Sissy Spacek: Holly

Badlands

Holly

Holly Sargis: One day, while taking a look at some vistas in Dad's stereopticon, it hit me that I was just this little girl, born in Texas, whose father was a sign painter, who only had just so many years to live. It sent a chill down my spine and I thought where would I be this very moment, if Kit had never met me? Or killed anybody... this very moment... if my mom had never met my dad... if she had never died. And what's the man I'll marry gonna look like? What's he doing right this minute? Is he thinking about me now, by some coincidence, even though he doesn't know me? Does it show on his face? For days afterwards I lived in dread. Sometimes I wished I could fall asleep and be taken off to some magical land, and this never happened.

Holly Sargis: At this moment, I didn't feel shame or fear, but just kind of blah, like when you're sitting there and all the water's run out of the bathtub.

Holly Sargis: [Last lines of the film]
[Voiceover]
Holly Sargis: Kit and I were taken back to South Dakota. They kept him in solitary, so he didn't have a chance to get acquainted with the other inmates, though he was sure they'd like him, especially the murderers. Myself, I got off with probation and a lot of nasty looks. Later I married the son of the lawyer who defended me. Kit went to sleep in the courtroom while his confession was being read, and he was sentenced to die in the electric chair. On a warm spring night, six months later, after donating his body to science, he did.
Kit Carruthers: Sir... Where'd you get that hat?
Trooper: State.
Kit Carruthers: Boy, I'd like to buy me one of those.
Trooper: [the trooper smiles] You're quite an individual, Kit.
Kit Carruthers: Think they'll take that into consideration?

Holly Sargis: [voiceover narration] It was better to live a week with someone who loved me for what I was, then years of loneliness.

Holly Sargis: He needed me now more than ever, but something had come between us. I'd stopped even paying attention to him. Instead I sat in the car and read a map and spelled out entire sentences with my tongue on the roof of mouth where nobody could read them.

Holly Sargis: [telling a joke to Cato] Did you hear about the guy at the nuthouse that walked around naked except for hat and gloves? This nurse came up to him and said, "You can't walk around that way." And the guy says, "It's okay, nobody comes around here anyway." And the nurse says, "Well, what do you have on the hat and gloves for?" And the guy says, "Well, you never know..."

Holly Sargis: [voice over narration] Little did I realise that what began in the alleys and back ways of this quiet town would end in the Badlands of Montana.

Kit Carruthers: Don't worry, now. I'm gonna' get you off these charges. There's a whole lot of other boys out there waitin' for you. And you're gonna' have a lot of fun... Boy, we rang the bell, didn't we? I'll say this, though. That guy with the deaf maid? He's just lucky he's not dead, too. Of course, uh, too bad about your dad...
Holly Sargis: Yeah.
Kit Carruthers: We're gonna' have to sit down and talk about that sometime.

Holly Sargis: [voice over narration] Then sure enough Dad found out I been running around behind his back. He was madder than I ever seen him. His punishment for deceiving him: he went and shot my dog. He made me take extra music lessons everyday after school, and wait there 'till he came to pick me up. He said that if the piano didn't keep me off the streets, maybe the clarinet would.

Kit Carruthers: You Tired?
Holly Sargis: Yeah.
Kit Carruthers: Yeah, you look tired... Listen, honey. when all this is over, I'm going to sit down and buy you a big, thick steak.
Holly Sargis: I don't want a steak.
Kit Carruthers: Well, we'll see about that... Hey, lookie.

Holly Sargis: [voice over narration] At the very edge of the horizon we could make out the gas fires of the refineries at Missoula, while to the south we could see the lights of Cheyenne, a city bigger and grander than I'd ever seen.

Holly Sargis: [Voiceover narration] Kit was glad to leave South Dakota behind, and cursed its name. He said that if the Communists ever dropped the atomic bomb, he wished they'd put it right in the middle of Rapid City.

[first lines]
Holly Sargis: [voice over narration] My Mother died of pneumonia when I was just a kid. My Father kept their wedding cake in the freezer for ten whole years. After the funeral he gave it to the yard man. He tried to act cheerful but he could never be consoled by the little stranger he found in his house. Then one day hoping to begin a new life away from the scene of all these memories he moved us from Texas to Port Dupree, South Dakota.

Holly Sargis: [voice over narration] Of course I had to keep all of this a secret from my Dad. He would had a fit because Kit was ten years older than me and came from the wrong side of the tracks so called.

Holly Sargis: [voice over narration] We hid out in the wilderness down by a river in the grove of Cotton Woods. Being the flood season we built our house in the trees.

Kit Carruthers: Hi, I'm Kit. I'm not keeping you from anything important, am I?
Holly Sargis: No.
Kit Carruthers: Well, I was just messing around over there, thought I'd come over and say hello to you.
[smiling]
Kit Carruthers: I'll try anything once.
[pause]
Kit Carruthers: What's your name? I said mine.
Holly Sargis: Holly.
Kit Carruthers: Listen, Holly, you want to take a walk with me?
Holly Sargis: What for?
Kit Carruthers: Well. I got some stuff to say. Guess I'm kind of lucky that way. Most people don't have anything on their minds, do they? Oh incidentally, my last name is Carruthers. Sounds a little too much like "druthers," doesn't it?
Holly Sargis: It's okay.
Kit Carruthers: Well, nobody asked me what I thought. They just hung it on me.

Holly Sargis: [voice over narration] They hadn't found but one set of bones in the ashes of the house so we knew they'd be looking for us. Kit made sure we'd be prepared. He gave me lectures on how a gun works, how to take it apart, and put it back together again, in case I had to carry on without him. He said that if the devil came at me, I'd shoot him with a gun. One day I carried thirty pounds of wood a distance of five miles. Another day while hiding in the forest I covered my eyes with make up to see how they'd come out.