Carol for Another Christmas (1964 TV Movie)

Steve Lawrence: Ghost of Christmas Past

Quotes 

• Daniel Grudge : [they are looking at piles of coffins draped in flags]  We didn't belong in that one either. Make the world safe for democracy - did they?

  Ghost of Christmas Past : That's what they were told. They sure as hell gave it a try.

  Daniel Grudge : Look, they change the hats, they update the slogans but it's the same old shell-game. Like clockwork. Every twenty years, somebody rings a fire-bell ten thousand miles away and out come's Uncle Sam's expeditionary sucker brigade.

  Ghost of Christmas Past : Is that what they are? Suckers? Is that what your son's gonna be?

  Daniel Grudge : My son, my son will be a victim just as these men are victims of somebody else's war.

• Daniel Grudge : What is this? Some kind of a troop transport?

  Ghost of Christmas Past : Yeah, you might call it that. On it's way.

  Daniel Grudge : France?

  Ghost of Christmas Past : One of our stops.

  Daniel Grudge : Well, where else?

  Ghost of Christmas Past : You name it. Meet the troops.

  Daniel Grudge : They're dead.

  Ghost of Christmas Past : Killed in action. Château-Thierry. Belleau Wood. Marne. How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen Pari. They saw Pari - very briefly. Lafayette, they were there.

• Daniel Grudge : You talk like the AEF. What's your name?

  Ghost of Christmas Past : I'm all the AEFs. Also BEFs... the Huns, the Ruskies, et cetera. Gallipoli. Crimea. Even Waterloo - if you care to go back that far. You get the picture, chief? I'm all of 'em. I'm the one who rallied around the flag - any flag. All the flags. See what I mean?

• Ghost of Christmas Past : Who said only America, sport? I'm the dead. All the dead. We're quite a stew.

• Ghost of Christmas Past : We weren't the only ones playing shuteye. When ole Adolph walked into the Rhineland, France didn't want to get involved. Italy pulled down a window shade when Hitler took Austria. England wasn't about to involve herself when Czechoslovakia went under. And Russia keep the phone off the hook while Poland was destroyed. And before you knew it, everybody was singing, "Don't Rock. the Boat" - while it sank slowly to the bottom.

• Ghost of Christmas Past : You don't want to get involved? You got to give back the 20th Century. If you can find a chump to take it. But, isolation - I got news. It went out with gaslight and 50 cent steaks. It's for the dinosaurs. Isolation. And closing your eyes - that's for sleeping. Also, at certain times, it leads to dying.

• Ghost of Christmas Past : War is also a contagious disease, Mr. G. And until we can stamp it out...

  Daniel Grudge : Nobody - nobody ever found a way to do that.

  Ghost of Christmas Past : Right. But, is that any reason to stop trying? Look, one thing we do know. The only chance to keep this particular disease from spreading is to keep talking. So long as you talk, you don't fight. Simple.

• Ghost of Christmas Past : Hey, wouldn't you think, Sport, with all the brains we got on this earth, the way we build things, and cure things, and invent stuff on Tuesday that wasn't possible on Monday, wouldn't you think we could come up with *something* that could keep a kid from getting killed at the age of 18?

• Ghost of Christmas Past : Daffy tricks, memory plays. somethings we think we've forgotten, we only misplace.

• Daniel Grudge : Are you coming with me?

  Ghost of Christmas Past : No, sir. I'm them. In there is - now.