Touch of Evil (1958)

Orson Welles: Police Captain Hank Quinlan

Photos 

Quotes 

• Quinlan : Come on, read my future for me.

  Tanya : You haven't got any.

  Quinlan : Hmm? What do you mean?

  Tanya : Your future's all used up.

• Tanya : We're closed.

  Quinlan : You've been cookin' at this hour?

  Tanya : Just cleanin' up.

  Quinlan : Have you forgotten your old friend, hmm?

  Tanya : I told you we were closed.

  Quinlan : I'm Hank Quinlan.

  Tanya : I didn't recognize you. You should lay off those candy bars.

  Quinlan : It's either the candy or the hooch. I must say, I wish it was your chili I was gettin' fat on. Anyway, you're sure lookin' good.

  Tanya : You're a mess, honey.

  Quinlan : Yeah. That pianola sure brings back memories.

  Tanya : The customers go for it - it's so old, it's new. We got the television too. We run movies. What can I offer you?

• [Quinlan fires a pistol at Vargas, not hitting him] 

  Quinlan : That wasn't no miss, Vargas. That was just to turn you 'round, so I don't have to shoot you in the back. Unless you'd rather run for it.

• Quinlan : That's the second bullet I stopped for you.

• Pete Menzies : Convictions. Sure. How many did you frame?

  Quinlan : Nobody.

  Pete Menzies : Come on, Hank. How many did you frame?

  Quinlan : I told you. Nobody. Nobody that wasn't guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

• Quinlan : Just because he speaks a little guilty, that don't make him innocent.

• Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas : Well, Captain, I'm afraid this is finally something you can't talk your way out of.

  Quinlan : You want to bet?

• Vargas : Captain, you won't have any trouble with me.

  Quinlan : You bet your sweet life I won't.

• Quinlan : [leaving strip-club]  We're wasting our time here.

  Dist. Atty. Adair : I wouldn't say that...

• Quinlan : An old lady on Main Street last night picked up a shoe. The shoe had a foot in it. We're gonna make you pay for that mess.

• Quinlan : Casey, go in with Vargas, maybe he don't know how to use an American telephone.

• Pete Menzies : You're a killer.

  Hank Quinlan : Partly. I'm a cop.

  Pete Menzies : Yeah, yeah, yeah. Drunk and crazy as you must have been when you strangled him. I guess you were somehow thinking of your wife, the way she was strangled.

  Hank Quinlan : I'm always thinking of her, drunk or sober. What else is there to think about, except my job, my dirty job?

  Pete Menzies : You didn't have to make it dirty.

  Hank Quinlan : I don't call it dirty. Look at the record, our record, partner. Huh?

  Pete Menzies : Sure, sure, sure.

  Hank Quinlan : Well? All those convictions.

• Quinlan : Our friend Vargas has some very special ideas about police procedures. He seems to think it don't matter whether the killer's hanged or not, as long as we obey the fine print in the rulebook.

  Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas : Captain, I don't think a policeman should work like a dog catcher.

  Quinlan : No?

  Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas : Putting criminals behind bars, no! In any free country, a policeman is supposed to enforce the law and the law protects the guilty as well as the innocent.

  Quinlan : Our job is tough enough.

  Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas : It's supposed to be tough! It has to be tough.

• Quinlan : Who's the Jane?

  Dist. Atty. Adair : His wife.

  Quinlan : Well, what do you know. She don't look Mexican either.

• Quinlan : Well, when this case is over, I'll come around some night and sample some of your chili.

  Tanya : Better be careful. It may be too hot for you.

• Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas : You are a policeman, aren't you?

  Quinlan : Aren't you? You don't seem very fond of the job.

  Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas : There are plenty of soldiers who don't like war.

• 'Uncle' Joe Grandi : In this thing we're partners, see. Shall we - drink to that?

  Quinlan : I don't...

  'Uncle' Joe Grandi : Juanita, two more double bourbons. Make 'em nice and big.

• Quinlan : He wants to fight dirty. Okay. That's the kind of fight he's going to get!

• Pete Menzies : All these years you've been playing me for a sucker. Faking evidence.

  Quinlan : Aiding justice, partner.

• Quinlan : I don't speak Mexican. Let's keep it in English, Vargas.

  Vargas : That's all right with me. I'm sure he's just as unpleasant in any language.

  Sanchez : Unpleasant? Strange. I've been told I have a very winning personality. The very best shoe clerk the store ever had.

