55 Days At Peking - Quotes

Just saw the 1963 movie on DVD.  I may comment on it later, but here are a few quotes which caught my interest:

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Dowager Empress:  The colonel's death is of no consequence.  But his life has set my prince against my general.  And this disturbs the tranquility of the morning.  Let him die for this offense.

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Major Lewis:  (to his troop of soldiers)  Remember, it's just the same here as anywhere else in the world.  Everything has a price.  So pay your money, and don't expect any free samples.

(As one commenter at IMDB notes, "you can bet the commodity he is referring to isn't pork fried rice.")

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Maj. Lewis:  (tossing 6 months of mail into a wastebasket)  Open a letter, you have to read it.  Read it, you may have to answer it.

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Baroness Ivanoff:  Are you always this direct?

Maj. Lewis:  I'm a marine, ma'am.  I don't have much time.

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Baroness Ivanoff:  Have you found this approach very successful?

Maj. Lewis:  Not really, no.  But it's the only one I know.

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Baroness Ivanoff:  (about sharing a hotel room with Maj. Lewis)  It's a very small room.

Maj. Lewis:  Well, I've been in tight places before.

(Pretty racy for 1963!)

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Sir Arthur:  If all Hell is going to break loose, it will not be because we have provoked it.  So we'll all just...walk softly, and hope for the best.

Maj. Lewis:  Even if we walk on our knees, we can't stop this.

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Sir Arthur:  The Boxer bandits have been with us for years, major.  It could be that you're unnecessarily alarmed.

Maj. Lewis:  Well, the next time I see some...bandits murdering an English priest, I'll try not to be alarmed.

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Prince Tuan:  You must be the American who had the unfortunate encounter with the Boxers this morning.

Maj. Lewis:  I'm afraid it was the British missionary who had the hard time, sir.

Prince Tuan:  The Chinese government is most distressed, but you must not conclude that all Boxers are bandits.  Most of them are harmless vagabonds.  Entertainers in the marketplaces (nodding toward Baroness Ivanoff) - much like the gypsies in your country.

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Sir Arthur:  You must forgive us, your highness, but the major does not seem to understand that here, we must play the game according to Chinese rules.

Maj. Lewis:  I apologize, Sir Arthur, but I don't think his highness came here tonight to play games.

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Comments

[Jason]

Fantastic movie! My favorite quote is when Chuck Heston is leading his men to Peking and giving them Chinese lessons:

Lewis (at the top of his lungs and speaking like Heston was wont to do): "The word for 'yes' is 'SHR'! The word for 'no' is 'BOO SHR!'"

Cracks me up every time.

BTW, best book on the 1900 Rebellion? Diana Preston's"The Boxer Rebellion". It puts you right there in the middle of it all. It's so detailed that I took it to Beijing with me to retrace the events of the Boxer Rebellion. I highly recommend it.

[The Foreigner]

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Don't forget the part where he announces he'll buy the dead Boxer, then flips the Boxer leader a $20 coin. I keep waiting for him to follow that up like Han Solo and say, "Sorry for the mess."

I'm starting to watch a bunch of these $99 NT oldies that have been sitting around my place for ages. Don't know if I'd call "55 Days" fantastic, but it certainly exceeded my expectations. There are indeed some VERY nice scenes in that movie.

I remember learning a LITTLE about the Boxer revolution in high school. And that's the extent of my knowledge (aside from a brief consultation of Wikipedia).

In other words, thanks for the book suggestion.

http://www.amazon.com/Boxer-Rebellion-Dramatic-Chinas-Foreigners/dp/0425180840/ref=sr_1_1/103-7508163-6218204?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182350669&sr=8-1