blurred. Cross, you coming through that gate and taking me home.

J.J. Hunsecker Mr. Falco, let it be said at once, is a man of 40 faces, not one - none too pretty, and all deceptive. You see that grin? That's the, eh, that's the Charming Street Urchin face. It's part of his helpless act: he throws himself upon your mercy. He's got a half-dozen faces for the ladies. But the one I like, the really cute one, is the quick, dependable chap. Nothing he won't do for you in a pinch - so he says. Mr. Falco, whom I did not invite to sit at this table tonight, is a hungry press agent, and fully up to all the tricks of his very slimy trade.

J.J. Hunsecker Match me, Sidney.

Sidney Falco Not right this minute, J.J.

J.J. Hunsecker Son, I don't relish shooting a mosquito with an elephant gun, so why don't you just shuffle along?

Elmer Gantry I was accosted by three painted women. Your streets are made unsafe by shameless, diseased hussies, rapacious pick-pockets, and insidious opium-smokers.

Ernst Janning My counsel would have you believe that we were not aware of the extermination of millions. That we were only aware of the extermination of the hundreds. Does that make us any the less guilty? Maybe we didn't know the details. But if we didn't know, it was because we did not want to know.

Emil Hahn Traitor! Traitor!

Judge Dan Haywood Order, order! Put that man back in his seat and keep him there!

Ernst Janning I am going to tell the truth if the whole world conspires against it. I am going to tell them the truth about their Ministry of Justice. Werner Lampe — an old man who cries into his Bible now. An old man who profited from the property expropriation of every man he sent to a concentration camp. Friedrich Hofstetter — the "good German" who knew how to take orders, who sent men before him to be sterilized like so many digits. Emil Hahn — the decayed, corrupt bigot, obsessed by the evil within himself. And Ernst Janning — worse than any of them, because he knew what they were, and he went along with them. Ernst Janning — who made his life...excrement... because he walked with them.

Jim Lefferts You look like a man who could use a drink.

Elmer Gantry You know somethin', Jim? There oughta be a law against drinkin'.

Jim Lefferts There is. Prohibition.

Elmer Gantry That's against sellin', not drinkin'.

Jim Lefferts Amen.

Zharkov Have you noticed, Cross, that we are being replaced by young men with bright, stupid faces, a sense of fashion, and a dedication to nothing more than efficiency? Keepers of machines, pushers of buttons, hardware men with highly complex toys, and, except for language, not an iota of difference between the American model and the Soviet model.

Cross Here's to dinosaurs.

Ernst Janning There was a fever over the land. A fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within. Above all, there was fear. Fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, and fear of ourselves. Only when you understand that - can you understand what ] meant to us. Because he said to us: Lift your heads! Be proud to be German! There are devils among us. Communists, Liberals, Jews, Gypsies! Once these devils will be destroyed, your misery will be destroyed. It was the old, old story of the sacrificial lamb.What about those of us who knew better? We who knew the words were lies, and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country! What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It is only a passing phase. It is only a stage we are going through. It will be discarded sooner or later. Hitler himself will be discarded... sooner or later. The country is in danger. We will march out of the shadows. We will go forward. Forward is the great password.And history tells how well we succeeded, your honor. We succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. The very elements of hate and power about Hitler that mesmerized Germany, mesmerized the world! We found ourselves with sudden powerful allies. Things that had been denied to us as a democracy were open to us now. The world said go ahead, take it, take it! Take Sudetenland, take the Rhineland — remilitarize it — take all of Austria, take it!And then one day we looked around and found that we were in an even more terrible danger. The ritual began in this courtroom swept over the land like a raging, roaring disease. What was going to be a passing phase had become the way of life.Your honor, I was content to sit silent during this trial. I was content to tend my roses. I was even content to let counsel try to save my name, until I realized that in order to save it, he would have to raise the specter again. You have seen him do it — he has done it here in this courtroom. He has suggested that the Third Reich worked for the benefit of people. He has suggested that we sterilized men for the welfare of the country. He has suggested that perhaps the old Jew did sleep with the 16-year-old girl, after all. Once more it is being done for love of country. It is not easy to tell the truth; but if there is to be any salvation for Germany, we who know our guilt must admit it... whatever the pain and humiliation.

Zharkov You see before you the last of a race of giants.

Zharkov No, no, no. I mean seriously.

Cross Seriously?

Zharkov I still believe. I'm still a communist.

Cross Communist? For Christ's sakes! After what you've seen? You've seen it turn brutal... inhuman.

Zharkov No, Cross. I've seen men use it badly.

Cross What about the trials? The purges?

Zharkov Trials, purges, they are words you have read somewhere, Cross. My trial was so grotesque, my hours of interrogation so terrible that I was numb. It was a kind of frontal lobotomy without anesthetic. And the labor camps, where men, good communists old fighters, men who believed in the dignity of man above all else, were used as drought animals to pull logs on frozen feet. That this could be the result of all I had committed my life to.

Cross But, baby, at that moment, didn't you realize what was happening?

Zharkov At that moment I tried to understand what had happened to me. Most of us there were communists, not Stalinists. That is why we were there. Nothing had happened to make me renounce myself. I was still a communist. Stalin couldn't take it away from me. And now the dull, gray stupidity that sends the tanks into Prague because it has no imagination, it can't take it from me either. I am still a communist.

Cross You're still an idiot. You still serve that dull, gray stupidity.

Zharkov And when they pull the wire on me, I'll deliver you to them, Cross.

