Professor Plum Quotes in Clue (1985)

Wadsworth: Professor Plum, you were once a professor of psychiatry specializing in helping paranoid and homicidal lunatics suffering from delusions of grandeur.

Professor Plum: Yes, but now I work for the United Nations.

Wadsworth: So your work has not changed.

Wadsworth: The key is gone!

Professor Plum: Never mind about the key, unlock the door!

[smacks Mr.Green on the shoulder]

Mr. Green: [grabs Professor Plum by the collar, throttling him] I CAN'T UNLOCK THE DOOR WITHOUT THE KEY!

[releasing Plum, Mr. Green rattles doorknob]

Mr. Green: LET US IN! LET US IN!

Colonel Mustard, Miss Scarlet: [on other side of locked door] LET US OUT! LET US OUT!

Professor Plum: What are you afraid of, a fate worse than death?

Mrs. Peacock: No, just death, isn't that enough?

Mr. Green: [to Miss Scarlet] So, how did you know Colonel Mustard works in Washington? Is he one of your clients?

Colonel Mustard: Certainly not!

Mr. Green: I was asking Miss Scarlet.

Colonel Mustard: [to Miss Scarlet] Well, you tell him it's not true.

Miss Scarlet: It's not true.

Professor Plum: [to Miss Scarlet] Is that true?

Miss Scarlet: No, it's not true.

Mr. Green: Ah ha! So it is true!

Wadsworth: A double negative!

Colonel Mustard: A double negative?

[whispering]

Colonel Mustard: You mean you have photographs?

Wadsworth: That sounds like a confession to me. In fact the double negative has led to proof positive. I'm afraid you gave yourself away.

Colonel Mustard: [angry, to Wadsworth] Are you trying to make me look stupid in front of the other guests?

Wadsworth: You don't need any help from me, sir.

Colonel Mustard: That's right!

Miss Scarlet: It should be just off there.

Professor Plum: That must be it!

Miss Scarlet: [they see their destination as lightning splits the sky over Hill House, giving it an ominous cast. The car engine stops] Why has the car stopped?

Professor Plum: It's frightened.

Professor Plum: And what was your role in all this?

Wadsworth: I was a victim, too. At least my wife was. She had friends who were

[on the verge of tears]

Wadsworth: Socialists.

[all gasp, Mrs. Peacock is the loudest]

Wadsworth: [starts to cry] Well, we all make mistakes.

[Mrs. White approaches Wadsworth and hands him a handkerchief]

Wadsworth: But, Mr. Boddy threatened to give my wife's name to the House Un-American Activities Committee unless she named them. She refused, and so he blackmailed her. We had no money, and the price of his silence was that we worked for him for nothing. We were slaves. Well, to make a long story short...

Colonel Mustard: Too late.

Mr. Green: Now there's one thing I don't understand.

Professor Plum: *One* thing?

Wadsworth: [shouting] That's what we're trying to find out! We're trying to find out *who* killed him, and *where*, and with *what*!

Professor Plum: There's no need to shout!

Wadsworth: [shouting louder] I'm not shouting!

[Guests stare at him pointedly]

Wadsworth: [shouting] All right, I am! I'm shouting, I'm shouting, I'm shout...

[candlestick falls from above and hits him on the head]

Mrs. White: [after Mrs. Peacock swears that the reason she's being blackmailed is a vicious lie] Well, I am willing to believe you. I, too, am being blackmailed for something I didn't do.

Mr. Green: Me too.

Colonel Mustard: And me.

Miss Scarlet: Not me.

Wadsworth: [surprised] You're *not* being blackmailed?

Miss Scarlet: Oh, I'm being blackmailed all right, but I did what I'm being blackmailed for.

Mr. Green: What did you do?

Miss Scarlet: Well, to be perfectly frank, I run a specialized hotel and a telephone service which provides gentlemen with the company of a young lady, for a short while.

