POPCORN PROVERBS

by Rob Lopresti

With John’s kind permission I have decided to slip into his territory (a Floydian slip? Rimshot…) with a column featuring quotations from fifty of my favorite crime movies. They are arranged in order by the title of the flick. Answers begin next week. Enjoy.

1. –You hear that Gina? Your Mama wants Grandchildren!
     –You’re a crook. Steal her some!

2. Insanity runs in my family… It practically gallops.

3. –I’m not afraid o’ you, Marty.

–Well, ma’am, if I see him, I’ll sure give him the message.

4. –What would you do if some miracle happened and we could walk out of here tomorrow morning and start all over again clean? No record and nobody after us, huh?
     –Well, uh, I guess I’d do it all different. First off, I wouldn’t live in the same state where we pull our jobs. We’d live in another state. We’d stay clean there and then when we’d take a bank, we’d go into the other state.

5. One might propose that I am either insanely brave or quite insane. I’d answer neither. I’d say, insanely loyal. Take your pick. There’s insanity in all the answers.

6. Report back to me when it makes sense.

7. –Are you alone?
     –Isn’t everybody?

8. Six hours he’s riding the subway before anybody notices his corpse doing laps around L.A., people on and off sitting next to him. Nobody notices.

9. –Asian Dawn?
     –I read about them in Time magazine.

10. –I think you’re a very stupid person. You look stupid, you’re in a stupid business, and you’re on a stupid case.
     –I get it. I’m stupid.

11. Oh for Pete’s sake, he’s fleeing the interview! He’s fleeing the interview!

12. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not "Every man for himself." And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.

13. –We have a good life, right?
     –Is that a trick question?

14. One question. Do you want to stick to that story, or do you want to keep your teeth?

15. Thank you, sir. May I have another?

16. I grew up in Dublin. I love Dublin. If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn’t, so it doesn’t.

17. Serpentine, Shelly. Serpentine!

18. I got the motive which is money and the body which is dead.

19. I confess my innocence!

20. –She opens the door, and she got nothing on but the radio. Yeah, invites me to sit down, sits on my lap, fires up a spliff.
     –Geez. Really?
     –No. Idiot.

21. Boy, it’s really lucky for you that I just happen to be a very self–destructive person.

22. –Shotguns? What, like guns that fire shot?
     –Oh, you must be the brains of the operation.

23. –Long story short.
     –I think we’re well past that point.
     –I bet it was that mouth that got you that nose

24. You don’t crucify people! Not on Good Friday!

25. A crippled newsie took ’em away from him. I made him give ’em back.

26. There’s no retirement home for assassins is there? Archery at four. Riflery at five.

27. –Look in your heart! Look in your heart!
     –What heart?

28. –So Jimmy, when was the last time you saw Dave?
     –The last time I saw Dave…
     –Yeah, Dave Boyle.
     –Dave Boyle…
     –Yeah Jimmy, Dave Boyle.
     –That was twenty–five years ago, going up this street, in the back of that car.

29. –Oh dear.
     –Why oh dear?
     –You ARE in love.
     –Is that bad?
     –For a monk, it does present certain problems.

30. You gentlemen aren’t REALLY trying to kill my son, are you?

31. Is this your first time being robbed? You’re doing great.

32. –I can’t get over it. What kinda creep wouldn’t catch a baby? If it was real it coulda been crippled for life.
     –He wasn’t paid to bodyguard the baby.

33. We find the defendants incredibly guilty.

34. –I love you, Pumpkin.
     –I love you, Honey Bunny. All right, everybody be cool, this is a robbery!

35. –He killed a dog last night because the dog was scratching around in the garden. You know why? Because he had something buried in that garden that the dog scented.
     –Like an old hambone?
     –I don’t know what pet names Thorwald had for his wife.

36. –You’re an animal!
     –No, worse! Human. Human!

37. Do I understand this correctly? I’m being marked down? I’ve been kidnapped by K–Mart!

38. I won’t let you be happy, why should I?

39. We begin by coveting what we see every day.

40. I love hitmen. No matter what you do to them, you don’t feel bad.

41. –Remember my nickname in the joint?
     –The Brain?
     –The Brain. That’s what the guys used to call me, right?
     –But, Ray, that was sarcastic!

42. We must never forget that we are human, and as humans we dream, and when we dream we dream of money.

43. Buckle up for safety!

44. What was I supposed to do – call him for cheating better than me?

45. Don’t worry, I’m not going to shoot you, Mr. Haines. It might disturb Mother.

46. Don’t worry. I know how to handle a gub.

47. What’s this? I don’t see many O–Levels there, Earl old chap.

48. I also remember a movie your husband made. He shot 12 guys with a 6-shot revolver. I ain’t gonna argue with that kind of marksmanship.

49. I don’t think Mozart’s going to help at all.

50. –Do you think you were framed, like Dreyfus?
     –Dreyfus was guilty!