‘I’VE HEARD ABOUT YOU SHANE.’—The Zephyr’s Favorite Cowboy Movie Lines

I was raised on matinees, on Saturday afternoons.

Lookin’ up at Hoppy, Gene and Roy…oh boy!

And I was raised believin’, the best a man can do

Is a be rootin’-tootin’, straight shootin’ cowboy buckaroo

—–Mason Williams & the Sons of the Pioneers

That’s how it was for me. As a little kid, I grew up in a neighborhood where there weren’t many other children. Billy Springstead was, at seven, four years older than me and didn’t really want to be seen “with a little kid.” So I learned to entertain myself. On Saturdays I was glued to the television, and eagerly awaited one Cinema Cowboy hero after another. Later I’d go out on the sidewalk and re-enact the episodes I’d just watched. I even did my own Western background music, the lavish orchestrals that always accompanied a good horse opera. Oddly enough, all these years and decades later, my favorite musical genre is…you guessed it..the soundtracks to great Westerns. I’ve run off more than one girlfriend, simply because I refused to remove my “Lonesome Dove” CD from the car stereo. I need my own soundtrack.

I also love the great laconic dialogue that comes from a good Western. And so I’ve gathered here some of my favorite lines from my favorite Westerns. It’s not a complete list, by any means—I don’t even think I have a Top 10 list here…maybe a Top 7? I’m not a movie critic and am not about to bore you with critic-ese about the fabric and texture of a film. I simply know what I like and these are the films that sustain me when I need a good jolt of Cinema West.

So, in no particular order, here are the great Western movie lines I love the most…JS

THE SHOOTIST (1976)

John Wayne(JB Books) Lauren Bacall (Mrs Rogers) Ron Howard (Gilliam Rogers) James Stewart (Doc Hostetler)

Screenplay by Miles Hood Swarthhout & Scott Hale from the novel by Glendon Swathhout

Music by Elmer Bernstein

It’s dangerous for an environmentalist/sometime liberal to say anything kind about John Wayne. Especially these days. But the Duke deserves kudos for “The Shootist,” his last film. Ironically, it’s about an aging gunfighter, riddled with cancer, who comes to Carson City, Nevada to live out his last days. John Wayne actually succeeds in acting humble in this film. The fact that he died of cancer, three years later, makes “The Shootist” that much more poignant.

“His name was J.B Books and he had a pair of ivory-handled pistols that were a sight to behold. But he wasn’t an outlaw. For a while he was a lawman…The wild country had taught him to survive. He lived his life unherded, by himself. And he had a credo…

“I won’t be wronged. I won’t be insulted and I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to others and I require the same from them.”

James Stewart (as Dr Hostetler) offers Books an alternative to the agonizing death by cancer that he faces…

“There’s one more thing I’d say. Both of us have had a lot to do with Death. I’m not a brave man but you must be…I would not die the death I described if I had your courage.”

“Every young man feels the need to let the badger loose now and then.”

Sheriff Tibidoh offers this advice to Books…

“Books, this is 19-ought-one. The old days are gone and you don’t know it. We got a waterworks and we’ll have our street car electrified by next year. And we’ve started to pave the streets. Oh we’ve still got some weedin’ to do, but once we get rid of people like you, we’ll have a goddamn Garden of Eden here…You plain outlived your time.”

“A man’s emotions gets him all tangled up sometimes. I been operatin’ on the raw edge Gilliam…Guess I jumped too far, too fast.”

Conversation between young Gilliam and Books on being a Shootist...

Gilliam: “Bat Masterson said a man has to have guts, deliberation and a proficiency with firearms.

Books: “Did he mention that third eye you better have? You need it for that dumb ass amateur. It’s usually some six-fingered buster who couldn’t hit a cow on the tit with a tin cup that does you in. But then Bat Masterson always was full of sheep dip.”

ONE-EYED JACKS (1961)

Marlon Brando (Rio) Karl Malden (Dad Longworth)

My pal Judge Lewis Paisley introduced “One-Eyed Jacks” to me, just a few years ago. The Judge is a connoisseur of good cowboy dialogue and knew I could not resist Brando’s over-the-top lines. And of course Brando could play it over the top–this is the only film he ever directed and clearly, he decided to take it to the limit. You’ve got to love a Western in which the leading actor can, with unheard of earnestness, call the Bad Guy, “A gob of spit.”

“My home is any place I throw my saddle down, I guess.”

Rio tries to seduce a young woman…

“I never did get much upbringin’ as a kid and the manners I learned was in a saloon. Didn’t have much chance to be around ladies like yourself…I’m sorry Senora. Just hope you don’t think too bad about me when I’m gone….my mother give me this ring just before she died. It’d mean a lot to me Senora if you’d wear it for me. It’d make me feel a whole lot better.”

