A Matter of Life and Death

Conductor 71:
After all, what is time? A mere tyranny.

Conductor 71:
Ah, these English! What is the good of kissing a girl if she does not feel it?

June:
Received your message. We can hear you. Are you wounded? Repeat. Are you wounded? Are you bailing out?

Peter:
What's your name?

June:
June.

Peter:
Yes June, I'm bailing out. I'm bailing out but there's a catch, I've got no parachute.

Doctor Frank Reeves:
Tell me, do you believe in the survival of human personality after death?

Peter:
I thought you said you read my verses.

[to June]

Doctor Frank Reeves:
Do you?

June:
I don't know, er, I'd never thought about it, do you?

Doctor Frank Reeves:
I don't know, I've thought about it too much.

Doctor Frank Reeves:
A weak mind isn't strong enough to hurt itself. Stupidity has saved many a man from going mad.

Abraham Farlan:
Your smile is not unattractive, sir. Did you use it to enamor this young American lady?

Peter:
I love her sir.

Abraham Farlan:
Answer the question.

Peter:
Would you repeat the question? It, erm, had "enamored" in it.

Abraham Farlan:
You claim you love her.

Peter:
I do love her!

Abraham Farlan:
Can you prove it?

Peter:
Well give me time, sir. Fifty years will do.

Abraham Farlan:
But can you prove it?

Peter:
Well, can a starving man prove he's hungry except by eating?

Abraham Farlan:
Would you die for her?

Peter:
I would, but, er, I'd rather live.

Abraham Farlan:
Child, where were you born?

June:
In Boston Sir.

Abraham Farlan:
Do you know this man?

June:
I think so.

Abraham Farlan:
You think so?

June:
I only met him a few days ago.

Abraham Farlan:
You hardly know him. How can you think you love him?

June:
But I do love him.

Abraham Farlan:
Nonsense my child.

Doctor Frank Reeves:
I object. Council will withdraw the expression.

June:
It's all right Frank. he's right. There's no sense in love.

Abraham Farlan:
Wisdom still flowers in Boston.

[first lines]

Narrator:
This is the universe. Big, isn't it?

Peter:
Don't be upset about the parachute, I'll have my wings soon anyway, big white ones. I hope it hasn't gone all modern, I'd hate to have a prop instead of wings!

Peter:
[to dead radio operator] So long, Bob. I'll see you in a minute. You'll know what we wear by now - a prop or wings!

Peter:
Look at her.

Bob:
Holy smoke! She looks like a nice girl.

Doctor Frank Reeves:
She is a nice girl.

Bob:
Hardly your type, Skip.

Peter:
I've fallen in love with her. Her accent is foreign, but it sounds sweet to me. We were born thousands of miles apart, but we were made for each other.

[last lines]

[waking up after operation]

Peter:
Hello.

June:
Hello.

Peter:
We won.

June:
I know darling.

Chief Recorder:
Don't you know that any slip must be reported immediately?

Conductor 71:
I lost my head.

Chief Recorder:
Not long in the service?

Conductor 71:
I joined in the so-called Second Germinal of the so-called glorious French Revolution.

Chief Recorder:
I see. Natural death?

Conductor 71:
I lost my head.

Conductor 71:
One is starved for Technicolor up there.

Peter:
[over radio] Where were you born?

June:
Boston.

Peter:
Mass.?

June:
Yes.

Peter:
That's a place to be born, history was made there. Are you in love with anybody? No, no don't answer that.

June:
I could love a man like you, Peter.

Peter:
I love you, June. You're life and I'm leaving you.

Doctor Frank Reeves:
Ah, there's June. She walks in beauty, like the night... Only she's cycling and it's daytime.

June:
[opening words, before faces shown on screen] Request your position. Come in, Lancaster. Come in, Lancaster.

Peter:
Position - nil, repeat nil. Age - 27, 27, did you get that? Very important. Education - interrupted, violently interrupted. Religion - Church of England. Politics - Conservative by nature, Labour by experience. What's your name?

Doctor Frank Reeves:
[talking to Peter] I've got bad news for you.

June:
Then why the grin?

Doctor Frank Reeves:
You're going with me.

June:
Where to?

Doctor Frank Reeves:
[talking to both June and Peter] To my house, for two reasons, first I want to meet this chap next time he drops in and second I like a nice girl around the house and she only come to see me to borrow a book, and she's a slow reader

Conductor 71:
[speaking with strong French accent] Your time was up. But they missed you because of your ridiculous English climate.

Conductor 71:
You are determined to get me into this... salade.

Peter:
And what about the salad you got me into?

Doctor Frank Reeves:
Sir, may I bring you up to date? We are living in the 20th century, not in the 18th.

Abraham Farlan:
May I bring you up to date, sir? We are not alive at all.

Doctor Frank Reeves:
Milord, I submit that this court is concerned with the life and death of Peter Carter and not with past history or present plumbing.

Abraham Farlan:
An American baby sucks in freedom with the milk of the breast on which he hangs.

Abraham Farlan:
Be careful, doctor Reeves. In the whole Universe, nothing is stronger than The Law.

Doctor Frank Reeves:
Yes, Mr. Farlan, nothing is stronger than The Law in the Universe, but on Earth nothing is stronger than Love.

Doctor Frank Reeves:
This is a court of justice, not of law.

Doctor Frank Reeves:
The rights of the uncommon man must always be respected.

Peter:
"Give me my scallop-shell of quiet, My staff of faith to walk upon, My scrip of joy, immortal diet, My bottle of salvation, My gown of glory, hope's true gage; And thus I'll take my pilgrimage." Sir Walter Raleigh wrote that. I'd rather have written that than flown through Hitler's legs!

Peter:
June, are you pretty?

June:
Not bad.

Peter:
Can you hear me as well as I hear you?

June:
Yes.

Peter:
You've got a good voice. You've got guts too. It's funny - I've known dozens of girls: I've been in love with some of them, but an American girl whom I've never seen and who I never shall see will hear my last words. That's funny. It's rather sweet.

Peter:
June, if you're around when they pick me up, turn your head away?

The Judge:
Members of the jury, as Sir Walter Scott is always saying... In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed; In war, he mounts the warrior's steed; In halls, in gay attire is seen; In hamlets, dances on the green. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, and men below, and saints above; For Love is heaven, and heaven is Love. Will you please consider your verdict.

Conductor 71:
[On the Stairway to Heaven, passing by various statues representing important figures in history, points to a statue of Abraham Lincoln] What about him?

Peter:
Lincoln? No, it's hardly fair to drag him in. I don't believe *he'd* be prejudiced.

Conductor 71:
Plato. How would you like to be defended by Plato? Nobody knew more about reasoning than Plato.

Peter:
He was eighty-one when he died, he might be too old to think love important.

Conductor 71:
You think so? Anyhow, Plato had very elementary ideas about love.

Peter:
Besides, didn't he quote Sophocles when somebody asked him if he was still able to appreciate a woman?

Conductor 71:
What did the old boy say?

Peter:
Well, he said, uh, "I'm only too glad to be rid of all that. It's like escaping from bondage to a raving madman."

Conductor 71:
[scoffs] These Greeks, cold as their marble. Now, if he had been French... Richelieu, for example, irresistible at eighty. How *about* Richelieu?

Peter:
No, I never liked him much in "The Three Musketeers".