Maxwell Danforth Suppose I was to tell you that our enemies are capable of impairing rational thought, of dismantling our willingness to defend ourselves, of dissociating whole societies from their value systems?

John Tanner You mean they've got televisions.

J.J. Hunsecker You sound happy, Sidney. Why should you be happy when I'm not?

Scorpio Do you ever count the dead, Cross?

Cross You're beautiful, Jean, but sometimes you have the bad breath of priests.

Scorpio Did you see the opposition?

Cross I saw him.

Scorpio What's Zharkov doing on the plane?

Cross How many times you been out with me?

Scorpio Six, maybe seven.

Cross You're good, Jean. Better than good. You're smart, you understand. But that still leaves you a contract button man, necessary only because the CIA doesn't hold with doing its own killing.

Elmer Gantry You think, uh, religion is for suckers and easy marks and molly-coddlers, eh? You think Jesus was some kind of a sissy, hey? Well, let me tell you, Jesus wouldn't be afraid to walk into this joint or any other speakeasy to preach the gospel. Jesus had guts. He wasn't afraid of the whole Roman army. Think that quarterback's hot stuff? Well, let me tell you, Jesus would have made the best little All-American quarterback in the history of football. Jesus was a real fighter - the best little scrapper, pound for pound, you ever saw. And why, gentlemen? Love, gentlemen. Jesus had love in both fists! And what is love? Love is the mornin and the evenin star. It shines on the cradle of the Babe. Hear ye, sinners. Love is the inspiration of poets and philosophers. Love is the voice of music. I'm talkin about divine love - not carnal love.

Paul Labiche Well, hurry it up. We're working on a locomotive, not a pocketwatch.

Cross One more thing for your education. The more a man tells you, the more dangerous you become to him. And the more dangerous you become, the shorter the options on your future.

Steve Thompson A man eats an apple. He gets a piece of the core stuck between his teeth. He tries to work it out with some cellophane from a cigarette pack. What happens? The cellophane gets stuck in there too. Anna? What was the use. I knew that somehow I'd wind up seeing her that night.

Ernst Janning We have fallen on happy times, Herr Hahn. In old times it would have made your day if I'd deigned to say good morning to you. Now that we are here in this place together... you feel obliged to tell me what to do with my life... Listen to me, Herr Hahn, there have been terrible things that have happened to me in my life. But the worst thing that has ever happened... is to find myself in the company of men like you.

Harry Doyle Shall we rob another empty armored car and start a collection?

J.J. Hunsecker What's this boy got that Susie likes?

Sidney Falco Integrity - acute, like indigestion.

J.J. Hunsecker What does that mean - integrity?

Sidney Falco A pocket fulla firecrackers - looking for a match! It's a new wrinkle, to tell the truth... I never thought I'd make a killing on some guy's "integrity.

J.J. Hunsecker Sidney, this syrup you're giving out with... you pour over waffles, not J. J. Hunsecker.

J.J. Hunsecker Don't remove the gangplank, Sidney - you may wanna get back on board.

Sally Teach me stuff.

Lou Like what?

Sally What you know.

Lou You want information or wisdom?

Sally Both.

Capt. Vernon Demerest Hey, now, that's a good idea, Mel. Using little old ladies for skycaps. You keep that up. You're doing a good job.

Sarah Bakersfeld Demerest Mel! For my sake, be patient with him.

Mel Bakersfeld How you can live with that overage juvenile deliquent, I'll never know.

Sarah Bakersfeld Demerest There's just the two of us. If I left him, what would I have?

Mel Bakersfeld Would you have any more if he decided to leave you?

Sarah Bakersfeld Demerest He won't. The moment a girl gets too serious, he waves his wedding ring like a flag. I'm his disaster insurance.

Mel Bakersfeld More like group insurance!

Sarah Bakersfeld Demerest Thanks for caring, Mel. Don't worry. Someday he'll come home for some other reason than to just change his clothes.

Mel Bakersfeld Well, I hope so.

Elmer Gantry As long as I got a foot, I'll kick booze. And, as long as I got a fist, I'll punch it. And, as long as I got a tooth, I'll bite it. And, when I'm old and gray and toothless and bootless, I'll gum it till I go to heaven and booze goes to hell.

Paul Labiche You crazy bastard.

Lou You shut up, Grace, you goddamned old lady.

Grace If I'm an old lady, what does that make you?

Lou I'm her lover.

Grace Oh, ho, ho. You wanna know his nickname in the old days? Numb nuts! Men had names like Legs and "Bullets and Cookie. His was Numb nuts!

J.J. Hunsecker Manny, what exactly are the UNSEEN gifts of this lovely young thing that you manage?

Manny Davis Well, she sings a little... you know, sings...

Linda James Manny's faith in me is simply awe-inspiring, Mr. Hunsecker. Actually, I'm still studying, but...

J.J. Hunsecker What subject?

Linda James Singing, of course... straight concert and...

J.J. Hunsecker Why "of course"? It might, for instance, be politics...

Linda James Me? I mean "I"? Are you kidding, Mr. Hunsecker? With my Jersey City brains?

J.J. Hunsecker The brains may be Jersey City, but the clothes are Traina-Norell.

Elmer Gantry I have here in my pocket - and thank heaven you can't see them - lewd, dirty, obscene, and I'm ashamed to say this: French postcards. They were sold to me in front of your own innocent high school by a man with a black beard... a foreigner.

Steve Thompson I am different. I never wanted the money - I just wanted you.

Harry Doyle I never met so many stupid people in one day.