Marlon Brando Monologues

It wasn't him, Charley, it was you. Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and you said, "Kid, this ain't your night. We're going for the price on Wilson." You remember that? "This ain't your night"! My night! I coulda taken Wilson apart! So what happens? He gets the title shot outdoors on the ballpark and what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palooka-ville! You was my brother, Charley, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda taken care of me just a little bit so I wouldn't have to take them dives for the short-end money.

You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it. It was you, Charley.

Hey, you wanna hear my philosophy of life? Do it to him before he does it to you.

You think you're God Almighty, but you know what you are? You're a cheap, lousy, dirty, stinkin' mug! And I'm glad what I done to you, ya hear that? I'm glad what I done!

You know this city's full of hawks? That's a fact. They hang around on the top of the big hotels. And they spot a pigeon in the park. Right down on him.

You know, I seen you a lot of times before. Remember parochial school out on Paluski Street? Seven, eight years ago. Your hair, you had your hair uh...

Looked like a hunk of rope. And you had wires on your teeth and glasses and everything. You was really a mess.

Quite a nose, huh? Some people just have a face that sticks in your mind.

Yeah his racket, everybody's got a racket.

You know you're not too funny today, fat man.

You will travel far, my little Kal-El. But we will never leave you... even in the face of our death. The richness of our lives shall be yours. All that I have, all that I've learned, everything I feel... all this, and more, I... I bequeath you, my son. You will carry me inside you, all the days of your life. You will make my strength your own, and see my life through your eyes, as your life will be seen through mine. The son becomes the father, and the father the son. This is all I... all I can send you, Kal-El.

Live as one of them, Kal-El, to discover where your strength and your power are needed. But always hold in your heart the pride of your special heritage. They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you... my only son.

This is no fantasy, no careless product of wild imagination. No, my good friends. These indictments I have brought you today, specific charges listed herein against the individuals - their acts of treason, their ultimate aim of sedition… These are matters of undeniable fact. I ask you now to pronounce judgement on those accused…

On this… this mindless aberration, whose only means of expression are wanton violence and destruction.

On the woman Ursa, whose perversions and unreasoning hatred of all mankind have threatened even the children of the planet Krypton.

Finally, General Zod - once trusted by this council, charged with maintaining the defense of the planet Krypton itself. Chief architect of this intended revolution, and author of this insidious plot to establish a new order amongst us - with himself as absolute ruler.

You have heard the evidence. The decision of the council will now be made.

I've seen the likes of your new order, too many times before. And I know only too much about what you call "greatness".

Your name is Kal-El. You are the only survivor of the planet Krypton. Even though you've been raised as a human, you are not one of them. You have great powers, only some of which you have as yet discovered.

The reasons are two. First, you cannot serve humanity twenty-eight hours a day.

Or twenty-four, as it is in Earth time. Your help would be called for endlessly, even for those problems which human beings could solve themselves. It is their habit to abuse their resources in such a way.

Secondly, your enemies will discover their only way to hurt you: by hurting the people you care for.

Lastly... Do not punish yourself for your feelings of vanity. Simply learn to control them. It is an affliction common to all, even on Krypton. Our destruction could have been avoided had it not been for the vanity of some who considered us indestructible. Were it not for vanity, why... at this very moment...

I could embrace you in my arms. My son.

The early history of our universe was a bloody mosaic of interplanetary war.

My old man used to hit harder than that.

A picnic? Man, you are too square. I'm… I… I have to straighten you out. Now, listen, you don't go any one special place. That's cornball style. You just go.

It begins here for me on this road. How the whole mess happened I don't know, but I know it couldn't happen again in a million years. Maybe I could of stopped it early, but once the trouble was on its way, I was just goin' with it. Mostly I remember the girl. I can't explain it - a sad chick like that, but somethin' changed in me. She got to me, but that's later anyway. This is where it begins for me right on this road.

You think you're too good for me. Nobody's too good for me! Anybody thinks they're too good for me, I make sure I knock 'em over sometime. Right now, I could slap you around to show you how good you are and tomorrow, I'm someplace else and I don't even know you or nothing.

