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When a bumbling New Yorker is dumped by his activist girlfriend, he travels to a tiny Latin American nation and becomes involved in its latest rebellion.
Nancy: Have you ever been to Denmark? Fielding Mellish: I've been, yes... to the Vatican. Nancy: The Vatican? The Vatican is in Rome. Fielding Mellish: Well, they were doing so well in Rome that they opened one in Denmark.
Witness: I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I've known Fielding Mellish for years and he's a warm, wonderful human being. Fielding Mellish: Uh, would the clerk read that statement back please? Court Clerk: "I've known Fielding Mellish for years and he's a rotten, conniving, dishonest little rat." Fielding Mellish: Ok, I just wanted to make sure you were getting it. Judge: You're out of order!
Fielding Mellish: I object, your honor! This trial is a travesty. It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.
Esposito: From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish. Silence! In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check. Furthermore, all children under 16 years old are now... 16 years old! Fielding Mellish: What's the Spanish word for straitjacket?
Fielding Mellish: Blood! That should be on the inside!
Fielding Mellish: [At a fundraising dinner] I am reminded tonight of the farmer who had an incestuous relationship with both his daughters simultaneously.
Rebel Leader: You are accused of killing over a thousand people in your term of office... of torturing hundreds of women and children. How do you plead? Diaz: Guilty... with an explanation.
Diaz: And now, as is our annual custom, each citizen of San Marcos will come up here and present his Excellency with his weight in horse manure. General Emilio M. Vargas: Horse manure? I thought they were diamonds. Diaz: We are an agrarian country. General Emilio M. Vargas: Yes, but horse... Diaz: You will fertilize your personal crops. Sometimes food is more valuable than gold.
Howard Cosell: This is tremendous, Don, just tremendous. The atmosphere heavy, uncertain, overtones of ugliness. A reminder, in a way, of how it was in March of 1964 at Miami Beach when Clay met Liston for the first time and nobody was certain how it would turn out. The crowd is tense; they've been here since ten this morning. And... and I think I see... the door beginning to open. El Presidente may be coming out. The door opens. It's he... it's El Presidente waving at the crowd. A shot rings out! He turns... he runs back toward the building, trying to get in. This crowd is going wild. He's caught in a crossfire of bullets. And down! It's over! It's all over for El Presidente!
Fielding Mellish: I once stole a pornographic book that was printed in braille. I used to rub the dirty parts.
Esposito: [sings rebel song] Rebels are we, / Born to be free, / just like the fish in the sea!
Fielding Mellish: We fell in love. I fell in love - she just stood there.
Fielding Mellish: I've read Kierkegaard. Nancy: Oh, well, he's Danish. Fielding Mellish: Yes... he would be the first to admit it.
Fielding Mellish: [getting off the plane in the USA disguised as the President of San Marcos] The interpreter: [in English] I am Mr. Hernandez, the official interpreter! Senator: Welcome to the United States. The interpreter: [in English to Fielding] "Welcome to the United States." Fielding Mellish: [in English] Thank you! The interpreter: [to the Senator] "Thank you!" Senator: Did you have a good flight? The interpreter: [in English to Fielding] "Did you have a good flight?" Fielding Mellish: [in English] Yes, I did! The interpreter: [in English to the Senator] "Yes, I did!" Senator: Well, we hope your stay in our country... The interpreter: [English, to Fielding] "We hope your stay in our country..." Senator: ...will be delightful! The interpreter: [in English] "... will be delightful!" Fielding Mellish: [in English] I am looking forward to it... The interpreter: [to the Senator] "I am looking forward to it..." Fielding Mellish: Ah, with great anticipation! The interpreter: [to the Senator] "With great anticipation!" The interpreter: [Two men in orderly uniforms and butterfly nets appear and attempt to drag the interpreter away]
Fielding Mellish: When is the revolution? Esposito: Six months. Fielding Mellish: Six months? I have a rented car!
Sharon Craig: I think Mr. Mellish is a traitor to this country because his views are different from the views of the President and others of his kind. Differences of opinion should be tolerated, but not when they're too different. Then he becomes a subversive mother.
Nancy: Can... can you, like, define the meaning of love? Fielding Mellish: What do you... define... it's love! I love you! I... I want you in a way of cherishing your... your... your totality and your otherness, and... and in the sense of a presence, and a being, and a whole coming and a going in a room with grapefruit, and... and love of a thing of nature in a sense of not wanting or being jealous of the thing that a person possesses. Nancy: Do you have any gum?
[after Fielding Mellish is punched in the back of the neck by a stranger] FBI Security: We missed him. We get most of them.
Fielding Mellish: You busy tonight? Norma: Some old friends are coming over. We're gonna show some pornographic movies. Fielding Mellish: You need an usher?
Nancy: I want to go and work with pygmies in Africa... and I want to work with lepers in a leper colony. I don't think that you... Fielding Mellish: I'm willing to... No, that's perfectly OK. I love leprosy! If that's what you're asking me... I'm perfectly willing to... I like leprosy, I like cholera. I like all the major skin diseases.
Fielding Mellish: [nervously speaking at a fundraiser dinner, while posing as the San Marcos president] Although the United States is a very rich country, and San Marcos is a very poor one, there are a great many things we have to offer your country in return for aid. For instance, there... there are locusts. We have more locusts. There are locusts of all races and creeds. These, these locusts, incidentally, are available at popular prices. And so, by the way, are most of the women of San Marcos. Now then, despite the tiny size of our nation, few people realize that we lead the world in hernias. They also fail to realize that before Columbus discovered your country, he... he stopped in San Marcos and contracted a disease which today can be cured with one shot of penicillin.