“Remember a little stick place just this side of San Felipe? Remember when you was drunk and you killed that lady’s goat?

Ben Johnson tries to interest Rio in a bank robbery..

“How would you like to get rich, once and for all? You could stand a piece of change couldn’t you? Fourteen days ride from here there’s a town. And in that town is the fattest bank you ever saw. And it ain’t nuthin’ but a cheesebox…Word’s goin’ around you’re lookin’ for Dad Longworth…Hear there’s dirt between yuh. Now if that’s true, I can tell yuh where you can find him…You want me to keep talkin’?

“Now here’s where the fun comes…it’ll tickle you. The sheriff in that town is Dad Longworth. Now we gonna do some business?”

Rio’s expressive vocabulary…

“You get up, you big tub o’ guts!”

“We took to scufflin’ and he come out from behind there with that scattergun. Yeah…he didn’t give me no selection.”

“Get up you scum suckin’ pig! I want you standin’ when I open you up! Get on up! You got right on the edge…you mention her once more and I’m goin’ to tear yer arms out!”

Dad Longworth to Rio…

“Rio, you’ve been tryin’ to get yourself hung for ten years and this time I think you’re gonna make it.”

Rio to Dad…

“You’re a one-eyed jack around here, Dad, but I’ve seen the other side of yer face….know where I spent the last five years? Rottin’ my guts out down in that pen in Sonoma…what do you think of that?”

“You gob o’ spit!”

THE MISFITS (1961)

Clark Gable(Gaylord Langlan) Marilyn Monroe (Roslyn Tabor) Montgomery Clift (Pearce Howland ) Thelma Ritter (Isabelle Stears)

Screenplay by Arthur Miller

For Gable, Monroe and Clift, this was their last film of note. They would all be dead within three years of the release of “The Misfits.” Montgomery Clift was always a brilliant actor, so there’s no surprise here that his performance is so memorable. But Gable usually played Gable and Marilyn played herself.. When you see these performances, you’ve got to think they both knew this was their last chance to get it right. And they did. The screenplay was by Arthur Miller, one of MM’s ex-husbands. He actually wrote the short story upon which the screenplay was based, in Reno, while waiting for his divorce. That of course is the theme upon which the film is constructed. But for me, it’s the first film that acknowledges how rapidly the West was changing. It had seen a long period of rest, through the first half of the 20th Century. Now all that was changing.

“I can smell a cowboy…I can smell the look in your face. But I love every miserable one of you…’Course you’re all good for nuthin’.

“That may be but it’s better than wages.”

Gay on Educated Women…

“Oh..I like educated women alright. But they’re always tryin’ to figure out what we’re thinkin’….Did you ever get to know a man better by askin’ him questions?”

Roslyn asks Gay...

“What do you do with yourself?

“Just live.”

“How do you just live?”

“Well…you start by goin’ to sleep. You get up when you feel like it. You scratch yourself. You fry yourself some eggs. You see what kind of day it is. You throw stones at a can. You whistle.”

Isabelle tells Rosalyn,

“Cowboys are the last real men left in the world. And they’re about as reliable as jack rabbits.”

“Is anybody any different? Maybe you’re not supposed to believe what people say…Maybe it’s not even fair to them.”

Isabelle on Nevada…

“Welcome to Nevada…the Leave it State…You got money you want to gamble? Leave it here. You got a wife you wanna get rid of? Get rid of her here. Extra atom bombs you don’t need? Blow it up here. Nobody’s going to mind in the slightest. The slogan of Nevada is: Anything goes. But don’t complain if it went.”

“You know, sometimes when a person don’t know what to do, the best thing to do is just stand still.”…..Gay

“Ever hear the story about the city man out in the country? And he sees this feler sitting on his porch and he says, ‘Mister, can you tell me how to get back to town?’ And the feller says, ‘Nope.’ So he says, “Can you tell me how to find the post office?’ And the feller says, ‘Nope.’ ‘Well can you tell me how to find the railroad station?’ And he says, ‘No.’ So the city man says, ‘Boy, you don’t know much do you?’ And the feller says, ‘Nope…but I’m not lost.’”…Gay

Guido to Roslyn on Life…

“Knowin’ things don’t matter much. What you got Roslyn is a lot more important…You care. What happens to anybody happens to you. You’re really hooked in to the whole thing, Roslyn…It’s a gift.”

“People say I’m just nervous.”

“If it weren’t for nervous people in the world, we’d still be eating each other.”