Nobody tells me what to do. You keep needlin' me, if I want to, I'm gonna take this joint apart and you're not gonna know what hit you.

I'm afraid of you? Are you cracked?

What are you someone that makes sandwiches or something?

You gentle Romans. Gentle Romans, hear me. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears! I come to *bury* Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones; So let it be with Caesar.

Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honorable man.

When Caesar says "do this," it is performed.

That's all I seek, and am moreover suitor that I may produce his body to the marketplace, and in the pulpit, as becomes a friend, speak in the order of his funeral.

O mighty Caesar, dost thou lie so low? Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, shrunk to this little measure? Fare thee well.

Let slip the dogs of war.

Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood.

Over thy wounds now do I prophesy, which like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips to beg the voice and utterance of my tongue, a curse shall light upon the limbs of men. Domestic fury and fierce civil strife shall cumber all the parts of Italy. Blood and destruction shall be so in use, and dreadful objects so familiar, that mothers shall but *smile* when they behold their infants quartered with the hands of war! All pity *choked* with custom of fell deed. And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge, with Ate by his side come hot from hell, shall in these confines with a monarch's voice cry "*Havoc!*"

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, that I am meek and gentle with these butchers. Thou art the ruins of the noblest man that ever lived in the tide of times.

I fear I wrong the honorable men whose daggers have stabbed Caesar.

O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason!

I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts. I am no orator, as *Brutus* is; but, as you know me all, a plain blunt man that loved my friend, and that they know full well that gave me public leave to speak of him. For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech to stir men's blood. I only speak right on. I tell you that which you yourselves do know, show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths, and bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus, and Brutus Antony, *there* were an Antony would ruffle up your *spirits*, and put a *tongue* in every wound of Caesar that should move the stones of Rome to rise and mutiny!

Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up to such a sudden flood of mutiny. They that have done this deed are *honorable*. What private griefs they have, alas, I know not that made them do it. They are wise and honorable, and will, no doubt, with *reasons* answer you.

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. You all do know this mantle. I remember the first time ever Caesar put it on. It was on a summer's evening in his tent that day he overcame the Nervii. Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through. See what a rent the envious Casca made. Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed, and, as he plucked his cursed steel away, mark how the blood of Caesar followed it, as rushing out of doors, to be resolved if Brutus so unkindly knocked or no. For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel! Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him! This was the most unkindest cut of all! For when the noble Caesar saw him stab, ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms, quite vanquished him, then *burst* his mighty heart, and, in his mantle muffling up his face, even at the base of Pompey's statue, which all the while ran *blood*, great Caesar fell. O, what a fall was there, my countrymen. Then I, and you, and *all* of us fell down, whilst bloody treason flourished over us!

Why, friends, you go to do you know not what! Wherein hath Caesar thus deserved your love? Alas, you know not! I must tell you then. You have forgot the will I told you of. Here is the will, and under Caesar's seal. To every Roman citizen he gives, to every several man, 75 drachmas!

This was the noblest Roman of them all. All the conspirators save only he, did what they did in envy of great Caesar. He only, in a general honest thought, and common will for all, made one of them. His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that the nature might stand up and say to all the world, "This was a man."

Even if a husband lives two hundred fucking years, he'll never discover his wife's true nature. I may be able to understand the secrets of the universe, but… I'll never understand the truth about you. Never.

Go, get the butter.

Our marriage was nothing more than a foxhole for you. And all it took for you to get out was a 35-cent razor and a tub full of water. You cheap goddamn fucking godforsaken whore, I hope you rot in hell. You're worse than the dirtiest street pig anybody could ever find anywhere, and you know why? You know why? Because you lied. You lied to me and I trusted you.

You lied and you knew you were lying. Go on, tell me you didn't lie. Haven't you got anything to say about that? You can think up something, can't you? Go on, tell me something! Go on, smile, you cunt!

Go on, tell me... tell me something sweet. Smile at me and say I just misunderstood. Go on, tell me. You pig-fucker... you goddamn, fucking, pig-fucking liar.

No, you're alone. You're all alone. And you won't be able to be free of that feeling of being alone until you look death right in the face. I mean that sounds like bullshit. Some romantic crap. Until you go right up into the ass of death. Right up in his ass. 'Til you find the womb of fear.

