I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

Frances Dee: Betsy Connell

Photos 

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  Betsy Connell : [voice over, giggling after the first line]  I walked with a zombie. It does seem an odd thing to say. Had anyone said that to me a year ago, I'm not at all sure I would have known what a zombie was. Oh, I might have had some notion that they were strange and frightening... even a little funny. It all began in such an ordinary way...

• Betsy Connell : [noticing Alma having difficulty trying to lead a stubborn horse]  Alma, try it this way... Turn your back on him. You see, that's the way it is with a horse: you can't lead him and look at him at the same time.

  Alma : [chuckling]  Sounds sorta man-like, don't it?

• Paul Holland : It's not beautiful.

  Betsy Connell : You read my thoughts, Mr. Holland.

  Paul Holland : It's easy enough to read the thoughts of a newcomer. Everything seems beautiful because you don't understand. Those flying fish, they're not leaping for joy, they're jumping in terror. Bigger fish want to eat them. That luminous water, it takes its gleam from millions of tiny dead bodies. The glitter of putrescence. There's no beauty here, only death and decay.

  Betsy Connell : You can't really believe that.

  Paul Holland : Everything good dies here. Even the stars.

• Job Interviewer : You're single?

  Betsy Connell : Yes.

  Job Interviewer : Where were you trained?

  Betsy Connell : Memorial Hospital, here in Ottawa.

  Job Interviewer : Now, this last question is a little irregular, Miss Connell. I really don't know quite how to begin. Do you believe in witchcraft?

  Betsy Connell : [laughing]  Well, they didn't teach it at Memorial Hospital, but I had my suspicions about the Directors of Training.

• Alma : [walking into Betsy's room while Betsy is sleeping, and touching and wiggling Betsy's big toe]  Good morning, Miss.

  Betsy Connell : Thank you for waking me.

  Alma : I didn't want to frighten you out of your sleep, Miss. That's why I touched you farthest from your heart.

• Betsy Connell : It must be hard work entertaining me if it requires six ounces of rum!

• Betsy Connell : [Betsy Connell and Mr. Holland are walking through the garden together]  Why was the maid crying?

  Paul Holland : I'm not sure I can make you understand.

  [He stops and points at an odd-looking sculpture in the garden] 

  Paul Holland : Do you know what this is?

  Betsy Connell : A figure of Saint Sebastian.

  Paul Holland : Yes. But it was once the figurehead of a slave ship. That's where our people came from. From the misery and pain of slavery. For generations they found life a burden. That's why they still weep when a child is born and make merry at a burial... I've told you, Miss Connell: this is a sad place.

• Job Interviewer : Now, as to salary, it's quite good. Two hundred dollars a month.

  Betsy Connell : That is good!

• Betsy Connell : I thought voodoo was something everyone was frightened of?

  Paul Holland : I'm afraid it's not very frightening. They sing and dance and carry on. And then, as I understand it, one of the gods comes down and speaks through one of the people.

• Mrs. Rand : These people are primitive. Things that are natural to them might shock and horrify you.

  Betsy Connell : I'm not easily frightened.

  Mrs. Rand : That may be the pity of it.

• Coachman : In times gone, Fort Holland was a fort and, now, no longer. The Hollands was the most old family, Miss. They brought the colored folks to the island. The colored folks and Ti-Misery.

  Betsy Connell : Ti-Misery? What's that?

  Coachman : A man, Miss. An old man who lives in the garden of Fort Holland, with arrows stuck in him and a sorrowful weeping look on his black face.

  Betsy Connell : Alive?

  Coachman : No, Miss. He's just the same as he was in the beginning. Only on the front side of an enormous boat.

  Betsy Connell : You mean a figurehead.

  Coachman : If you say, Miss. And the enormous boat brought the long ago fathers and the long ago mothers of us all, chained to the bottom of the boat.

  Betsy Connell : They brought you to a beautiful place, didn't they?

  Coachman : If you say, Miss. If you say.

• Betsy Connell : Are you trying to tell me that the voodoo priest could cure Mrs. Holland?

  Alma : Yes, Miss Betsy. I mean that.

• Betsy Connell : Frankly, it was something of a shock to see my patient that way for the first time. Nobody had told me Mrs. Holland was a... mental case.

  Paul Holland : A "mental case"?

  Betsy Connell : I'm sorry...

  Paul Holland : Why should you be? My wife *is* a mental case. Please remember that, Miss Connell. Particularly when some of the foolish people on the island start regaling you with the local legends. You'll find superstition a contagious thing. Some people let it get the better of them. I don't think you will.

  Betsy Connell : No.

  Paul Holland : Come along. I'll introduce you to Dr. Maxwell and your patient.

• Job Interviewer : [in an office, snow falling heavily outside]  Mr. Holland is a sugar planter. He lives on Saint Sebastian in the West Indies.

  Betsy Connell : The West Indies?

  Job Interviewer : That's not so bad. Sit under a palm tree. Go swimming. Take sun baths.

  Betsy Connell : [dreamily]  Palm trees.

• Betsy Connell : I don't know about zombies, doctor. Just what is a zombie?

  Dr. Maxwell : A ghost. A living dead. It's also a drink.

  Betsy Connell : Yes. I tried one once. But, there wasn't anything dead about it.

• Paul Holland : Tell me Miss Connell. Do you consider yourself pretty?

  Betsy Connell : I don't know. I... suppose so.

  Paul Holland : And charming?

  Betsy Connell : I've never given it much thought.

  Paul Holland : Don't. You'll save yourself a great deal of trouble and other people a great deal of unhappiness.

• Betsy Connell : Well, I used to be afraid of the dark when I was a child. But, I'm not afraid any more.