'Pimpernel' Smith (1941)

Leslie Howard: Professor Horatio Smith

Photos 

Quotes 

• General von Graum : But we have one problem. "To be or not to be?" as our great German poet said.

  Professor Horatio Smith : German? But that's Shakespeare.

  Professor Horatio Smith : But you don't know?

  Professor Horatio Smith : Why, I know it's Shakespeare. I thought Shakespeare was English.

  General von Graum : No, no, no. Shakespeare is a German. Professor Schuessbacher has proved it once and for all.

  Professor Horatio Smith : Oh dear, how very upsetting. Still, you must admit that the English translations are most remarkable.

  General von Graum : Good night.

  Professor Horatio Smith : Good night. Good night. "Parting is such sweet sorrow."

  General von Graum : What is that?

  Professor Horatio Smith : One of the most famous lines in German literature.

• [Smith now caught by the Gestapo] 

  Professor Horatio Smith : This must be a big moment for you.

  General von Graum : A minor satisfaction. I wanted to get you out of my system before I turn my mind to more important matters. You've become a great nuisance to me, professor - almost an obsession - but everything comes to an end.

  Professor Horatio Smith : What particular end did you plan for me?

  General von Graum : Need we go into details? At least it will be quick.

  Professor Horatio Smith : But violent, I suppose - a strange end for one who despises violence - at the hands of those who worship it. The new German God...

  General von Graum : Of course we worship it. Violence means power, and power crushes opposition. The epoch of the council chamber is over, Herr Professor. I tell you that power and strength and violence will rule the world!

  Professor Horatio Smith : Why are you sweating, my dear general? It isn't very warm. Are you afraid of something?

  General von Graum : Afraid? We Germans fear nothing

  Professor Horatio Smith : Ah. Because you have a pistol?

  General von Graum : Yes, I have a pistol. It has eight bullets. Eight lives.

  Professor Horatio Smith : And I have twenty-eight lives.

  General von Graum : Huh?

  Professor Horatio Smith : Scientists, men of letters, artists, doctors... Twenty-eight saved from your pagan pistol, and all you've got is my humble self. Not a very profitable transaction.

  General von Graum : Mm. We can afford to make a loss, our profits will be tremendous. Tonight we march against Poland, and tomorrow we'll see the dawn of a new order. We shall make a German empire of the world. Why do I talk to you? You are a dead man.

  Professor Horatio Smith : May a dead man say a few words to you, General, for your enlightenment? You will never rule the world... because you are doomed. All of you who have demoralized and corrupted a nation are doomed. Tonight you will take the first step along a dark road from which there is no turning back. You will have to go on and on, from one madness to another, leaving behind you a wilderness of misery and hatred. And still, you will have to go on... because you will find no horizon... and see no dawn... until at last you are lost and destroyed. You are doomed, Captain of Murderers, and one day, sooner or later, you will remember my words.

  [Train whistles] 

• Professor Horatio Smith : [having just dodged the Nazis again]  Well, I'm almost ashamed to use that old trick, but it nearly always works.

• [last lines] 

  General von Graum : [yelling into the darkness across the border to Smith, who is nowhere to be seen in his escape]  Come back!

  Professor Horatio Smith : [calmly, he not seen in the darkness]  Don't worry. I shall be back.

  Professor Horatio Smith : [calmly, sounding unharmed, as von Graum shoots indiscriminately into the darkness]  We shall *all* be back.

• Jordan : You're late.

  Professor Horatio Smith : Late for what?

  Jordan : Your lecture, sir.

  Professor Horatio Smith : Oh, don't be ridiculous. My lecture isn't till Friday.

  Jordan : But today IS Friday, sir.

  Professor Horatio Smith : Good heavens. How extraordinary. W-w-what happened to Thursday?

  Jordan : We had it yesterday, sir.

  Professor Horatio Smith : Did we?

• David Maxwell : Say, Prof, we've dug up half Germany. What do we do now?

  Professor Horatio Smith : Dig up the other... half.

• Betty (Girl Student) : Do you object to our presence here, professor?

  Professor Horatio Smith : Oh, I don't object. I can only deplore it.

  [the three female students walk out of class] 

• Professor Horatio Smith : [to his student accomplices]  ' In case there's no opportunity to do so later, I want to tell you now that your conduct throughout, in spite of occasional fits of lunacy, has been most exemplary.

• Professor Horatio Smith : I'm so glad to find you're not busy, because I've been doing a little research work...

  General von Graum : That's just what I wanted to do.

  Professor Horatio Smith : ...On the identity of Shakespeare.

  General von Graum : I'd like to know how you spent this afternoon.

  Professor Horatio Smith : What's the matter with you? You seem upset. I spent the afternoon in the library at the embassy. Now this, this proves conclusively that Shakespeare wasn't really Shakespeare at all.

  General von Graum : No?

  Professor Horatio Smith : No. He was the Earl of Oxford. Now you can't pretend that the Earl of Oxford was a German, can you?

