The Guns of Navarone (1961)
David Niven: Cpl. John Anthony Miller
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Quotes
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Mallory : Can you do anything at all?
Corporal Miller : I don't know. There's always a way to blow up explosives. The trick is not to be around when they go off. But aren't you forgetting something? The lady. As I see it we have three choices. One we can leave her here but there's no guarantee she won't be found, and in her case they won't need a truth drug. Two, we can take her with us, but that would make things worse than they are already. And three... well, that's Andrea's choice, remember?
Mallory : You really want your pound of flesh, don't you?
Corporal Miller : Yes, I do. You see, somehow I just couldn't get to sleep.
Mallory : Well, if you're so anxious to kill her, go ahead!
Corporal Miller : I'm not anxious to kill her, I'm not anxious to kill anyone. You see, I'm not a born soldier. I was trapped. You may find me facetious from time to time, but if I didn't make some rather bad jokes I'd go out of my mind. No, I prefer to leave the killing to someone like you, an officer and a gentleman, a leader of men.
Mallory : If you think I wanted this, any of this, you're out of your mind, I was trapped like you, just like anyone who put on the uniform!
Corporal Miller : Of *course* you wanted it, you're an officer, aren't you? I never let them make *me* an officer! I don't want the responsibility!
Mallory : So you've had a free ride, all this time! Someone's *got* to take responsibility if the job's going to get done! You think that's easy?
Corporal Miller : [shouts] I don't know! I'm not even sure who really is responsible any more.
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[last lines]
Corporal Miller : To tell you the truth, I didn't think we could do it.
Capt. Keith Mallory : To tell you the truth, neither did I.
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Corporal Miller : Sir, I've inspected this boat, and I think you ought to know that I can't swim.
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Capt. Keith Mallory : I have no time for this!
Corporal Miller : Now just a minute! If we're going to get this job done she has got to be killed! And we all know how keen you are about getting the job done! Now I can't speak for the others but I've never killed a woman, traitor or not, and I'm finicky! So why don't you do it? Let us off for once! Go on, be a pal, be a father to your men! Climb down off that cross of yours, close your eyes, think of England, and pull the trigger! What do you say, Sir?
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[as the team prepares to leave, Miller comes stomping in]
Corporal Miller : Everybody stay exactly where you are! The party's over. Somebody stepped on the cake!
[opens his case]
Corporal Miller : Exhibit A: a clockwork fuse. Elementary and archaic, but they work. Only this one doesn't work, you know why? The clock's okay, but the contact arm's been broken off. This clock could tick away until Christmas, and it wouldn't set off a firecracker!
[throws it in a corner]
Corporal Miller : Exhibit B: Exhibit B is missing! All my slow-burning fuses are gone, disappeared, vanished! Exhibit C: my time pencils.
[holds one up]
Corporal Miller : Seventy-five grains of fulminate of mercury in every one of them, enough to blow off my hand. And very unstable, very delicate.
[He smacks the one in his hand against the bundle of the rest, then violently crumples the whole mess together, and throws them in a corner]
Corporal Miller : Which means there is a traitor in this room.
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Corporal Miller : [after commandeering Nazi uniforms] Hmm, not very hygenic. Shocking taste in undies, too.
[mockingly saluting]
Corporal Miller : Heil, everybody.
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Mallory : Are you sure it will work?
Corporal Miller : There's no guarantee, but the theory's perfectly feasible.
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Corporal Miller : [watching Andrea poking around the room] What are you doing, friend? Checking for dust?
Col. Andrea Stavros : No, friend, microphones.
Corporal Miller : This is the British Army post, man! Don't you trust anybody?
Col. Andrea Stavros : No! That is why I have lived so long.
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Corporal Miller : I've inspected this vessel, and I think you ought to know that, ah, I can't swim.
Mallory : I'll keep it in mind.
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Corporal Miller : Well, right now I say to hell with the job! I've been on a hundred jobs and not one of them's altered the course of the war! I don't care about the war anymore, I care about Roy!
Capt. Keith Mallory : And if Turkey comes into the war on the wrong side?
Corporal Miller : So what? Let the whole bloody world come in and blow itself to pieces, that's what it deserves!
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Col. Andrea Stavros : [Andrea meets his team again in the ruins of St Alexis] Good evening, Gentlemen
Col. Andrea Stavros : Obviously this place has been used before.
Corporal Miller : Any food around?
Col. Andrea Stavros : I regret to say, no.
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[what to do with Franklin after he broke his leg scaling the cliff; take him along, or leave him behind for the Germans]
Col. Andrea Stavros : There is of course a third choice. One bullet now. Better for him, better for us. You take that man along,you endanger us all.
Corporal Miller : Why don't we just drop him off the cliff and save a bullet?
Capt. Keith Mallory : And why don't you shut up? Yes, there's a third choice. We'll make it if necessary, when it's necessary, and not before.
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Capt. Keith Mallory : And what about the two thousand men on Kheros?
Corporal Miller : I don't know the man on Kheros! But I do know the man on Navarone!
Col. Andrea Stavros : Mr. Miller, the man was finished when he fell.
Corporal Miller : [angry] That's easy for you to say, sitting there, drinking coffee.
