Quotes

Rehearsal for Murder

Alex: [to Lloyd] Permit me my element of surprise, Lloyd. In a mystery, the audience should never know what's coming next.

Alex: It's essential they stay here, all of them. If even one of them walks out, it won't work.
Frank Heller: It may not work anyway.
Alex: You still think this is a mistake, don't you?
Frank Heller: Like I said before, Mr. Dennison; this is your show. I'm just here to watch.

Alex: Oh and by the way, it's something new for me; a mystery.
Walter: Good. They do well.
Alex: Unusual form, a mystery. You take the audience by the hand, and you lead them... in the wrong direction. They trust you, and you betray them! All in the name of surprise.

David: [Referring to the format of a mystery] All those characters are cardboard. I like... I like roles with flesh and blood!
Alex: I don't know about the flesh, David. But I can guarantee you the blood.

Lloyd: What are you going for? What's the point of the scene?
Alex: Well, the point, Lloyd, is that in a mystery, everyone must have a motive.

Walter: Alex, we've known each other for a long time, so I'm entitled to be blunt. Why are we here?
Alex: You know why, Walter. To read my new play.
Walter: It's not a play. It's just a bunch of unrelated scenes, all of them uncomfortably close to the truth.
David: The hell they are!

Alex: Might as well get to the point. Well, it's really very simple. When we finish here, we'll know something we didn't know before.
David: And what's that?
Alex: Which one of you killed Monica Welles.

Walter: The woman killed herself! Do you understand? Whether you want to believe it or not, she was depressed, and she jumped out of her bedroom window!
Alex: How can you be so certain, Walter? Were you there?

Ernie: Some of those junkies and winos from Broadway, they try to bed down in the lobby overnight.
Alex: Encourage them, Ernie. The theater was meant for the common man.

David: Wonderful! Broadway's favorite actor gets pneumonia! Oh, well, after those notices, I suppose I could use a cold shower.
[runs out with jacket over his head]
David: Don't be depressed then, Alex! You've got worse things coming! Like marriage!

Walter: [referring to Alex] Ah, he's being mysterious. Well, it's the playwright's prerogative... and it's the producer's prerogative to have a sweet roll.

Lloyd: Now I get it. Don't you see what he's doing?
Leo: Now that you mention it... no.
Lloyd: Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2, a play within a play to catch his father's killer: "I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play, have by the very cunning of the scene, been struck so to the soul that presently they have proclaimed their malefactions."
Karen: "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." Right?

Walter: What are you talking about? Monica wasn't murdered. She committed suicide. And to suggest that one of us is involved...
Alex: It isn't a suggestion; it's a statement of fact.
Karen: They investigated, the police...
Alex: The police were wrong.
Walter: Alex! We all know you suffered a terrible loss. We understand your grief. But what you're doing here, it won't change anything. It won't bring her back.
Alex: Then you've nothing to lose by indulging me.

Suggest an edit or add missing content

Top Gap

By what name was Rehearsal for Murder (1982) officially released in Canada in English?