Well, first you have to take a hot bath and if you don't you're gonna get pneumonia. Right?... and then you know what happens? You get pneumonia... and then you know what happens? You die! And then, you know what happens then when you die? I get to fuck the dead rat!

You ran through Africa and Asia and Indonesia, and now I found you… and I love you. I want to know your name.

Beauty of mine, sit before me. Let me peruse you and remember you... always like this.

Anyway, to make a long, dull story even duller, I come from a time when a guy like me used to come into a joint like this and pick up a young chick like you and… call her a 'bimbo'.

Put your fingers up my ass. Are you deaf? Go on. I'm gonna get a pig. And I'm gonna have the pig fuck you. And I want the pig to vomit in your face. Then I want you to swallow the vomit. Are you gonna do that for me?

I want the pig to die while you're fucking him. Then you have to go behind it. I want you to smell the dying farts of the pig. Are you gonna do all of that for me?

Hey, STELLA!

Now that's how I'm gonna clear the table. Don't you ever talk that way to me. 'Pig,' 'Pollack,' 'disgusting,' 'vulgar,' 'greasy.' Those kind of words have been on your tongue and your sister's tongue just too much around here. What do you think you are? A pair of queens? Now just remember what Huey Long said - that every man's a king - and I'm the King around here, and don't you forget it.

Take a look at yourself here in a worn-out Mardi Gras outfit, rented for 50 cents from some rag-picker. And with a crazy crown on. Now what kind of a queen do you think you are? Do you know that I've been on to you from the start, and not once did you pull the wool over this boy's eyes? You come in here and you sprinkle the place with powder and you spray perfume and you stick a paper lantern over the light bulb - and, lo and behold, the place has turned to Egypt and you are the Queen of the Nile, sitting on your throne, swilling down my liquor. And do you know what I say? Ha ha! Do you hear me? Ha ha ha!

I am not a Pollack. People from Poland are Poles. They are not Pollacks. But what I am is one hundred percent American. I'm born and raised in the greatest country on this earth and I'm proud of it. And don't you ever call me a Pollack.

I never met a dame yet that didn't know if she was good-looking or not without being told, and there's some of them that give themselves credit for more than they've got.

Listen, baby, when we first met - you and me - you thought I was common. Well, how right you was. I was common as dirt. You showed me a snapshot of the place with them columns, and I pulled you down off them columns, and you loved it, having them colored lights goin'. And wasn't we happy together? Wasn't it all okay till she showed here? And wasn't we happy together? Wasn't it all OK? Till she showed here. Hoity-toity, describin' me like a ape.

She moved to the hotel called Flamingo which is a second class hotel that has the advantages of not interfering with the private and social life of the personalities there. Now the Flamingo is used to all kinds of goings-on. But even the management of the Flamingo was impressed by Dame Blanche. And in fact, they were so impressed that they requested her to turn in her room-key for permanently. And this, this happened a couple of weeks before she showed here... The trouble with Dame Blanche was that she couldn't put on her act any more in Oriel because they got wised up. And after two or three dates, they quit and then she goes on to another one, the same old line, the same old act, and the same old hooey. And as time went by, she became the town character, regarded not just as different but downright loco and nuts. She didn't re. sign temporarily because of her nerves. She was kicked out before the spring term ended. And I hate to tell you the reason that step was taken. A seventeen-year-old kid she got mixed up with - and the boy's dad learned about it and he got in touch with the high-school superintendent. And there was practically a town ordinance passed against her.

How about a few more details on that subject… Let's cop a gander at the bill of sale… What do you mean? She didn't show you no papers, no deed of sale or nothin' like that?… Well then, what was it then? Given away to charity?… Oh I don't care if she hears me. Now let's see the papers… Now listen. Did you ever hear of the Napoleonic code, Stella?… Now just let me enlighten you on a point or two… Now we got here in the state of Louisiana what's known as the Napoleonic code. You see, now according to that, what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband also, and vice versa… It looks to me like you've been swindled baby. And when you get swindled under Napoleonic code, I get swindled too and I don't like to get swindled… Where's the money if the place was sold?