  Professor Horatio Smith : [Speaking to Steinhof]  Now, can you?

  Steinhof : No! No!

  Professor Horatio Smith : Well, there you are.

  Steinhof : Herr General, how much longer am I to stand here? Have you anything to say to me?

  General von Graum : Please, we have a visitor. I think you have met Professor Smith.

  Steinhof : No. Good day. Goodbye.

  General von Graum : But you HAVE met Herr Boldenschatz.

  Steinhof : Boldenschatz! Do you know Boldenschatz?

  Professor Horatio Smith : No. Should I?

  Steinhof : Bah! Anyway, I didn't come here to discuss Shakespeare. If you want me, you know where I am.

  Professor Horatio Smith : The Earl of Oxford was a very bright Elizabethan light, but this book will tell you he was a good deal more than that.

• Professor Horatio Smith : A dead man. Would you like to see him? There we are. Buried with all his weapons, you see, presumably, in the belief that there might be a rearmament program in the hereafter, eh, Mr. Spencer? An ancient Teuton. "Alas poor Yorick, get thee to my lady's chamber, my dear general. Tell her that, though she paint an inch thick, to this favour must she come; make her laugh at that." The Earl of Oxford wrote that, you know.

• Professor Horatio Smith : No, I hate violence. It seems such a paradox to kill a man before you can persuade him what's right. So uncivilized.

• Professor Horatio Smith : [under the guise of being Herr Boldenschatz]  You know, the trouble with you propaganda boys, you've got so used to telling lies you don't recognize the truth when you hear it.

• Professor Horatio Smith : [under the guise of being Herr Boldenschatz]  And the truth is, the American people only pretend to be democratic. At heart, they are one hundred percent national socialists.

• Professor Horatio Smith : Jordan! Jordan!

  Jordan : Yes, sir.

  Professor Horatio Smith : Jordan, you're nothing better than a vandal - a Goth. A spiritual descendant of the Huns, whose primary object was the desecration of beauty.

  Jordan : I wouldn't know what you mean, sir - not without a dictionary.

• Professor Horatio Smith : Yours is the unique privilege of looking after the fairest goddess of them all. The one sublime woman. And how do you treat her? Look, man - look!

  [he points to a spot of dust on the statue] 

  Jordan : Sorry, sir. As a matter of fact, I'm very fond of Aphrodite. Very fond. But there's so many of 'em.

  Professor Horatio Smith : So many of 'em?

  Jordan : Well, in a manner of speaking, there are, aren't there, sir?

  Professor Horatio Smith : There's only one woman like this. Look at the symmetry! Look at the grace! Look at... look at the dust, Jordan.

• School-Teacher : Look, girls, there's Juno.

  Professor Horatio Smith : No, madam. Not Juno - Aphrodite Kallipygos.

  School-Teacher : Are you sure?

  Professor Horatio Smith : Well, I ought to know. I discovered her.

  School-Teacher : Really? Uh, she's just come out of her bath. And you see that towel she's having in her hand.

  Professor Horatio Smith : That is not a towel, madam. It is a chiton, a form of drapery.

  School-Teacher : It looks like a towel.

  Professor Horatio Smith : Very good. It's a towel to you, it's a chiton to me.

  School-Teacher : She's the goddess of tem...

  Professor Horatio Smith : No, no, no. The goddess of love.

  School-Teacher : Titch!

  Professor Horatio Smith : Of blissful, wedded love.

  School-Teacher : She's a respectable goddess, girls.

  Professor Horatio Smith : She's practically perfect, as you can see. And in the languishing eye and smiling lips there is a boundless compassion for the folly and ignorance of a blind world.

  School-Teacher : Very jolly. Yes, very jolly. Come away, girls.

• Professor Horatio Smith : We're at the German-Swiss border, gentlemen. And the barbed wire is to prevent the oppressed Swiss from escaping into free Germany.

• Lady Willoughby : Not "the" Professor Smith? Why only the other day, someone said I was the image of your Aphrodite. What do you think?

  Professor Horatio Smith : It's rather hard to judge. You see, I only know my Aphrodite in the nude.

  Embassy Official - Sir George Smith : Honestly, I don't know whether these details of your personal life...

  Professor Horatio Smith : Yes. Well, to the pure, all things are pure.

• Professor Horatio Smith : Oh, yes, of course. I'd forgotten you've gone back to the ax of the Middle Ages.

  General von Graum : But we wear modern dress. White gloves. White tux.

  Professor Horatio Smith : White waistcoat. The dress of an English gentleman at a dinner, a French gentleman at a wedding, and a German gentleman...

  General von Graum : Yes, Herr professor?

  Professor Horatio Smith : ...at a murder.

  General von Graum : Huh, huh. That's good, Herr professor. I must remember that.

• General von Graum : [Appearing at Horatio Smith's archaeological digs]  You must excuse my coming unannounced, but you did invite me. I brought some of my boys .

  Professor Horatio Smith : [as several Nazi officers march in]  Delighted. Well, what a large family.