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Pépé le Moko: Our friend Slimane is funny. He means it! He wants to arrest me. Delusions of the grandeur!
Inspecteur Slimane: I'll get you! It's written!
Pépé le Moko: Sure. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Sure!
Inspecteur Slimane: You're funny.
Pépé le Moko: And how much time will I do?
Inspecteur Slimane: Consult a fortune teller.
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Casbah Woman: [shouting to Pépé] Luck be with you, Pépé!
Gaby Gould: What an amazing fellow!
Inspecteur Slimane: Isn't he? I think it's over I'll take you back.
Gaby Gould: With pleasure. I lost my friends.
Inspecteur Slimane: They must have gone home. Isn't Pépé Le Moko amusing?
Gaby Gould: He's entertaining. But you won't arrest him.
Inspecteur Slimane: I've written the date of his arrest on the wall of my room where the sun shines.
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Chef Inspecteur Louvain: But can we trust you? No double-dealing?
Régis: Sir, I am an informer not a hypocrite.
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L'Arbi: I told you the truth!
Pépé le Moko: Find another truth!
L'Arbi: It's the truth.
Pépé le Moko: Shut up!
L'Arbi: I swear on my father head!
Pépé le Moko: No risk! He was guillotined.
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Pépé le Moko: Blame it on the Casbah.
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Tania: I have a face that men just like to hit.
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Tania: When I feel down, I change eras.
Pépé le Moko: Change eras?
Tania: I think of my youth. I look at my old photo and imagine it's a mirror. I put on one of my old records, from the days when I'd sell out the Paris music halls. I'd go on stage against a country backdrop with a red spotlight on my pale face, and I'd sing.
[singing]
Tania: Some people dream of America, As they see it at the cinema, A magnificent land they swear, Our Paris just can't compare. That kind of talk makes them bold, When they feel blue and want to holler, But they just end up hungry and old, In New York scrounging for a dollar. Among the criminals and outcasts, And emigrants with broken pasts, They sing of Paris at last, Where's my windmill on Place Blanche? My tobacco shop, my corner café? When every day was a new chance? Where are all the friends who made my day? Where are the dance halls where we'd meet? The songs the accordionist would play? Where are the places where we could eat, Without a cent in our pockets to pay? Where are they now?
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Inspecteur Slimane: The Devil's son always works with demonic children. Le Moko? A prince of plunder. Fifteen convictions, 33 daylight robberies, two bank holdups. And burglaries? We haven't enough fingers in this room on which to count them all. How could he not be admired? And such a good boy! He wears his heart on his sleeve. As quick with a smile for friends as a knife for foes. So charming!
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Carlos: How much you offering?
Le Grand Père: You're like a fidgety coquette.
Carlos: We're talking dough.
Le Grand Père: Carlos, my friend, your words fail to shine like Japanese pearls. Slang is a phony language.
Carlos: Cut the gab! Cough up the bread!
Le Grand Père: You talk like a baker.
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Le Grand Père: This ruby has such sex appeal! My dear Pépé, this burglary does you credit.
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Régis: Where's Pépé? We have to warn him. A busload of cops. Like a wedding party after the groom.
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Inès: Pépé's not your friend.
Régis: Well, I'm his, even if he doesn't like me. But one day, I'll prove myself. I'm not a talker, but I admire him so discreetly, he'll have to take notice someday.
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Pépé le Moko: I'm fond of you.
Inès: Why do you say that?
Pépé le Moko: Because you're a child.
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Pépé le Moko: You saw nothing.
Le Grand Père: What can I have seen?
Pépé le Moko: You heard nothing.
Le Grand Père: I'm one-eyed and going deaf.
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Pépé le Moko: Not with them, Slimane?
Inspecteur Slimane: Hasty work is sloppy work. *Shouia.* Slow is better.
Pépé le Moko: Don't like to brawl, my little beagle?
Inspecteur Slimane: No, my little fox.
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Inspecteur Slimane: I'll get you, Pépé. But, in my own way. If God is willing.
Pépé le Moko: I can't wait!
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Pépé le Moko: And if I kill you?
Inspecteur Slimane: Inshallah! You despise me too much to kill me.
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Pépé le Moko: You have a good mug.
Inspecteur Slimane: Do I?
Pépé le Moko: Oh yes. You wear your badge on your face. To look this phony, now that's honesty!
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Régis: Not bad for a fiasco! No police operation was better named. For a cleanup, it was a wipeout.
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Régis: He's God up there. You don't arrest God.
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Régis: The only way to arrest Pépé is to get him into town. But he knows the score. He's no dumber than you are.
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Régis: Keep it under your hat. Mystery and discretion are your trump cards.
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Pépé le Moko: I'm like England. My future is on the waves.
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Inès: You can never escape the Casbah. They want to arrest you. But you're already under arrest. Just try to get out. One step out and it's "Good-bye, Pépé!"
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Tania: He never talks. He acts.
Inspecteur Slimane: He beats you?
Tania: Yes, it relaxes him.
Inspecteur Slimane: And since you're a woman, you take it without complaining.
Tania: I've always been beaten. When I did music halls, my crooner boyfriend used to slap me around because I was more popular.
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Inspecteur Slimane: Women will be your undoing, Pépé.
Pépé le Moko: Relax. I give them my body but I keep my head. Who knows when I might need it, right?
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Pépé le Moko: What'd she say?
Inspecteur Slimane: Nothing much. She just talked. I don't really listen to women.
-
Inspecteur Slimane: What did you think of her?
