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Marco: Intelligence officer. Stupidity officer is more like it. Pentagon wants to open a Stupidity Division, they know who they can get to lead it.
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Raymond Shaw: My dear girl, have you ever noticed that the human race is divided into two distinct and irreconcilable groups: those that walk into rooms and automatically turn television sets on, and those that walk into rooms and automatically turn them off. The trouble is that they end up marrying each other.
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[a general greets Medal of Honor winner Staff Sgt. Raymond Shaw on his return to the U.S]
General: Congratulations, son. How do you feel?
Raymond Shaw: Like Captain Idiot in Astounding Science comics.
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Raymond Shaw: 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.
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[a nightmare switches between a ladies' garden club and a Soviet/Chinese military hospital]
Chairlady: You will notice that I have told them they may smoke. I've allowed my people to have a little fun in the selection of bizarre tobacco substitutes... Are you enjoying your cigarette, Ed?
Ed Movole: Yes ma'am.
Dr. Yen Lo: Yak dung!... hope tastes good - like a cigarette should!
-
Dr. Yen Lo: His brain has not only been washed, as they say... It has been dry cleaned.
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Raymond Shaw: Twelve days of Christmas! One day of Christmas is loathsome enough!
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[Shaw has been conditioned to obey when seeing the queen of diamonds; Marco has brought a special deck of all queens of diamonds]
Raymond Shaw: They can make me do anything, Ben, can't they? Anything.
Bennett Marco: 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...
[fans deck and keeps holding up the cards]
Bennett Marco: 52 of them! Take a good look at 'em, Raymond, look at 'em, and while you're looking, listen. This is me, Marco, talking. 52 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 are to be smashed. We're busting up the joint, we're tearing out all the wires. We're busting it up so good all the queen's horses and all the queen's men will never put old Raymond back together again. You don't work any more! That's an order. Anybody invites you to a game of solitaire, you tell 'em sorry, buster, the ball game is over.
-
Mrs. Iselin: Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?
-
Bennett Marco: Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.
-
Yen Lo: Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?
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Dr. Yen Lo: I'm sure you've all heard the old wives' tale that no hypnotized subject may be forced to do that which is repellent to his moral nature, whatever that may be. Nonsense of course.
-
Jocie: Darling.
[pause]
Raymond Shaw: What?
Jocie: Nothing, Just... Darling.
-
Mrs. Iselin: It has been decided that you will be dressed as a priest, to help you get away in the pandemonium afterwards. Chunjin will give you a two-piece Soviet Army sniper's rifle that fits nicely into a special bag. There's a spotlight booth that won't be in use. It's up under the roof on the Eighth Avenue side of the Garden. You will have absolutely clear, protected shooting. You are to shoot the presidential nominee through the head. And Johnny will rise gallantly to his feet and lift Ben Arthur's body in his arms, stand in front of the microphones and begin to speak. The speech is short. But it's the most rousing speech I've ever read. It's been worked on, here and in Russia, on and off, for over eight years. I shall force someone to take the body away from him and Johnny will really hit those microphones and those cameras with blood all over him, fighting off anyone who tries to help him, defending America even if it means his own death, rallying a nation of television viewers to hysteria, to sweep us up into the White House with powers that will make martial law seem like anarchy! Now, this is very important. I want the nominee to be dead two minutes after he begins his acceptance speech - depending on his reading time under pressure. You are to hit him right at the point that he finishes the phrase, "Nor would I ask of any fellow American in defense of his freedom that which I would not gladly give myself - my life before my liberty." Is that absolutely clear?
-
Mrs. Iselin: [to her husband] I keep telling you not to think! You're very, very good at a great many things, but thinking, hon', just simply isn't one of them.
-
Marco: It's not that Raymond Shaw is hard to like. He's IMPOSSIBLE to like!
-
Mrs. Iselin: 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.
[Puts her hands on Raymond's face]
Mrs. Iselin: 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 underestimating me.
[Kisses Raymond on the forehead, then his cheek, then on his lips]
-
[last lines]
Bennett Marco: Poor Raymond. Poor friendless, friendless Raymond. He was wearing his medal when he died.
[reads from a book of U.S Army citations]
Bennett Marco: You should read some of the citations sometime. Just read them. Taken, eight prisoners, killing four enemy in the process while one leg and one arm was shattered and he could only crawl because the other leg had been blown off - Edwards. Wounded five times, dragged himself across the direct fire of three enemy machine guns to pull two of his wounded men to safety amid sixty-nine dead and two hundred and three casualties - Holderman.
