The Great Sinner (1949)
Gregory Peck: Fedja
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Quotes
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Pauline Ostrovsky : Oh, you can count on my vanity. No matter what you say I'll regard it as a compliment.
Fedja : All right, if you insist. To one of the most corrupt women I've ever met.
Pauline Ostrovsky : Corrupt?
Fedja : Corrupt, confused, frustrated, and empty.
Pauline Ostrovsky : But in a charming sort of way, you'll admit.
Fedja : Well charm, my dear is your gambling capital. You toss it on the table like money, like everything else, even a dying grandmother.
Pauline Ostrovsky : When a man takes the trouble to be so rude to a woman, he is usually falling in love with her.
Fedja : You're not a woman. You are a symptom.
Pauline Ostrovsky : Of what?
Fedja : Of one of the worlds deadliest diseases, sophistication. More champagne?
Pauline Ostrovsky : What else am I?
Fedja : You are irritatingly beautiful.
Pauline Ostrovsky : Well, at last!
Fedja : And everything, I reject.
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Fedja : Where there is hate, give me love. Where there is darkness, give me light. Save me. Save me from the devil within me.
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Hotel Manager : Mademoiselle Pauline.
Fedja : She's a dark young lady. Very beautiful.
Hotel Manager : Exquisitely! Just go right up, sir. Walk in. I'm sure you won't regret it
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Doctor : Do you have these attacks often?
Fedja : They come whenever I reach the bottom of my life.
Doctor : Have you reached it now?
Fedja : I was very near it, only the lowest ebb of human existence, as he hold out his hand to draw me up.
Doctor : You were saying someone holds out his hand, who?
Fedja : He who calls all sinners to him. Suddenly, in the blinding light, I see - him. The heart of everything.
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Fedja : On the brink of destruction, everyone sees him. Without him, I couldn't live, I couldn't work, I couldn't write, I'd be nothing. I'd be lost - in - darkness.
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Pauline Ostrovsky : Are you getting off here too?
Fedja : No, Mademoiselle. I'm going to Paris.
Pauline Ostrovsky : What a pity.
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Fedja : Does bad news always make you so gay?
Pauline Ostrovsky : You prefer tears?
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Pauline Ostrovsky : I only cry when I'm happy.
Fedja : Aren't you?
Pauline Ostrovsky : You ask too many questions.
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Fedja : I thought you must like my looks.
Pauline Ostrovsky : Well, some women might...
Fedja : Or, perhaps, it might be my literary reputation.
Pauline Ostrovsky : Once I did start to read one of your books.
Fedja : I've started to write many of them and was never able to finish them either.
Pauline Ostrovsky : Why not finish your next one with me? It'd make a wonderful last chapter.
Fedja : Would you promise to read it?
Pauline Ostrovsky : Naturally. I love gambling stories.
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Fedja : With me, writing it is living. I couldn't write a romance without - being in love. I couldn't write a gambling story, without becoming a gambler.
Pauline Ostrovsky : What an alarming theory.
Fedja : Shall we compromise on - a romance?
Pauline Ostrovsky : To luck, our luck.
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Armand de Glasse : We sent you an invitation to the casino this afternoon.
Fedja : Oh, yes, of course. You work for the casino.
Pauline Ostrovsky : [laughs] Oh, that's wonderful! The casino works for *him*. Monsieur de Glasse is the bank in person. The only man in these parts who can't lose.
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Fedja : [voice over] I had to explore this strange passion that consumed this beautiful girl.
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Fedja : [voice over] It wasn't the game itself that captured my interests. It was the gamblers. The jovial kind with his confident cigar. The nervous one with the desperate cigarette, haunting the tables like a ghost in a graveyard where his luck lies buried. The money lenders, tireless little vultures, eyeing their prey with anticipation., driving their cut-throat bargains. And then those who have seen everything a thousand times before, the casino officials, aloof, indifferently watching their aging cavalier with his young Madamoiselle, a monocle and a décolleté, a banknote and a kiss. What is it, I ask myself, that makes these people so absorbed in this senseless game? I felt their fever in my own pulse. But, what caused it was a mystery to me. I couldn't resist the experiment.
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Aristide Pitard : I've even run out of heartbreaking stories. I used to invent them by the dozen, to get money out of people.
Fedja : In a way, I do the same thing. I'm a writer.
Aristide Pitard : A pity. Words won't help me.
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Fedja : This is an unexpected pleasure. I was just worrying about your soul.
Pauline Ostrovsky : Oh... I haven't any. Couldn't you tell?
Fedja : No. That was my mistake, I suppose.
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Pauline Ostrovsky : I'm going to make a gambler of you.
Fedja : I have another proposal. Let me make a woman out of you.
Pauline Ostrovsky : Anything you like. Only, bring me luck.
Fedja : I warn you, morality is contagious.
Pauline Ostrovsky : So is vice. Gambling most of all! Now, we've both been warned.
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Pauline Ostrovsky : Take me for what I am.
Fedja : Seriously, this interests me. Of all the sensations in the world, how did you happen to choose gambling?
Pauline Ostrovsky : Gambling chose me.
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Pauline Ostrovsky : I find Armand extremely attractive.
Fedja : What's so attractive about him?
Pauline Ostrovsky : His money! The kind of money I love. It isn't earned, it's won.
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Pauline Ostrovsky : You don't approve of me, do you?
Fedja : Does that matter?
Pauline Ostrovsky : No. Not really.
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Pauline Ostrovsky : What else am I?
Fedja : I'm beginning to think that you're a liar.
[kiss]
Pauline Ostrovsky : Thank you.
Fedja : Yes, that's what you are. A liar. Even your wickedness is a fraud. There's a taste of honesty.
Pauline Ostrovsky : Well, you're wrong...
Fedja : Don't say it. A better way of telling the truth.
[kiss]
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Fedja : You're up early.
Pauline Ostrovsky : I was restless. After everything you told me, I had to get up and look for my soul.
Fedja : I've just given you one.
Pauline Ostrovsky : Thank you.
Fedja : How's it feel to have it back?
Pauline Ostrovsky : Well, it's a - rather confusing.
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Fedja : [voice over] It was mine. Mine. This taste of power was sweet. Sweeter than love.
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Fedja : I beat the devil at his own game. The devil's not a very good loser. We ought to be humble and pray.
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Fedja : I made an interesting discovery. There are strange ties between people and numbers. My lucky numbers, for instance, all added up to 8. Like 17, my favorite, 7 and 1 are 8. Or, 26, 6 and 2 are 8. Or, 35, 3 and 5 are 8. All 8!
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Fedja : [voice over] Of all of us, she was really the only winner. She had won eternal peace. I almost envied her. How I wanted to be free of everything, of gambling, of this life; but, most of all, of myself.
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Fedja : Cigarette?
Aristide Pitard : You forget. Your cigarette case is in the pawn shop. Your hand is empty - and so are you, my friend.
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Fedja : I'm alone.
Pauline Ostrovsky : No you're not. I'm here with you.