• Quinlan : That was the last killer that ever got out of my hands.

• Vargas : How could you arrest me here? This is my country.

  Quinlan : This is where you're gonna die.

• Sanchez : What are you trying to do?

  Quinlan : We're trying to strap you to the electric chair, boy.

  Pete Menzies : We don't like it when innocent people are blown to jelly around town.

  Quinlan : There's an old lady on Main Street last night, picked up a shoe and the shoe had a foot in it. We're going to make you pay for that mess.

  Sanchez : [to Vargas]  They're trying to railroad me! I don't know why. I never stole any dynamite.

• Vargas : [to Quinlan]  What make you so very sure it was dynamite?

  Quinlan : My leg.

  Vargas : Your what?

  Pete Menzies : His game leg. Sometimes he gets a kind of twinge, like folks do for a change of weather. "Intuition," he calls it.

• Quinlan : My game leg is startin' to talk to me.

• Quinlan : It was one of the Grandi kids.

  Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas : What makes you so sure of that, Captain?

  Quinlan : Intuition.

  Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas : Intuition?

  Quinlan : Vargas and his Keystone Cops has given the Grandi family quite a few headaches lately.

• Quinlan : You say your wife was attacked.

  Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas : I did not say she was attacked.

  Quinlan : Did you say she was molested?

  Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas : Not physically molested, no.

  Quinlan : Was obscene language used?

  Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas : I don't think so.

  Quinlan : How do you explain the fact that your wife allowed herself to be picked up by this good looking...

  Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas : She was not picked up.

  Dist. Atty. Adair : Now Hank, I think we're getting off on the wrong track here.

  Quinlan : Then this good looking young man was a friend of hers?

  Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas : Obviously not.

  Quinlan : You wouldn't call that getting picked up on the street?

• Quinlan : I'm no lawyer. I'm no lawyer. All's a lawyer cares about is the law.

• Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas : Captain, have you anything definite on this boy Sanchez?

  Quinlan : Not yet. I'm just - going on my intuition.

• Detective Casey : I think I ran onto something here, Captain. Some love letters.

  Quinlan : You can read them in the bedroom. I don't want to leave that Vargas guy alone.

  Detective Casey : Okay.

  Quinlan : Save the good stuff for me.

• Quinlan : Oh, there's my coffee. Didn't you bring any donuts or sweet rolls?

• Sanchez : Where did you find this?

  Quinlan : Right here in your love nest.

• Quinlan : What do you want?

  'Uncle' Joe Grandi : Nothing, Captain. Nothing that you don't want too.

• Pete Menzies : Hank, I've been looking for you in every bar in town.

  Quinlan : I've been in half of 'em - only here on the wrong side of the border.

• Quinlan : Did I ever tell you the smart way to kill, Pete?

  Pete Menzies : Sure. Sure. Strangling.

  Quinlan : Clean. Silent.

  Pete Menzies : You told me all that. Come on, finish your coffee.

  Quinlan : I tell my wife that. I don't usually talk about my wife.

  Pete Menzies : Never, when you're sober.

  Quinlan : She was strangled, Pete.

  Pete Menzies : I know. I know.

• Quinlan : You don't leave fingerprints on a piece of string.

• Quinlan : Where's your wife, Vargas?

• Quinlan : Narcotics. He's a drug addict! He's got that young wife of his hooked too. But, good. If I hadn't seen that hypodermic myself.

  Dist. Atty. Adair : Hypodermic? You saw it?

  Quinlan : I just said so, didn't I.

• Quinlan : What's my fortune? You've been reading the cards, haven't you?

  Tanya : I've been doing the accounts.

• Quinlan : You've been gettin' kinda chummy - you and that Mexican. Does that explain that thing you're carrying around now? What's it called? That thing you're wearing.

  Pete Menzies : What I'm wearing?

  Quinlan : Sure. That halo.

  Pete Menzies : Halo?

  Quinlan : It looks real pretty on you Pete. Pretty soon you'll be flapping your wings like an angel.

• Quinlan : Look out. Vargas will turn you into one of these here starry-eyed idealist. They're the ones making all the real trouble in the world. Be careful. They're worse than crooks!

• Quinlan : Vargas! Vargas, Vargas! All you want to talk about is Vargas!

• Strip-Club Owner : Zita? I didn't know her. She only joined the show a few days ago.

  Quinlan : We're wasting our time around here.

  Dist. Atty. Adair : Oh, I wouldn't say that!