Band of Angels (1957)

Yvonne De Carlo: Amantha Starr

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Quotes 

• Amantha Starr : You say you won't touch me. You give me your *word* as a gentleman. Well, what's to stop you from breakin' your word late one night and forcin' yourself on me while I sleep?

  Hamish Bond : [grins]  Only the word of a gentleman.

  Amantha Starr : [late that night, unable to sleep]  He said he wouldn't. But those are his footsteps, coming down the hall. Coming closer!

  [listens tensely] 

  Amantha Starr : He didn't! Not tonight, anyway. Why not?

  [Frowning at first, she thinks it over, then gradually falls asleep] 

• Amantha Starr : [Wakes up in bed, stretches]  Mr. Hamish Bond can't keep me here! I'm leaving the moment his back is turned.

  Michele : [Offers a tray of food]  The Master said those low-down men didn't bother to feed you. You must be very hungry.

  Amantha Starr : [Frowns]  I'll leave... as soon as I've had the chance to rest and recover my strength.

  [Picks up a knife and fork and begins to eat] 

• Hamish Bond : Sounds like the gales we used to get off Rio Pongo. I've seen them all: Cape Verde, Cape Saint Maria, Sierra Leone, and the Bight of Benin.

  Amantha Starr : You sailed to all those places?

  Hamish Bond : Yes, and a thousand more. Or maybe it wasn't me at all. Maybe it was that other fellow, the fellow I used to be. He wasn't a bad sort.

• Rau-Ru : French poetry. A gift, no doubt, from Monsieur Charles. That perfumed peacock. You deluded little coquette. Don't you know his reputation? Every slave he owns is scarred by the whip. People of our blood, of *your* blood.

  Amantha Starr : I don't want to hear about it.

  Rau-Ru : Gives you a sense of power, doesn't it? White men dancing attendance. But it still isn't freedom. Freedom's a white word. And the fact is, you and I, aside from being male and female, are exactly alike.

• Amantha Starr : Fickle Yankee. I'll see to it that you don't break my heart.

• Rau-Ru : I hear you've been doing very well on the white side of the line. Now you come crawling back here.

  Amantha Starr : You detest me, don't you? Because I was the cause of their putting the hounds on you at Pointe du Loup.

  Rau-Ru : I don't hold that against you. It's the lie you've been living that I despise.

• Hamish Bond : I was in the nigger business. I was in it in a large way, if I may say so without pompous boasting.

  Amantha Starr : You mean the slave trade?

  Hamish Bond : Yeah. They called me Captain Strike Down. There was a time when I was right proud of that name. Well, a man has to be proud of something. But don't get the idea that it was all white man's wickedness. My chief partner was Old Gezo, a black king who drank rum out of gold-mounted skulls while the buzzards sat around waiting for him to start to slaughter.

• Amantha Starr : Doesn't she play divinely?

  Capt. Seth Parton : If you like arias of unbridled passion.

• Sheriff : I can't say I like what I gotta do; but, I call you all to witness. Do you state and affirm that you go by the name of Amantha Starr?

  Amantha Starr : Certainly, that's my name.

  Sheriff : Amantha, it is sworn and affirmed that you are the issue of the body of a slave called Louisa, the chattel of Aaron Pendleton Starr, deceased. And as her issue, you are declared by the law of this Commonwealth, to be a chattel of Starrwood, subject to any claims against the estate.

  Amantha Starr : My mother?

  Mr. Calloway : She was a Negress. And that means you the same strap as the rest of them slaves out yonder.

• Amantha Starr : Might as well get used to it. Ain't nothin' gonna change nothin'.

  Amantha Starr : I'll change it.

  Budge : Yeah? Just who do you think you are, gal?

  Amantha Starr : Amantha Starr. And nobody's gonna keep me from being free.

  Budge : You think you're white, don't you? Whiter than me. Well, you ain't!

• Amantha Starr : He's thinking about his $5000.

  Michele : He has many thousands of dollars.

  Amantha Starr : And he thinks that's all it takes to own a woman - her name on a piece of paper, like an animal's. Well, he can buy her, all right. But he can never own her, her feelings.

  Michele : And her heart? You think monsieur wouldn't be receiving full value without that? Many ladies have worn their hearts on their sleeves for him, free women - of quality.

  Amantha Starr : Free.

  Michele : That word. One hears it so often these days.

• Amantha Starr : Why did you buy me?

  Hamish Bond : Because you were on the slave block, somebody else was bound to bid you in. I saw a fellow with laced cuffs putting his hands on you - and I hate lace cuffs.

• Amantha Starr : This slave's not gonna do you any good, masseh. Because, I'm getting out of here, come hell and brimstone. And you'll never see hide nor hair of me again! And you better tell that man to give you back your $5000.

• Amantha Starr : Is there any happiness in this world, I wonder, for anybody?

• Capt. Seth Parton : There is the unsullied happiness of virtue and good works and the sanctified happiness of marriage. Aside from these conditions, man's only true joy is self-denial.

  Amantha Starr : I always thought a woman was.

• Mr. Calloway : Mr. Aaron Starr was the fine gentleman that kept a-borrowing money from me so's he could go sportin' over in Cincinnati.

  Amantha Starr : Don't you talk about my father that way, you - white trash!

• Amantha Starr : They'll never own me. And you won't either.

  Mr. Calloway : Now, don't you get uppity. You ain't thinkin' you're too good for me, are you? Nah, you just never had no man fun, that's it, ain't it? Is that it? Have you? Have you ever had a fella?

  Amantha Starr : Yes! And he'll find me and he'll kill you.

  Mr. Calloway : You don't know how uppity he's gonna be killin' one of the happiest men he ever seen. Now, come here to me.

• Dollie : Won't be long now till nobody say "come" and nobody say "go." No, Lord, gonna be parlor time, gonna be rocking-chair time. Sit in the parlor, rock and fan. A feather-fan, this Lord's child. Soldiers comin' down soon from the North. Soldiers totin' freedom. Drippin' freedom like sweat on a hot day. Then Rau-Ru, he gonna be king of Pointe du Loup. You purr pretty for him, honey gal. Maybe you get to be his queen.

  Amantha Starr : I'm white! Get out of this room! Get out!

• Charles de Marigny : My tread is as light as thistledown. I get quite an intimate view of life that way. I heard about you in New Orleans. One usually suffers a disillusionment on facing the reality, but not this time. It was a poverty of words which tried to describe you.

  Amantha Starr : Monsieur, seems to be using a lot of words to discuss nothing.

• Mr. Calloway : Put this nigger in the rig. She's real money.

  Amantha Starr : No, you can't. I'm Amantha Starr. You can't.

  Mr. Calloway : Go on! Do like I tell ya!

• Hamish Bond : He's a high-stepper, isn't he? That's why they call him "Big Bond's High-Stepper." He gets off the sidewalk for nobody. No constable or paddy roll ever stopped him. Nor no steamboat captain ever asked to see his pass. Because he's Big Bond's boss Negro.

  Amantha Starr : And what am I? All your others know their duties. What are mine?