screenplays-by-orson-welles

"Joseph Cotten — Howard Graham"

"Stefan Schnabel — Purser"

"Orson Welles — Colonel Haki"

"Agnes Moorehead — Mrs. Mathews"

"Ruth Warrick — Stephanie Graham"

"Jack Moss — Banat"

"War is stupid. It is all very bad for business."

"We know a week ago Mueller got in touch with Banat. Tonight we learn Banat is here. It was he who shot at you at the cabaret, a waiter identified him, I am dumbfounded. But then I am dumbfounded every 25 minutes."

"Mr. Graham, there are men who are natural killers. Banat is one of them."

"Jack Durant — Gogo Martel"

"It is the women I think who should fight these wars. They're more ferocious as patriots than the men."

"Dolores del Río — Josette Martel"

"Everett Sloane — Kopeikin"

"Edgar Barrier — Kuvetli"

"Robert Meltzer — Steward"

"She is very pretty, no? But she has no sense. She is a woman and women do not understand business."

"Ah, you have this advantage over the soldier, Mr. Graham. You can run away without being a coward."

"Nonsense to say that Americans are not polite. They are so clever in business and yet so generous and sincere."

"Richard Bennett — Ship's Captain"

"Hans Conreid — Oo Lang Sang, the magician"

"Frank Readick — Matthews"

"Eustace Wyatt — Professor Haller/Muller"

"People are not compelled by law to play cards with me. Why do they squeal like stuck pigs when they lose?"

"War is the last refuge of the capitalist."

"Welles and Del Rio together! as Terror Man vs. Leopard Woman—for possession of a mysterious stranger in the powder-keg Middle East...a man with a military secret worth more than his love and his life!...It's menace melodrama thrilled with mighty mystery and suspense...SEE IT!"

"James Westerfield - Policeman at Accident"

"Erskine Sanford - Roger Bronson"

"Orson Welles - Narrator"

"Agnes Moorehead - Fanny"

"Orson Welles' Mercury Production of Booth Tarkington's Great Novel"

"Dolores Costello - Isabel"

"Ray Collins - Jack"

"Most girls are usually pretty fresh. They ought to go to a man's college for about a year. They'd get taught a few things about freshness. Look here, who sent you those flowers you keep making such a fuss over?"

"[to George] Ah, life and money both behave like loose quicksilver in a nest of cracks. When they're gone, you can't tell where, or what the devil you did with them... I've always been fond of you, Georgie. I can't say I've always liked ya. But we all spoiled you terribly when you were a boy... There have been times when I thought you ought to be hanged. And just for a last word, there may be somebody else in this town who's always felt about you like that. Fond of you, I mean, no matter how much it seems you ought to be hanged."

"Fanny, I wish you could have seen Georgie's face when he saw Lucy. You know what he said to me when we went into that room? He said, "You must have known my mother wanted you to come here today, so that I could ask you to forgive me." We shook hands. I never noticed before how much like Isabel Georgie looks. You know something, Fanny? I wouldn't tell this to anybody but you. But it seemed to me as if someone else was in that room. And that through me, she brought her boy unto shelter again. And that I'd been true at last, to my true love."

"You can't ever tell what will happen at all, can you? Once I stood where we're standing now to say goodbye to a pretty girl. Only, it was in the old station, before this was built. We called it the depot. We knew we wouldn't see each other again for almost a year. I thought I couldn't live through it. She stood there crying. Don't even know where she lives now. If she is living."

"Nobody has a good name in a bad mouth! Nobody has a good name in a silly mouth, either."

"Anybody that really is anybody ought to be able to do about as they like in their own town, I should think."

"Real life screened more daringly than it's ever been before!"

"Joseph Cotten - Eugene"

"Anne Baxter - Lucy"

"Tim Holt - George"

"George Amberson-Minafer walked home through the strange streets of what seemed to be a strange city. For the town was growing... changing... it was heaving up in the middle, incredibly; it was spreading incredibly. And as it heaved and spread, it befouled itself and darkened its skies. This was the last walk home he was ever to take up National Avenue, to Amberson Edition, and the big old house at the foot of Amberson Boulevard. Tommorow they were to move out. Tomorrow everything would be gone."

"Richard Bennett - Maj. Amberson"

"Don Dillaway - Wilbur Minafer"

"Gus Schilling - Drug Clerk"

"Something had happened, a thing which years ago had been the eagerest hope of many, many good citizens of the town. And now it came at last: George Amberson Minafer had got his comeuppance. He'd got it three times filled and running over. But those who had longed for it were not there to see it. And they never knew it, those who were still living had forgotten all about it, and all about him."

"I know what your son is to you and it frightens me. Let me explain a little. I don't think he'll change. At twenty-one or twenty-two, so many things appear solid and permanent and terrible. Which forty sees are nothing but disappearing miasma. Forty can't tell twenty about this. Twenty can find out only by getting to be forty."

"In those days, they had time for everything. Time for sleigh rides, and balls, and assemblies, and cotillions, and open house on New Year's, and all-day picnics in the woods, and even that prettiest of all vanished customs: the serenade. Of a summer night, young men would bring an orchestra under a pretty girl's window, and flute, harp, fiddle, cello, cornet, bass viol, would presently release their melodies to the dulcet stars. Against so home-spun a background, the magnificence of the Ambersons was as conspicuous as a brass band at a funeral."

"The magnificence of the Ambersons began in 1873. Their splendor lasted throughout all the years that saw their Midland town spread and darken into a city. In that town in those days, all the women who wore silk or velvet knew all the other women who wore silk or velvet and everybody knew everybody else's family horse and carriage. The only public conveyance was the streetcar. A lady could whistle to it from an upstairs window, and the car would halt at once, and wait for her, while she shut the window, put on her hat and coat, went downstairs, found an umbrella, told the "girl" what to have for dinner and came forth from the house. Too slow for us nowadays, because the faster we're carried, the less time we have to spare."