Walter Neff:
You'll be here too?
Phyllis:
I guess so, I usually am.
Walter Neff:
Same chair, same perfume, same anklet?
Phyllis:
I wonder if I know what you mean.
Walter Neff:
I wonder if you wonder.
[
last lines]
Walter Neff:
Know why you couldn't figure this one, Keyes? I'll tell ya. 'Cause the guy you were looking for was too close. Right across the desk from ya.
Barton Keyes:
Closer than that, Walter.
Walter Neff:
I love you, too.
Walter Neff:
It's just like the first time I came here, isn't it? We were talking about automobile insurance, only you were thinking about murder. And I was thinking about that anklet.
Barton Keyes:
Have you made up your mind?
Jackson:
Mr. Keyes, I'm a Medford man - Medford, Oregon. Up in Medford, we take our time making up our minds.
Barton Keyes:
Well, we're not in Medford, we're in a hurry.
Walter Neff:
Do I laugh now, or wait 'til it gets funny?
Walter Neff:
How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell like honeysuckle?
Walter Neff:
Suddenly it came over me that everything would go wrong. It sounds crazy, Keyes, but it's true, so help me. I couldn't hear my own footsteps. It was the walk of a dead man.
Walter Neff:
Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money - and a woman - and I didn't get the money and I didn't get the woman. Pretty, isn't it?
Phyllis:
I was just fixing some ice tea; would you like a glass?
Walter Neff:
Yeah, unless you got a bottle of beer that's not working.
Barton Keyes:
I picked you for the job, not because I think you're so darn smart, but because I thought you were a shade less dumb than the rest of the outfit. Guess I was wrong. You're not smarter, Walter... you're just a little taller.
[
Norton, Keyes's boss, has just tried, unsuccessfully, to convince a client that her husband's death was a suicide]
Barton Keyes:
You know, you, uh, oughta take a look at the statistics on suicide some time. You might learn a little something about the insurance business.
Edward S. Norton:
Mister Keyes, I was RAISED in the insurance business.
Barton Keyes:
Yeah, in the front office. Come now, you've never read an actuarial table in your life, have you? Why they've got ten volumes on suicide alone. Suicide by race, by color, by occupation, by sex, by seasons of the year, by time of day. Suicide, how committed: by poison, by firearms, by drowning, by leaps. Suicide by poison, subdivided by *types* of poison, such as corrosive, irritant, systemic, gaseous, narcotic, alkaloid, protein, and so forth; suicide by leaps, subdivided by leaps from high places, under the wheels of trains, under the wheels of trucks, under the feet of horses, from *steamboats*. But, Mr. Norton, of all the cases on record, there's not one single case of suicide by leap from the rear end of a moving train. And you know how fast that train was going at the point where the body was found? Fifteen miles an hour. Now how can anybody jump off a slow-moving train like that with any kind of expectation that he would kill himself? No. No soap, Mr. Norton. We're sunk, and we'll have to pay through the nose, and you know it.
Jackson:
These are fine cigars you smoke.
Barton Keyes:
Two for a quarter.
Jackson:
That's what I said.
Walter Neff:
Who'd you think I was anyway? The guy that walks into a good looking dame's front parlour and says, "Good afternoon, I sell accident insurance on husbands... you got one that's been around too long? One you'd like to turn into a little hard cash?"
Phyllis:
I'm a native Californian. Born right here in Los Angeles.
Walter Neff:
They say all native Californians come from Iowa.
Phyllis:
We're both rotten.
Walter Neff:
Only you're a little more rotten.
Phyllis:
Mr. Neff, why don't you drop by tomorrow evening about eight-thirty. He'll be in then.
Walter Neff:
Who?
Phyllis:
My husband. You were anxious to talk to him weren't you?
Walter Neff:
Yeah, I was, but I'm sort of getting over the idea, if you know what I mean.
Phyllis:
There's a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff. Forty-five miles an hour.
Walter Neff:
How fast was I going, officer?
Phyllis:
I'd say around ninety.
Walter Neff:
Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket.
Phyllis:
Suppose I let you off with a warning this time.
Walter Neff:
Suppose it doesn't take.
Phyllis:
Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles.
Walter Neff:
Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder.
Phyllis:
Suppose you try putting it on my husband's shoulder.
Walter Neff:
That tears it.
[
first lines]
Building attendant:
Well, hello there, Mr. Neff.