Professor Plum: Oh yeah?

[pulls out pen and a pad of paper]

Professor Plum: What's the phone number?

Miss Scarlet: I hardly think it will enhance your reputation at the U.N. Professor Plum, if it's revealed that you have been implicated not only in adultery with one of your patients, but in her death and the deaths of five other people.

Professor Plum: You don't know what kind of people they have at the U.N., I might go up in their estimation.

Wadsworth: "Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die."

Professor Plum: Die?

Wadsworth: Merely quoting, sir, from Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Colonel Mustard: Hm, I prefer Kipling, myself. "The female of the species is more deadly than the male." You like Kipling, Miss Scarlet?

[offers her a tray]

Miss Scarlet: [takes food off the tray] Sure, I'll eat anything.

Professor Plum: Is there gonna be a cover up?

Wadsworth: Isn't that in the public interest? What could be gained by exposure?

Professor Plum: But is the FBI in the habit of cleaning up after a multiple murder?

Wadsworth: Yes. Why do you think it's run by a man called Hoover?

Yvette: But it is dark upstairs and I am frightened of the dark. Will anyone go with me?

Professor Plum: I will!

Colonel Mustard: I will!

Mr. Green: No, thank you.

Professor Plum: [after learning who killed Mr. Boddy, the motorist, the cook, the cop, and Yvette] So it must've been Mr. Green who shot the singing telegram!

Mr. Green: I didn't do it!

Colonel Mustard: Well, there's nobody else left.

Mr. Green: But I didn't do it! The gun is missing! Whoever's got the gun shot the girl!

Wadsworth: [extracts his gun] I shot her.

Professor Plum: What is your top-secret job, Colonel?

Wadsworth: I can tell you. He's working on the secret of the next fusion bomb.

Colonel Mustard: How did you know that?

Wadsworth: Can you keep a secret?

Colonel Mustard: Yes...

Wadsworth: So can I.

The Chief: Good evening. Have you ever given any thought to the kingdom of heaven?

Mrs. Peacock: What?

The Chief: Repent. The kingdom of heaven *is* at hand.

Miss Scarlet: You ain't just whistlin' Dixie.

The Chief: Armageddon is almost upon us.

Professor Plum: I got news for you - it's already here.

Mrs. Peacock: Go away.

The Chief: But your souls are in danger.

Mrs. Peacock: Our lives our in danger, you beatnik.

[Plum and White are looking at the photographic negatives]

Mrs. White: Oh my! Nobody can get into THAT position.

Professor Plum: Sure they can. Let me show you.

[lays her down on the couch and gets on top of her]

Mrs. White: Get off me!

Mrs. Peacock: What are you all staring at?

Mr. Green: Nothing.

Mrs. Peacock: Well who's there?

Colonel Mustard: Nobody.

Mrs. Peacock: What do you mean?

Wadsworth: Nobody. No body, that's what we mean. Mr. Boddy's body, it's gone.

Mrs. White: Maybe he wasn't dead.

Professor Plum: He was!

Mrs. White: We should've made sure.

Mrs. Peacock: How?

[muttering]

Mrs. Peacock: By cutting his head off, I suppose.

Mrs. White: That was uncalled for!

Professor Plum: [pointing to Mrs. Peacock's drink] Maybe he was poisoned!

[Mrs. Peacock immediately drops her glass full of brandy and starts screaming]

Mr. Green: [trying to get her to the couch] Mrs. Peacock, please. Mrs. Peacock, it's alright. It's alright. We don't know anything. Sit-sit down, sit down, Mrs.-

[slaps her; everybody stares]

Mr. Green: Well, I had to stop her from screaming!

Mrs. Peacock: So, what do you do in Washington D.C., Mr. Green? Come on! What do you do? I mean, how are we to get acquainted if we don't say anything about ourselves.

Miss Scarlet: Perhaps he doesn't wanna get acquainted with you.

