My All Time Favorite Movie Speeches

I am moved to put these two speeches on my blog tonight.  I know they're long, but they're calling out to me tonight.  These are from, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner."  (1967)  Both reduce me to tears just thinking about them.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Beah Richards to Spencer Tracy:

What happens to men when they grow oId?  Why do they forget everything?  I beLleve...those two young peopIe need each other...Llke they need the air to breathe in.  Anybody can see that by just Iooking at them. 

But you and my husband are--You might as weLL be bLlnd men.  You can onIy see that they have a probIem.  But do you reaLLy know what's happened to them?  How they feeI about each other? 

I beLleve...that men grow old.  And when the--When sexuaI things no Ionger matter to them, they forget it aLL.  Forget what true passion is. 

If you ever feIt what my son...feels for your daughter, you've forgotten everything about it.  My husband too. 

You knew once...but that was a Iong time ago.  Now the two of you don't know.  And the strange thing...
for your wife and me...is that you don't even remember.

lf you did...how couId you do what you are doing?


And, then followed by Spencer Tracy's wonderful moving oration:

And Mrs. Prentice says...that Llke her husband, I'm a burnt-out oId sheIl of a man... who cannot even remember what it's Llke...to Iove a woman...the way her son loves my daughter. 

And strange as it seems...that's the first statement made to me aIl day...with which l am prepared to take issue. 

Because l think you're wrong.  You're as wrong as you can be.  I admit that I hadn't considered it,
hadn't even thought about it...but I know exactIy how he feels about her.  And there is nothing, absoIuteIy nothing...that your son feeIs for my daughter...that I didn't feeI for Christina.

Old? Yes.  Burnt out? Certainly.  But l can teLL you the memories are stllI there--cIear, intact, indestructibIe.  And they'LL be there if l Llve to be .

Where John made his mistake, I think...was attaching so much importance to what her mother and I might think.  Because in the final anaIysis, it doesn't matter a damn what we think.  The onIy thing that matters is what they feeI...and how much they feeI...for each other.

And if it's haIf...of what we feIt...that's everything. 

As for you two and the probIems you're going to have...they seem aImost unimaginabIe.  But you'LL have no probIem with me.  And I think...hat when Christina and I and your mother...have some time to work on him...you'Il have no problem with your father.

But you do know--I'm sure you know--what you're up against.  There'LL be a hundred mlllion peopIe right here in this country...who'LL be shocked and offended...and appalIed at the two of you.  And the two of  you wllI just have to ride that out.  Maybe every day for the rest of your Llves. 

You can try to ignore those peopIe...or you can feeI sorry for them and for their prejudices...and their bigotry and their bLlnd hatreds and stupid fears.

But where necessary...you'LL just have to cLlng tight to each other...and say screw aLL those peopIe!
Anybody couId make a heLL of a good case against your getting married.  The arguments are so obvious
that nobody has to make them.  But you're two wonderfuI peopIe... who happened to faLL in Iove...
and happen to have a pigmentation probIem.

And l think that now...no matter what kind of a case some bastard couId make...against your getting married...there wouId be onIy one thing worse.  And that wouId be if...knowing what you two are...
knowing what you two have...and knowing what you two feel...you didn't get married.

WelI, TllLle, when the heLL are we gonna get some dinner?