- [last lines]
- Howard Prince: [in the HUAC hearing] Fellas... I don't recognize the right of this committee to ask me these kind of questions. And furthermore, you can all go fuck yourselves.
- Howard's Attorney: This friend of yours, Alfred Miller...
- Howard Prince: We went to school together.
- Howard's Attorney: And you had no idea that he was a Communist?
- Howard Prince: He was only twelve.
- Howard Prince: Where are you from?
- Florence Barrett: Connecticut.
- Howard Prince: That's - that's very ritzy.
- Florence Barrett: It's very proper anyway. I was very well bred - the kind of family where the biggest sin was to raise your voice.
- Howard Prince: Oh yeah? In my family the biggest sin was to buy retail.
- Howard Prince: Are you some kind of romantic? You know, that's the trouble with you leftos, you got a thing about money.
- Florence Barrett: Do you want a drink?
- Howard Prince: [distracted and worried] Yeah, but just a drink.
- Hecky Brown: [after gulping a glass of scotch] You know, I never learned how to sip a drink. When I was very little, every evening before supper my father would pour a shot glass full of whiskey, mumble a prayer,
- [He emulates his father by mumbling in Yiddish]
- Hecky Brown: and down it went! I thought that was the way you drank.
- Florence Barrett: Howard Prince, I'd like you to meet Steve Parks, who plays the lead in the show.
- Steve Parks: It's a marvelous script.
- Howard Prince: Thank you very much.
- Florence Barrett: And Hecky Brown...
- Hecky Brown: Who plays with himself.
- Florence Barrett: ...who plays the narrator.
- Florence Barrett: You're lucky you're a writer... and not an actor. At least with a writer, if he gets blacklisted, he can always still write. An actor, what's he going to do if he can't show his face?
- Howard Prince: [to his attorney] I - I still don't see why we can't fix it. You know what I me...? Pay somebody off 'cau - 'cause how much cou-could it cost, you know, 'cause they're just Congressmen?
- Bookseller: You call yourself a writer? Modern American writing started with Huckleberry Finn, dummy.
- Howard Prince: It did?
- Bookseller: Hemingway said that. How about Hemingway? You're low on the moderns - Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson, Fitzgerald.
- Howard Prince: All right, give me - give me two Hemingways and a Faulkner.
- Bookseller: Faulkner. Hemingway, There we are. The Russians - "Brothers Karamazov". No more Dostoyevsky?
- Howard Prince: What else you got?
- Bookseller: "Diary of a Writer".
- Howard Prince: Oh, yeah? I can use that.
- Myer Prince: Howard, Howard, what's it going to be with you? Mama and Papa would turn in their graves.
- Howard Prince: I - I - I haven't found myself yet, you know, but it's all going to change, Myer.
- Myer Prince: You were always the smart one. Did I get the lessons? You could've gone to college. Instead, you're a bum.
- Howard Prince: You want to put my name on your scripts.
- Alfred Miller: It's not that simple. I write the scripts. I send them in under your name. They buy the scripts, right?
- Howard Prince: It's perfect.
- Alfred Miller: Then they're going to want to meet the writer.
- Howard Prince: So?
- Alfred Miller: So you're going to have to go in there, really be the writer.
- Howard Prince: So I'll be the writer. What's the big deal? I can do it. I want to do it! I'm your friend. You're in trouble. What's a friend for?
- Alfred Miller: Well, these days, you can get in trouble being friends.
- Howard Prince: Life is risk.
- Florence Barrett: Howard, I really ought to tell you. I'm involved.
- Howard Prince: I don't understand. What is that, are you married?
- Florence Barrett: No, but involved.
- Howard Prince: So what? I mean, you telling me that you're one of those "one guy at a time" people?
- [Florence nods affirmatively]
- Howard Prince: Yeah? Okay. Here's what I say to you - we go out, don't bring him along. Right?
- Harry Stone: I never joined anything. A terrible mistake has been made.
- Francis Hennessey: I sympathize. Unfortunately, I can only help people who are willing to make a clean breast of what they've done.
- Harry Stone: But I haven't done anything!
- Francis Hennessey: That's why I can't help you.
- Howard Prince: You come bursting in here, you're ready to start a revolution. For God's sake, Florence, what are you trying to do?
- Florence Barrett: I want us to fight them, not get bought off.
- Howard Prince: I'm not mad at anybody.
- Florence Barrett: We live in the world, Howard.
- Howard Prince: No, you live in the world, I live right here.
- Howard Prince: Oh, Jesus, you know, we got such a terrific relationship going. So why do you want to spoil it?
- Florence Barrett: A relationship isn't only sex, you know. There are more important aspects.
- Howard Prince: I know there are. Like what?
- Florence Barrett: Human rights.
- Howard Prince: What about my rights? I'm a human. What happened to my rights all of a sudden?
