Mr. Reed, you would like to have tea in my apartment?
Oliver Oh, ho, Miss Dubrovna, you make life so simple.
Played by Kent Smith 
Cat People (1942) · 18 quotes
Cat People (1942) · 18 quotes
2nd most-quoted character in Cat People (1942): in 11 of its 18 quotes
Most scenes with: Irena Dubrovna (9), Alice (2)
Scenes with Oliver
11 scenes Oliver That's the lions in the zoo. One can hear them here often. Many people in this building complain. The roaring keeps them awake.
Oliver And you don't mind it?
No. To me, it's the way the sound of the sea is to others - natural and soothing. I like it. Some nights, there is another sound, the panther. It screams like a woman. I don't like that. Oh, I hadn't realized how dark it was getting. [She turns on a lamp] I like the dark. It's friendly.
Oliver [about a statue]
Who's it supposed to be?
King John.
Oliver Oh - King John, the Magna Carta and all that stuff.
No, King John of Serbia. He was a fine king. He drove the Marmalukes out of Serbia and freed the people.
Oliver Well, why have this around?
Well, perhaps you have in your room a picture of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln.
Oliver Well, what does it mean?...Why is he spearing that cat?
Oh, it's not really a cat. It's meant to represent the evil ways into which my village had once fallen. You see, the Marmalukes came to Serbia long ago, and they made the people slaves. Well, at first, the people were good and worshiped God in a true Christian way. But little by little, the people changed. When King John drove out the Marmalukes and came to our village, he found dreadful things. People bowed down to Satan and said their masses to him. They had become witches and were evil, but King John put some of them to the sword and some, the wisest and the most wicked, escaped into the mountains...Those who escaped, the wicked ones, their legend haunts the village where I was born.
I was watching you.
Oliver That was fun?
Mmm-hmm.
Oliver Do you love me, Irena? [She nods] You know I love you, don't you? I've never kissed you. Do you know, that's funny.
Why?
Oliver When people in America are in love, or even think they're in love, they've usually kissed long ago. Well? [She bites her lip] Irena, what's wrong?
I've lived in dread of this moment. I've never wanted to love you. I've stayed away from people. I lived alone. I didn't want this to happen.
Oliver But you just told me you loved me.
I do. I do! I've fled from the past. Some things you could never know, or understand, evil things, evil.
Oliver Now, you've told me something of the past, about King John and the witches in the village and the Cat People who descended from them. They're fairy-tales, Irena, fairy tales heard in your childhood, nothing more than that. They have nothing to do with you, really. You're Irena, you're here in America. You're so normal you're even in love with me, Oliver Reed, a good plain Americano. You're so normal you're gonna marry me, and those fairy-tales, you can tell 'em to our children. They'll love 'em.
Oliver What is it, darling?
I'm going to beg...
Oliver Mrs. Reed.
It's nice to hear that. Nice. I want to be Mrs. Reed.
Oliver You are.
But I want to be Mrs. Reed, really. I want to be everything that name means to me. And I can't. I can't. Oliver, be kind, be patient. Let me have time. Time to get over that feeling there's something evil in me.
Oliver Darling, you have all the time there is in the world if you want it. And all the patience and kindness there is in me.
Only a little time, Oliver, I don't want more than that.
Oliver Irena, I've been trying to kid you out of it. Maybe that's wrong...I've tried to make you realize all these stories that worry you are so much nonsense, but now I see it's not the stories. It's the fact that you believe them. We've got to have help, Irena. ([She glances at the statue of the knight impaling the cat] Not that sort of help, there's something wrong and we have to face it in an intelligent way. We don't need a King John with fire and sword, we need someone who can find the reason for your belief and cure it. That's what we need - a psychiatrist.
Find one for me, Oliver, the best one, the very best one.
How can you discuss such things, such intimate things about me? How much did you tell her?
Oliver Oh, you can tell Alice anything, she's such a good egg - she can understand anything.
There are some things a woman doesn't want other women to understand.
Oliver, we should never quarrel, never let me feel jealousy or anger. Whatever is in me is held in, is kept harmless, when I'm happy.
Oliver I'll turn handsprings, darling. I'll dance in the streets to make you happy.
Oliver You know, it's a funny thing, I've never been unhappy before. Things have always gone swell for me. I had a grand time as a kid, lots of fun at school, here at the office with you and the Commodore and Doc. That's why I don't know what to do about all this, I've just never been unhappy...
Alice): I can't help it. I just can't help it. I can't bear to see you unhappy. I love you too darn much, and I don't care if you do know it, Ollie. I love you. I'm sorry, forget it. There's Irena - you're in love with her.
Oliver I don't know. All this trouble has made me think, I don't know what love really is. I don't know even whether I'm in love with Irena.
I know what love is. It's understanding. It's you and me and let the rest of the world go by. It's just the two of us living our lives together, happily and proudly. No self-torture and no doubt. It's enduring and it's everlasting. Nothing can change it. Nothing can change us, Ollie. That's what I think love is.
Oliver Well, that's not the way I feel about Irena. It's a different feeling. I'm drawn to her. There's a warmth from her that pulls at me. I have to watch her when she's in the room. I have to touch her when she's near. But I don't really know her. In many ways, we're strangers.
You and I - [she grasps his hand] - we'll never be strangers.
Oliver [Alice shivers]
You cold?
A cat just walked over my grave.
I went back to Dr. Judd's office. I'm no longer afraid.
Oliver Believe me, Irena, I'd have been the happiest man in the world if you'd told me that a little while ago, but things have changed. I had to learn, maybe through this marriage of ours. I didn't want to tell you this, but now you see I have to. I love Alice. Irena, it's too late.
Too late.
Oliver There seems only one decent thing for me to do. I'll give you a divorce. Believe me, it's better this way.
Better? Better for whom?...There's nothing you can say. There's only silence. But I love silence, I love loneliness.
Oliver Irena, you talk like an insane woman.
