Manchurian Candidate, The (1962) quotes

View Quote Rosie: Maryland's a beautiful state.
Ben: [Looking away] This is Delaware.
Rosie: I know. I was one of the original Chinese workmen who laid the track on this stretch. But nonetheless, Maryland is a beautiful state. So is Ohio, for that matter. [Lights her own cigarette.]
Ben: I guess so. Columbus is a tremendous football town. You in the railroad business?
Rosie: Not anymore. However, if you will permit me to point out, when you ask that question you really should say, 'Are you in the railroad line?' Where's your home?
Ben: I'm in the Army. I'm a major. I've been in the Army most of my life. We move a good deal. I was born in New Hampshire.
Rosie: I went to a girls' camp once on Lake Francis.
Ben: That's pretty far north.
Rosie: Yeah.
Ben: What's your name?
Rosie: Eugenie.
Ben: [Finally looks at her] Pardon?
Rosie: No kidding, I really mean it. Crazy French pronunciation and all.
Ben: [Looks away] It's pretty.
Rosie: Well, thank you.
Ben: I guess your friends call you Jenny.
Rosie: Not yet they haven't, for which I am deeply grateful. But you may call me Jenny.
Ben: What do your friends call you?
Rosie: Rosie.
Ben: [Looks at her] Why?
Rosie: My full name is Eugenie Rose. (He looks away) Of the two names, I've always favored Rosie because it smells of brown soap and beer. Eugenie is somehow more fragile.
Ben: Still, when I asked you what your name was, you said it was Eugenie.
Rosie: It's quite possible I was feeling more or less fragile at that instant.
Ben: I could never figure out what that phrase meant: more or less. (He looks at her) You Arabic?
Rosie: No.
Ben: [Reaches to shake her hand] My name is Ben, really Bennett. Named after Arnold Bennett.
Rosie: The writer?
Ben: No, a lieutenant colonel who was my father's commanding officer at the time.
Rosie: What's your last name?
Ben: Marco.
Rosie: Major Marco. Are you Arabic?
Ben: No, no.
Rosie: Let me put it another way. Are you married?
Ben: No. You?
Rosie: No.
Ben: What's your last name?
Rosie: Chaney. I'm a production assistant for a man named Justin, who had two hits last season. I live on 54th Street, a few doors from the modern museum of art, of which I'm a tea-privileges member, no cream. I live at 53 West 54th Street, Apartment 3B. Can you remember that?
Ben: Yes.
Rosie: ELdorado 5-9970. Can you remember that?
Ben: Yes.
Rosie: Are you stationed in New York? Or is stationed the right word?
Ben: I'm not exactly stationed in New York. I was stationed in Washington, but I got sick, and now I'm on leave, and I'm going to spend it in New York.
Rosie: ELdorado 5-9970.
Ben: I'm gonna look up an old friend of mine who's a newspaper man. We were in Korea together.

View Quote Sen. Iselin: I mean, the way you keep changing the figures on me all the time. It makes me look like some kind of a nut, like an idiot.
Mrs. Iselin: Well, you're going to look like an even bigger idiot if you don't get in there and do exactly what you're told...Who are they writing about all over this country and what are they saying? Are they saying: "Are there any Communists in the Defense Department?" No, of course not, they're saying: "How many Communists are there in the Defense Department?" So just stop talking like an expert all of a sudden and get out there and say what you're supposed to say.

View Quote [At Ben's request, Raymond is playing solitaire - with a deck of 52 Queens of Diamonds's]
Ben: All right, let's start unlocking a few doors. Let's begin with the patrol. You didn't save our lives and take out an enemy company or anything like that, did you Raymond, did you?
Raymond: No.
Ben: What happened?
Raymond: The patrol was taken by a Russian Airborne Unit and flown by helicopter across the Manchurian border to a place called Tomwa. We were worked on for three days by a team of specialists from the Pavlov Institute in Moscow. They developed a technique for descent into the unconscious mind, part light-induced, part drug—
Ben: Never mind all that. Not now. Tell me what else happened at Tomwa.
Raymond: We were drilled for three days. We were made to memorize the details of the imaginary action... And I strangled Ed Mavole and shot Bobby Lembeck.
Ben: One red Queen works pretty good. Let's see what we get with two of 'em. Keep playing.
Raymond: Then I killed Mr. Gaines. It was just a test. It didn't matter who I killed. They picked him to see if all the linkages still worked before they turned me over to my American operator. That business about jumping in the lake - it really did happen. It was an accident. Something somebody said in the bar accidentally triggered it.
Ben: Keep playing!
Raymond: Then I killed Senator Jordan and after that...
Ben: You are to forget everything that happened at the Senator's house. Do you understand, Raymond? You'll only remember it when I tell you so. You are to forget about it. Do you understand?
Raymond: Yes sir.
Ben: Now, Raymond. Now the big one. Why, why is all of this being done? What have they built you to do?
Raymond: I don't know. I don't think anybody really knows except Berezovo in Moscow and my American operator here. But whatever it is, it's supposed to happen soon, right at the convention. Maybe, [pause], I don't know. They can make me do anything, Ben, can't they? Anything.
Ben: We'll see, kid, we'll see what they can do and we'll see what we can do. So the red Queen is our baby. Well, take a look at this, kid... and while you're looking, listen. This is me, Marco talking. Fifty-two red Queens and me are telling you - you know what we're telling you? - it's over. The links, the beautifully-conditioned links are smashed. They're smashed as of now because we say so, because we say they ought to be smashed. We're bustin' up the joint, we're tearin' out all the wires, we're bustin' it up so good all the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men will never put ol' Raymond back together again. You don't work anymore. That's an order. Anybody invites you to a game of solitaire - you tell 'em: "Sorry, buster, the ball-game is over!"

