Danny the Champion of the World (1989 TV Movie)

Jeremy Irons: William Smith

Photos 

Quotes 

• Victor Hazell : I'm warning you, Smith - you trespass on my land again, you're gonna get shot!

  Doc Spencer : Who the devil do you think you are? Just because you've got a bit of money, you think you have the right to...

  Victor Hazell : Shut up, will you! D'you hear me, Smith?

  William Smith : At the moment, Mr. Hazell, you are on MY land. You have one minute to get off it.

• William Smith : You're right, I should have sent him to school earlier. But, you see... my wife died when he was four months old.

  [nods toward her picture on the wall, and adds quietly] 

  William Smith : He was all I had.

  Miss Hunter : [sympathetically, looking at the picture]  A fine-looking girl.

• Danny : [about Victor Hazell]  Do you think he's going to do nasty things to us?

  William Smith : Yes, my love. I think he is.

  Danny : He's a millionaire, isn't he?

  William Smith : Well, he's what we used to call a spiv in the war. While the rest of us were off fighting, he was busy making money out of everybody else's misery.

  Danny : Is he a crook?

  William Smith : Mm. I suppose he is, sort of.

  [in a West Country accent] 

  William Smith : But I reckons as though you and I are match enough for 'im.

• William Smith : I *hate* organised shoots like Hazell's.

  Danny : Why?

  William Smith : Because they're unnatural. I mean, they're against nature. Do you know why he's got so many pheasants? Because he buys them as chicks. He puts them in pens and the keepers feed them like... like pets. And when they're released, they're practically tame. Then on the big day of the shoot, an army of beaters crashes through the wood and frightens them all up into the air and a load of rich idiots, who couldn't hit a barn at fifty paces, blasts the senses out of them. Well, that's disgusting, that's organised slaughter. Poaching on the other hand is a quite different matter. It's one man on his own. It's the hunter and his prey. And the pheasants have a chance, it's not easy to catch a pheasant. And anyway, there's the added spice of the keepers lurking behind the trees with loaded shotguns.

  Danny : Guns? They wouldn't shoot you, would they?

  William Smith : Well, Hazell's keepers might. In the old days they just used to pepper your backside a bit. Your old grandfather had a backside like a pin cushion.

• Victor Hazell : I think I should warn you, I always get what I want. One way or another.

  William Smith : No one can have everything they want.

  Victor Hazell : I can.

• Victor Hazell : My name's...

  William Smith : Hazell.

  Victor Hazell : Correct. Already famous round here, am I?

  William Smith : Notorious.

• William Smith : What's the matter with your hand?

  [he looks at Danny's hand and sees the mark from the caning given to him by his teacher Captain Lancaster] 

  William Smith : Who did this? Who did this, Danny?

  Danny : Dad...

  William Smith : Was it Lancaster?

  Danny : He thought me and Sid were cheating.

  William Smith : Cheating? You? Right!

  [he gets up, angrily] 

  Danny : Where are you going?

  William Smith : I'm going to see this Captain Lancaster!

  Danny : Dad, please don't! Please!

  William Smith : And I'm going to beat the living daylights out of him!

  Danny : Please don't! It'll only make everything worse!

  William Smith : It'll make him stop and think before he lays a hand on a child again, I guarantee that!

  Danny : I'll hate you if you do it!

  William Smith : [pausing]  Danny?

  Danny : You've always taught me to fight my own battles. You've always said.

  William Smith : [hugging him]  I'm sorry, Danny. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You're right. You're right. I'm all angry inside and when people get like that then it just... comes out. I want to get even with Hazell and I can't!