The Fugitive Kind (1960)

Lady Torrance : Tell me some more about your self-control.

Valentine Xavier : Well, they say that a woman can burn a man down, you know? But I can burn a woman down. I'm saying that I could. I'm not saying I would.

Lady Torrance : What's the matter? Have they tired you out?

Valentine Xavier : No, I'm not tired.

Carol Cutrere : Why are you pretendin' not to remember me?

Valentine Xavier : Well, it's hard to remember somebody you never met.

Valentine Xavier : There's a kind of bird that don't have any legs so it can't alight on nothing. So it has to spend its whole life on its wings in the air. I seen one, once. It died and fell to earth. And its body was light blue colored. And it was just as tiny as your little finger. And it was so light in the palm of your hand that it didn't weigh more than a feather. And its wings spread out that wide - and you could see right through them. That's why the hawks don't catch them; because, they don't see them. They don't see them way up in that high blue sky near the sun.

Lady Torrance : What about in gray weather?

Valentine Xavier : They fly so high. In gray weather, the hawks, they'd get dizzy. See, these little birds don't have no legs at all so they have to live their whole lives on the wing. And they sleep on the wind. That's what they do, they just - they just spread their wings out and go to sleep on the wind. And they only alight on this earth but one time - it's when they die.

Valentine Xavier : What do you feel?

Lady Torrance : Your hand.

Valentine Xavier : That's right. The size of my knuckles and the heat of my palm.

Lady Torrance : What are you demonstrating now?

Valentine Xavier : That's how well we know each other. All we know is the skin surface of each other.

Lady Torrance : Why do you say these things tonight?

Valentine Xavier : Because nobody ever gets to know anybody. We're, all of us, sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own lonely skins for as long as we live on this earth.

Carol Cutrere : You hear the dead people talkin'?

Valentine Xavier : Dead people don't talk.

Carol Cutrere : Sure they do. They chatter away like birds here on Wisteria Hill. But all they can say is one word - and that word is "live. " Live. Live. Live. Live. Live. That's all they know. That's the only advice they can give. It's simple. It's a very simple instruction.

Carol Cutrere : [as Xavier and Carol, in her sports car, approach the local cemetery, Wisteria Hills] Pull over here.

Valentine Xavier : [unaware of where they are] You live around here?

Carol Cutrere : [slightly incredulous] Nobody lives around here! This is the local bone orchard!

Valentine Xavier : Why are you so anxious to prove that I know you?

Carol Cutrere : Cause I'd like to know you better and better.

Valentine Xavier : Why do you make such a crazy show of yourself?

Carol Cutrere : 'Cause I'm an exhibitionist! I want people to know I'm alive. Don't you want people to know you're alive?

Valentine Xavier : I just want to live. I don't care whether they know I'm alive or not.

Carol Cutrere : Well, I want to be noticed, and seen, and heard, and felt!

Valentine Xavier : Get your legs on the other side of the gear shift.

[Carol spreads her legs, moving only one]

Valentine Xavier : Both of them.

Valentine Xavier : She made a mistake about me.

Lady Torrance : What kind of mistake?

Valentine Xavier : Well, she thought I had a sign hung on me: "Male at stud."

Valentine Xavier : Who are you trying to fool, besides yourself?

Valentine Xavier : That's where I come from. It's not where I'm going.

Valentine Xavier : You know, my temperature's always a couple of degrees above normal. The same as a dog's. You don't believe me?

Lady Torrance : I have no reason to doubt you. Believe me. Well, I couldn't hire no stranger with a snakeskin jacket and a guitar. And a temperature as high as a dog's.

Valentine Xavier : Ma'am, I do all kinds of electrical repairs. I do odd jobs and I need the work real bad.

Lady Torrance : What's the matter with your guitar? Are you tired of it?

Valentine Xavier : No, ma'am. That's my life's companion; but, I had to hock it once and I don't want to do that anymore. I need a steady job.

Lady Torrance : What's all that writing on it?

Valentine Xavier : Well, that's - all that's - all that's autographs of famous jazz musicians. See this name here? Leadbelly. That was the greatest man that ever lived on 12-string guitar. He played that thing so good, he broke the stone heart of a Texas governor and won himself a pardon out of jail. His name's written in the stars. This one here. Jefferson. Blind Lemon Jefferson.

Lady Torrance : Is his name written in the stars, too?

Valentine Xavier : Yeah. His name's written in the stars.

Lady Torrance : You're a peculiar somebody, all right.

Valentine Xavier : You know, Lady, there's people bought... and sold in this world like carcasses of hogs... in butcher shops. You might think that there's many... There's many kinds of people in this world. But there's only two kinds: The buyers and the ones that get bought. No, there's another kind.

Lady Torrance : What kind?

Valentine Xavier : It's a kind that don't - belong no place at all.

Lady Torrance : Let's get one thing straight.

Valentine Xavier : What thing is that?

Lady Torrance : You don't interest me no more. than the air you stand in. If that's understood, we will have a good working relation. Otherwise, trouble.

Valentine Xavier : if you ever have any trouble sleeping, I know how to fix that. You see I - I met a lady osteopath one time that taught me how to make little adjustments in the back of the neck and the spine. Give you a sound, natural sleep. Okay?

Vee Talbot : I tell you, Mr. Xavier, since I took up my paintin', my whole outlook is different. I can't explain it.

Valentine Xavier : You don't have to explain it, I know what you mean. It's like me when I'm - when I'm playin' my guitar. I guess, when, before you started paintin', it just - it didn't make sense.

Vee Talbot : What didn't?

Valentine Xavier : Existence.

Vee Talbot : No. My existence didn't make sense.

Sheriff Jordan Talbot : I heard you were good-looking. And sales have been pickin' up since you took over down there, boy.

Valentine Xavier : Yeah, business has been pretty good.

Sheriff Jordan Talbot : I bet most of this lively new business comes from women, don't it? The older ones? Older ones are buyers. They got the money, Jordan. They sweat it out of their husbands and - throw it away.

Sheriff Jordan Talbot : Doggone it, if that ain't the truth.

Valentine Xavier : [singing] Last night I crossed the river, With a heavy blanket roll, I took nobody with me, Not a soul...

Sheriff Jordan Talbot : Stand back under that light. I wanna look at you while I run through some photos of men wanted.

Valentine Xavier : I'm not wanted.

Sheriff Jordan Talbot : A good-looking boy like you is always wanted.

Valentine Xavier : How did it happen to burn?

Lady Torrance : My papa made a mistake. One night, one summer, he sold liquor to Negroes. You heard of the vigilantes?

Valentine Xavier : Yeah, I heard of 'em.

Lady Torrance : They took action that summer. They rode out here with gallons of coal oil - and set the whole place on fire. Vines, arbors, fruit trees. The whole sky lit up with it. And all the way across this lake, you could hear my papa calling. Nobody answered the call.

Valentine Xavier : I got myself into a situation here, Lady.

Lady Torrance : No, you're not fooling me, mister. She's waiting for you outside.

Valentine Xavier : No.

Lady Torrance : In her car, yes.

Valentine Xavier : No...

Valentine Xavier : I want you to understand.

Lady Torrance : What?

Valentine Xavier : I got myself into a situation here that I can't get out of.

Lady Torrance : Not in a town like this.

Valentine Xavier : I've been threatened with violence if I stay here through the night.