View Quote Ah, yes. Yak dung...tastes good. Like a cigarette should.

View Quote Allow me to introduce our American visitors. I must ask you to forgive their somewhat lackadaisical manners, but I have conditioned them - or brain-washed them, which I understand is the new American word. They believe that they are waiting out a storm in the lobby of a small hotel in New Jersey where a meeting of the ladies' garden club is in progress.

View Quote Have you noticed that the human race is divided into two distinct, irreconciliable groups? Those who walk into rooms and automatically turn television sets on, and those who walk into rooms and automatically turn them off. You know, the problem is, they usually marry each other which naturally causes a great deal of...

View Quote I am sure you've all heard the old wives' tale that no hypnotized subject may be forced to do that which is repellant to his moral nature, whatever that may be. Nonsense, of course.

View Quote I can see that Chinese cat standin' there smiling like Fu Manchu.

View Quote I have here a list of the names of 207 persons who are known by the Secretary of Defense as being members of the Communist Party... I demand an answer, Mr. Secretary. There will be no covering up, sir, no covering up. You are not going to get your hands on this list. And I deeply regret having to say...

View Quote I know you will never entirely comprehend this, Raymond, but you must believe I did not know it would be you. I served them. I fought for them. I'm on the point of winning for them the greatest foothold they would ever have in this country. And they paid me back by taking your soul away from you. I told them to build me an assassin. I wanted a killer from a world filled with killers and they chose you because they thought it would bind me closer to them. [She places the sides of his face in her outstretched hands.] But now, we have come almost to the end. One last step. And then when I take power, they will be pulled down and ground into dirt for what they did to you. And what they did in so contemptuously under-estimating me.

View Quote I tell ya, there's something phony going on. There's something phony about me, about Raymond Shaw, about the whole Medal of Honor business... I said: 'Raymond Shaw is the kindest, warmest, bravest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life,' and even now I feel that way - this minute. And yet, somewhere in the back of my mind, something tells me it's not true. It's just not true. It isn't as if Raymond's hard to like. He's impossible to like. In fact, he's probably one of the most repulsive human beings I've ever known in my whole - all of my life.

View Quote Intelligence officer. Stupidity officer is more like it. Pentagon wants to open a Stupidity Division, they know who they can get to lead it.

View Quote My mother, Ben, is a terrible woman. A terrible, terrible woman... You know, Ben, it's a terrible thing to hate your mother. But I didn't always hate her. When I was a child, I only kind of disliked her. But after what she did to Jocie and me, that's when I began to hate her... Jocie Jordan - Senator Jordan's daughter... Thomas Jordan's daughter and Johnny Iselin's step-son... Years later, I realized, Ben, that I am not very loveable... Some people are loveable and some people are not loveable. I am not loveable. Oh, but I was very loveable with Jocie. Ben, you can't believe how loveable I was.

View Quote On the afternoon of his arrival in Washington, Raymond Shaw was decorated at the White House by the President of the United States. His citation attested to by his commanding officer, Captain Bennett Marco, and the nine surviving members of his patrol, read in part: 'Displaying valor above and beyond the call of duty did single-handedly save the lives of nine members of his patrol, capturing an enemy machine gun nest and taking out in the process a full company of enemy infantry. He then proceeded to lead his patrol which had been listed as missing in action for three days back through the enemy lines to safety.'

View Quote Raymond Shaw shot and killed his wife early this morning... It wasn't Raymond that really did it. In a way, it was me.