Edmond O'Brien: Johnny Midnight

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  Johnny Midnight : [Narration]  He was a little man with a big heartbreak. A shabby, gallant little man back from the nowhere of his lost past, and waiting to salvage whatever was left of his future. Yes, he was a sad, brave little man who only wanted to find what was left of his future. But his future had run out on him, and what he found was death. For him, the big heartbreak was finished. But he deserved better. He deserved a lot better.

• Johnny Midnight : Lupo, we've been friends a long time and you're a good cop. You'd be a better one if you'd stop leaping to conclusions.

  Sgt. Sam Olivera : Go ahead say it, Johnny. I'm an ignorant Puerto Rican flatfoot. You're surprised I even finished night school.

  Johnny Midnight : I didn't mean that at all.

• Johnny Midnight : A ventriloquist is sometimes an oddball. He says things through his dummy he can't say himself. The dummy becomes part of him, an extension of his own personality.

  Sgt. Sam Olivera : And a release of his inhibitions. I can even spell "sublimation" and "schizophrenia." Night school, remember?

  Johnny Midnight : Alright, so one class you flunked. No ventriloquist destroys his own dummy. Throwing it in Long Island Sound would be like killing part of himself. He'd have to be psychopathic.

  Sgt. Sam Olivera : I said I'm looking for a psycho.

• Johnny Midnight : It's wrong, amigo. It's out of kilter, like a play with a bad final curtain.

  Sgt. Sam Olivera : What, do you want to write a new third act?

  Johnny Midnight : I already have. I want you to let me stage it.

  Sgt. Sam Olivera : You know what happens if your play's a flop? I get busted right back to the hardest beat.

  Johnny Midnight : But if we're a hit you go up for promotion.

  Sgt. Sam Olivera : Alright, either way what have I to lose but my sergeant stripes? Go on, get on with it before I come to my senses.

  Johnny Midnight : 'Attaboy, amigo.

• Johnny Midnight : What I'm going to present might be called an experiment in dramatic psychology. And I'd like you to think of yourselves not as members of the audience, but as the cast. In any case, if the show lays an egg, you don't have to run to the box office for a refund because we're all here on passes.