► From
Queen Of Blood (1966)
Female
astronaut: They're scientists, Allan - they
know what they're doing!
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► From
Return Of The Vampire (1944)
Policeman:
This person that you and Professor Saunders disposed of, who was
he?
Scientist: Armand Tesla, the depraved
Romanian scientist, who died in 1744, shortly after publishing
his work on vampirism. Tesla’s morbid thirst for knowledge
turned upon him, and after his death he himself became a
vampire.
Scientist: I’ve never met Dr Bruckner, but I feel
we’re doing a good thing for humanity, helping a fellow
scientist to escape the Nazi yoke!
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► From
Rocketship X-M (1950)
Male pilot:
This is the hottest crew I’ve ever worked with! Particularly the
brains department.
Male reporter:
Yeah – very attractive, too!
Male pilot:
Yeah, I agree. But – you can quote me on this! – unless you look
like a test tube or a chemical formula, you haven’t got a
chance.
Male pilot:
Now, don’t get mad at me – but can’t you ever relax? All these
weeks, months, I’ve been watching you: nothing but work, work,
work. Now, I’ve been wondering: how does a girl like you get
mixed up in a thing like this in the first place?
Female scientist:
I suppose you think that women should only cook, and sew,
and bear children?
Male pilot:
Isn’t that enough?
Male scientist:
There must be an error there.
Female scientist:
I have made no error, Dr Eckstrom.
Male scientist:
I have to say you have made an error – and discard your
figures. I’m sorry.
Female scientist:
Don’t be.
Male scientist:
Surely you’re not going to let emotion enter into this?
Female scientist:
Certainly not.
Male scientist:
We’ll continue computing using my figures as the basis.
Female scientist:
Yes, Doctor. Except that I feel very strongly I should say that
– we should try both.
Male scientist:
We can’t. To complete either calculation will take 6-8 hours. We
can’t afford the time. It’s either one or the other, Dr Van
Horn.
Female scientist:
But it doesn’t have to be! You can’t be arbitrary about imposing
your will when these people’s lives are at stake! Don’t you
realise that? You speak as calmly as if you were saying “Pass
the salt”. Aren’t you human? Are you made of ice? I’m sorry. I
apologise.
Male scientist:
For what? For momentarily being a woman? It’s completely
understandable, Miss Van Horn.
Female scientist:
Doctor – can we be quite sure that these proportions are safe?
We never proved it by experiment.
Male scientist:
The mathematical theory is beyond question.
Female scientist:
But of course, we know---- Sometimes it behaves
unpredictably!
Male scientist:
Woman’s intuition again?
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►
From
The She-Creature (1956)
Spiritualist:
Now, on this very night, I have called her from the unknown
depths of time itself! She is here - and, with her coming, the
world will never be as it was! Neither man nor animal will be
the same! This I, Dr Carlo Lombardi, have brought into being!
Spoilt rich girl:
Enjoying your weekend with the idle rich?
Poor-but-honest scientist: Pretty heady
stuff for a Professor of Psychic Research!
Spoilt rich girl: Oh, you sound a little
disapproving.
Poor-but-honest scientist: Not at all. I
just don’t feel I belong in your world of yachts and racing
stables. Some of those tycoons in there! - including your father
- kind of frighten me.
Spoilt rich girl: Oh, come now! This
kind of life shouldn’t be too hard to get used to.
Poor-but-honest scientist: Let’s face
it: I’m an Iowa farm-boy with a Professorship at the University
- but basically, a farm-boy!Spoilt
rich girl:
You’re a million miles away, Ted! And just when I thought I was
starting to get through to you.
Poor-but-honest scientist: Look,
Dorothy: I’m out of my element in a place like this. This
preoccupation with trivialities! - this talk about money! I’m
what you might call a square, I guess.
Spoilt rich girl: I’m real, aren’t I?
Poor-but-honest scientist: I don’t know.
Sometimes I think you are, and then I see you as part of this
elegant decay.
Spoilt rich girl: Well! That sounds like
a high-class brush off!
