Bitter Victory (1957)
Richard Burton: Captain Leith
Quotes
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Capt. Leith : [surveying the ruins of a Berber city in the desert] Tenth century, I'd say. Too modern for me.
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Capt. Leith : [on mercy-shooting one badly wounded soldier, and trying to save another who dies] I killed the living, and I saved the dead.
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Capt. Leith : You're afraid to go in and kill with your bare hands. That's what makes a soldier and destroys you as a man.
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Major Brand : War is not murder.
Capt. Leith : [chuckling condescendingly] Brand, you're wonderful! You have the Christian decency that forbids killing a dying man but ignores the work of a sharpshooter.
Major Brand : [defensively] Well, war is killing.
Capt. Leith : [laughing] Better and better. So, the fine line between war and murder is distance... Anybody can kill at a distance with the same sort of courage that a man shoots rabbits, but when it cokes to the dirty work. you have to call on a civilian.
Major Brand : What is it that you're trying to say?
Capt. Leith : That I despise you for the professional coward that you are!
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Major Brand : What about the war?
Capt. Leith : That's something you have to survive like... uh, like love.
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Capt. Leith : [to Brand] If you don't have the courage to kill me, don't try to save me.
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Major Brand : Are you trying to goad me into killing you?
Capt. Leith : Perhaps...
Major Brand : Why?
Capt. Leith : Perhaps because... i haven't the courage to do it myself.
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Jane Brand : What if he doesn't come back?
Capt. Leith : Then he and I and you become part of history, of its futility.
Jane Brand : Don't talk to me in riddles, Jimmy.
Capt. Leith : It's a long time since I was in Libya. The Romans built wonderful cities in Libya: dead bones sticking out of the sand. War rolled over them. It'll be good to see them again.
Jane Brand : You always seemed to prefer stones to people.
Capt. Leith : I've learned things from stones.
Jane Brand : What?
Capt. Leith : All that people have forgotten in the centuries.
Jane Brand : I seem to remember I was less than a stone to you. I loved you, Jimmy.
Capt. Leith : We'd better go in. There isn't much time.
Jane Brand : What can I say to him?
Capt. Leith : Tell him all the things that women have said to the men before they go to the wars. Tell him he's a hero. Tell him he's a good man. Tell him you'll be waiting for him when he comes back. Tell him he'll be making history.
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Major Brand : [walking into a room where Leith is adjusting the fan] Hello, Leith.
Capt. Leith : [contemptuously after adjusting the fans downward] I thought that fan should. uh, cool the colonel's head and not the flies on the ceiling.
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Major Brand : Are you insinuating that I was afraid? I wasn't.
Capt. Leith : Stout fellow. I was.