religious literature

Plainview: Ladies and gentlemen... I've traveled over half our state to be here tonight. I couldn't get away sooner because my new well was coming in at Coyote Hills and I had to see about it. That well is now flowing at two thousand barrels and it's paying me an income of five thousand dollars a week. I have two others drilling and I have sixteen producing at Antelope; so, ladies and gentlemen, if I say I'm an oil man, you will agree. Now, you have a great chance here, but bear in mind, you can lose it all if you're not careful. Out of all men that beg for a chance to drill your lots, maybe one in twenty will be oilmen; the rest will be speculators - that's men trying to get between you and the oilmen - to get some of the money that ought by rights come to you. Even if you find one that has money and means to drill, he'll maybe know nothing about drilling and he'll have to hire the job out on contract, and then you're depending on a contractor who'll rush the job through so he can get another contract just as quick as he can. This is... the way that this works.

Man: Well, what is your offer? W-w-we're wasting time.

[crowd responds: "Yes." "Please."]

Plainview: I do my own drilling, and the men that work for me work for me. and they're men I know. I make it my business to be there and to see their work. I don't lose my tools in the hole and spend months fishing for them; I don't botch the cementing off and let water in the hole and ruin the whole lease. I'm a family man. I run a family business. This is my son and my partner, H.W. Plainview.

[indicates H.W]

Plainview: We offer you the bond of family that very few oilmen can understand. I'm fixed like no other company in this field and that's because my Coyote Hills well has just come in. I have a string of tools all ready to put to work. I can load a rig onto trucks and have them here in a week. I have business connections so I can get the lumber for the derrick - such things go by friendship in a rush like this - and this is why I can guarantee to start drilling and to put up the cash to back my word. I assure you, ladies and gentlemen, no matter what the others promise to do, when it comes to the showdown, they won't be there.

Eli Sunday: Why are you talking about Paul?

Plainview: I did what your brother couldn't.

Eli Sunday: Don't say this to me.

Plainview: I broke you and I beat you. It was Paul who told me about you. He's the prophet. He's the smart one. He knew what was there and he found me to take it out of the ground, and you know what the funny thing is? Listen... listen... listen... I paid him ten thousand dollars, cash in hand, just like that. He has his own company now. A prosperous little business. Three wells producing. Five thousand dollars a week.

[Eli cries]

Plainview: Stop crying, you sniveling ass! Stop your nonsense. You're just the afterbirth, Eli.

Eli Sunday: No...

Plainview: You slithered out of your mother's filth.

Eli Sunday: No.

Plainview: They should have put you in a glass jar on a mantlepiece. Where were you when Paul was suckling at his mother's teat? Where were you? Who was nursing you, poor Eli? One of Bandy's sows? That land has been had. Nothing you can do about it. It's gone. It's had.

Eli Sunday: If you would just take...

Plainview: You lose.

Eli Sunday: ...this lease, Daniel...

Plainview: Drainage! Drainage, Eli, you boy. Drained dry. I'm so sorry. Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There it is, that's a straw, you see? Watch it. Now, my straw reaches acroooooooss the room and starts to drink your milkshake. I... drink... your... milkshake!

[sucking sound]

Plainview: I drink it up!

Eli Sunday: Don't bully me, Daniel!

[Daniel roars and throws Eli across the room]

Plainview: Did you think your song and dance and your superstition would help you, Eli? I am the Third Revelation! I am who the Lord has chosen!