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►
From
The Snow Creature (1954)
Scientist:
Yeti, yeti. What is this?
Native: Yeti. Creature of snow. Snow
giant!
Scientist: Oh, you mean the Abominable
Snowman. The Phantom of the Himalayas. Marauder of women! Ha,
ha, ha, ha!
Scientist: A legend.
The abduction of Subra’s wife. The footprints. The death of a
native. All these things began to fall into a mysterious
pattern.
Official: I see
where you classify your import as a "snow creature".
Scientist: That’s right.
Official: Well, it’s necessary that we
clarify its immigration status.
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►
From
The Tingler (1959)
Bystander:
Does it always kill them in – in the chair?
Doctor: Well, I’ve never heard of it
failing.
Bystander: Well, in the chair, does it
hurt them?
Doctor: Not if it’s done properly – at
least, I don’t think so.
Bystander: Even a slight shock hurts---
Doctor: Try putting an electrode soaked
in saline solution on your head, and another strapped to your
leg, and then slamming two thousands volts between them. If it
hurts, let me know.
Doctor:
I seldom know who they were or what they did, I suppose because
I don’t want to know. Science is sometimes –
frighteningly impersonal!
Young woman: I
sometimes – like right now! – wish he didn’t work for you at
all. That he was---
Doctor:
What, a Persian rug merchant? Or---
Young woman: Oh, that’s much
worse! Just an ordinary eight to fiver with a yen for picket
fences.
Doctor: And waste one of the best minds
in pathology?
Young woman: Not really. I love David
just the way he is. I don’t even want to change him.
Golly, is that abnormal?
Assistant:
Here, I got that prescription for you.
Doctor: Oh, good. You know, from the
articles I’ve read, this is a very interesting drug.
Assistant: So is nitroglycerine!
Doctor: Dave! Where’s that "all for
science" attitude?
Husband:
That was a charming little scene out there.
Wife: Yes – wasn’t it?
Husband: Love in bloom, right on the
sidewalk. Rather shopworn, though, isn’t it?
Wife: Don’t tell me you’ve abandoned
corpses for peeping out of windows?
Husband: If there was anything honest
about your behaviour I might feel differently, but there isn’t.
You’re just playing the field – and vice versa.
Wife:
You know, Warren, you’ve lost touch with living people. Nobody
means anything to you any more unless they’re dead – and you can
root around inside them with your sharp little knives. There’s a
word for you.
Husband: There’s several for you.
Wife:
The only way Dave Morris will marry my sister is over my dead
body!
Husband: Unconventional – but not
impossible.
Husband:
You’re not hurt, dear. It was just a blank cartridge. But thanks
for helping with the experiment. You played your part
excellently.
Wife: Oh, I see….
Husband: Sharing in your husband’s work,
and all that, you know…. [A cat yowls] Kitty? Kitty,
kitty, kitty, kitty…. I was going to use this cat, but you made
a much better subject. Have you two met? In the same alley,
perhaps?
Assistant:
Working for the advancement of human knowledge is one thing, but
dying for it - !
Doctor: Well, if that’s your
attitude, we’ll just have to wait until we find someone else
who’s willing to die for the advancement of science! And
eventually, we will….
Doctor:
The only way I can frighten myself is to make it real – jump out
of a window, get run over by a car, go out and drown….
Wife:
Home so soon?
Husband: Did you hear what the little
husband said to the big wife?
Wife: Is this another of you oblique
jokes?
Husband: He said, "Why does the back
door slam every time I come in the front door?"
. |
► From
The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989)
Philosophical mutant superhero:
At first I found it hard to believe that my father was Japanese,
and that I was part-Japanese. But that would explain why I've
always had these strange, non-American urges to work very hard,
save money, and live without credit cards.
Homeless person: Hey, buddy,
spare some change?
Evil corporation head: Neither a
borrower nor a lender be! Shakespeare.
Homeless person: Fuck you!
David Mamet.
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►
From
The Toxic Avenger Part III (1989)
Evil
corporation head:
With all the evil, rotten, corrupt, despicably low people in the
world, why is it so difficult for me to get some help?
