Rope (1948)

Cedric Hardwicke: Mr. Kentley

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Quotes 

• Brandon : The few are those men of such intellectual and cultural superiority that they're above the traditional moral concepts. Good and evil, right and wrong, were invented for the ordinary, average man, the inferior man, because he needs them.

  Mr. Kentley : Then obviously you agree with Nietzsche and his theory of the superman.

  Brandon : Yes, I do.

  Mr. Kentley : So did Hitler.

  Brandon : Hitler was a paranoiac savage. His supermen, all fascist supermen, were brainless murderers. I'd hang any who were left. But then, you see, I'd hang them first for being stupid. I'd hang all incompetents and fools anyway. There are far too many in the world.

  Mr. Kentley : Then, perhaps you should hang me, Brandon.

• Rupert Cadell : Brandon, exactly what is this?

  Brandon : A cassone I got in Italy.

  Rupert Cadell : No, no, I mean why are we eating off it?

  Brandon : Oh, I've turned the dining room into a library.

  Rupert Cadell : Trust you to find a new use for a chest. One was always turning up in the bedtime stories he told in prep school. 'The Mistletoe Bough', that was always your favorite tale, wasn't it?

  Janet : What was that one about? I don't remember exactly how it started. It was about a lovely young girl...

  Mr. Kentley : She was a bride-to-be. And on her wedding day, she playfully hid herself in a chest.

  Rupert Cadell : Yes, that's right.

  Mr. Kentley : Unfortunately, it had a spring lock. Fifty years later, they found her skeleton.

  Janet : I don't think I'll get that playful.

• Mr. Kentley : [after Rupert dissects the positivities of murder]  Probably a symptom of approaching senility, but I must confess I really don't appreciate this morbid humour.

  Rupert Cadell : The humour was unintentional.

• Janet : You wouldn't know me these days. I'm a new woman. Punctual as a clock.

  Mrs. Atwater : That's very unfeminine, my dear.

  Mr. Kentley : Perhaps, but I prefer manners to femininity.