Bitter Victory (1957)

Richard Burton: Captain Leith

Quotes 

• Capt. Leith : [surveying the ruins of a Berber city in the desert]  Tenth century, I'd say. Too modern for me.

• Capt. Leith : [on mercy-shooting one badly wounded soldier, and trying to save another who dies]  I killed the living, and I saved the dead.

• Capt. Leith : You're afraid to go in and kill with your bare hands. That's what makes a soldier and destroys you as a man.

• Major Brand : War is not murder.

  Capt. Leith : [chuckling condescendingly]  Brand, you're wonderful! You have the Christian decency that forbids killing a dying man but ignores the work of a sharpshooter.

  Major Brand : [defensively]  Well, war is killing.

  Capt. Leith : [laughing]  Better and better. So, the fine line between war and murder is distance... Anybody can kill at a distance with the same sort of courage that a man shoots rabbits, but when it cokes to the dirty work. you have to call on a civilian.

  Major Brand : What is it that you're trying to say?

  Capt. Leith : That I despise you for the professional coward that you are!

• Major Brand : What about the war?

  Capt. Leith : That's something you have to survive like... uh, like love.

• Capt. Leith : [to Brand]  If you don't have the courage to kill me, don't try to save me.

• Major Brand : Are you trying to goad me into killing you?

  Capt. Leith : Perhaps...

  Major Brand : Why?

  Capt. Leith : Perhaps because... i haven't the courage to do it myself.

• Jane Brand : What if he doesn't come back?

  Capt. Leith : Then he and I and you become part of history, of its futility.

  Jane Brand : Don't talk to me in riddles, Jimmy.

  Capt. Leith : It's a long time since I was in Libya. The Romans built wonderful cities in Libya: dead bones sticking out of the sand. War rolled over them. It'll be good to see them again.

  Jane Brand : You always seemed to prefer stones to people.

  Capt. Leith : I've learned things from stones.

  Jane Brand : What?

  Capt. Leith : All that people have forgotten in the centuries.

  Jane Brand : I seem to remember I was less than a stone to you. I loved you, Jimmy.

  Capt. Leith : We'd better go in. There isn't much time.

  Jane Brand : What can I say to him?

  Capt. Leith : Tell him all the things that women have said to the men before they go to the wars. Tell him he's a hero. Tell him he's a good man. Tell him you'll be waiting for him when he comes back. Tell him he'll be making history.

• Major Brand : [walking into a room where Leith is adjusting the fan]  Hello, Leith.

  Capt. Leith : [contemptuously after adjusting the fans downward]  I thought that fan should. uh, cool the colonel's head and not the flies on the ceiling.

• Major Brand : Are you insinuating that I was afraid? I wasn't.

  Capt. Leith : Stout fellow. I was.