I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror... Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies! I remember when I was with Special Forces... seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate some children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried, I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out; I didn't know what I wanted to do! And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it... I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, my God... the genius of that! The genius! The will to do that! Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand that these were not monsters, these were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men, our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment! Because it's judgment that defeats us.

We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won't allow them to write "fuck" on their airplanes because it's obscene!

I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream; that's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor... and surviving.

They train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write 'fuck' on their airplanes because it is obscene.

I worry that my son might not understand what I've tried to be. And if I were to be killed, Willard, I would want someone to go to my home and tell my son everything. Everything I did, everything you saw, because there's nothing that I detest more than the stench of lies. And if you understand me, Willard, you will do this for me.

I went down that river once when I was a kid. There's a place in that river - I can't remember - must have been a gardenia plantation at one time. It's all wild and overgrown now, but about five miles, you'd think that heaven just fell on the earth in the form of gardenias. Have you considered any real freedoms? Freedoms from the opinions of others. Even the opinions of yourself.

We must kill them. We must incinerate them. Pig after pig… cow after cow… village after village… army after army…

As long as cold beer, hot food, rock 'n' roll, and all the other amenities remain expected norm, our conduct of the war will only gain impotence.

The horror… the horror…

What's the matter with you? Is this what you've become, a Hollywood finocchio who cries like a woman? "Oh, what do I do? What do I do?" What is that nonsense? Ridiculous!

Tell me, do you spend time with your family?

Good. Because a man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.

We have known each other many years, but this is the first time you've come to me for counsel or for help. I can't remember the last time you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee, even though my wife is godmother to your only child. But let's be frank here. You never wanted my friendship. And you feared to be in my debt.

I understand. You found paradise in America. You had a good trade, you made a good living. The police protected you and there were courts of law. So you didn't need a friend like me. Now you come and say "Don Corleone, give me justice." But you don't ask with respect. You don't offer friendship. You don't even think to call me "Godfather." You come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married and you ask me to do murder - for money.

Bonasera, Bonasera, what have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? If you'd come to me in friendship, this scum who ruined your daughter would be suffering this very day. And if by some chance an honest man like yourself made enemies they would become my enemies. And then, they would fear you.

Some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, consider this justice a gift on my daughter's wedding day.

Give this job to Clemenza. I want reliable people, people who aren't going to be carried away. I mean, we're not murderers, in spite of what this undertaker thinks…

I said that I would see you because I had heard that you were a serious man, to be treated with respect. But I must say no to you and let me give you my reasons. It's true I have a lot of friends in politics, but they wouldn't be so friendly if they knew my business was drugs instead of gambling which they consider a harmless vice. But drugs, that's a dirty business.

It makes no difference, it don't make any difference to me what a man does for a living, you understand. But your business is a little dangerous.

I have a sentimental weakness for my children and I spoil them, as you can see. They talk when they should listen. Anyway, Signor Sollozzo, my no to you is final. I want to congratulate you on your new business and I'm sure you'll do very well and good luck to you. Especially since your interests don't conflict with mine. Thank you.

I knew Santino was going to have to go through all this and Fredo… well, Fredo was… But I, I never wanted this for you. I work my whole life, I don't apologize, to take care of my family. And I refused to be a fool dancing on the strings held by all of those big shots. That's my life, I don't apologize for that. But I always thought that when it was your time, that you would be the one to hold the strings. Senator Corleone, Governor Corleone, something.

You talk about vengeance. Is vengeance going to bring your son back to you, or my boy to me? I forgo the vengeance of my son. But I have selfish reasons. My youngest son was forced to leave this country because of this Sollozzo business. All right, now I have to make arrangements to bring him back here safely cleared of all these false charges. But I'm a superstitious man, and if some unlucky accident should befall him… if he should be shot in the head by a police officer, or if he should hang himself in his jail cell, or if he's struck by a bolt of lightning, then I'm going to blame some of the people in this room, and that I do not forgive. But, that aside, let me say that I swear, on the souls of my grandchildren, that I will not be the one to break the peace we have made here today.