WHich is your FAVORITE line?

1) Eleanor's implied dismissal of conversation with Richard:

"Departure's a simple act. First it's the right foot, then the left."

2) And Richard's first outrage at John getting the throne:

"...that walking PUSTULE!"

Elanor: "Dear, dear...whatever shall we do with Mother?". My absolute favorite.

Elanor: "Hush dear, mommy's fighting."

Elanor: "Mother's tired. Come stick pins tomorrow morning; I'll be more responsive."

Eleanor: I love you.
Prince Richard: You love nothing. You're incomplete. The human parts of you are missing. You're as dead as you are deadly.

Eleanor: Henry?
Henry II: Hmmm?
Eleanor: I have a confession.
Henry II: Yes?
Eleanor: I don't much like our children!

Elanor: "Of course he has a knife, he always has a knife, we all have knives! It's 1183 and we're barbarians! How clear we make it. Oh, my piglets..." LOL! I love it when she calls them piglets.

Eleanor: Just what you want, a king for a son. You can make more, I can't. You think I want to disappear? One son is all I've got, and you can blot him out and call me cruel? For these ten years you've lived with everything I've lost, and loved another woman through it all, and I am cruel? I could peel you like a pear and God himself would call it justice!

Henry II: My life, when it is written, will read better than it lived. Henry Fitz-Empress, first Plantagenet, a king at twenty-one, the ablest soldier of an able time. He led men well, he cared for justice when he could and ruled, for thirty years, a state as great as Charlemagne's. He married out of love, a woman out of legend. Not in Alexandria, or Rome, or Camelot has there been such a queen. She bore him many children. But no sons. King Henry had no sons. He had three whiskered things but he disowned them
Henry II: [to his sons] You're not mine! We're not connected! I deny you! None of you will get my crown, I leave you nothing and I wish you plague! May all your children breach and die!
Henry II: [storms out the corridor, turns and looks back] My Boys are gone
Henry II: [he starts unsteadily down the corridor] I've lost my boys
Henry II: [he stops, glares towards the Deity] You dare to damn me, do You? Well, I damn you back
Henry II: [like a biblical figure, shaking his fist to the sky] GODDAMN YOU!
Henry II: [moving blindly down the corridor again] My boys are gone. I've lost my boys. Oh, Jesus, all my boys...
[collapses, weeping on the stairs]

There are so many lines that I love in this film, and they have already been mentioned in this post.

I want to call attention to the music, which was as brilliant as the screenplay.

There are two scenes in which the music makes me shiver with delight:

The first is the scene of Eleanor sitting regally in her boat as her oarsman smoothly sail it towards the shore where Henry waits for her. I love the way that he voices of the chorus accentuate the majesty of that scene !

The second is the farewell scene at the end of the movie. Henry is on shore, and Eleanor is in her boat.

Eleanor: "I hope we never die !"

Henry: "Do you think there's a chance of it ?"

Eleanor, beaming at Henry, raises her right hand as a salute and farewell to him, and Henry, laughing heartily, replies with his arms outstretched as a last embrace. Their smiles and gestures convey their enduring affection for each other, in spite of everything. All the while the orchestra and the chorus build up to a crescendo

Prince John: Poor John. Who says poor John? Don't everybody sob at once! My God, if I went up in flames there's not a living soul who'd pee on me to put the fire out!
Prince Richard: Let's strike a flint and see.

A few of my favorites are:

Eleanor: You can give the bride away. I want to watch you do it.
Henry: Alais--- I can live without her.
Eleanor: I thought you loved her.
Henry: So I do.
Eleanor: Thank God. You frightened me. I was afraid this wouldn't hurt.


Eleanor: I wonder--- do you ever wonder... if I slept with your father?
Henry: My father?
Eleanor: It's a lie. But there are rumors. Don't you ever wonder?
Henry: Is it rich despising me? Is it rewarding?
Eleanor: No.
Henry: Then stop!
Eleanor: How? It's what I live for!


Alais: Henry, I can't be your mistress if I'm married to your son.
Henry: Why can't you? Johnny wouldn't mind.


Eleanor: Henry?
Henry: Hmmm?
Eleanor: I have a confession to make.
Henry: Yeah?
Eleanor:I don't much like our children.


Eleanor: Henry was 18 when we met and I was Queen of France. He came down from the north to Paris with a mind like Aristotle's and a form like mortal sin. We shattered the Commandments on the spot.


Eleanor: I love you.
Richard: You love nothing. You're incomplete. The human parts of you are missing. You're as dead as you are deadly.


Eleanor: Where's Henry?
Richard: Upstairs with the family whore.




The most powerful weapon on Earth is the human soul on fire.--- Ferdinand Foch

Henry: There is no sense asking if the air is good when there is nothing else to breathe.

Henry: Give me a little peace.
Eleanor: A little? Why so modest? How about eternal peace, now there's a thought.

Eleanor: Henry was 18 when we met and I was queen of France. He came down from the north with a mind like Aristotle and a form like mortal sin. We shattered the Commandments on the spot. I spent three months annulling Louie, then in May, in spring, not far from here we were married. Young Count Henry and his Countess. But in three years time I was his queen, and he was King of England. Done at 21, five years your junior, general.


Henry: I thought that would appeal to you, you always fancied traveling.
Eleanor: Yes, I even made poor Louie take me on crusade. How's that for blasphemy? I dressed my maids as amazons, and rode bare-breasted half way to Damascus. Louie had a seizure and I damn near died of wind burn. ...But the troops were dazzled.


Eleanor: I don't have to stop you, I have only to delay you. Every enemy you have has friends in Rome, we'll cost you time.
Henry: What is this? I'm not moldering, my paint's not peeling off, I'm good for years.
Eleanor: How many years? Suppose I hold you back for one, I can, it's possible. Suppose your first son dies, ours did, it's possible. Suppose you're daughtered next, we were, that too is possible. How old is daddy then? What kind of spindly, ricket-ridden, milky, wizened, dim-eyed, gamy-handed, limpy line of things will you beget..?!


Henry: Eleanor, what do you want?
Eleanor: Just what you want, a king for a son. You can make more, I can't. You think I want to disappear? One son is all I've got, and you can block him out and call me cruel? For these ten years you've lived with everything I've lost, and loved another woman through it all, and I am cruel?! I could peel you like a pear and God Himself would call it justice!


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Truth is a hard master, and costly to serve, but it simplifies every problem.

Eleanor: But those were battles, not a knife behind the door.
Richard: I never heard a corpse ask how it got so cold.


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Truth is a hard master, and costly to serve, but it simplifies every problem.