The Best Man (1964)

Henry Fonda: William Russell

Photos 

Quotes 

• Joe Cantwell : I don't understand you.

  William Russell : I know you don't. Because you have no sense of responsibility toward anybody or anything. And that is a tragedy in a man, and it is a disaster in a president.

• President Art Hockstader : Now, I am here to tell you this, that power is not a toy that we give to good children. It's a weapon, and the strong man takes it and he uses it. And if you don't go down there and beat Joe Cantwell to the floor with this very dirty stick, then you've got no business in this big league. Because if you don't fight, this job is not for you. And it never will be.

  William Russell : [after a long silent pause]  And so, one by one these compromises, these small corruptions, destroy character.

  President Art Hockstader : To want power is corruption already. To your god, you hate yourself for being human.

  William Russell : No, I only want to be human and it is not easy. Once this sort of thing starts, there's no end to it, which is why it should never begin. And if I start, well Art, how does it end, this sort of thing? Where does it end?

  President Art Hockstader : In the grave, son, where the dust is neither good nor bad. Just nothing.

• President Art Hockstader : Major Bascomb, do I understand by the way you are slowly beating around the bush, that Joe Cantwell was, what we used to call when I was a boy, a dee-generate?

  Sheldon Bascomb : Yes, sir, Mr. President, sir. That's just what I mean.

  William Russell : I don't believe it. No man with that awful wife and those ugly children could be anything but normal.

• President Art Hockstader : You aren't crazy, are you?

  William Russell : Any man who wants to be President is crazy.

  President Art Hockstader : Speak for yourself, son.

• William Russell : [in response to reporter's question 'do you think people mistrust intellectuals like you in politics?']  Intellectual? You mean I wrote a book? Well, as Bertrand Russell said, 'people in a democracy tend to think they have less to fear from a stupid man than an intelligent one.' Actually, it's the other way around. It's the stupid man.

• William Russell : T.T. Claypoole has all the characteristics of a dog - except loyalty.

• President Art Hockstader : [slyly]  Oh, those rumors about you and your lady friends, they won't do you a bit of harm. You haven't written them any letters, have you?

  William Russell : No, no letters

  President Art Hockstader : Ah, good.

• William Russell : I never pass a mirror, I don't look in it. I wonder why?

• President Art Hockstader : Bill, do you believe in God?

  William Russell : Do I? Well, I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church.

  President Art Hockstader : Hell, I'm a Methodist, and I'm still asking. Do you believe in God? Do you believe in a day of judgement, and a hereafter?

  William Russell : No. I believe in us. In man.

• Sue Ellen Gamadge : You are not the ideal candidate for the women.

  William Russell : Which women do you have in mind?

  Sue Ellen Gamadge : The women don't like you trying to be funny all the time.

  William Russell : Oh, that is a flaw. I agree.

  Sue Ellen Gamadge : Yes. They want a regular kind of man, like, well, like General Eisenhower, with that nice smile. And he's not pushy or aggressive, or any of those things we women don't like in our men. He was just grand. Why, you could imagine him washing up after dinner, or listening to his wife's views on important matters.

  William Russell : Yes, indeed you can.

  Sue Ellen Gamadge : So just don't try to be smart aleck and talk over our poor heads.

• Alice Russell : I find I'm unexpectedly ambitious. I'd like to be First Lady. I really would. I wouldn't mind seeing you now and then - oh, not often, of course - just occasionally. An ambiguous encounter in the Lincoln Bedroom.

  William Russell : I didn't know you cared.

  Alice Russell : Do I?

• William Russell : Anything more indecent than the human face when it smiles? All those predatory teeth reminding us of our animal descent.

  Dick Jensen : Steady. No mention of Darwin. Before the Garden of Eden was the Word.

• Alice Russell : Are you sure you understood him? You know politicians, they talk in Morse Code.

  William Russell : I decoded it.

• William Russell : [jokingly]  Get out of here, you old bum.

  President Art Hockstader : [laughs]  Is that a respectful way to talk to the end of an era? The last of the great hicks as he shuffles off the stage - by way of the privy.

• William Russell : [referring to Joe Cantwell]  No, I would not buy a used car from that man.

• President Art Hockstader : I tell you, there's nothing like a dirty, low down political fight to put the roses in your cheeks.

  William Russell : How do you feel?

  President Art Hockstader : Immortal.

• Dick Jensen : Bill, you may have to pull a Nixon.

  William Russell : What does pull a Nixon mean?

  Dick Jensen : Going on television. Weep on the nation's shoulder - with two cocker spaniels.

• William Russell : Those big words like "maniac" "mania" sound pretty scary to the average person.

  Dick Jensen : Anybody's case history sounds scary.

  William Russell : In the South, a candidate for sheriff once got elected by claiming his opponent's wife was a thespian.

• William Russell : [to reporters]  And I am, of course, happy that the best man won.

• Alice Russell : As someone sooner or later is bound to say, 'politics makes strange bedfellows.'

  William Russell : I was hoping it wouldn't be you who said it.

• William Russell : [speaking of Mrs. Gamadge]  The only known link between the NAACP and the Ku Klux Klan.

• William Russell : I'm afraid I don't know anything about images. That's a term from advertising were you don't try to sell a product you sell the image of the product. Sometimes the image is a fake!

• William Russell : [referring to Bertrand Russell]  Yes, he was fired; but, only for teaching free love, not for incompetence as a philosopher.

• William Russell : This is a spontaneous demonstration.

  Dick Jensen : Carefully planned.

  William Russell : We expect about 22 minutes of spontaneity.

• Alice Russell : It's considered bad form to get rid of the old wife.

  William Russell : Especially when I don't want to get rid of her.

  Alice Russell : You mean when you can't get rid of her.

• President Art Hockstader : Politics has changed a lot since my day. The age of the great hickster, which I belong, is all over. You rich boys got it all sewed up.

  William Russell : I didn't know you were a Marxist.

  President Art Hockstader : Marxist? Never heard of the word.

• William Russell : Look, suppose - suppose the Chinese were to attack India. That's the kind of thing you and I understand. I think we could handle it without starting an atomic war or losing India. But, what would Joe do?

• William Russell : Well, well, there's our candidate.

  Dick Jensen : On the 50th ballot

  William Russell : Now, now, things don't look that black. T.T. come to see you?

  President Art Hockstader : Yes. We agreed that all colored people are highly musical with wonderful white teeth; but, are essentially children who never telephone when they are not coming to work.

• William Russell : You talk to him, I won't. This is exactly the sort of thing I went into politics to stop: all the business of gossip instead of issues, personalities instead of policies.

• William Russell : Nothing you do ever surprises me, Joe. What I do is beginning to surprise me.

• William Russell : I know what I should do and this is not it.

  President Art Hockstader : Then, you don't want to be king of the castle. So, stay away from us. Be a saint on your own time. Because, you ain't fit to lead anybody.

  William Russell : Why? Because I won't shoot off a cannon to kill a bug? Because I don't have that mindless reflex you confuse with strength? Don't you understand, if I start to fight like Cantwell, I lose all meaning.

  President Art Hockstader : If you don't start to fight, you are finished.

• T.T. Claypoole : You stay out of trouble and try not to making so many inflammatory statements about integration - like that crazy idea of yours of a Negro in the cabinet.

  William Russell : I promise only to quote Abraham Lincoln.

  T.T. Claypoole : Lincoln started the Civil War. I hope you're less ambitious.