Daily Dialogue — June 28, 2013
Vargas: Did your intuition also tell you about my wife?
District Attorney Adair: Wife?
Vargas: She was accosted in the street a little while ago… and led across to some dive on your side of the border.
Captain Quinlan: The Vargas family seems to be getting into quite a lot of trouble tonight. Can you describe this man?
Vargas: Well, the first one seems…
Captain Quinlan: Oh, the first one?
Vargas: To have been young, good-looking…
Captain Quinlan: Were there two men?
Vargas: Not exactly.
Captain Quinlan: Not exactly. You’re saying she was taken to this dive by force?
Vargas: Not by force. No.
Captain Quinlan: Oh.
Vargas: One of the Grandis was there waiting. Short, fat, with a mustache.
Captain Quinlan: Uncle Joe.
Vargas:I haven’t run into him. What?
Captain Quinlan: They call him Uncle Joe.
Sergeant Menzies: That’s right.
Captain Quinlan: Go on.
Vargas: W… What do you mean, “go on”? I’ve told you what happened. Aren’t you going to do something?
Captain Quinlan: Make it a charge. Isn’t that police procedure in Mexico?
Vargas: Procedure?
Captain Quinlan: You say your wife was attacked.
Vargas: I did not say she was attacked.
Captain Quinlan: Did she say she was molested?
Vargas: Not physically. No.
Captain Quinlan: Was obscene language used?
Vargas: I don’t think so.
Captain Quinlan: Then how do you explain the fact that your wife allowed herself to be picked up?
Vargas: She was not picked up!
District Attorney Adair: Now, Hank, I think we’re getting off on the wrong tack here.
Captain Quinlan: Then this good-looking young man was a friend of hers?
Vargas: Obviously not.
Captain Quinlan: You wouldn’t call that gettin’ picked up on the streets?
District Attorney Adair: Now, we mustn’t forget… That Mr. Vargas is not on the witness stand. [Chuckling]
Hank’s a born lawyer, you know?
Captain Quinlan: Lawyer? I’m no lawyer. All a lawyer cares about is the law.
Vargas: Captain, you are a policeman, aren’t you?
Captain Quinlan: Aren’t you?
Vargas: You don’t seem very fond of the job. There are plenty of soldiers who don’t like war. It’s a dirty job. But it’s what we’re supposed to be doing, isn’t it?
Captain Quinlan: I don’t know about you. When a murderer’s loose, I’m supposed to catch him.
— A Touch of Evil (1958), screenplay by Orson Welles, novel by Whit Masterson
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is interrogation, suggested by Def Earz. Today’s suggestion by BadScreenWrtr.
Trivia: Was screened at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair, where judges (and then critics) Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut awarded it the top-prize. It was said the film was a great influence on starting Godard’s and Truffaut’s illustrious careers, both of whom within a year went on to make their first films Breathless and The 400 Blows, respectively.
Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by BadScreenWrtr: “The interrogator becomes the interrogated. A very awesome scene that will stretch your own boundaries.”