Mrs. Peacock: Well, I'm sure I don't know. But if I wasn't trying to keep the conversation going, then we would just be sitting here in an embarrassed silence.

Professor Plum: Are you afraid of silence, Mrs. Peacock?

Mrs. Peacock: Yes-What? No! Why?

Professor Plum: Well, it just seems to me that you are. You seem to suffer from what we call "Pressure of Speech".

Miss Scarlet: "We"? Who's we? Are you a shrink?

Professor Plum: I do know a little bit about psychological medicine, yes.

Mr. Green: You're Mr. Boddy!

[Wadsworth laughs evilly]

Professor Plum: Wait a minute. So who did I kill?

Wadsworth: My butler.

Professor Plum: Oh, shucks.

Wadsworth: He was expendable like all of you. I'm grateful to you all for disposing of my network of spies and informers. Saved me a lot of trouble. Now there's no evidence against me.

[Mr. Boddy has disappeared after being killed]

Mr. Green: He couldn't have been dead.

Professor Plum: He was. At least I thought he was, but what difference does it make now?

Miss Scarlet: Makes quite a difference to him.

Mrs. White: [Smashes glass on fireplace] PLEASE! Don't you think we should get that man out of the house before he finds out what's been going on here!

[Drops thre rest of the glass with a crash]

Miss Scarlet: Yeah!

Professor Plum: How can we throw him outside in this weather?

Miss Scarlet: If we let him stay in the house, he may get suspicious!

Professor Plum: If we throw him out, he may get even more suspicious!

Colonel Mustard: If I were him, I'd be suspicious already!

Mrs. Peacock: [hysterical] Oh, who cares? That guy doesn't matter! Let him stay locked up for another half an hour. The police will be here by then... and there are two dead bodies in the study!

All: Shhhhhhhhhhh!

Mrs. Peacock: [fanning herself] Oh, my God.

Wadsworth: She's going to faint.

Professor Plum: Somebody catch her!

[Wadsworth goes behind Mrs. Peacock and encircles her with his arms]

Wadsworth: I'll catch you. Fall into my arms.

[Mrs. Peacock falls straight through Wadsworth's arms and onto the floor]

Wadsworth: Sorry.

[a scream is heard in the locked billiard room]

Professor Plum: It must be the murderer.

Mr. Green: Why would *he* scream?

[Cop sniffs the motorist, who is dead]

Cop: This man's drunk. Dead drunk.

Miss Scarlet: Dead right!

Cop: [to the motorist] You're not gonna drive home, are you?

Professor Plum: He won't be driving home, officer, I promise you that!

Miss Scarlet: No.

Cop: Somebody will give him a lift, huh?

Miss Scarlet: Oh, we'll- we'll- we'll get him a car!

Professor Plum: A long black car!

Miss Scarlet: [lightly jabbing him in the stomach] A limousine!

Miss Scarlet: [looks in an envelope] What's this, Wadsworth?

Wadsworth: I'm afraid those are the negatives to which Colonel Mustard earlier referred.

Colonel Mustard: Oh my God!

Miss Scarlet: Were you planning to blackmail him, Wadsworth?

Wadsworth: Certainly not! I detained them for the colonel and I was going to give them back as soon as Mr. Boddy was unmasked.

Miss Scarlet: Mm, very pretty! Would you like to see these, Yvette, they might shock you.

Yvette: No, merci. I am a lady.

Miss Scarlet: Oh, how do you know what kind of pictures they are if you're such a lay-dee?

Professor Plum: What sort of pictures are they?

Colonel Mustard: They are *my* pictures and I'd like them back, please!

Miss Scarlet: No, I'm afraid there's something in them that concerns me, too.

Professor Plum: Let me see.

Mrs. White: [gasps] Oh no, nobody can get into that position.

Professor Plum: Sure they can. Let me show you.

[tries to do the position]

Mrs. White: Get off me!

Professor Plum: Well, I'm gonna start while it's still hot.