Barton Keyes:
Now that's enough out of you, Walter. Now get outta here before I throw my desk at you.
[
looks in his pocket for a match]
Walter Neff:
[
takes a match of his own and lights Keyes' cigar] I love you, too.
[
voiceover]
Walter Neff:
I really did, too, you old crab. Always yelling your head off, always sore at everybody. You never fooled me with your song and dance, not for a second. I kinda always knew that behind all the cigar ashes on your vest was a heart as big as a house.
Phyllis:
I think you're rotten.
Walter Neff:
I think you're swell - so long as I'm not your husband.
Phyllis:
Get out of here.
Walter Neff:
You bet I'll get out of here, baby. I'll get out of here but quick.
Edward S. Norton:
That witness from the train, what was his name?
Barton Keyes:
His name was Jackson. Probably still is.
Barton Keyes:
Walter, you're all washed up.
Barton Keyes:
What's the matter? Dames chasing you again? Or still? Or is it none of my business?
Walter Neff:
If I told you it was a customer, you'd...
Barton Keyes:
"Margie"! I bet she drinks from the bottle.
Phyllis:
Do you make your own breakfast, Mr Neff?
Walter Neff:
Well, I squeeze a grapefruit now and again.
Barton Keyes:
Well, I get darn sick of tryin' to pick up after a gang of fast-talking salesmen dumb enough to sell life insurance to a guy who sleeps in the same bed with four rattlesnakes.
Walter Neff:
I get the general idea. She was a tramp from a long line of tramps.
Walter Neff:
What do the police figure?
Barton Keyes:
That he got tangled up in his crutches and fell off the train. They're satisfied. It's not their dough.
Walter Neff:
That's a honey of an anklet you're wearing, Mrs. Dietrichson.
Barton Keyes:
Eh? There it is, Walter. It's beginning to become a part of the seams already. Murder's never perfect. Always comes apart sooner or later, and when two people are involved it's usually sooner. Now we know the Dietrichson name is in it *and* a somebody else. Pretty soon, we'll know who that somebody is. He'll show. He's got to show. Sometime, somewhere, they've got to meet. They're emotions are all kicked up. Whether it's love or hate doesn't matter; they can't keep away from each toher. They may think it's twice as safe because there's two of them,
[
chuckles]
Barton Keyes:
but it isn't twice as safe. It's ten times twice as dangerous. They've committed a *murder*! And it's not like taking a trolley ride together where they can get off at different stops. They're stuck with each other and they got to ride all the way to the end of the line and it's a one-way trip and the last stop is the cemetery. She put in her claim... and I'm gonna throw it right back at her.
[
Keyes fumbles through his pockets for a light]
Barton Keyes:
[
Walter Neff reaches into his pocket and gives Keyes a light]
Barton Keyes:
Let her sue us if she dares. I'll be ready for her *and* that somebody else. They'll be digging their own graves.
Walter Neff:
That was all there was to it.Nothing had slipped, nothing had been overlooked.There was nothing to give us away. And yet, Keyes, as I was walking down the street to the drugstore, suddenly, it came over me that everything would go wrong. It sounds crazy Keyes, but it's true, so help me, I couldn't hear my own footsteps. It was the walk of a dead man.
Barton Keyes:
Eh? There it is, Walter. It's beginning to come apart at the seams already. Murder's never perfect. Always comes apart sooner or later, and when two people are involved it's usually sooner. Now we know the Dietrichson name is in it *and* a somebody else. Pretty soon, we'll know who that somebody is. He'll show. He's got to show. Sometime, somewhere, they've got to meet. They're emotions are all kicked up. Whether it's love or hate doesn't matter; they can't keep away from each toher. They may think it's twice as safe because there's two of them,
[
chuckles]
Barton Keyes:
but it isn't twice as safe. It's ten times twice as dangerous. They've committed a *murder*! And it's not like taking a trolley ride together where they can get off at different stops. They're stuck with each other and they got to ride all the way to the end of the line and it's a one-way trip and the last stop is the cemetery. She put in her claim... and I'm gonna throw it right back at her.
[
Keyes fumbles through his pockets for a light]
Barton Keyes:
[
Walter Neff reaches into his pocket and gives Keyes a light]
Barton Keyes:
Let her sue us if she dares. I'll be ready for her *and* that somebody else. They'll be digging their own graves.
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