Confidential Report (1955)

Orson Welles: Gregory Arkadin

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Quotes 

• Gregory Arkadin : And now I'm going to tell you about a scorpion. This scorpion wanted to cross a river, so he asked the frog to carry him. No, said the frog, no thank you. If I let you on my back you may sting me and the sting of the scorpion is death. Now, where, asked the scorpion, is the logic in that? For scorpions always try to be logical. If I sting you, you will die. I will drown. So, the frog was convinced and allowed the scorpion on his back. But, just in the middle of the river, he felt a terrible pain and realized that, after all, the scorpion had stung him. Logic! Cried the dying frog as he started under, bearing the scorpion down with him. There is no logic in this! I know, said the scorpion, but I can't help it - it's my character. Let's drink to character.

• Gregory Arkadin : Baroness, a fool is a man who pays twice for the same thing.

• Gregory Arkadin : I knew what I wanted. That's the difference between us. In this world there are those who give and those who ask. Those who do not care to give... those who do not dare to ask. You dared. But you were never quite sure what you were asking for.

• Gregory Arkadin : You're a fool. But, not a silly fool. And, I am not, ungenerous.

  Guy Van Stratten : Not, ungenerous? That means...

  Gregory Arkadin : Ten thousand dollars. Tax free, of course. You can have it in gold in Liechtenstein.

  Guy Van Stratten : Make it twenty thousand.

  Gregory Arkadin : You are a poor businessman, Van Stratten. You're bargaining before you know what's for sale.

• Baroness Nagel : It's true, that for a year or so, I did see a little something of that sort of thing. It wasn't as amusing as you might think.

  Gregory Arkadin : Criminals aren't ever very amusing.

  Baroness Nagel : Its because they're failures! Those who make real money aren't counted as criminals. This is a class distinction, not an ethical problem.

  Gregory Arkadin : Here's to crime.

• Gregory Arkadin : You are simply a fool. I will not ask you your price, because you have nothing to sell. But, still, I'll make you an offer. I am going to give you something to sell. And, then, I will pay you for it. Come on. You have tried to threaten me with a secret that does not exist. Now, I will make you a present of a real one. The great secret of my life.

• Gregory Arkadin : When did you talk to Van Stratton?

  Mily : [Drunkenly]  It seems you were pretty chummy with some Nazi collaborators in Vichy.

  Gregory Arkadin : Have some champagne.

  Mily : They trusted you with all their money, those Nazis, who invested in South America for after the war. They didn't even ask for a receipt! Now their families can't even prove the money's theirs. And then, and then there's Mussolini. All those roads you built for the fascists in Ethiopia. Bad water. Not enough-enough food. Guy said more than a hundred of the men died. You know, you're kind of cute in a weird sort of a way. After a person gets over being scared of you. Why'd you grow that awful beard?

  Gregory Arkadin : To scare people with.

• Gregory Arkadin : I'm leaving tonight. Sell our Mexican pesos and buy Chilean. Remember what I said about copper. Oh, and get Chiquita a little present.

• Gregory Arkadin : I do not know who I am.

• Mily : Some of the guns he sent to the Reds in China didn't even shoot.

  Gregory Arkadin : Is Van Stratton a communist?

  Mily : Are you kidding?

  Gregory Arkadin : Then, what's he complaining about?

• [first lines] 

  Orson Welles : [voice over]  On December twenty-fifth, an aeroplane was sighted off the coast of Barcelona. It was flying empty. Investigation of this case reached into the highest circles, and the scandal was very nearly responsible for the fall of at least one European government. This motion picture is a fictionalized reconstruction of the events leading up to the appearance last Christmas morning of the empty plane.