[Puts the book down]
Bennett Marco: Made to commit acts too unspeakable to be cited here by an enemy who had captured his mind and his soul. He freed himself at last and in the end, heroically and unhesitatingly gave his life to save his country. Raymond Shaw... Hell... Hell.
-
Mrs. Iselin: Oh, Raymond, what is the matter with you? You look as if your head were going to come to a point in the next thirteen seconds.
-
Col. Milt: [gesturing towards a pile of books] You read them all?
Marco: Yeah, they also make great insulation against an enemy attack! But the, uh, truth of the matter is that I'm just interested, you know, in, uh, Principles of Modern Banking and, History of Piracy.
[picking up books]
Marco: Paintings of Orozco. Modern French Theater. The... Jurisprudential Factor of Mafia Administration. Diseases of Horses and novels of Joyce Cary and... Ethnic Choices of the Arabs. Things like that.
-
Dr. Yen Lo: Attractive plant you have here.
Zilkov: Thank you, doctor. It's actually a rest home for wealthy alcoholics. We were able to purchase it three years ago. Except for this floor and the floor above it, which is sealed off for security purposes, the rest functions quite normally. In fact it's one of the few Soviet operations in America that actually showed a profit at the end of the last fiscal year.
Dr. Yen Lo: Profit? Fiscal year? Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! Beware, my dear Zilkov. The virus of capitalism is highly infectious. Soon you'll be lending money out at interest!
-
Psychiatrist: Human fish, swimming at the bottom of the great ocean of atmosphere, develop psychic injuries as they collide with one another. Most mortal of all are those gotten from the parent fish.
-
Eugenie Rose Chaney: Maryland is a beautiful state.
Bennett Marco: This is Delaware.
Eugenie Rose Chaney: I know, I was one of the original Chinese workmen who made the track on this stretch. But, em... nonetheless, Maryland is a beautiful state. So is Ohio for that matter.
Bennett Marco: I guess so, Columbus is a tremendous football town.
-
Bennett Marco: You in the railroad business?
Eugenie Rose Chaney: 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?
-
Bennett Marco: What's your name?
Eugenie Rose Chaney: Eugenie.
Bennett Marco: Pardon?
Eugenie Rose Chaney: No kidding, I really meant it. Crazy French pronounciation and all.
Bennett Marco: It's pretty.
Eugenie Rose Chaney: Thank you.
Bennett Marco: I guess your friends call you Ginny.
Eugenie Rose Chaney: Not yet they haven't, for which I am deeply grateful... but you may call me Ginny.
Bennett Marco: What do your friends call you?
Eugenie Rose Chaney: Rosie.
Bennett Marco: Why?
Eugenie Rose Chaney: My full name is Eugenie Rose. Of the two names I've always favored Rosie, 'cause it smells of brown soap and beer. Eugenie is somehow more fragile.
Bennett Marco: Still, when I asked you what your name was, you said it was Eugenie.
Eugenie Rose Chaney: Quite possible I was feeling more or less fragile at that instant.
-
Marco: I could never figure out what that phrase meant, "more or less."
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Bennett Marco: You Arabic?
Eugenie Rose Chaney: No.
-
Eugenie Rose Chaney: Are you Arabic?
Bennett Marco: No.
Eugenie Rose Chaney: Let me put it another way: are you married?
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Raymond Shaw: Senator Iselin is not my father. Repeat: he is not my father. If you learn nothing else on your visit to this country, memorize that fact.
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Chunjin: I need job.
Raymond Shaw: Job?
Chunjin: Yes Sir, Mr. Shaw.
Raymond Shaw: But my dear fellow, we don't need interpreters here. We all speak the same language.
-
Marco: [During the Kung Fu fight with Chunjin] What was Raymond doing with his hands?
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Marco: [During the Kung Fu fight with Chunjin] How did the old ladies turn into Russians?
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Marco: [during the Kung Fu fight with Chunjin] What were you doing there?
-
Mrs. Iselin: [cordially, at a party the Iselins are giving] How good of you to come, Tom.
Sen. Thomas Jordan: [matter-of-fact, rather than cordial] I've explained to your husband why I'm here.
Mrs. Iselin: Tom, I know you have strong, personal feelings about Johnny and about me. But, what I would like to find out is, how strong they really are. To put it as simply as possible, If Johnny's name were to be put forward at the convention next week, would you attempt to block him?
Sen. Thomas Jordan: [taken slightly aback] You're joking, of course?
Mrs. Iselin: Mr. Stevenson makes jokes, I do not.
Sen. Thomas Jordan: You're seriously trying for the nomination for Johnny?
Mrs. Iselin: No, we couldn't make it. But he has a good chance for the second spot. Now, I've answered your question, but you haven't answered mine. Will you block us?