Esposito: You have a chance to die for freedom. Fielding Mellish: Yes, well, freedom is wonderful. On the other hand, if you're dead, it's a tremendous drawback to your sex life.
Fielding Mellish: I love you, I love you. Nancy: Oh, say it in French! Oh, please, say it in French! Fielding Mellish: I don't know French. Nancy: Oh, please... please! Fielding Mellish: What about Hebrew? Nancy: [disappointed] Oh.
Nancy: You're immature, Fielding. Fielding Mellish: [whining] How am I immature? Nancy: Well, emotionally, sexually, and intellectually. Fielding Mellish: Yeah, but what other ways?
Fielding Mellish: I move for a mistrial! Do you realize there's not a single homosexual on that jury? Judge: Yes there is. Fielding Mellish: Oh, really, which one? Is it the big guy at the end?
Fielding Mellish: You cannot bash in the head of an American citizen without written permission from the State Department.
News Anchor: Today's top stories: The United States government brings charges against Fielding Mellish as a subversive impostor, New York garbage men are striking for a better class of garbage, and the National Rifle Association declares death a good thing.
Fielding Mellish: Can you believe that? She says I'm not leader enough for her. Who was she looking for... Hitler?
Rebel Leader: Remember, with a snake bite, you must SUCK the poison out, remember - you SUCK it out... Fielding Mellish: I cannot, I cannot suck anyone who I am not engaged to... Snake Bite Lady: [running topless clasping her breast] Snake bite, Snake bite! I've been bitten by a snake! [all rebels chase her]
[first lines] Don Dunphy: Good afternoon. Wide World of Sports is in the little republic of San Marcos where we're going to bring you a live, on the spot assassination. They're going to kill the president of this lovely Latin American country and replace him with a military dictatorship. And everybody is about as excited and tense as can be. The weather on this Sunday afternoon is perfect; and if you've just joined us, we've seen a series of colorful riots that started with the traditional bombing of the American embassy - a ritual as old as the city itself.
[last lines] Howard Cosell: I think we should leave the happy couple on that note. It's hard to tell what may happen in the future. But they may live happily ever after. Again, they may not. Be assured of this, though. Wherever the action is, we will be there with ABC's Wide World of Sports to cover it. Now, on behalf of Nancy and Fielding Mellish and all of the others who have made this possible, this is Howard Cosell thanking you for joining us and wishing you a most pleasant good night.
Fielding Mellish: I'm not suited to this job. Where do I come off testing products? Machines hate me. I should be working at a job that I have some kinda aptitude for, like donating sperm to an artificial insemination lab.
Fielding Mellish: You don't have hostility to the male sex, do you? Nancy: Oh, Women's Rights do not automatically mean castration. [Fielding reacts with great pain, doubling over] Fielding Mellish: Oooh, don't say that word! Now I've got to walk around like this for two days! Nancy: Oh, I know! You know, I'm the same way on that word "appendicitis". Ooh. Fielding Mellish: Oooh, but "castration"...! Nancy: "Castration", "appendicitis", either one!
Fielding Mellish: Nancy... you, think there's any possibility that maybe the two of us could get married? Fielding Mellish: I mean, if you're gonna fool around with women's lib, you're gonna need somebody to support you.
Howard Cosell: Sir, you've been shot! When did you know it was all over?
Howard Cosell: [after interviewing General Emilio M. Vargas] Well, you've heard it with your own eyes! Now we're going to have to see what the future brings. But right now, from the little dictatorship of San Marcos in Latin America, let's go back to Jim McLean in our studios in New York.
Fielding Mellish: That's very wise, you know...? That's, I think, pithy. Nancy: It was pithy. It had... great pith. Fielding Mellish: Yeth. Pith.
Nancy: Would you like to volunteer for the Volunteers for San Marcos?
Nancy: I have to tell you something, and I don't know how to break it. Oh, Fielding... Fielding Mellish: Why? Is something the matter? Am I... am I... Have you seen X-rays of me?
Fielding Mellish: I'm so depressed... I'd kill myself if I thought that she would marry me!
Fielding Mellish: I had a good relationship with my parents. They very rarely h-... I think they hit me once, actually, in my whole childhood. They, they, uh, started beating me on the 23rd of December in 1942, and stopped beating me in the late Spring of '44.
Fielding Mellish: Doing a sociological study on perversion. I'm up to Advanced Child Molesting.
Fielding Mellish: I love Eastern philosophy. It's... it's metaphysical, and redundant. Abortively pedantic. Nancy: I know just what you mean!
[Fielding is talking to a psychiatrist] Fielding Mellish: I was a nervous child - I was a bed wetter. When I was younger, I, uh, I used to sleep with an electric blanket and I was constantly electrocuting myself...
Nancy: May I ask... what do you do? Fielding Mellish: I'm a products tester for a large corporation. I make sure products are safe and practical. Today I tested an exercise machine, and an electrically warm toilet seat for cold days.
[Fielding is eating with the rebels at their camp] Fielding Mellish: What the hell is this stuff anyhow? Rebel Soldier: Leezard.
Fielding Mellish: Jesus, life is so cruel! [Fielding slams the locker door on his friend's fingers, who doubles over in pain] Fielding Mellish: See what I mean?