Cambridge Spies (2003)

Rupert Penry-Jones: Donald Maclean

Photos 

Quotes 

• Donald Maclean : Hullo

  Melinda Maclean : Hi. You're English.

  Donald Maclean : Does it show?

  [He gestures to his very British outfit] 

  Melinda Maclean : You say hello with the letter U where the letter E oughta be.

  Donald Maclean : Well, you're American.

  Melinda Maclean : You noticed.

  Donald Maclean : You say hello with the letter I where the E and the L and the L and the O ought to be.

  [They both take a sip of drink] 

  Donald Maclean : I hate America.

  Melinda Maclean : Are you gonna tell me why?

  Donald Maclean : For the way you treat workers, the way you treat black people, the way you appropriate, mispronounce and generally mutilate perfectly good English words. Cigarette?

• Guy Burgess : My father died fucking my mother. I heard her calling, or bleating really. And I came into the room and for a horrible moment I thought I'd got it wrong and that her calls for help were in fact small bleats of pleasure. She's got a narrow range of expression, my mother.

  Donald Maclean : Why are you telling me this?

  Guy Burgess : I had to roll him off. And I rolled him a bit too vigorously and he fell off my mother, off the bed and onto the floor and broke his arm. I mean he was dead, of course, so he didn't mind. But it made it a bit tricky with the coroner. My mother had to give evidence about how he died and she did it very well, of course. As only an English woman of decent heart and stout bosom can. Rising splendidly above the banal and the absurd. It's how I'd like to be remembered.

  Donald Maclean : Rising above the banal and the absurd?

  Guy Burgess : As an English woman of stout heart and decent bosom.