True Confession (1937)

John Barrymore: Charley Jasper

Photos 

Quotes 

• Charles "Charley" Jasper : You're getting lots of publicity, aren't you? Big articles, pictures in the papers. You like it, don't you? It's the nectar of the gods for fools. And whether you killed Krayler or whether you didn't, you're going to look very pretty - fried.

• Charles "Charley" Jasper : You bore me. Fill my glass.

  George : Yeah, where's your money?

  Charles "Charley" Jasper : What is money? Pathetic scraps of metal, paper crawling with germs. Fill my glass.

  George : Yeah, as soon as you toss a few germs my way.

• Charles "Charley" Jasper : Look at me. Here I am begging drinks from an idiot I shouldn't be speaking to.

• Charles "Charley" Jasper : I, Charles Jasper, utmost in criminologists, committed the perfect crime. And who stole the glory of my deed? Who writes childish articles, gives stupid lectures? Who has lived to see her husband grow sleek and fat upon the fruits of the stolen crime? My crime! Thief!

• Charles "Charley" Jasper : Afraid, George? Afraid of a penny's worth of rubber? You know, this is life, George. Uh, so, you try to live by blowing hot air into it.

  [blows up a balloon] 

  Charles "Charley" Jasper : Year after year. Year after year, un-until finally you're like this, with a fat, round body, and the skin tight all over you. You - this is life, George. And then what happens? Something happens. Anything happens! And - and this is what life does, George. Look, look. Look at what life does.

  [squeezes the air out of the baloon] 

  Charles "Charley" Jasper : Sad, isn't it?

  George : You're quite a fellow, ain't you, Charley? Quite a philosophizer. Goin' to court today?

  Charles "Charley" Jasper : I go to court every day. There's life for you, life with its back to the wall. You see the balloons there, all right, the ones that were fat and round and tight. Eh, but they're collapsed now. Just shrunken, shriveled shells, fit only for the laboratory of a great criminologist. A great criminologist. A great criminologist!

• Charles "Charley" Jasper : Life. Death. Life. For what?

• Charles "Charley" Jasper : Where is our liquor? Not the guest soup, the private stock.

• Charles "Charley" Jasper : Ooh, fudge!

• Charles "Charley" Jasper : You know, there was a moment when this was almost mine, when my destiny came within one iota of being fulfilled. But that is life. Good day, my dear fellow.