The Night of the Iguana (1964)

Richard Burton: Rev. Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon

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Quotes 

• T. Lawrence Shannon : Miss Fellowes is a highly moral person. If she ever recognized the truth about herself it would destroy her.

• Maxine Faulk : What the hell are you doing, Shannon?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : I just cut loose one of God's creatures at the end of his rope.

  Maxine Faulk : What for?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : So that one of God's creatures could be free from panic, and scamper home safe and free. A little act of grace, Maxine.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : I want to explain something to you... A man has got just so much in his emotional bank balance. Mine has run out. It's stone dry. I can't draw a check on it. There's nothing left to draw out.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : I thought you were sexless. But you've just become a woman. You know how I know that? Because you, not me, are taking pleasure in my being tied up. All women, whether they want to face it or not, want to see a man in a tied-up situation. They spend their lives trying to get a man into a tied-up situation. Their lives are fulfilled when they can get a man or as many men as they can, into a tied-up situation.

• Maxine Faulk : What... uh... subject do you teach back in that college of yours, honey?

  Judith Fellowes : Voice... if that's got anything to do with it.

  Maxine Faulk : Well geography is my speciality. Did you know that if it wasn't for the *dikes*, the plains of Texas would be engulfed by the gulf?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Maxine!

  Maxine Faulk : Let's level for awhile, butch, old gal, you know what you're sore about? What you're really sore about? That little quail of your's has a natural preference for *men*! Instead of...

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Maxine!

  Judith Fellowes : What is she talking about?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : You better go now, Miss Fellowes, the party's over. Right now I'm no longer in a position to discharge my responsibility of protecting you. A responsibility from which you discharged me. Just go, Miss Fellowes. Just go.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : Nothing could be worse for a girl in your unstable condition, to be mixed up with a man in, in my unstable condition because two people in unstable conditons are like two countries facing each other in unstable conditons. The, eh, destructive potential, eh, could blow the whole world to bits!

• T. Lawrence Shannon : You can't go on all alone. Think of how it will feel after so many years.

  Hannah Jelkes : I shall know how it feels when I feel it.

• Maxine Faulk : Well she's done a pretty good job of destroying you!

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Maxine, don't rob me of the credit for my own small accomplishments.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : There's no need for the shawl. God has played God, and set him free.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : The Fantastic Level and the Realistic Level are the two levels upon which we live.

• Maxine Faulk : So you appropriated the young chick and the old hens are squawking, huh?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : It's very serious. The child is emotionally precocious.

  Maxine Faulk : Bully for her.

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Also, she is traveling under the wing of a military escort of a butch vocal teacher.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : I'm panicking!

  Hannah Jelkes : I know that.

  T. Lawrence Shannon : A man can die of panic!

  Hannah Jelkes : Not when he enjoys it as much as you do, Dr. Shannon.

• Hannah Jelkes : I can't stand for a person I respect to behave like a small, cruel boy.

  T. Lawrence Shannon : And what do you respect in me, Miss Thin Standing-up Female Buddha?

• Maxine Faulk : [final lines]  Why don't we go down to the beach?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : I can get down the hill, Maxine, but I'm not too sure about getting back up.

  Maxine Faulk : I'll get you back up, baby. I'll always get you back up.

• Hannah Jelkes : When I was 16, every Saturday I would go to the Saturday Matinee at the Nantucket Movie Theater. That was soon after my parents were killed in an automobile accident and I was very alone. Well, one day a young man sat down beside me and pushed his knee against mine. I moved over; but, he moved over too and continued the pressure. I jumped up and screamed - and he was arrested for molesting a minor.

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Is he still in the Nantucket jail?

  Hannah Jelkes : No. No, I got him out. I told the police it was a Garbo picture. It was a Garbo picture and that I was just overexcited.

• Hannah Jelkes : There are worse things than chastity, Mr. Shannon.

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Yes: lunacy and death.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : [as the disatisfied Ms. Fellowes runs to speak to Shannon]  Look at her, charging like a bull elephant on a rampage.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : Where's Fred?

  Maxine Faulk : Dead.

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Did you say dead?

  Maxine Faulk : That's what I said. Fred's dead.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : I thought Fred could tame them. He was a fisherman and I've got a busload of man-eating sharks.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : I said to this girl, I said, "Let us, let us kneel down and pray together." And we did. We knelt. And then all of the sudden the - kneeling position turned into a reclining position.

• Hannah Jelkes : Mr. Shannon, cut him loose!

  T. Lawrence Shannon : All right. We'll play God tonight, like kids play houses with old broken crates and boxes. We'll cut the damn lizard loose so he can go back to his bushes, cause God won't do it and we are playing God here tonight.

• Judith Fellowes : [to Charlotte]  Dreadful girl. You defied me. You deliberately defied me.

  [slaps Charlotte across the face; Charlotte exits] 

  T. Lawrence Shannon : What did you think we were doing out there, Miss Fellowes? Spawning?

  Judith Fellowes : Oh, you beast. You beast!

  [sobbing] 

  Judith Fellowes : You beast!

• T. Lawrence Shannon : [talking to Maxine]  I wonder how long it takes to sweat the faculty of a Baptist Female College out of a bus that's parked in the sun when it's a 100 degrees in the shade.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : [to Charlotte]  You're as dangerous as you are young and lovely. And it's you're being young and lovely that makes you so dangerous, that gives you this destructive potential over a destructible man.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : I wonder as we examine our hearts together, in this place set aside for worship, how many of us here can say, "I rule my own spirit." For, how weak is man? How often do we - how often - how often do we stray from the straight and narrow? For only when we abide in the Lord are we like cities without walls. Only then can we defend ourselves against Satan and his temptations. We cannot rule ourselves alone.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : I will not and cannot continue to conduct services in praise and worship of this angry, petulant old man in whom you believe. You've turned your backs on the God of love and compassion and invented for yourselves this cruel, senile, delinquent who blames the world and all that he created for his own faults! Close your windows. Close your doors! Close your hearts - against the truth of our God!

