Pressure Point (1962)
Sidney Poitier: Doctor
Photos
Quotes
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Doctor : [angrily to the Patient] This is my country! This is where I've done what I've done, and if there were a million cruds like you, all sick like you are sick, all shouting, 'Down, destroy, degrade,' and if there were 20 million more sick enough to listen to them, you are still gonna lose! You're gonna lose, Mister, because there is something in this country, something so big, so strong that you don't even know... something big enough to take it from people like you and come back and nail you into the ground. You're walking out of here? You are going nowhere! Now get out!
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Doctor : [furiously to the patient] You crud! You vicious, slimy. rotten little crud!
[He slams the door]
Doctor : Let me tell you something. Do you know what I wanted most? Despite what you are and despite what you were, I wanted to help you. I wanted to kill you. I would enjoy to kill you right now with my bare hands. But more than I wanted to kill you, I wanted to help you. Know what that makes me? More than a good man that makes me a doctor!
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Doctor : Where did you go?
Patient : ere, there, anywhere, I guess. Just roamed around working at all sorts of jobs. Anything I could get I took.
Doctor : Sounds pretty rough for a boy that age.
Patient : Believe me, it was. Some of the things I had to do weren't fit for a white man...
[after a pause]
Patient : Sorry, what I meant to say was that...
Doctor : It's all right. Go on.
Patient : Look, I said i was sorry.
Doctor : What do you expect me to do? Smile? Let's not make a thing out of it.
Patient : You can appreciate that I apologized.
Doctor : I do, I do, but you make it sound like an achievement.
Patient : It is for me.
Doctor : Look, you wanna go on with this?
Patient : [Smiles] Sure, why not. It's a great pastime,
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Doctor : You still have the mentality of a storm trooper.
Patient : Thank you. I take that as a compliment. They must be pretty smart, those storm troopers. They own Europe. they took it over just like that, and, you know, the first thing they did was to remake Europe. And how did they do that? By getting rid of certain people. Now over here it's going to be a little different. You know, it won't be only the Jews we get rid of, don't you? You're going to make it easier for us. You won't have to wear any armband. We're going to spot you a mile away.
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Doctor : [to the young psychiatrist] In all those many months there's been times when I was uneasy, times when I was repelled, but that was the point at which I became frightened... and the really frightening thing was that I wasn't sure just what I was frightened of.
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Doctor : For although psychopaths are a small minority, it seems significant that whenever organized and militant hate exist a psychopath is the leader, and if, for instance, one hundred disgruntled and frustrated individuals fall in line behind one psychopath then, in essence, we are concerned with the actions of one hundred and one psychopaths.
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Young Psychiatrist : You don't understand how deeply he hates.
Doctor : I understand. That's his problem.
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Patient : But, you take the ordinary man. Now, he's lost. He has no real leader. He wants a leader. He wants a lot of things he doesn't have and doesn't know how to get. But most of all, he wants an excuse to get them. A cause.
Doctor : And, that's where you come in.
Patient : No. No, that's where you come in. No offense intended. You see, we need you. Where there's no definite enemy, why, we create one. People need one to blame things on. So, you see, you're the secret weapon. You're the cause to unite against.
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Doctor : Thank you gentlemen but I don't think I could accept your praise. His conduct has probably improved and he has no more black out spells but otherwise, I don't see much change in him.
Chief Medical Officer : What do you mean?
Doctor : Well, he's still a nazi, for instance.
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Chief Medical Officer : Keep smiling, I always say.
Doctor : Yeah, well, whatever you always say.
