Compulsion (1959)

Orson Welles: Jonathan Wilk

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Quotes 

• Jonathan Wilk : If there is any way of destroying hatred and all that goes with it, it's not through evil and hatred and cruelty, but through charity, love, understanding.

• [last lines] 

  Jonathan Wilk : In those years to come, you might find yourself asking if it wasn't the hand of god dropped these glasses... And if he didn't, who did?

• Jonathan Wilk : It's taken the world a long, long time to get to even where it is today. Your Honor, if you hang these boys, you turn back to the past. I'm pleading for the future. I'm pleading not for these two lives, but for life itself, for a time when we can overcome hatred with love, and we can learn that all life is worth saving, and that mercy is the highest attribute of men. Yes, I'm pleading for the future - in this court of law. I'm pleading for love.

• Jonathan Wilk : The world has been one long slaughterhouse from the beginning until today, and the killing goes on and on and on. Why not read something? Why not think... instead of blindly shouting for death?

• Jonathan Wilk : I don't think we ought to worry our heads over the kind of folks who's reaction to an emotional situation is to pull a sheet over their head.

• Jonathan Wilk : We're told it was a cold-blooded killing because they planned and schemed. Yes, but here are officers of the state who for months have planned and schemed - and contrived - to take these boys' lives. Talk about scheming.

• Jonathan Wilk : Did Judd give any demonstration that - he liked you as a woman?

  Ruth Evans : He kissed me.

  Jonathan Wilk : That's all? No further advances?

  Ruth Evans : There were, but they stopped.

• Jonathan Wilk : Your Honor, if our state is not kinder, more human, more considerate, more intelligent, then the mad act of these two sick boys, then I'm sorry that I've lived so long.

• Jonathan Wilk : I'll understand if you'd rather have another lawyer.

  Max Steiner : No, sir.

  Charles Straus : Now?

  Max Steiner : Between now and 9:00 tomorrow morning? Ridiculous. No. We're committed to you, sir and I think we've made a tragic mistake.

  Jonathan Wilk : I hope you're wrong. I really do, Mr. Steiner.

• Jonathan Wilk : Your Honor, I can only think now of taking these two boys, 18 and 19, penning them in a cell. Checking off the days and hours and minutes, until their wakened in the gray of the morning and led to the scaffold, their feet tied, black caps drawn over their heads, stood on a trap, the hangman pressing the spring. I can see them fall through a space. I can see them - stopped by the rope around their necks. It would be done, of course, in the name of justice. Justice. Who knows what it is? Do I know? Does Your Honor know? Can Your Honor tell me what I deserve? Can Your Honor appraise yourself and say what you deserve? Do you think you can cure the hatreds and maladjustments of the world by hanging them?

• Jonathan Wilk : I'm asking this court to shut them into a prison for life. Any cry for more goes back to the hyena. It roots back to the beasts of the jungle. It's no part of man.

• Jonathan Wilk : What about this matter of crime and punishment anyway? Through the centuries, our laws have been modified. Till now, men looked back with horror at the hangings and killings of the past. It's been proven that as the penalties are less barbarous the crimes are less frequent. Do I need to argue with Your Honor that cruelty only breeds cruelty?

• Jonathan Wilk : Isn't a lifetime behind prison bars enough for this mad act? And must this great public be regaled with a hanging?