Most scenes together: Brandon Shaw & Phillip Morgan (4), Brandon Shaw & Rupert Cadell (2), Brandon Shaw & Janet Walker (2)
Who is this Rupert?
Kenneth Lawrence He used to tell you the weirdest things, didn't he?
I suppose Kenneth means Rupert's impatience with social conventions. For example, he thinks murder is a crime for most men but--
a privilege for the few.
Why?
Determined to get drunk, aren't you?
I am drunk.
And just as childish now as you were earlier when you called me a liar.
You had no business telling that story.
Why did you lie anyway?
I had to! Have you ever bothered for one minute to consider how another person might feel. Have you considered the feelings for others?
I'm not sentimental if that's what...
No, that's not what I mean; but it doesn't matter. Nothing matters... except that Mr. Brandon liked the party. Mr. Brandon gave the party. Mr. Brandon had a delightful evening. Well, I had a rotten evening!
Keep drinking, and you'll have a worse morning.
At least if I have a hangover, it will be all mine!
I've always thought that it was out of character for David to drink anything as corrupt as Whiskey.
Out of character for him to be murdered, too.
What are you doing?
It's not what I'm going to do, Brandon. It's what society is going to do. I don't know what that will be, but I can guess, and I can help. You're going to die, Brandon. Both of you. You are going to die.
Well, now, you don't really approve of murder, Rupert? If I may?
You may... and I do. Think of the problems it would solve: unemployment, poverty, standing in line for theatre tickets...
Kenneth Lawrence We're drinking champagne? Is it somebody's birthday?
You might say it's quite the opposite.
Mrs. Atwater Do you know when I was a girl I used to read quite a bit.
We all do strange things in our childhood.
Rupert only publishes books *he* likes... usually philosophy.
Oh. Small print, big words, no sales.
Rupert's extremely radical. Do you know that he selects his books on the assumption that people not only can read but actually can think?
Brandon has told me a lot about you.
Did he do me justice?
Do you deserve justice?
Brandon, till this very moment, this world and the people in it have always been dark and incomprehensible to me. I’ve tried to clear my way with logic and superior intellect. And you’ve thrown my own words right back in my face, Brandon. You were right, too. If nothing else, a man should stand by his words. But you’ve given my words a meaning that I never dreamed of! And you’ve tried to twist them into a cold, logical excuse for your ugly murder! Well, they never were that Brandon, and you can't make them that. There must have been something deep inside you from the very start that let you do this thing, but there’s always been something deep inside me, that would never let me do it – and would never let me be a party to it now.
By what right do you dare to say that there's a superior few to which you belong? By what right did you decide that that boy in there was inferior and could be killed? Did you think you were God, Brandon? Is that what you thought when you choked the life out of him? Is that what you thought when you served food from his grave?! I don't know who you are but I know what you've done. You've murdered! You choked the life out of a fellow human being who could live and love as you never could, and never will again!
Good and evil, right and wrong were invented for the ordinary average man, the inferior man, because he needs them.
I never strangled a chicken in my life!
I've always wished for more artistic talent. Well, murder can be art, too.
