Separate Tables (1958)

David Niven: Major Angus Pollock

Photos 

Quotes 

• Sibyl Railton-Bell : Why did you do it. WHY did you DO it?

  Major Angus Pollock : I don't know. I wish I could answer that. Why does anybody do anything that they shouldn't? Why do some people drink too much and other people smoke 50 cigarettes a day? Because they can't stop it, I suppose.

  Sibyl Railton-Bell : Then it wasn't the first time?

  Major Angus Pollock : No...

  Sibyl Railton-Bell : Oh, it's horrible...

  Major Angus Pollock : Yes, it is, of course. I'm not trying to defend it... You'll never guess this, I know, but ever since school I've always been scared to death of women... of everyone, in a way, I suppose, but mostly of women. I had a bad time at school - which wasn't Wellington, of course, it was just a counsel school... Boys hate other boys to be timid and shy, and they gave it to me good and proper. My father despised me, too. He was a Sergeant major in the Scots Guards. He made me join the Army, but I was always a bitter disappointment to him. He died before I got my commission. I got that by a wangle, too. It wasn't very difficult at the beginning of the war. But it meant everything to me, just the same: being saluted, being called "sir". I thought, "I'm someone now, a real person. Perhaps some woman might even..." But it didn't work. It never has worked. I'm made in a certain way and I can't change it.

• Sibyl Railton-Bell : Why have you told so many awful lies?

  Major Angus Pollock : Because I don't like myself the way I am, i suppose. I had to invent someone else... It's not harmful really. We all have our daydreams. Mine have just gone a step further than most people.

  [laughs ironically] 

  Major Angus Pollock : Sometimes I just manage to believe in the Major myself.

• Major Angus Pollock : Mark you, Jerry in the desert is a very different cup of tea from Jerry on the Western Front.

• Major Angus Pollock : Well, thanks again. Cheery-bye!

• Major Angus Pollock : Well, I'm blithered. Absolutely, blithered!

• [repeated line] 

  Major Angus Pollock : Mea culpa, mea culpa, my fault.

• Major Angus Pollock : [last lines]  Lunch at the usual time.