Sen. Thomas Jordan: Would I block you? I would spend every cent I own, and all I could borrow, to block you. There are people who think of Johnny as a clown and a buffoon, but I do not. I despise John Iselin and everything that Iselinism has come to stand for. I think, if John Iselin were a paid Soviet agent, he could not do more to harm this country than he's doing now. You have asked me a question. Very well, I shall answer you. If you attempt a deal with the delegates, or cause Johnny's name to be brought forward on the ticket, or if, in my canvass of the delegates tomorrow morning, I find that you are so acting, I will bring impeachment proceedings against your husband on the floor of the United States Senate. And I will hit him, I promise you, with everything in my well-documented book.
Mrs. Iselin: [Mrs. Iselin leaves without a word, the discussion clearly over, for the present]
-
Bennett Marco: I've been having this nightmare. A real swinger of a nightmare, too
-
Bennett Marco: I remember... I remember. I can see that Chinese cat standing there and smiling like Fu Manchu saying: The Queen of Diamonds is reminiscent in many ways of Raymond's dearly loved and hated mother... and is the second key to clear the mechanism for any other assignment.
-
Yen Lo: A little humor, my dear Zilkov, always with a little humor
-
Sen. John Yerkes Iselin: No evasions, Mister Secretary, no evasions if you please.
Secretary of Defense: Evasions? What the hell are you talking about?
Secretary of Defense: [whispering to Marco] What the hell is this nonsense?
Marco: [covering the microphones] Mister Secretary, I'm kind of new at this job, but I don't think it's good public relations to speak that way to a US Senator, even if he is an idiot.
Sen. John Yerkes Iselin: I am United States Senator John Yerkes Iselin, and I have here a list of two hundred seven persons who are known by the Secretary of Defense as being members of the Communist Party!
Secretary of Defense: [amid shocked reaction from the crowd] What?
Sen. John Yerkes Iselin: Who nevertheless are still shaping the policy of the Defense Department!
Secretary of Defense: Senator who?
Sen. John Yerkes Iselin: I demand an answer, Mister Secretary! There will be no covering up, sir! No covering up!
Secretary of Defense: How did you get in here in the first place?
-
Mrs. Iselin: [at meal time] I'm sorry, hon'. Would it really make it easier for you if we settled on just one number?
Sen. John Yerkes Iselin: Yeah. Just one, real, simple number that'd be easy for me to remember.
[Mrs. Iselin watches her husband thump a bottle of Heinz Tomato Ketchup onto his plate]
Sen. John Yerkes Iselin: [addressing the Senate] There are exactly 57 card-carrying members of the Communist Party in the Department of Defense at this time!
-
Mrs. Iselin: Raymond, I'm your mother. How can you talk to me this way? You know that I want nothing for myself. You know that my whole life has been devoted to helping you...
Raymond Shaw: [Balls his fists and jams them over his ears] Mother...
Mrs. Iselin: And helping Johnny!
Raymond Shaw: Mother...
Mrs. Iselin: My boys!
Raymond Shaw: Mother...
Mrs. Iselin: My two boys!
Raymond Shaw: Mother, stop it.
Mrs. Iselin: That's all I've ever cared about.
Raymond Shaw: Stop it.
-
Benjamin K. Arthur: Nor would I ask of any fellow American, in defense of his freedom, that which I would not gladly give myself: my life before my liberty!
-
Raymond Shaw: You couldn't have stopped them, the Army couldn't've stopped them, so I had to. That's why I didn't call.
[pauses, then with horror]
Raymond Shaw: Oh god, Ben!
[Shoots himself in the head with the rifle]
-
[the presidential nominee is making his acceptance speech while Raymond Shaw has his sniper-rifle aimed at him]
Benjamin K. Arthur: ...Nor would I ask of any fellow American in defense of his freedom that which I would not gladly give myself - my life before my liberty!
[the audience begins clapping and cheering as Raymond Shaw moves his sniper-rifle towards Senator Iselin and shoots him in the forehead, killing him instantly. He then shoots his mother in the head, killing her instantly]
-
Raymond Shaw: I've got a job on a newspaper. Research assistant to Mr Holborn Gaines.
Mrs. Iselin: Holborn Gaines? That Communist?
Raymond Shaw: He's not a Communist, Mother. As a matter of fact, he's a Republican.
-
Sen. John Yerkes Iselin: There's just one thing, babe. I'd be a lot happier if we could just settle on the number of Communists I know there are in the Defense Department. 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... like an idiot.
The Manchurian Candidate Quotes
Extended Reading
Director: John Frankenheimer
Language: English,Spanish Release date: October 24, 1962