- Howard Prince: All right, who can you sue?
- Alfred Miller: Nobody. Nobody admits there's a blacklist. I mean, they just say, "Your script's not good enough." "You're not right for the assignment." You know, that kind of thing.
- Howard Prince: What are you blacklisted for?
- Alfred Miller: I'm a communist sympathizer.
- Howard Prince: Well, you always were.
- Alfred Miller: Well, it's not so popular anymore.
- Alfred Miller: Howard, they won't buy my scripts. I'm on a blacklist. Do you know what that means? It's a list of names. The studios have them, the networks, the ad agencies. You're on the list, you're marked. You don't work.
- Phil Sussman: Howard, I know it's not fun to cut your script, but television is television. You decide and you cut. I'm not the kind of producer who disembowels a writer's script. I believe in the written word. Absolutely. I need it tomorrow morning. But you be happy with it.
- Francis Hennessey: The question is, Mr. Brown, what have you done?
- Hecky Brown: Nothing. I'm an actor.
- Francis Hennessey: Nothing?
- Hecky Brown: Six years ago, I marched in the May Day parade. I bought a subscription for the 'Daily Worker', but I never read it, not one word. Right from the mailbox to the garbage can. I was only trying to get laid. This girl, this communist girl, she had a big ass.
- Francis Hennessey: I am not interested in your sex life, Mr. Brown.
- Hecky Brown: Hecky. I was just telling you - that girl was the reason.
- Francis Hennessey: Was she also the reason you signed a petition for Loyalist Spain?
- Hecky Brown: Did I do that?
- Francis Hennessey: And Russian war relief?
- Hecky Brown: We were on the same side, weren't we? That girl with the big ass, she was the reason. Honestly.
- Howard Prince: I was thinking, there must be a lot of writers who are blacklisted. So how do they get along?
- Alfred Miller: Why?
- Howard Prince: I don't know. You know, it must be hard.
- Alfred Miller: Yeah, it's hard.
- Howard Prince: You know, it's funny. I got them so snowed. I mean, two writers wouldn't be any harder than one.
- Alfred Miller: Oh, yeah? You think not?
- Howard Prince: What do you have to know? It's a cinch.
- Alfred Miller: Why not three?
- Hecky Brown: You want me to spy - on Howard Prince?
- Francis Hennessey: We are in a war, Mr. Brown, against a ruthless and tricky enemy who will stop at nothing to destroy our way of life. To be a spy on the side of freedom is an honor.
- Hecky Brown: And if I spy on Howard Prince, I can work?
- Francis Hennessey: I don't do the hiring, Mr. Brown. I only advise about Americanism. But in my opinion, as the sign of a true patriot, it would certainly help.
- Howard Prince: Relax, will you? You're going off the deep end. Jesus, let me give you some champagne.
- Florence Barrett: They count on our silence, you know. People keeping quiet, afraid to speak up. Do you know what I'm going to do? Publish a newspaper. Well, anyway, a pamphlet- Facts About Blacklists. Do you like the title?
- Sam: Get him out of here! You fat pig. You'll never work again!
- Hecky Brown: I'm Hecky Brown! I'm Hecky Brown!
- Sam: You'll crawl in the gutter, you red bastard! You commie son of a bitch!
- Howard Prince: Hey, I tried to get us tickets to the Paul Robeson concert, you know, but it happened to come on the same night as the basketball game, so, we'll go to a basketball game, right?
- Committee Counselor: Do you know Alfred Miller, the writer?
- Howard Prince: Uh, when you say "know," uh, you know, can you ever really know a person? I think, you know I grew up with an Alfred Miller, but do I know him? Would you say, do I know him? Can you know - In a biblical sense, know him? Am I right?
- Hecky Brown: [singing] I need to be funny, Like some need cocaine, In a club, In a show, And the john in the train, When I enter, I entertain, Doing anything for a laugh, A laugh, a laugh, A laugh, Anything for a laugh!
- Hecky Brown: Open up in the name of the law! Get out your guns, men. Nobody move. This is a raid. Everybody, everybody out. We understand you have a girl in your room. If not, why not? Do you have a little tootsie for me?
- Hecky Brown: Watch your step around this place. The broads up here, take a look at them, and you say to yourself, "Where's this been all my life?" They come at you from all directions. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Later on, you find out you're the fish.
- Howard Prince: Yeah, well, don't worry about me.
- Hecky Brown: Don't make any promises. These broads come up here with their lawyers.
- T.V. Director: Now, stand by, everybody. We have 30 seconds to air. Can I see opening shots, please? Camera one. Fine. Two's good. Three, frame up, please. Tilt up. That's it. It looks good. Watch the boom. All right, stand by to dim the lights. - And, uh, okay. Dim them down. Looks nice. Ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two... one. And fade up on three.