The Petrified Forest (1936)

Leslie Howard: Alan Squier

Photos 

Quotes 

• Alan Squier : The trouble with me, Gabrielle, is I, I belong to a vanishing race. I'm one of the intellectuals.

  Gabrielle Maple : That, that means you've got brains!

  Alan Squier : Hmmm. Yes. Brains without purpose. Noise without sound, shape without substance.

• Gramp Maple : But let me tell you one thing, Mr. Squier. The woman don't live or ever did live that's worth five thousand dollars!

  Alan Squier : Well, let me tell you something. You're a forgetful old fool. Any woman's worth everything that any man has to give: anguish, ecstasy, faith, jealousy, love, hatred, life, or death. Don't you see that's the whole excuse for our existence? It's what makes the whole thing possible and tolerable.

• [talking about signing his $5,000.00 life insurance policy over to Gabby] 

  Mrs. Chisholm : You're in love with her, aren't you?

  Alan Squier : Yes, I suppose I am. And not unreasonably. She has heroic stuff in her. She may be one of the immortal women of France. Another Joan of Arc, George Sand, Madame Curie, or du Barry. I want to show her that I believe in her, and how else can I do it? Living, I'm worth nothing to her. Dead, I can buy her the tallest cathedrals, golden vineyards, and dancing in the streets. One well-directed bullet will accomplish all that, and it'll earn a measure of reflected glory for him that fired it and him that stopped it. This document will be my ticket to immortality. It'll inspire people to say of me, "There was an artist who died before his time." Will you do it, Duke?

  Duke Mantee : I'll be glad to.

• Alan Squier : Tell us, Duke, what kind of a life have you had?

  Duke Mantee : What do you think? I spent most of my time since I grew up in jail. And it looks like I'll spend the rest of my life dead.

• Alan Squier : You've got to die. Then die for freedom. That's worth it. Don't give up your life for anything so cheap as revenge.

• Alan Squier : l've never kidded anybody, outside of myself.

• Gabrielle Maple : Petrified forest is a lot of dead trees in the desert that have turned to stone. Here's a good specimen.

  Alan Squier : So that was once a tree? Hmmm. Petrified forest, eh? Suitable haven for me. Well, perhaps that's what I'm destined to become, an interesting fossil for future study.

• Duke Mantee : Maybe you're right, pal.

  Alan Squier : Oh, I'm eternally right. But what good does it do me?

• Alan Squier : Let there be killing. All this evening I've had a feeling of destiny closing in.

• Alan Squier : You better come with me, Duke. I'm planning to buried in the Petrified Forest. I've formed a theory about that that would interest you. It's the graveyard of the civilization that's shot from under us. The world of outmoded ideas. They're all so many dead stumps in the desert. That's where I belong. And so do you, Duke. For you're the last great apostle of rugged individualism.

  Duke Mantee : Maybe you're right, pal.

  Alan Squier : Oh, I'm eternally right. But what good does it do me?

  Duke Mantee : I couldn't say.

• Alan Squier : 'The Hollow Men'... refers to the intellectuals who thought they'd conquered nature. They damned it up and used its waters to irrigate the wastelands. They built streamlined monstrosities to penetrate its resistance. They wrapped it up in cellophane and sold it in drugstores. They were so certain they had it subdued. And, now- ? Do you realize what it is that's causing world chaos? Well, I'm probably the only living man who can tell you. It's nature hitting back. She's fighting with new instruments called neuroses. She's deliberately afflicting mankind with the jitters. Nature's proving that she can't be beaten, not by the likes of us. She's taking the world away from the intellectuals and giving it back to the apes.

• Duke Mantee : Jackie, turn on that radio in back of ya'.

  [Jackie turns on the radio] 

  Gramp Maple : What'd I tell ya'? Look at that chin. He's a killer, all right. We're lucky we got ringside seats.

  Boze Hertzlinger : [contemptuously]  He's a gangster and a rat.

  Gramp Maple : He ain't no gangster! He's a real old-time desperado. Gangsters is foreigners, and he's an American. Wait 'til the sheriff finds out he's here. and We'll see some *real* killing. Won't we, Duke?

  Duke Mantee : The cops ain't likely to catch up with us. Not tonight. So we can all be quiet and peaceable and have a few beers together, and listen to the music. And not make any wrong moves. 'Cause I may as well tell you folks that old Ruby there, with the gun, he's pretty nervous and jumpy. He's got the itch between his fingers. So let's everybody stay where they are.

  Alan Squier : Let there be killing. All this evening, I've had a feeling of destiny closing in. Do you believe in astrology?

  Duke Mantee : I couldn't say, pal.

  Alan Squier : Well, I don't normally. But tonight, as I was walking along that road, I.. I began to feel the enchantment of this desert. I looked up at the sky, and the stars seemed to be mocking me, reproving me. They were pointing the way to that gleaming sign and saying, "There's the end of your tether. You thought you could escape and skip off to the Phoenix Palace, but we know better." That's what the stars told me. For perhaps they know that carnage is imminent, and that I'm due to be among the fallen... Ha ha, fascinating thought.

  Duke Mantee : Let's skip it. Here's happy days.

  [raises his glass of beer in a toast] 

  Gramp Maple : Yes, sir. Certainly does feel great to have a *real* killer around here again.

  Alan Squier : Yes, it's pleasant to be back again.. amongst the living. Hooray!

  [raises his glass to Duke Mantee in a toast]