55 Days at Peking (1963)

Charlton Heston: Maj. Matt Lewis

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Quotes 

• Maj. Matt Lewis : Alright, Marines, eyes front! We're almost in Peking, capital city of China. This is an ancient and highly cultured civilization. So, don't get the idea you're any better than these people just because they can't speak English.

• Maj. Matt Lewis : Alright, you fight the wars. Just let us fight the battles! Will you?

• Maj. Matt Lewis : He's a good soldier when he knows what he's fighting for.

  Sir Arthur Robertson : It's easy when it's something you can see; a wall, a hill, a river, but how can you explain to them when it's for a principle.

  Maj. Matt Lewis : You can't. Not here in China, it's too far from home.

• Baroness Natalie Ivanoff : You know, I think I'll get you to take me to San Francisco with you.

  Maj. Matt Lewis : Oh? Why to San Francisco?

  Baroness Natalie Ivanoff : Well, isn't that the place where they found all the gold?

  Maj. Matt Lewis : [laughs] 

• Maj. Matt Lewis : Clever women make me nervous.

• Maj. Matt Lewis : Why don't we just go back to the hotel?

  Baroness Natalie Ivanoff : Are you tired, Major?

  Maj. Matt Lewis : Tired? No. Ready to turn in? Maybe.

• Maj. Matt Lewis : What happens to you in Tientsin?

  Baroness Natalie Ivanoff : I'll be entirely in your hands, Major.

  Maj. Matt Lewis : You're in my hands now, but, you seem to keep slipping through my fingers.

• Maj. Matt Lewis : What time is it?

  Sir Arthur Robertson : Nine thirty-seven AM. August the fourteenth. Nineteen hundred.

  Maj. Matt Lewis : How many days did we hold out?

  Sir Arthur Robertson : Fifty-five.

• Sir Arthur Robertson : [military bands playing]  Listen to them. They're all playing different tunes again.

  Maj. Matt Lewis : Well, for fifty-five days we've played the same tune. Fifty-five days. You held us together. You started something, at that. Maybe people will remember - someday.

• Baroness Natalie Ivanoff : What should I tell you, Major?

  Maj. Matt Lewis : Well, that you're happy I'm with you.

  Baroness Natalie Ivanoff : Are you always this direct?

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

• Maj. Matt Lewis : 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!

• Capt. Andy Marshall : No mother and practically no father. What else can I do? Now, she's at a French mission with a bunch of Chinese orphans.

  Maj. Matt Lewis : You're better than most fathers. At least you try to see her when you can.

  Capt. Andy Marshall : Yeah, but, leaving her at a mission is not my idea of how to raise a kid. What'll I do? Take her back to Illinois with me? How would a half-Chinese kid make out in Illinois?

  Maj. Matt Lewis : They'd treat her like a freak back home. She's better off here among her own kind.

• Baroness Natalie Ivanoff : Do you always offer your life to strangers?

  Maj. Matt Lewis : To soldiers, strangers make the best friends.

  Baroness Natalie Ivanoff : I'm not in uniform, Major.

  Maj. Matt Lewis : I like things fine, just the way they are.

• Baroness Natalie Ivanoff : Don't laugh yet, Major. It's a very small room.

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

  Baroness Natalie Ivanoff : So have I, Major.

• Sir Arthur Robertson : It's most unfortunate that a Chinese was killed.

  Maj. Matt Lewis : A Boxer?

  Sir Arthur Robertson : A Chinese citizen, Major! You're not in the Wild West now, you know. You don't go around shooting Chinese like you do red Indians!

• Baroness Natalie Ivanoff : I wanted to go to Tientsin with you. But, you want to stay here and play soldier.

  Maj. Matt Lewis : I wear a uniform. That's the job they pay me to do!

  Baroness Natalie Ivanoff : Well, then go and do it! And get out of my way. Have a nice war, soldier. A *real* nice war!

• Baron Sergei Ivanoff : Do you know why my brother died?

  Maj. Matt Lewis : No.

  Baroness Natalie Ivanoff : Go on.

  Baron Sergei Ivanoff : I can't go on...

  Baroness Natalie Ivanoff : He killed himself. Because I was unfaithful to him.

  Maj. Matt Lewis : Let's forget it.

  Baroness Natalie Ivanoff : The man was a general - a Chinese general. - - Cant's you imagine yourself in love with a Chinese girl? That's not the same. Is it?

• [last lines] 

  Maj. Matt Lewis : Forward ho!