Pépé le Moko: Not bad. She's got pearls and the kind of smile I like: with lip rouge! And bracelets like I understand them: in platinum with small diamonds. And a "hell-with-you" attitude.
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Pépé le Moko: She's as different from Inès as a phonograph from a wireless.
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Pépé le Moko: Some clocks read 2 o'clock and chime 4 when it's only 11:45. Régis doesn't ring true.
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Pépé le Moko: You're too brutal.
Carlos: And you're not brutal enough.
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Carlos: You're too good. Like with Pierrot, you're too soft. Kids are like broads: kick their butts! You're too sentimental.
-
Gaby Gould: Wipe your face. You're handsome. Smile. You're all sweaty. Your skin sticks like taffy.
-
Inspecteur Slimane: A glass of anisette?
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Gravère: I love this place! Oh, delectable! A vision out of the 'Arabian Nights'! A night to spend a day with.
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Gravère: I love to travel. I always imagine I'm somewhere else. In Corsica, I felt like I was in Turkey. Here, I'm in China!
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Pépé le Moko: How do you like my burg?
Gaby Gould: I don't like the provinces. Once past the Paris city limits, I feel ill at ease.
Pépé le Moko: Really?
Gaby Gould: If I can't wake up in Paris, I want to go back to sleep.
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Pépé le Moko: What's so funny?
Gaby Gould: Nothing.
Pépé le Moko: A pity.
Gaby Gould: A pity?
Pépé le Moko: A pity I don't know you better.
Gaby Gould: Why?
Pépé le Moko: So I could smack you one. I hate people laughing without me knowing why.
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Le Grand Père: Your friends lack tact. They don't respect the appeal of your sorrow. Shakespearean style is out of fashion nowadays. I can see how they disgust you.
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Pépé le Moko: I'm going down now! She can't come up, but I can go down.
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Pépé le Moko: You're right. I'm an idiot. I'm sorry. Aren't you fed up with a guy like me? Ah-la-la-la-la. I'm rotten.
Inès: You are what you are.
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Gaby Gould: We didn't say good-bye the other night, so I came to say hello.
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Tania: She's a walking ice palace. The sparklers she's got on her!
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Pépé le Moko: I really like you. You're beautiful. And being with you is like being in Paris. With you I escape, you see? You're a different landscape. I was pretending to sleep earlier. I let my mind wander. You know what I heard? The Métro. Can you imagine? The Métro! You taunt me with diamonds, you're wearing silk and gold, but you remind me of the Metro and frites and café au last on café terraces. That's what you're like.
-
Pépé le Moko: What did you do before?
Gaby Gould: Before what?
Pépé le Moko: Before the diamonds.
Gaby Gould: I dreamed of them.
-
Pépé le Moko: You smell so good.
Gaby Gould: It's the Métro.
Pépé le Moko: In first-class.
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Inspecteur Slimane: The Casbah is a place where caution must be taken. An unaccompanied woman is an object of desire. So I can't insist enough that you keep an eye on your friend.
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Pépé le Moko: Make sure everything looks right. I want cushions and ashtrays, and vases with flowers.
Tania: No problem.
Pépé le Moko: An water the flowers with eau de cologne.
Tania: I'll use my "Reve de Java"! It smells like violets.
Pépé le Moko: And put out a table with two settings. I'll handle the grub and the juice.
Tania: All this for his new bird!
Pépé le Moko: She's no bird!
Tania: Why? Birds are nice.
Pépé le Moko: Sure, my turtledove!
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[repeated line]
Pépé le Moko: Get off my back!
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Gravère: The nice thing about traveling is going home. That way you can leave again.
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[last lines]
Inès: Forgive me.
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Janvier: [fist line] This must end!
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Janvier: Pépé le Moko is still at large.
Meunier: Algiers isn't Pigalle.
Janvier: In Pigalle, he'd have been behind bars long ago.
-
Meunier: The Casbah is like a labyrinth. I'll show you. You can say Pépé's gone underground. From the air, the district known as the Casbah looks like a teeming anthill, a vast staircase where terraces descend stepwise to the sea. Between these steps are dark, winding streets like so many pitfalls. They intersect, overlap, twist in and out, to form a jumble of mazes. Some are narrow, others vaulted. Wherever you look, stairways climb steeply like ladders, or descend into dark, putrid chasms and slimy porticos, dank and lice-infested. Dark, overcrowded cafés. Silent, empty streets with odd names. A population of 40,000 in an area meant for 10,000. From all over the world. Many, descended from the barbarians, are honest traditionalists, but a mystery to us. Kabyles. Chinese. Gypsies. Stateless. Slavs. Maltese. Negroes. Sicilians. Spaniards. And girls of all nations, shapes and sizes. The tall. The fat. The short. The ageless. The shapeless. Chasms of fat no one would dare approach. The houses have inner courtyards, which are like ceilingless cells that echo like wells and interconnect by means of terraces above. They're the exclusive domain of native women. But Europeans are tolerated. They form a city apart, which, step by step, stretches down to the sea. Colorful, dynamic, multifaceted, boisterous, there's not one Casbah, but hundreds. Thousands. And this teeming maze is what Pépé calls home.
-
Gaby Gould: Where does he live? Just opposite?
Casbah Woman: Sometimes in here on the side of the heart, sometimes, the other. Home is wherever he finds a woman. Here, he's the caid's caid.
Gaby Gould: Caid?
Inspecteur Slimane: The boss. His favorite is Inès, a gypsy.
Casbah Woman: Don't say it so loud.
Inspecteur Slimane: When he's killed, there will be 3,000 widows at his funeral.
Pépé le Moko Quotes
Extended Reading
