Ship of Fools (1965)
Oskar Werner: Dr. Wilhelm Schumann
Photos
Quotes
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La Condesa : I'm sure you never have any problems sleeping.
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : No, never.
La Condesa : Tell me your secret.
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : A clear conscience, of course.
La Condesa : [sarcastically] That's a neat trick: having a clear conscience when you work as a doctor on a ship which has six hundred people living on an open deck.
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Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : What are you laughing at?
La Condesa : My house has been burned, they have taken everything I had - now I am being taken to prison to an island I know nothing about, and you are giving me a Sunday School sermon.
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La Condesa : To think, isn't it wonderful: two strangers on a ship - we will never meet again. We can talk - we can talk like friends, or even lovers... we can talk like two people who meet on the other side of the grave.
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : Keep talking.
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Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : [looks enchanted] You're so strange. Sometimes you're so bitter, then you're soft and warm like a child.
La Condesa : [smiles plainly] I'm just a woman
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Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : Who puts 600 people on a deck with only two outlets to wash?
Lt. Huebner : Huh, you don't know them; they wouldn't wash if they could. You don't know what pigs they are.
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : The deck is to be cleaned. Bring the hoses out.
Lt. Huebner : The hoses?
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : Bring the hoses out, I said!
Lt. Huebner : I cannot turn the hoses on them.
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : It's better to turn the hoses on them than for them live this way, no?
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Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : I wonder if it's true, that life is as stupid and meaningless as it seems to be on this ship.
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Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : You just can't take pills every time you can't sleep or any time you want to be stimulated or sedated.
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Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : When I had my heart attack, there was a dream I had. You can talk about death - I've seen it many times as a doctor - but you never know what it's like until it happens to you... I dreamt I had already died. I dreamt I was in a box with sweat broke out all over my body. I wanted to cry out 'I can't be dead, I haven't lived!'.
Capt. Thiele : Who has?
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Capt. Thiele : I'm glad to get out of Veracruz. The whole damn country is ready to explode. Well, did you get a look at them? Anything interesting? Anything interesting at all?
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : There is a dwarf. That high.
[holds his hand level with his hip]
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : A couple of young American painters. And a Jewish salesman - with an infectious sense of humor.
Capt. Thiele : Women, Willie. Women!
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : Well, a rather attractive middle-aged American woman, but I'm afraid she's too far from the cradle for you.
Capt. Thiele : Those are the kind that can sometimes appreciate what they are getting.
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Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : What are you laughing at?
La Condesa : My house has been burned. They've taken everything I had. Now, I'm being taken to prison to an island I know nothing about. And you're giving me a Sunday school sermon.
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : You can put your robe back on, now.
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La Condesa : You gonna help me?
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : Your Doctor may have helped you to often.
La Condesa : I'm very helpless at this moment.
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Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : How old are you?
La Condesa : Old enough, as you can see. Much too old.
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : Forty-five?
La Condesa : Not *that* old.
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : How old are you?
La Condesa : Forty-two.
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Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : Take off your robe.
La Condesa : You're sure you're the ship's doctor?
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : Oh, I am the ship's doctor.
[La Condesa removes her robe]
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : Lean forward please. What is it?
La Condesa : Your hands are cold.
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La Condesa : What about your childhood? Did nothing gay ever happen to you, at all?
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : No. I was the perfect dupe. I believed anything anybody told me. I was full of the highest hopes and the most unbelievable innocents. However, it's true, at the age of 12, I did have an experience with the housekeeper. It left an indelible impression on me, shocked my mother to no end, and cost the poor girl her job.
La Condesa : Well, There is hope for you, after all.
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Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : Our biggest mission in life is to avoid being fools.
[takes a sip of brandy]
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : And we wind up being the biggest fools of all.
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Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : When I think of the things I have seen on this ship. The stupid cruelties. The vanities! We talk about values? There's no values. They're done with.
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Capt. Thiele : What would you have liked to have been, Willy?
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : A good doctor.
Capt. Thiele : Don't you think you are?
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : Fair to middlin'.
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Capt. Thiele : What should I tell them this time?
Dr. Wilhelm Schumann : Tell them anything you like. Tell them I had to fix the toilets.