West of Zanzibar (1954)

Sheila Sim: Mary Payton

Photos 

Quotes 

• Mary Payton : Don't you understand what all this is doing to innocent African tribes?

  Lawyer Dhofar : Perhaps I do. Perhaps I do not. But, but Mrs. Payton don't you think you are being a little, to put it delicately, starry-eyed about these so-called innocent tribes? Oh. come, Mrs. Payton, we must be realists. The world cannot wait for civilisation to catch up with the primitive black man.

  Mary Payton : For one thing, this ivory business is destroying a fine, pastoral people, the Golanas; turning them into slum savages.

  Lawyer Dhofar : But Mrs. Payton, in Africa, that is what the black man is doomed to be - a slum savage. Oh, it is regrettable but inevitable. Perhaps you conveniently forget your Industrial Revolution and what it did to your people?

  Lawyer Dhofar : Africa, Mr Payton, is having its own industrial revolution. And no sentimental heart-burning is going to stop it.

  Lawyer Dhofar : But you, speaking as an African...

  Lawyer Dhofar : I am not an African. A Phoenician, perhaps; a Persian even - but not an African.

  Bob Payton : I'm proud to call myself an East African.

  Lawyer Dhofar : It is easy for a conqueror to be magnanimous. You are not an African, Mr. Payton. What are your inmost thoughts at this moment? Because I talk to you as man to man. Aren't they "I'd like to smack this little wog on the kisser?" Or something like that? I am a barrister-at-law, Mr Payton, a graduate of the Sorbonne but out here, my home, I am a wog. A munt. A nigger, even. And you ask me to sympathise with you in perpetuating that? I'm all for a change, Mr Payton, and if because of it the picturesque Golanas disappear, it's just too bad. That is the right expression, isn't it?

  Lawyer Dhofar : But please forgive me. You must have so many missionary activities to occupy you, I must not detain you any longer.

  Bob Payton : Now look here...

  Lawyer Dhofar : In this cynical world, it is indeed charming to meet an idealist. Best of luck to you, Mrs Payton. Mr Payton, may you cure the growing pains of Africa.

  Bob Payton : [now outside the office]  Phew, that didn't go according to plan.