Blind girl:
I look at it this way: I’ll never have to see ugliness. Or war.
Or poverty. Or pollution. Or the Chevrolet Nova….
Depressed radioactive superhero:
I don’t have a life! I have a half-life!
Depressed radioactive superhero:
The Tromavillians tried to put on a brave face and made the best
of their mutated environment. But what does one feed to a
creature that is half frog, half duck? Worse yet, what would you
call it?
. |
►
From 12 To The Moon (1960)
Narrator: Hello, The
World!
Narrator:
Within the next few minutes we expect to
make world-shattering history! The dual- powered Lunar Eagle
will take off with a liquid fuel method, and outside the Earth’s
atmosphere will convert to atomic power. When the moon’s orbit
is reached, by retro- power the first landing on the moon will
be attempted! If all goes as planned, touchdown on lunar soil
will be twenty-seven hours from X minus zero!
Mathematician: I’ve heard
a lot about that new dual magna-camera!
Recorder: Physical
condition of the entire group – excellent! - except for Dr
Heinrich, whose age is showing.
Geologist:
Brilliant, did I hear? What brilliance? Young man, remember: who
contributes most to interplanetary travel? Russia!
Recorder: What? Are you serious?
Geologist: But of course! Sputnik I,
Sputnik II, Sputnik VIII, XI--- Two dogs, and---
Recorder: Our dog will survive
these experiments!
Navigator: Meteor
cluster ahead!
Pilot: How close?
Navigator: You’re on a collision course!
A collision course!!
Pilot: Changing over to auto-reaction
pilot!
Recorder: In a
few minutes man, for the first time, will set foot upon the
moon. The excitement is great, but controlled because of its
momentous importance. I am now switching over to my helmet
microphone. Now I’m turning on my invisible
electromagnetic ray screen [fiddles with a knob; his voice
distorts slightly] which forms a protective shield over our
faces, and I will continue my commentary through my micro-tape
recorder!
[His "invisible electromagnetic ray
screen"??? That’s right: a film so cheap they couldn’t even
afford a bit of plastic….]
Recorder:
The first embarkation party returned to the Lunar Eagle because
of diminishing oxygen and the necessity to normalise our bodily
processes!
[Translation: they needed to use
the john]
Recorder: These
symbols could have been sent by an Earth power already secretly
here on the moon! A power that wishes to scare us away! How do
you feel about that?
Geologist: Why ask me? How should I
know?
Recorder: I don’t
believe there are any [dramatic pause] "moon-people". Do
you?
Geologist: I’m convinced it’s possible.
Recorder: Someone could have made
it all up to [dramatic pause] frighten us off!
Physicist: This
is flash-freezing! By some scientific means they – whoever
"they" are – have found a way to freeze all molecular activity!
Mathematician: Those whizzing noises!
Physicist: Yes!
Physicist: They
have frozen the lower atmosphere by extracting all the
[sic.!! – sorry, gang: really couldn’t work this one out]
therm-spatics!
Mathematician: But how can that be
possible?
Physicist: How is very simple. It is the
principle of the atomic bomb in reverse!
Geologist: I agree with you. Through
some superior device they have found a way of achieving a
glacial phenomenon!
Physicist: Implosion bombs!
Physicist:
Listen: our emergency space-taxi works on
atomic power. We must fashion a powerful atomic bomb by
assembling and uniting a number of bomblets, such as we used on
the moon! Two men, drawn by lot, should pilot the taxi over a
live volcano! I am thinking of Popocatepetl, of course….
[Well, obviously]
Geologist: You
disconnected it, you crazy man!
Engineer: You don’t understand! This is
our chance! Think! If the North American continent were to
remain frozen, your greatest rival would be powerless! I am one
with you, don’t you see? This way, we control the West! –
and ultimately, the world!!
Geologist: What do you mean?
Engineer: You are not one of "us"!?
Geologist: I am not only a scientist, I
am also a human being, not an insane murderer!
Engineer: You traitor!!
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