Five Graves to Cairo (1943)

Franchot Tone: Cpl. John Bramble

Photos 

Quotes 

• [Sebastiano, an Italian general, has just learned that he has been assigned to a hotel room with no running water by the condescending German officers] 

  Gen. Sebastiano : Another kick in the face! They let us die, but they don't let us wash! Well, what did we expect? As we say in Milano, "When you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas!"

  Cpl. John Bramble : That's right, sir.

  [Sebastiano looks at Bramble, nervously] 

  Gen. Sebastiano : [cautioning him]  You haven't heard anything...

  Cpl. John Bramble : Of course not, sir. From so far away, how can I hear what they say in Milano?

  Gen. Sebastiano : [smiles]  Good!

• Cpl. John Bramble : [to Farid]  You're talking through your fez!

• Cpl. John Bramble : [visiting Mouche's gravesite]  Hello, Mouche.

  Cpl. John Bramble : [bending down]  Perhaps I should bend down so you can hear me better. I brought you that parasol, Mouche, from a shop. They swore it was real ivory. Let's hope so.

  Cpl. John Bramble : [opening the parasol and placing it on her grave]  It will give you some shade until we come to take you back, where there are trees and leaves, and rivers, dew on the grass. Don't worry, Mouche, we're after 'em now. When you feel the earth shake, it'll be our tanks and our guns and our lorries. Thousands and thousands of them. British, French and American. We're after 'em now, coming from all sides. We're going to blast the blazes out of 'em.

• Mouche : Aren't there enough dead already?

  Cpl. John Bramble : Oh, yes. There are a lot of dead, Mouche. In Tobruk I saw them piled up in the hundreds. In Sevastopol, they lay ten deep. They were blown to bits in the Repulse and the Prince of Wales. In Athens, they're dying of starvation, four hundred of them. For what, Mouche? So that somebody like you can hold up a tin cup to a victorious Lieutenant... begging for a pfennigs worth of pity? It's not one brother that matters, it's a million brothers. It's not just one prison gate that they might sneak open for you. It's all their gates that must go.

  Mouche : All right. Talk. You talk such big words. You have a million brothers. I'm small. I've only one. And I want him to live.