Dana Andrews: Abner 'Ab' Bedford

L'Île enchantée

Abner 'Ab' Bedford

Tom: If you want a woman, you need one of your own kind, Ab.
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: I've seen my own kind in every port in the world... and a greedier tribe I can't imagine.

Abner 'Ab' Bedford: [Abner and Tom see the beautiful Typee girl, Fayaway, for the first time] That's a pretty girl, Tom. That's a downright pretty girl.
Tom: What do ya' think? Happar? or Typee? I'd like to know what kind of diet she's used to.
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Oh, she's Happar. She's got to be. You don't find cannibals that pretty.

Abner 'Ab' Bedford: [Speaking to Tom] I have a suggestion you might think about. You live your life any way you please. But don't try to shove *your* way down the next man's throat. He might gag on it.

Abner 'Ab' Bedford: The papers also guarantee reasonable shore liberty. That's all we want. It's not a favor. It's their right!
Capt. Vangs: Oh, a sea lawyer, eh! Bedford, under my command you have two rights. First, the right to do precisely what I tell you to do. And, second, the right to a Christian burial if you fail.

Capt. Vangs: Bedford, are you fool enough to contemplate mutiny on a ship of mine?
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: No, sir. I'm only asking for shore leave. These men need to drink water that doesn't taste of wood. They need fruit! They need to feel solid ground under their feet for awhile. They need to relax.
Capt. Vangs: Relax? And I know what the relaxation is! Drunkenness and worst than drunkenness. Lust! The flesh! Those filthy naked girls of Dooley's!
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: We're only men, Captain Vangs. Not saints.

Abner 'Ab' Bedford: From now on, I'm going to be free.
Tom: What do you mean? What is it? Being free?
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Well, it means different things to different people, I guess. It depends on whose freedom you're talking about. To me, it means being able to do what I want to do without having a taboo pinned on me.

James 'Jimmy' Dooley: My name's James Dooley, at your service, sir. Twenty years a resident of this island paradise. A poor white man debauched by the tropics. You saw me fat native wife and seven of our delicious little daughters and their female cousins, eh?
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Yes, we met a couple of 'em.
James 'Jimmy' Dooley: Ah, charmin' girls. Charmin' girls! Me wife provides me with food and they pick up good Yankee dollars from passin' tourists. Over in the Happar Valley, I have another fat native wife and her brood of lovely daughters and their female cousins. And for the sake of peace with the Typees, I have a fat native wife in their sacred village. So that sort of, well, sort of makes me one of 'em.

Abner 'Ab' Bedford: What's your proposition?
James 'Jimmy' Dooley: Ah, that's it! Comin' straight to the point. No time wasted in hanky panky.

Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Fayaway, I'm clean already. Listen, listen...
Fayaway: Listen?
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Yes. Repeat this slowly, after me: Abner - doesn't - want - a bath.
Abner 'Ab' Bedford, Fayaway: Abner doesn't want...
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: A bath.

Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Abner - man. Abner, man.
Fayaway: Man?
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Same thing. Abner - man. Girl. Fayaway - girl.
Fayaway: Girl? Fayaway - girl.
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: They would say: Fayaway *is* a girl.
Fayaway: Fayaway girl is?
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: In deed you are. All around and up and down. And every pretty inch of you. You are a girl. All girl.

Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Watch.
[puts his arm around Fayaway]
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Love. Love.
Fayaway: [pats Ab's other arm] Love.
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: No, no. This one.
[puts both arms around Fayaway]
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Love.
Fayaway: [picks up a minnow from a basket] Fish.
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Fish - good. Motaki. Love.
Fayaway: Fish.
[swallows the minnow]
Fayaway: Mmm. Good. Eat fish. Good.
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Let's not lose our heads over a basket full of raw fish. Love.
Fayaway: Fish.

Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Fayaway, lesson.
Fayaway: No lesson. I bring fish.
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: No, please. No more fish. I have a new word for you. Listen. Kiss.
Fayaway: Kiss.
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Yes, that's right. You're doing just fine. Now, watch this. See here.
[touches Fayaway's lips with his finger then his own lips]
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Kiss. Like that. See?
Fayaway: No, motaki.
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Oh, you just don't understand. It's the best thing there is. Your lips. My lips. Together. Like that. See?
Fayaway: This.
[touches Ab's lips with her finger]
Fayaway: This.
[touches her own lips with her finger]
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Yes, that's right.
Fayaway: This is kiss?
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Yes. Kiss.
Fayaway: [Fayaway gives Ab a quick kiss] That kiss?
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Yes. Let's try it.
Fayaway: No, no. Dirty. I bring fish!

Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Fayaway, you won't understand most of this. Maybe that's why I say it. Sometimes its hard to talk when every word is understood. Easy, and they're not. At least, it's always been that way with me.
Fayaway: You talk, Abner.
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: I think - I think I love you, Fayaway. You might be the freedom I've always been looking for. You have a beauty like I've never seen before. You have a way of walking that's like water flowing in a little New England brook. You always have a fragrance of flowers about you.
Fayaway: Talk.
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: From the look in your eye, I'm beginning to think you do understand. That - that would be terrible. People don't ever talk like that.
Fayaway: Love.
Abner 'Ab' Bedford: Perhaps, kiss?
Fayaway: Kiss.
[kiss]