Wealth & Money Quote by Peter Cushing

Cushing’s charm here is how politely he sharpens the knife. He opens with an almost apologetic shrug - he doesn’t like being “too commercial” - then pivots to the hard arithmetic that actually runs the movie business. It’s a performer’s version of economic realism: not cynical enough to sneer, not naive enough to pretend art floats above the ledger. The repetition of “commercial” isn’t clumsy; it’s a drumbeat, a reluctant mantra he’s learned to say out loud.

The subtext is a small act of self-defense. Cushing spent decades as a dependable face in British genre cinema, especially the Hammer horror machine. That world was often dismissed as cheap, sensational, beneath “serious” acting. His line quietly reframes the supposed compromise as survival and continuity: if the product sells, you keep the lights on, you keep crews employed, you keep making the next picture. “Commodity” sounds cold, but he doesn’t use it to degrade the work; he uses it to name the system without romantic cover.

The kicker is “it’s silly to kill it dead.” That phrasing carries a craftsman’s pragmatism and a hint of irritation at cultural gatekeepers who treat popular success as something suspect. Cushing isn’t advocating soulless cash-grabs; he’s arguing against premature purity tests. Keep the thing alive while it has an audience, because in film, the alternative to commerce isn’t artistic freedom. It’s no film at all.