Jamaica Inn (1939)

Charles Laughton: Sir Humphrey Pengallan

Photos 

Quotes 

• Sir Humphrey Pengallan : [to Mary after murdering her Aunt Patience]  Good clean shot, wasn't it? I'm sorry. Poor creature, she had suffered so much, but I was forced to do it! You see, she was going to tell you about me. I didn't like that. I wanted to tell you myself.

• Sir Humphrey Pengallan : In Paris, you'll have a woman to attend you. I'll see to your new clothes myself. Yes, I'll see to that myself. We'll put silk next to that smooth skin of yours. Pale green silk, I think.

  [Removes Mary's neckerchief gag around her mouth] 

  Sir Humphrey Pengallan : Bah, stop crying! Stop it, you little fool! Be beautiful! Oh, ply those tears if you like, but you must be beautiful. Well, you have to be hard now. The Age of Chivalry is gone!

• [last lines] 

  Sir Humphrey Pengallan : What are you all waiting for? A spectacle? You shall have it! And tell your children how the great age ended. Make way for Pengallan!

  [Jumps to his death] 

• Lady Beston : Last summer we made a tour of the lakes. Which lake did you admire the most, Sir Humphrey?

  Sir Humphrey Pengallan : Chadwick! Which lake did I admire most?

  Chadwick : Windermere, sir.

  Sir Humphrey Pengallan : Windermere.

• Sir Humphrey Pengallan : "She walks in beauty, like the night. Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright, Meet in her aspect - - and her eyes"

  Mary Yellen : Thank you, sir. But, I didn't come for poetry, but for a horse.

  Sir Humphrey Pengallan : A horse? Be worthy of Lord Byron's poetry, you shall have the horse.

• Sir Humphrey Pengallan : And you're going where?

  Mary Yellen : To Jamaica Inn.

  Sir Humphrey Pengallan : Jamaica Inn? You, eh, can't go there.

  Mary Yellen : Why not?

  Sir Humphrey Pengallan : Em, Sam! This young lady wants to know why she can't go to Jamaica Inn. Will you tell her?

  Sir Humphrey's Groom : Oh, not there Miss. No place for a young lady.

  Sir Humphrey Pengallan : See, even Sam knows that. No. Let us stay - here.

• Sir Humphrey's Friend : Why not a toast to beauty, Sir Humphrey?

  Sir Humphrey Pengallan : Why not? A Chadwick, my figurine. I need inspiration again. Oh, there's beauty!

  Sir Humphrey's Friend : But it's not alive!

  Sir Humphrey Pengallan : More alive than half the people here. Look at them!

• Sir Humphrey Pengallan : Do you want to see beauty alive? Chadwick! Ask Sam how long Nancy is going to be?

  Sir Humphrey's Friend : Nancy?

  Sir Humphrey Pengallan : The most beautiful creature west of Exeter.

  Sir Humphrey's Friend : You see, Lady Beston, that's why he stays here and never comes to London any more. He keeps a girl here, the monster.

  Lady Beston : Then I would prefer not to make her acquaintance.

  Sir Humphrey's Friend : No, no, no. I'm curious!

• Sir Humphrey Pengallan : What had they to live for? Poor scum! You were right to put them out of their misery. Look at this exquisite stuff! Worth the miserable lives of a 100 rum rotten sailors, perfection of its own kind. That's all that matters, Merlyn: whatever is perfect in its own kind, something you don't understand, and never will, because you're neither a philosopher nor a gentleman! But you made quite sure: no survivors?

• Chadwick : [Showing butcher's bill and baker's bill to his master]  See? Butcher, baker.

  Sir Humphrey Pengallan : [shouting]  Don't butcher-and-baker me, you old numbskull!

  [Relenting] 

  Sir Humphrey Pengallan : I'm sorry Chadwick. Doing your duty, eh? These outbursts of mine are quite inexcusable. I can't think what comes over me. And what about my grandfather - went mad, eh?

• Sir Humphrey Pengallan : [Chuckling to Mary, whom he is kidnapping]  I believe you're sorry you're not marrying some oaf, who'd father on you a dozen sniveling, dirty-nosed brats. Any man of sensibility would rather see you DEAD first!

• Burdkin - Sir Humphrey's Tenant : I'm here to complain. I want my rights.

  Sir Humphrey Pengallan : Your rights? I don't listen to that sort of talk.

  Burdkin - Sir Humphrey's Tenant : I've the law on my side.

  Sir Humphrey Pengallan : You haven't! I'm the law here in Pengallan, and you haven't me on your side, and won't have, while you take that tone. Next, you'll be telling me you're as good as I am.

  Burdkin - Sir Humphrey's Tenant : I'm a man, same as you.

  Sir Humphrey Pengallan : Put that out of your head, my friend, before it lands you in the hulks. You're not as good as I am, and never will be. Nature was against it from the start, and everything has been against it ever since. I'm a gentleman.

  [Turns to his administrator] 

  Sir Humphrey Pengallan : Have him run out, Davis! Give him twenty-four hours.

• Sir Humphrey Pengallan : Chadwick! Get the, um, fellow some - bread and beer.

• Sir Humphrey Pengallan : Like a prince. And I'll make a princess out of you.