Joan Crawford credited as playing...
Agatha Reed
- Agatha Reed: And I had an opportunity to see what happened when freedom was destroyed. The first step was always the same. They began by putting a blanket over education. And by making it a crime for people to think. That's what the film is about. Actual newsreel shots of some of the dreadful things that have happened in our time. How they burned the books and sent the scholars into slave labor camps. How they hang the teachers by their feet in the public squares because they dared to teach the truth. Do you think I want to see that happen in this country?
- Matt Cole: This overwhelming desire to return to the past... girlhood memories, old pictures, old sofas, old sweethearts. Old hat!
- Agatha Reed: You've been on war fronts so long that a decent atmosphere is bound to seem a little incongruous.
- Miss 'Woody' Woods: [Seeing Agatha searching the desk drawer] May I ask what you're doing?
- Agatha Reed: There's a secret compartment in this desk; I used to keep brownies in it to hide them from Ellie.
- Miss 'Woody' Woods: Who's Ellie?
- Agatha Reed: My roommate. You share your clothes, your perfume, and even your themes with your roommate , but never your...
- [Pulling out a tin, and opening it]
- Agatha Reed: brownies!
- Miss 'Woody' Woods: Zooks! they must be stale!
- Agatha Reed: [chewing] Fresh this week. go on, have one.
- Miss 'Woody' Woods: No thanks. They stick to my teeth.
- Agatha Reed: The result is the girls that graduate from this college tomorrow aren't prepared for the world they'll have to face. Yet you're prepared to hand it to them and tell them to "fight for it, die for it" but don't understand it.
- Agatha Reed: And you don't like a film which makes a plea for academic freedom.
- Claude Griswold: Well, I don't...
- Agatha Reed: Mr. Griswold, we're trying to sell the idea of freedom and democracy to the rest of the world. How can we succeed if we're afraid of it ourselves?
- Claude Griswold: I don't give a hoot about the rest of the world, Miss Reed. All I care about is protecting the minds of the young people here.
- Agatha Reed: And you're going to do that by restricting them from seeing a film that's considered educational. By preventing them from discussing any of the serious questions facing us today. That's not protecting them, Mr. Griswold. That's destroying them.
- Agatha Reed: You see, you learn all kinds of cute tricks in my work. The most important one being never to play fair unless you respect the men you're dealing with.
- Doctor James Merrill: I've never believed this could happen. Not after last night.
- Agatha Reed: Last night was twenty years ago.