The Stunt Man (1980)

Peter O'Toole: Eli Cross

Photos 

Quotes 

• Eli Cross : [after a cameraman says cut because there's only 22 seconds of film left]  In 22 seconds, I could break your fucking spine. In 22 seconds, I could pinch your head off like a fucking insect and spin it all over the fucking pavement. In 22 seconds, I could put 22 bullets inside your ridiculous gut. What I seem unable to do in 22 seconds is to keep you from fucking up my film!

• Eli Cross : [Sam has suggested including a risque artifact in a poignant scene]  You'll get a belly laugh, Sam!

  Sam : What do you mean? What are you talking about? They'll break their hearts over it!

  Eli Cross : No no no, there won't be a dry seat in the house!

• Eli Cross : Do you not know that King Kong the first was just three foot six inches tall? He only came up to Faye Wray's belly button! If God could do the tricks that we can do he'd be a happy man!

• Eli Cross : It's not what he's eating, but what's eating him that makes it... sort of interesting.

• Eli Cross : [after Sam asks why Cross is keeping Cameron on the shoot]  He helps me to understand the young man in the film.

  Sam : Bullshit.

  Eli Cross : True.

• Eli Cross : Oh Burt, stop this worrying. You must have heard surely of movie magic. You should be a stunt man, who is an actor, who is a character in a movie, who is an enemy soldier. Who'll look for you amongst all those? People like to believe in things, and policemen are just people. Or so I'm told. Frankly, our problem is so simple it's almost beneath us. Now listen to me: that door is the looking glass, and inside it is Wonderland. Have faith Alice! Close your eyes and enjoy.

• Eli Cross : Sam, this picture is my child. What would you say if the studio said your daughter Jennifer would look better with her fingers chopped off?

  Sam : Well, being an insecure writer, I'd call my agent and get a second opinion.

• Eli Cross : People like to believe in things and policemen are just people. Or so I'm told.

• Eli Cross : I know a man who made an anti-war movie... a good one. When it was shown in his home town, army enlistment went up six hundred percent. I'm trying to convince the world with my movie that there is a reasonable and better way of getting home for Thanksgiving.

• Eli Cross : How tall is King Kong?

  Cameron : [shouting]  Three foot six and that's what you're gonna be if you don't pay my thousand dollars!

  [Eli laughs] 

• Eli Cross : If you cooperate, you'll receive a first-class ticket to Amsterdam where you can stick your finger in a dike.

• Eli Cross : Nina the actress so fair / Who fancied a man with blond hair. / But Raymond discovers / As he lifts up the covers / That his double - young "Lucky"- is there

• Eli Cross : Would you tell the chief of police that Burt here was so busy being brilliant that he wouldn't have noticed sweet Jesus Christ walking across the water.

  Ace : [mildly]  He wouldn't have noticed.

• Eli Cross : He's a hopeless yo-yo, Jake, but he's not dead... YET!

• Cameron : [after completing stunt]  That was the hardest thousand dollars I ever earned.

  Eli Cross : [Later... Starts to turn away, then turns back]  Thousand dollars? What thousand dollars?

  Cameron : [curt]  The stunt.

  Eli Cross : The stunt pays six-fifty.

  Cameron : [angrily]  No. Chuck said the stunt paid a thousand dollars.

  Eli Cross : [dismissing him]  Chuck could have promised you the Nobel Prize. The stunt pays six-fifty.

  Cameron : [shouting]  The stunt pays a thousand dollars. Chuck told me. You insulted me again.

• Cameron : [after Eli urges him to read how to get out of a sunken car, and avoid Burt's fate of presumed drowning]  Did Burt read this book?

  Eli Cross : Offhand, I'd say no.

• Cameron : If you want to get home for Thanksgiving, you better figure the guy coming at you is trying to kill you. Learned that from the gooks.

  Eli Cross : Gooks? That has a nostalgic ring. You really did call them gooks? I thought that was just Time Magazine.

• Cameron : Why are you trying to save my ass?

  Eli Cross : Because you're almost as crazy as the young man I'm making this film about. Besides, I've fallen madly in love with the dark side of your nature.

• Sam : [his madhouse scene having been replaced with a brothel scene]  Eli, do you know that when I read the insane asylum scene to my family, do you know that my oldest son shook my hand for the first time in his whole life? So why is it, Eli, why is it that your vulgar little scene turns out to be so much more moving? So much more impassioned?

  Eli Cross : Ah, I don't know, Sam. Possibly because we realize that our friend, the enemy, may just be a poor horny slob, like yourself, falling into the nearest whorehouse.

• Eli Cross : Ah, welcome to the same picture, Sam.

• Eli Cross : [to Cameron, who has completed the car stunt]  Oh, God. I don't believe it's breathing. There are some days in which I can't do one thing right. I hope this doesn't fuck up our relationship, you being alive and all.

• Eli Cross : What an unexpected but delightful shock.

• Sam : What's wrong, Eli?

  Eli Cross : Wrong? The scene's wrong. That's what's wrong.

  Sam : The scene plays like a dream. Plays like "Marat/Sade."

  Eli Cross : It was shit.

  Sam : Shit? Shit, huh? Who was that that called me on the phone when he first read it, woke me up in the middle of the goddamn night, raving about the magical madhouse scene? Who was that? My upstairs maid, Eli?

  Eli Cross : Still shit.

• Eli Cross : [after an effects shot involving a dummy has gone wrong]  It's so awful, it's beautiful. I do wish I could use it.

  Sam : That's all we need.

  Eli Cross : Well, we need something, Sam, and damn well you know it. Something better.

  Sam : Better? How better?

  Eli Cross : Something less boring. Something crazier.

  Sam : A dead man's boots are dropped over his own airfield out of chivalry. That's not crazy enough for you, huh?

  Eli Cross : They did it in a film called "Wings." Even the dummy was bored.

• Eli Cross : Well, talking of jail, would you be very upset if I asked just how many policemen are after you?

  Cameron : Me? I don't know what you are talking about.

  Eli Cross : The way you ran from the bridge, and the look on your face, and your charm bracelet. That's what I'm talking about. I suppose care to tell me what it is that you did?

• Eli Cross : Now don't be hasty and remember your arse. It's just like mine. Maybe I can save it for you.

• Eli Cross : I have versions of all sorts. Care to go back and see one? In one version you fly the helicopter and I'm driving the Dusenberg. It's a dilly.

  Cameron : What about the version where I drive off the bridge and drown in the water?

  Eli Cross : What is this? Why would I want to harm you?

• Police Chief Jake : Hey Bert, it's amazing you're still alive, considering who you are working for.

  Eli Cross : Come on Bert. We've time to kill you yet.