On the Beach (1959)

Fred Astaire: Julian Osborn

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Quotes 

• Julian Osborne : The war started when people accepted the idiotic principle that peace could be maintained by arranging to defend themselves with weapons they couldn't possibly use without committing suicide.

• Julian Osborne : I shouldn't drink, you know. I inevitably say something brilliant.

• Morgan : They pushed us too far! They didn't think we'd fight, no matter what they did!

  Julian Osborne : And they were wrong. We fought. We expunged them. And we didn't do such a bad job on ourselves.

• Julian Osborne : The trouble with you is you want a simple answer. There isn't any. The war started when people accepted the idiotic principle that peace could be maintained - - by arranging to defend themselves with weapons they couldn't possibly use - - without committing suicide. Everybody had an atomic bomb, and counter-bombs, and counter-counter bombs. The devices outgrew us; we couldn't control them. I know, I helped build them. God, help me. Somewhere, some poor bloke probably looked at a radar screen and thought he saw something. He knew that if he hesitated one-thousands of a second - his own country would be wiped off the map. So - So, he pushed a button - and the world went - - crazy. And, and...

• Julian Osborne : There was a choice. It was build the bombs, and use them - or risk the United States, the Soviet Union, and the rest of us, would find some way... to go on living.

  Morgan : [scoffs]  That's wishful thinking if ever I heard it.

  Julian Osborne : [softly]  I'm not against wishful thinking. Not now.

• Julian Osborne : We're all doomed, you know. The whole, silly, drunken, pathetic lot of us. Doomed by the air we're about to breathe. We haven't got a chance!

  Mary : Stop it! I won't have it, Julian. I won't! There is hope. There has to be hope. There's always hope. We just can't go on like this. We can't. We - we...

• Julian Osborne : In the end, somehow granted the time for examination, we shall find that our so called civilization was gloriously destroyed by a handful of vacuum tubes and transistors. Probably faulty.

• Julian Osborne : Who would ever have believed that human beings would be stupid enough to blow themselves off the face of the Earth?

• Peter : Have you ever been to San Francisco?

  Julian Osborne : Yes, I have. A week on the way down. I met a lovely girl. Longest, loveliest legs I've ever seen. Full of martinis - both of them. The legs, I mean.

• Submarine Officer : Who do you think started it - the war?

  Julian Osborne : Albert Einstein.

• Julian Osborne : It's like looking at a French movie.

• Moira Davidson : I can't pretend any longer, Julian. I'm afraid. I have nobody, and I'm afraid.

  Julian Osborne : What about Dwight?

  Moira Davidson : He's married. He's married to a girl named Sharon, And they have two children.

  Julian Osborne : Mm-hmm, i know.

  Moira Davidson : [sighs]  but if things were different, If she were alive, I'd do anything... Any mean trick I know to get him.