Answers to Sterling Silver Dialogue #10

Sterling Silver Dialogue #10: (Answers)

"Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war?"

(reply) "No, I don't think I do sir. No."   

(response)  "He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

Sterling Hayden as Brig. Gen. Jack Ripper (at right) asks and responds to Peter Sellers as Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake

(Advocating a stronger nuclear attack to offset a further Soviet retaliation)  "Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, truth is not always a pleasant thing. But it is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless distinguishable, postwar environments: one where you got twenty million people killed, and the other where you got a hundred and fifty million people killed."

(reply)  "You're talking about mass murder, General, not war!"

(response)  "Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks."

(reply)  "I will not go down in history as the greatest mass-murderer since Adolf Hitler."

(response)   "Perhaps it might be better, Mr. President, if you were more concerned with the American People than with your image in the history books."

George C. Scott as Gen. 'Buck' Turgidson (at top right above) speaks first with Peter Sellers as President Merkin Muffley 

"Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream? Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream."

Mandrake: "Lord, Jack."

Jack: "You know when fluoridation first began?"

Mandrake: "I... no. I don't, Jack."

Jack: "Nineteen hundred and forty-six. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works."

Mandrake: "Uh, Jack, Jack, listen... tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?"

Jack: "Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love. Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly: Loss of essence. I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake. But I... I do deny them my essence."

Mandrake: "Yes, Jack."

Sterling Hayden as Brig. Gen. Jack Ripper (above at right) speaks first with Peter Sellers as Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake

(the above are from)

"I was a nervous child.  I was a bed wetter. When I was younger, I, I uh, used to sleep with an electric blanket and I was constantly electrocuting myself."

 Woody Allen as Fielding Mellish in Bananas

 "Sometimes it isn't being fast that counts, or even accurate, but willing. Most men will draw a breath or blink an eye before they shoot. I won't."

 John Wayne as J.B. Books in The Shootist

 "A gun is a tool, Marian, no better, no worse than any other tool: An axe, a shovel or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that."

 Alan Ladd as Shane in Shane

 "If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?"

 Eli Wallach as Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

 (complaining about a steak he ordered) "Hey Hombre. This horse is still fighting for his life."

 Larry Duran as Chico Modesto in One-Eyed Jacks

 "What a dump!"

Bette Davis as Rosa Moline in Beyond the Forest

(impersonating Davis in the above film) "What a dump!" 

 Elizabeth Taylor as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

 "You've just had a bad day, that's all." 

(reply)   "That's a masterpiece of understatement."

Katharine Hepburn as Susan speaks to Cary Grant as David in Bringing Up Baby

"Is your handwriting legible?"  

 (reply)   "Except on weekends."

Anne Blake as Miss Crail asks Richard Burton as Alec Leamas

(who also says the line below)

"She offered me free love. At the time, that was all I could afford."

"Just who the hell do you think you are? How dare you come sniffing in here like Napoleon ordering me about! You are a traitor! Does it occur to you? A wanted, spent, dishonest man, the lowest currency of the Cold War. We buy you - we sell you - we lose you - we even can shoot you! Not a bird would stir in the trees outside. Not even a single pheasant would turn his head to see what fell."

Oskar Werner as Fiedler

"What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not! They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: Little men, drunkards, queers, hen-pecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?"

Richard Burton as Alec Leamas

 (The above are from)

"I don't go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons."

 Jan Sterling as Lorraine Minosa in Ace In the Hole

Sterling Silver Dialogue #11 is here.