Mrs. Peacock: Oh, now, shouldn't we wait for the other guest?

Yvette: I will keep something warm for him.

Miss Scarlet: What did you have in mind, dear?

Mrs. White: So what do you do, Professor?

Professor Plum: I work for UNO, the United Nations Organization.

Colonel Mustard: Another politician. Jesus!

Professor Plum: No, I work for a branch of UNO. W.H.O., the World Health Organization.

Mrs. White: Oh, you're a doctor?

Professor Plum: I am, but I don't practice.

Miss Scarlet: Practice makes perfect. Ha! I think most men need a little practice, don't you Mrs. Peacock?

Professor Plum: [next to Miss Scarlet in the rain, with backs to the door] What a godforsaken place!

[gropes her backside; she tries to brush his hand off]

Wadsworth: [opens door suddenly and sees this] Professor Plum, and Miss Scarlet, I didn't realize you were acquainted.

Miss Scarlet: We weren't.

Professor Plum: [Professor Plum and Mrs. Peacock have drawn cut matches of the same length, pairing them together] It's you and me, honeybunch.

Wadsworth: [referring to Mr. Boddy] Well, he's certainly dead now. Why would anyone want to kill him twice?

Miss Scarlet: It seems so unnecessary.

Colonel Mustard: Well, it's what we call "overkill."

Professor Plum: It's what we call "psychotic."

Professor Plum: [after everyone introduces themselves] Well, that just leaves Mr. Boddy.

Miss Scarlet: What's your little secret?

Wadsworth: His secret? Oh, haven't you guessed? He's the one who's blackmailing you.

Wadsworth: When I said that I was Mr. Boddy's butler, this was both true and misleading. I was once his butler. But it was not his untimely death this evening that brought my employment with him to an end.

Colonel Mustard: When did it come to an end?

Wadsworth: When my wife decided to end her life. She, too, was being blackmailed by this odious man who now lies dead before us. He hated my wife for the same reason that he hated all of you. He believed that you were all thoroughly un-American.

Mr. Green: [the table which Mr. Green is leaning against breaks, causing a great crashing sound]

[Awkwardly]

Mr. Green: Sorry.

Wadsworth: For some reason, he felt it was inappropriate for a senator to have a corrupt wife; for a doctor to take advantage of his patients; for a wife to emasculate her husband; and, and... so forth.

Mr. Green: But, this is ridiculous; if he was such a patriotic American, why didn't he just report us to the authorities?

Wadsworth: He decided to put his information to good use, and make a little money out of it. What could be more American than that?

Professor Plum: And what was your role in all of this?

Wadsworth: I was a victim, too. At least, my wife was. She had friends who were

[pause, beginning to cry]

Wadsworth: socialists.

[the guests react, Mrs. Peacock loudly gasping]

Wadsworth: Well,

[pausing]

Wadsworth: we all make mistakes.

[Mrs. White comforts him with her handkerchief]

Wadsworth: But Mr. Boddy threatened to give my wife's name to the House Un-American Activities Committee unless she named them. She refused. And so he blackmailed her. We had no money. And the price of his silence was that we work for him for nothing. We were slaves.

Mrs. White: You say you are used to being a hostess as part of your husband's work?

Mrs. Peacock: Yes, it's an integral part of your life when you are the wife of a... Oh, but then I forgot, we're not supposed to say who we really are, though, heavens to Betsy, I don't know why.

Colonel Mustard: Don't you?

Mr. Green: I know who you are.

Miss Scarlet: Aren't you gonna tell us?

Mrs. Peacock: How do you know who I am?

Mr. Green: I work in Washington, too.

Professor Plum: Washington? So you're a politician's wife?

Mrs. Peacock: Yes, I-I am.

Colonel Mustard: Well, come on then, who's your husband?

Mrs. White: [referring to negatives of Colonel Mustard's private photos] Nobody can get into that position.

