The Narrow Corner (1933)

Douglas Fairbanks Jr.: Fred Blake

Photos 

Quotes 

• Fred Blake : I want life to be fair. I want life to be brave and honest. I'm not willing to stand by while the good are punished and the wicked go scott free. I want all men to be descent. Surely, that's not asking too much.

  Doctor Saunders : I don't know. It's asking more than life can give. Remember the words of Disraeli, Youth is a blunder, Maturity is struggle, and Old Age are a grit.

• Fred Blake : I don't know what it all means. Why am I here? Where am I going?

  Doctor Saunders : My dear boy, men have been asking those questions since they stopped throwing coconuts at each other in the primeval forests and picked up a glimmer of intelligence.

  Fred Blake : Don't you believe in anything?

  Doctor Saunders : Nothing except myself and my experience. The world consist of me, my thoughts and my feelings. Everything else is mere fancy.

• Fred Blake : I'll wait.

  Captain Nichols : Why? This is Kim Ching's store. Good beer. I could do with a swallow. Blimy, if it ain't a white man?

• Fred Blake : Where do you want to go Doctor?

  Doctor Saunders : Oh, any Dutch island where I can get a ship to take me on my way.

  Fred Blake : Alright. I suppose that will be better than being cooped up only with a belching idiot.

• Fred Blake : Who are you?

  Louise Frith : Where did you come from?

  Fred Blake : You're beautiful.

  Louise Frith : And you're English!

• Fred Blake : Oh, st-stay where you are.

  Louise Frith : Why?

  Fred Blake : Well, I, I, I, I don't have have any clothes on.

  Louise Frith : What of it?

• Eric Whittenson : [From off in a distance]  Hello!

  Fred Blake : Who's that?

  Louise Frith : Oh, that's only Eric.

  Fred Blake : Eric? Oh, well, perhaps I ought to go.

  Louise Frith : Why?

  Fred Blake : Well, a fellow doesn't like to see his girl talking to another fellow with no clothes on, does he!

  Louise Frith : Is that what they think in Australia?

• Fred Blake : Where'd you learn to dance like that?

  Louise Frith : I followed you, that's all.

• Fred Blake : What if they should call?

  Louise Frith : Tell them, tell them I've gone to bed. It's quiet and dark in my room. And I can think.

• Eric Whittenson : I don't mind waiting. When you love anyone as I love Louise, a few months or a year, don't matter.

  Fred Blake : You love her like that?

  Eric Whittenson : Yes. Of course, you've only just seen her. You don't realize how beautiful she really is. And there's something else in her, too. Like a wathe, not quite at home in the haunts of men. It's so beautiful that I almost regret that she can't always keep it.

  Doctor Saunders : Why shouldn't she?

  Eric Whittenson : I feel she'll lose it when she becomes a wife and a mother. It's the soul of her that's so beautiful.

  Doctor Saunders : Don't be silly.

  Eric Whittenson : Why is it silly? It makes me ashamed that I won't got to her as pure as she'll come to me.

  Doctor Saunders : My dear boy, the most valuable thing I've learned from life is to regret nothing. Life is short. Nature is hostile and man is ridiculous.

• Fred Blake : Resignation. The refuge of the beaten. Well, keep your resignation, I don't want it! I'm not willing to accept evil and ugliness and injustice. If life means that every thing I believe in is to be trampled on, then to the devil with life!

• Fred Blake : Why can't you leave me alone!

  Louise Frith : I don't know. Something bigger than I am. We can't help ourselves any more than we can help the wind or the sea.

• Louise Frith : I'm pretending that we're going to sail away somewhere.

  Fred Blake : Perhaps Eric will take you for a trip on your honeymoon. You know, there's a kind of a chap I'd like to be. Oh, he's grand. You're a lucky girl to have a man like Eric.

  Louise Frith : Aren't you going to kiss me?

• Fred Blake : Are you Dutch?

  Eric Whittenson : No, I'm a Dane.

• Fred Blake : Here I am, a fugitive, liable to be picked up at any moment. That's why I say Eric is free - and he's good. He's the most wonderful chap I've ever known - and he loves you.

  Louise Frith : Kiss me, Fred.

  [kiss] 

• Louise Frith : Tell me about it.

  Fred Blake : Tell you about what?

  Louise Frith : Australia! About the street cars and the automobiles and the talking pictures.

  Fred Blake : Haven't you ever seen any of those things?

  Louise Frith : No. But, I've read about them in books and in the papers. Did you ever ride in a airplane? What does it feel like?

  Fred Blake : Bumpy.