Berlin Express (1948)

Robert Ryan: Robert Lindley

Photos 

Quotes 

• Robert Lindley : I know. We don't have any more German enemies, do we?

  Sterling : No authorized ones, anyway.

• Robert Lindley : [looking at two Germans in the train]  I wonder how they'll handle it.

  Sterling : Truthfully, I hope. Otherwise I'm wasting my valuable time. I'm in re-education. Seems pretty hopeless at times. I mean, what is more important than giving them the light to see?

  Robert Lindley : Giving them something to eat?

  Sterling : Your field?

  Robert Lindley : I do sleight of hand. We're supposed to make fifteen hundred calories look like an eight-course meal... and prevent things like plague and starvation.

• Perrot : What chance has a European got with an American around?

  Robert Lindley : I'm afraid you overestimate us.

  Perrot : Huh, not at all. How can we compete with your American charm, your chocolate...

  Sterling : Your soap?

  Perrot : Your cigarettes?

  Robert Lindley : Well, it's more blessed to give than to receive.

• Lucienne : What do you want?

  Robert Lindley : Oh, practically nothing now. I'm not even going ask what you're doing in my compartment. I'm just going to hope.

• Lucienne : Is this what you Americans call sweeping a girl off her feet?

  Robert Lindley : You want to know something? I don't get anywhere with girls back home either.

• Robert Lindley : I had a feeling we might cement relations between France and America very nicely.

  Lucienne : The women of France are in deed grateful, sir, At least half of the Allied army offered the same touching proposition.

  Robert Lindley : What happened to the other half?

  Lucienne : I think they were in the Pacific.

• Robert Lindley : Lucienne, maybe I should have told you before. I'm a sucker for slumming. Care to see some nightlife?

• Robert Lindley : Somebody's all mixed up here. I work for the same government you do. I'm an American citizen.

  USFET Col. Johns : Any contact with German nationals?

• Robert Lindley : That's what's so annoying. You make a much better detective than I do. And a lot better-looking.

  Lucienne : Have you forgotten why we are here?

  Robert Lindley : No. I'm here to do what I can to get somebody back. Somebody I think's important. Maybe I'm kidding myself. I don't know. Maybe I'm here because I know how much you want him back.

  Lucienne : Listen, you are a stranger in a strange country. And a reasonably attractive girl who speaks your own language makes you feel close to her. It is as simple as that.

  Robert Lindley : I didn't say you were attractive. I said you weren't bad-looking. A lot of difference.

• Robert Lindley : Come on. What's the matter with you?

  Sgt. Barnes : But, Mister, an outta bounds joint and smooching with an underground babe, why, they'll throw the book at me.

  Robert Lindley : Not if you're smart. You suspected this girl from the start, didn't you.

  Sgt. Barnes : No. No, I...

  Robert Lindley : Yes you did. You were going with her to get a line on her activities, weren't you.

  Sgt. Barnes : I was?

  Lucienne : Yes! And you are able to tell your superiors about an enemy and save the life of a very important man.

  Sgt. Barnes : Yeah. Yeah, you're right.

• Lucienne : You have become a citizen of Europe in two days. Perhaps it was a little fast. Because we are more used to the - sensation, it is easier for us to control it.

  Robert Lindley : Sensation?

• Kessler : What do you think? I should quiver with fear? What more can they do to me now? But do not feel sorry for us.

  Robert Lindley : I won't. I'll leave that to you.

  Kessler : Because there's still have one thing we have left: our determination to have the Germany we deserve.

  Robert Lindley : I think you've got that now.

• Robert Lindley : I really tried to figure out what makes you tick, Max.

  [looking at Max's fellow Soviet officer] 

  Robert Lindley : What makes all of you tick. We try to understand you. Why don't you try to understand us?

• Robert Lindley : Where will you be, Lucienne?

  Lucienne : Nowhere for very long. Don't you see? There is nothing one can count on. No one's address is dependable. But if ever the world comes of age, I will see that you know where to find me.

• Robert Lindley : I had a kid brother that fought close to a British outfit in Italy... the turning point of the war.

  Sterling : So, that's how American history will record it?

  Robert Lindley : What do you mean?

  Sterling : Well, the actual turning point of the war was El Alamein.

  Robert Lindley : Oh, you're quoting English history now.

  [they both chuckle]