Henry Fonda Monologues

I been thinking about us, too, about our people living like pigs and good rich land layin' fallow. Or maybe one guy with a million acres and a hundred thousand farmers starvin'. And I been wonderin' if all our folks got together and yelled...

They'd drag me anyways. Sooner or later they'd get me for one thing if not for another. Until then...

No, Ma, not that. That ain't it. It's just, well as long as I'm an outlaw anyways… maybe I can do somethin'… maybe I can just find out somethin', just scrounge around and maybe find out what it is that's wrong and see if they ain't somethin' that can be done about it. I ain't thought it out all clear, Ma. I can't. I don't know enough.

Well, maybe it's like Casy says. A fellow ain't got a soul of his own, just little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody, then...

Then it don't matter. I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too.

Seems like the government's got more interest in a dead man than a live one.

That Casy. He might have been a preacher but he seen things clear. He was like a lantern. He helped me to see things clear.

"Ma, will you get the hell off'a there! It's gonna be heavy enough..." That somehow passed the Board of Review censors.

If there was a law, they was workin' with maybe we could take it, but it ain't the law. They're workin' away our spirits, tryin' to make us cringe and crawl, takin' away our decency.

Listen, what is these reds? Every time ya turn around, somebody's callin' somebody else a red! What IS these reds, anyway?

Let me ask you this: Do you really think the boy'd shout out a thing like that so the whole neighborhood could hear him? I don't think so - he's much too bright for that.

Here's what I think happened: the old man heard the fight between the boy and his father a few hours earlier. Then, when he's lying in his bed, he heard a body hit the floor in the boy's apartment, heard the woman scream from across the street, got to his front door as fast as he could, heard somebody racing down the stairs and *assumed* it was the boy!

I feel sorry for you. What it must feel like to want to pull the switch! Ever since you walked into this room, you've been acting like a self-appointed public avenger. You want to see this boy die because you *personally* want it, not because of the facts! You're a sadist!

It's always difficult to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And wherever you run into it, prejudice always obscures the truth. I don't really know what the truth is. I don't suppose anybody will ever really know. Nine of us now seem to feel that the defendant is innocent, but we're just gambling on probabilities - we may be wrong. We may be trying to let a guilty man go free, I don't know. Nobody really can. But we have a reasonable doubt, and that's something that's very valuable in our system. No jury can declare a man guilty unless it's sure.

I'd like to ask you something: you don't believe the boy's story. How come you believe the woman's? She's one of "them", too, isn't she?

We're not, unless somebody else wants to; but I'd like to find out if an old man who drags one foot when he walks, 'cause he had a stroke last year, could get from his bedroom to his front door in 15 seconds.

I don't *know* - I'm guessing! I'm also guessing that she probably didn't put her glasses on when she turned to look casually out of the window - and she herself testified the killing took place just as she looked out, the lights went off a split second later - she couldn't have had *time* to put them on then!

Here's another guess: maybe she honestly thought she saw the boy kill his father - I say she only saw a blur!

Look, there was one alleged eye witness to this killing. Someone else claims he heard the killing, saw the boy run out afterwards and there was a lot of circumstantial evidence. But, actually, those two witnesses were the entire case for the prosecution. Supposing they're wrong?

According to the testimony, the boy looks guilty... maybe he is. I sat there in court for six days listening while the evidence built up. Everybody sounded so positive, you know, I... I began to get a peculiar feeling about this trial. I mean, nothing is that positive. There're a lot of questions I'd have liked to ask. I don't know, maybe they wouldn't have meant anything, but... I began to get the feeling that the defense counsel wasn't conducting a thorough enough cross-examination. I mean, he... he let too many things go by... little things that...

Maybe. It's also possible for a lawyer to be just plain stupid, isn't it? I mean it's possible.

There's something else I'd like to talk about for a minute. Thanks. I think we've proved that the old man couldn't have heard the boy say "I'm gonna kill you", but supposing he did…

But supposing he really did hear it. This phrase, how many times have all of us used it? Probably thousands. "I could kill you for that, darling." "Junior, you do that once more and I'm gonna kill you." "Get in there, Rocky, and kill him!"… See, we say it every day. That doesn't mean we're gonna kill anyone.

Let me ask you this: do you really think the kid would shout out a thing like that so the whole neighborhood could hear him? I don't think so; he's much to bright for that.

Let me ask you this. Do you really think the boy would shout out a thing like that so the whole neighborhood could hear him? I don't think so. He's much too bright for that.

Well, I think testimony that could put a boy into the electric chair should be that accurate.

We're talking about somebody's life here. We can't decide it in five minutes.