Crossfire (1947)

Robert Young: Finlay

Photos 

Quotes 

• Finlay : Hating is always the same, always senseless. One day it kills Irish Catholics, the next day Jews, the next day Protestants, the next day Quakers. It's hard to stop. It can end up killing men who wear striped neckties. Or people from Tennessee.

• Finlay : This business of hating Jews comes in a lot of different sizes. There's the "you can't join our country club" kind and "you can't live around here" kind. Yes, and the "you can't work here" kind. And because we stand for all of these, we get Monty's kind. He's just one guy, we don't get him very often, but he grows out of all the rest.

• Montgomery : Of course, I've seen a lot of guys like him.

  Finlay : Like what?

  Montgomery : Oh, you know, guys that played it safe during the war, scrounged around, keepin' themselves in civvies, got swell apartments, swell dames... you know the kind.

  Finlay : I'm not sure that I do. Just what kind?

  Montgomery : Oh, you know... some of them are named Samuels. Some of them got funnier names.

  Finlay : [with stone-faced expression]  You'll be at the Stewart Hotel?

  Montgomery : Sure, I got nowhere else to go. I'm sponging a bunk from one of the boys. You coming Keeley?

  Finlay : There are one or two more questions I'd like to ask Sergeant Keeley.

  [Montgomery leaves] 

  Keeley : He ought to look at a casualty list sometime. There are a lot of funny names there, too.

• Finlay : Look, Leroy, you know we have a law against carrying a gun?

  Leroy : Sure.

  Finlay : Well, we have that law because a gun is dangerous. Well, hate - Monty's kind of hate - is like a gun. If you carry it around with you, it can go off and kill somebody.

• Finlay : The motive had to be inside the killer himself. Something he brought with him. Something he'd been nursing, for a long time. Something that had been waiting. The killer had to be someone who could hate Samuels without knowing him. Who could hate him enough to kill him, under the right circumstances, not for any real reason but, mistakenly and ignorantly.

• Finlay : You still don't know where he is?

  Keeley : No. I didn't know when I came in here, and I haven't suddenly gotten any brighter.

• Leroy : [referring to Montgomery]  Captain, is he dead?

  Finlay : He was dead for a long time. He just didn't know it.

  Leroy : I guess I did the right thing?

  Finlay : The rightest thing you ever did, soldier.

• Ginny : I don't like cops.

  Finlay : Nobody likes cops.

• Finlay : Ignorant men always laugh at things that are different - things they don't understand. They're afraid of things they don't understand. They end up hating them.

• [repeated lines] 

  Finlay : [to his men, referring to the deceased]  Okay, clean it up.

• Finlay : How well do you know him?

  Keeley : I've tried to like him, but he's not my type.

• Finlay : [Telling a story of the past]  When he left the bar, two men followed him with empty whisky bottles. They didn't mean to kill him. They were just going to rough him up a little. They didn't start out to kill, they just started out hating. The way Monty started out. But 20 minutes later, my grandfather was dead. That's history, Leroy. They don't teach it in school, but it's real American history just the same. Thomas Finlay was killed in 1848 just because he was an Irishman and a Catholic. It happened many times. Maybe that's hard for you to believe, Leroy, but it's true. And last night, Joseph Samuels was killed just because he was a Jew.

• Finlay : What did you talk about with Mrs. Mitchell?

  Keeley : It was personal. Wouldn't interest you.

  Finlay : Nothing interests me anymore.

• Finlay : Ah, Mrs. Finlay'll be leaving for early mass.

  Keeley : Now that I know that, can I go back to bed?

• Leroy : [Agreeing to help flush out the killer]  Will you tell me exactly what to say?

  Finlay : I'll tell you exactly what to say.