Orson Welles’ The Lady from Shanghai (scheduled for broadcast on TCM on Sunday, May 17th, at 10 AM) was based on a novel by Sherwood King, but since Welles was largely responsible for the screenplay (even though there were three other uncredited writers) we can confidently attribute the high quotability quotient of the film to him.

Welles was delving into film noir here. While he was successful in achieving the noir look right enough, the dialogue, which can only be described as poetic in places, could have been written by Bill Shakespeare if the Bard’s career had taken a different turn, with him hammering out hardboiled detective fiction between play scripts and sonnets to meet the rent.

A few lines from the movie (and here’s hoping I got them right):

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New York is not as big a city as it pretends to be.
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You’ve been traveling around the world too much to find out anything about it.
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When I start out to make a fool of myself, there’s very little can stop me. If I’d known where it would end, I’d never let anything start, if I’d been in my right mind, that is. But once I’d seen her, once I’d seen her, I was not in my right mind for quite some time … me, with plenty of time and nothing to do but get myself in trouble. Some people can smell danger, not me.
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That’s how I found her, and from that moment on, I did not use my head very much, except to be thinking of her.
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Personally, I don’t like a girlfriend to have a husband. If she’ll fool her husband, I figure she’ll fool me.
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Talk of money and murder. I must be insane, or else all these people are lunatics.
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There’s a fair face to the land, surely, but you can’t hide the hunger and guilt. It’s a bright, guilty world.
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This is going to be murder and it’s going to be legal. I want to live, but I want to vanish. I want to go away and change my name and never be heard of again. But that costs money and it isn’t as easy nowadays. If they’re looking for you, they’ll find you, unless they think you’re dead. They’ll find you even on the smallest island in the South Seas. That’s where I’m gonna be, fella, on that smallest island … I want to live on that island in peace. That won’t be possible unless the world is satisfied that I don’t exist. You know, the law’s a funny thing, fella. The state of California will say I’m dead, officially dead, if somebody will say they murdered me. That’s what I’m paying you for … You swear you killed me, but you can’t be arrested. That’s the law. Look it up for yourself. There’s no such thing as homicide unless they find a corpse. It just isn’t murder if they don’t find a body. According to the law, I’m dead IF you say you murdered me. But you’re not a murderer unless I’m dead. Silly, isn’t it?
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Once, off the hump of Brazil I saw the ocean so darkened with blood it was black and the sun fainting away over the lip of the sky. We’d put in at Fortaleza, and a few of us had lines out for a bit of idle fishing. It was me had the first strike. A shark it was. Then there was another, and another shark again, ’till all about, the sea was made of sharks and more sharks still, and no water at all. My shark had torn himself from the hook, and the scent, or maybe the stain it was, and him bleeding his life away drove the rest of them mad. Then the beasts took to eating each other. In their frenzy, they ate at themselves. You could feel the lust of murder like a wind stinging your eyes, and you could smell the death, reeking up out of the sea. I never saw anything worse … until this little picnic tonight. And you know, there wasn’t one of them sharks in the whole crazy pack that survived.
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You hear that, George? You’ve just been called a shark. If you were a good lawyer you’d take it as a compliment.
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What’s a tough guy? … A guy with an edge … A gun or a knife, a nightstick, or a razor, somethin’ the other guy ain’t got. Yeah, a little extra reach on a punch, a set of brass knuckles, a stripe on the sleeve, a badge that says cop on it, a rock in your hand, or a bankroll in your pocket. That’s an edge, brother. Without an edge, there ain’t no tough guy.
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-Do you drink?
-I beg your pardon?
-I asked you if you drink.
-Whatever’s set in front of me. Doesn’t have to be wholesome, as long as it’s strong.
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He who attempts to change his nature, in the end retains his true nature.
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-Oh, I told you, sweet, you don’t know anything about the world.
-Well, lately I’ve been rounding out my education.
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-You said the world’s bad. We can’t run away from the badness. And you’re right there. But you said we can’t fight it. We must deal with the badness, make terms. And then the badness’ll deal with you, and make its own terms, in the end, surely.
-You can fight, but what good is it? Goodbye.
-You mean we can’t win?
-No, we can’t win. Give my love to the sunrise.
-We can’t lose, either. Only if we quit.
-And you’re not going to.
-Not again.
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I went to call the cops, but I knew she’d be dead before they got there and I’d be free. Bannister’s note to the DA would fix it. I’d be innocent officially, but that’s a big word—innocence. Stupid’s more like it. Well, everybody is somebody’s fool. The only way to stay out of trouble is to grow old, so I guess I’ll concentrate on that. Maybe I’ll live so long that I’ll forget her. Maybe I’ll die trying.

—Mike Gray