Screen Two (TV Series)

Blunt (1987)

Ian Richardson: Anthony Blunt

Photos 

Quotes 

• Anthony Blunt : [to Vasily, his Soviet controller]  I'm a member of the Royal Household. I'm already listed as one of the great and good.

• Anthony Blunt : [opens a letter from Guy Burgess hinting at his defection to the USSR alongside Donald Maclean]  "I wonder what's become of Waring. Guy."

  Anthony Blunt : [walks to his library, digs out an anthology of British poetry, and finds these lines by Robert Browning]  "I wonder what's become of Waring / Since he gave us all the slip, / Chose land-travel or sea-faring, / Boots and chest, or staff and scrip, / Rather than pace up and down / Any longer in London-town?"

  [furiously] 

  Anthony Blunt : Oh, Guy! You fool! Bloody fool!

• Guy Burgess : [on Maclean's impending defection to the USSR]  I shan't be sorry to be shot of Donald. Arrogant sod, really.

  Anthony Blunt : But invaluable for the Cause.

• Anthony Blunt : [trying to suborn Goronwy's silence]  So we're all of us in your hands, Rees. And your wife's.

  Goronwy Rees : Yes, I think that's true. She was horrified, by the way.

  Anthony Blunt : She thinks conventionally.

  Goronwy Rees : I would prefer to say "normally."

  Anthony Blunt : [sarcastically]  Really... You telephoned MI-6 last night. Someone named David Footman.

  Goronwy Rees : [alarmed]  How do you know that? Who told you?

  Anthony Blunt : One never leaves MI-5. *I* haven't.

• Guy Burgess : I've given up benzedrine, too.

  Anthony Blunt : Most improved boy in the class.

  Guy Burgess : In the school!

• Guy Burgess : [as they embrace in a hallway]  My old, old love.

  Anthony Blunt : Oh, my dear.

• Anthony Blunt : [icily, to a subordinate talking sports]  I don't care for cricket.

• Anthony Blunt : [seeking to pressure Goronwy Rees into silence]  It is difficult, of course, for me to appreciate how it is that a woman can mean so much to a man - as it is for me to see how an abstract concept, like one's country, is to be preferred to one's friend.

• Anthony Blunt : [to Goronwy Rees]  Guy was always quoting it. "If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country."

  [suddenly contemptuous] 

  Anthony Blunt : But *you've* never had the guts, have you?