Professor Plum: Sure they can. Let me show you.

[attempts the sexual position with Mrs. White]

Mrs. White: Get off me!

Professor Plum: [Mr. Boddy is apparently dead after Mrs. Peacock has turned the lights back on. Professor Plum is knelt down to check if Mr. Boddy is alive] Stand back! Give him air! Let me see.

[Professor Plum checks for a pulse or any sign of breathing]

Professor Plum: He's dead!

Mrs. White: Who had the gun?

Professor Plum: I did.

Mrs. Peacock: Then you shot him.

Professor Plum: I didn't!

Mrs. Peacock: Well, you had the gun; if you didn't shoot him, who did?

Professor Plum: [Professor Plum flips Mr. Boddy over] Nobody! Look, there's no gunshot wound. Somebody tried to grab the gun from me in the dark and the gun went off.

[Professor Plum points to the wall]

Professor Plum: Look, the bullet broke that vase on the mantle.

Colonel Mustard: [the group begins rushing to the spot where the bullet hit and Colonel Mustard bumps into Professor Plum] I'm sorry, excuse me. He's absolutely right. Look, there's a bullet hole here in the wall, see that?

Mr. Green: [In a demanding tone] How did he die?

Professor Plum: [In an aggravated tone] I don't know! I'm not a forensic expert.

Wadsworth: [Walking about the room, collecting all of the weapons] Look, we still have all of these weapons. The gun, the rope, the wrench, the lead pipe. Let's put them all in this cupboard and lock it.

[Picking up the weapons and locking them in the cupboard]

Wadsworth: There's a homicidal maniac about.

[Everyone agrees. Wadsworth puts the key in his pocket]

Mr. Green: What are you doing with the key?

Wadsworth: Putting it in my pocket.

Mr. Green: Why?

Wadsworth: Well, to keep it safe, obviously.

Mrs. Peacock: That means you can open it whenever you want.

Wadsworth: But it also means that you can't.

Mrs. Peacock: Well, what if you're the murderer?

Wadsworth: I'm not.

Colonel Mustard: But what if you are?

Wadsworth: Well, it's got to be put somewhere. If I've got it, I know I'm safe.

Mrs. Peacock: [Expressively; Mrs. Peacock is waving her hand rapidly back and forth, lightly hitting Mrs. White's chest accidentally. Mrs. White reacts with a startled look] We don't know that we are!

[Mrs. Peacock's leaf hat falls off as she gets frustrated with it]

Wadsworth: I've an idea. We'll throw it away.

Colonel Mustard: Good idea!

Mr. Green: Good idea!

Yvette: Wonderful!

Miss Scarlet: Brilliant!

Professor Plum: That'll do it!

Wadsworth: I suggest we all draw lots for partners.

[Grabs eight long matchsticks. He cuts them into differently sized pairs, turns away from the others, shuffles them, then turns back]

Wadsworth: Ready? The two shortest together, the next two shortest together; agreed? And I suggest the shortest search the cellar and so on up.

[the others each grab a matchstick. Colonel Mustard is paired with Miss Scarlet, to which she reacts with disgust. Mrs. White is paired with Wadsworth. Mr. Green is paired with Yvette. Professor Plum is paired with Mrs. Peacock]

Professor Plum: It's you and me, honey bunch.

Wadsworth: Professor Plum, you were once a professor of psychiatry, specializing in helping paranoid and homicidal lunatics suffering from delusions of grandeur.

Professor Plum: Yes, but now I work for the United Nations.

Wadsworth: Your work has not changed, but you don't practice medicine at the U.N.; his license to practice has been lifted, correct?

Miss Scarlet: Why? What did he do?

Wadsworth: You know what doctors aren't allowed to do with their lady patients?

Miss Scarlet: Yeah?

Wadsworth: Well, he did.

Miss Scarlet: Ha!

Mrs. Peacock: Oh, how disgusting!