• Charlotte Goodall : That boy back home told me that I had skin that no girl had any right to. He said you should be licensed to have skin as soft as mine. Wasn't it silly of him?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : No. Yes. No. No. It should be licensed. I mean, at least until you're old enough for a - a driver's license. Now, you get out of my room. Would you get off my bed! I-I'll keep my eyes shut until you've gone out of my room.

  Charlotte Goodall : Have I grown up too early, Larry?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Yes. No! I mean, yes. Yes. Lord, lead me not unto temptation. Now, go on home and find my way all by myself.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : Maxine, you got to help me with her, honey. She's not only trying to get me fired, she's also trying to pin on me a rape charge, a charge of statutory rape.

  Maxine Faulk : What's statutory rape? I've never known what that was.

  T. Lawrence Shannon : That's when a man is seduced by a girl under 20.

• Judith Fellowes : Seducer!

  T. Lawrence Shannon : What?

  Judith Fellowes : Seducer!

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Now what's the squawk now?

• Charlotte Goodall : I hate that little snitch of a bitch that ruined you in Virginia!

  T. Lawrence Shannon : You're ruining me in Mexico! Now, get out of here. It's indecent.

• Hannah Jelkes : What is this, Mr. Shannon?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Hell and damnation.

• Hannah Jelkes : Why did they lock you out?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : For fornication and conduct unbecoming a man of the cloth.

  Hannah Jelkes : What were the, eh, circumstances of the first offense?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Fornication? A very young Sunday School Teacher asked to see me privately in my study and - well, she - she declared herself to me - widely.

  Hannah Jelkes : A declaration of love?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Don't make fun of me Miss, Miss Jelkes.

  Hannah Jelkes : I wasn't.

• Nonno : We're going to clean up in this place!

  T. Lawrence Shannon : You bet we're going to clean up.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : Men with men's hearts. Wild and free hearts of men. They knew hunger and they fed their appetites. They fed their appetites! Appetites that I have inherited! I defy you! Shannon defies you! Get out your tomahawks! Get out your scalping knives! Sharpen your scalping knives. Scalp me!

• Judith Fellowes : I assume you know that Charlotte is underage, Dr. Shannon?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : What's that got to do with our itinerary?

  Judith Fellowes : If you know what's good for you, leave her alone.

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Miss Fellowes, are you aware that you're speaking to an ordained clergyman?

  Judith Fellowes : Stop leading her on. I don't know what happened back in Tierra Caliente and I don't want to know; because, if I did know, I'd have to take steps. Don't make me take steps, Dr. Shannon!

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Nothing happened back in Tierra Caliente. The room clerk got our keys mixed up. That's all. Just a mistake. Pure and simple. Whatever suspicions you may be harboring are quite groundless. I can assure you of that.

  Judith Fellowes : Just leave her alone. Don't make me take steps!

• T. Lawrence Shannon : No!

  Charlotte Goodall : Yes!

  T. Lawrence Shannon : "He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls."

  Charlotte Goodall : I'll woo your spirit. I'll hold you.

  T. Lawrence Shannon : No.

  Charlotte Goodall : Yes!

  T. Lawrence Shannon : No. No.

  Charlotte Goodall : Yes.

  T. Lawrence Shannon : No!

  Charlotte Goodall : Yes.

  [deep kiss] 

• Maxine Faulk : Why do you always want the young ones, honey?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : I don't want any. Any! Regardless, of age.

  Maxine Faulk : Then why do you take them, Shannon? Why, Shannon?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Well, people need human contact, Maxine.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : They're chasing an iguana.

  Hannah Jelkes : What will they do with it?

  Maxine Faulk : Tie 'em up, fatten 'em up, and eat 'em up.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : Who saw you coming here?

  Charlotte Goodall : Nobody but an iguana.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : Shannon has been collecting evidence.

  Hannah Jelkes : Evidence of what?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Man's inhumanity to God.

  Hannah Jelkes : What do you mean by that?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : The pain we cause him. We've poisoned his atmosphere. We've slaughtered his creatures of the wild. We've polluted his rivers. We've even taken God's noblest creation, Man, and - and brainwashed him into becoming our own product, not God's.

• Hannah Jelkes : Drink isn't your problem, Mr. Shannon.

  T. Lawrence Shannon : And what is my problem, Miss Jelkes?

  Hannah Jelkes : The oldest one in the world. The need to believe in someone - or something, almost anyone, almost anything.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : He's got to the end of his rope. Any further, he cannot get.

• Charlotte Goodall : Have you been drinking, Larry?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Look, if I'd been drinking I wouldn't be here. I'd still be drinking.

  Charlotte Goodall : What's wrong? Why are you all hot and sweaty?

• Hannah Jelkes : I'll leave Nonno in here and I'll take that room.

  T. Lawrence Shannon : I think that's the one with the leaky roof which you won't find out about until it rains and then it'll be too late to do anything about it except to swim out of it.

• T. Lawrence Shannon : What has that got to do with the price of rice in China? What has that got to do with the price of coffee in Brazil?

• Tourist Teacher #1 : Did you see that? Look, there's another. What have those boys got, Dr. Shannon?

  T. Lawrence Shannon : Iguanas - giant lizards native to this part of Mexico. It is alleged they taste like chicken.

  Tourist Teacher #2 : You mean they really eat those awful looking creatures?