Gay on Mustanging…

“Nothing can live unless something dies. I herd these horses so I can keep myself free. So I’m a free man. That’s why you like me, isn’t it? If it’s bad, then maybe you have to take a little of the bad with the good. Or else you’ll be running for the rest of your life.”

“Don’t want nobody makin’ up my mind for me, that’s all. Damn ‘em all. Changed it. They changed it all around. Smeared it all over with blood. I’m finished with it. It’s like ropin’ a dream now. I jus’ got to find another way to be alive, that’s all…if there is one anymore…”

JEREMIAH JOHNSON (1972)

Robert Redford (Jeremiah Johnson) Will Geer (Bear Claw Kris Lapp) Stefan Gierasch (Del Gue)

Screenplay by John Milius & Edward Anhalt

Music by John Rubinstein & Tim McIntire

When this film was first released, I was absolutely obsessed with it. In the pre-VCR era, my only opportunity to satisfy my craving was to keep going to the theatre. I saw JJ more than 20 times. I finally carried a portable audio tape recorder with me and recorded the entire film on a cassette tape. I’d listen to the tape almost every day. This was also in the days when I still lived in Kentucky, wanted only to be in Utah and kept my watch on Mountain Time, even though I lived in the East. Knowing that JJ was shot entirely on location in Utah added to its appeal. And years later, when I met Redford in Hanksville, Utah (see story on page 2), I was able to tell him just how much the film meant to me, while totally humiliating myself at the same time.

“His name was Jeremiah Johnson and they say he wanted to be a mountain man. He was a big man of proper height and adventurous spirit, sited to the mountains. He was a young man and ghosty stories of the tall hills didn’t scare him none. He was lookin’ for a hawken gun, 50 calibre or better—he settled on a 30, but it was a genuine Hawken. You couldn’t go no better. Got himself a good horse and traps and other truck that went with bein’ a mountain man and said goodbye to whatever life was down there below…

“Just where is it I can find bear, beaver and other critters worth cash money when skinned?”

“Ride due west as the sun sets…turn left at the Rocky Mountains.”

Meeting Bear Claw…

“I am Bear Claw Kris Lapp, blood kin to the grizzley that whupped Jim Bridger’s ass. You are molesting my hunt!”

On coming to the mountains…

“Didn’t like it down there eh?”

“It ought to have been different.”

“Is that so? Many a child journeys this high to be different, tryin’ to get something from the mountains the Natures couldn’t give him below. Comes to nuthin’. Can’t cheat the mountain Pilgrim…Mountain’s got its own ways.”

Meeting Del Gue, buried to his neck in sand…

“Injuns put you here?”

“Tweren’t Mormons.”

Gue’s advice...

“You turn down this gift and they’ll slit you, me, Caleb and the horses, from crotch to eyeball with a dull deer antler!”

Reunion with Del Gue…

“Where you headed, Del?”

“Same place you are, Jeremiah…Hell in the end.”

Farewell from Del…

“Keep your nose to the wind…and your eyes along the skyline.”

LONELY ARE THE BRAVE (1962)

Kirk Douglas (Jack Burns) Walter Matheau (The Sheriff) Gena Rowlands (Jeri Bondi)

Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, based on the book “Brave Cowboy” by Edward Abbey

Music by Jerry Goldsmith

I was 10 years old when I first saw this film. I’d never been out West, never heard of Ed Abbey, and had no inkling of the World out there that was changing so rapidly. But when the film ended, I was moved in ways I didn’t think possible for a kid. It reached some visceral part of me that had not been aroused until then. Years later, when I was in college and my friends and I would gather to discuss film, and we’d all want to impress each other with some obscure movie that no one else had heard of, I could always pull out “Lonely are the Brave,” as one of my Top 10 films of all time. It would be another few years before I’d discover Ed Abbey and the fact that he had written the book upon which the film was made.

“When I say ‘hup,’ you ‘hup.’ Pretty little fuzz tail. You’ll learn. What you need is a little horse sense.”

Jack to Jeri on being a Westerner…

“Basically you’re still an easterner…A Westerner likes open country so he has to hate fences and the more fences there are, the more he hates them…It’s true. You ever notice how many fences there are getting to be? And the signs they got in ‘em…No hunting. No fishing. Private property. Closed area. Get moving. Go away. Get lost. Drop dead…And they got those fences that say: ‘This side’s jail and that’s the street.’ Or ‘here’s Arizona and that’s Nevada.’ Or ‘this is us and that’s Mexico.’

“He just naturally didn’t see the use of it so he acted like it wasn’t there. So when people sneaked across, he helped them.”

“Jack, the world you and Paul live in doesn’t exist…maybe it never did. Out there is the real world and it has real borders and real fences, real laws and real trouble. If you don’t go by the rules you lose…you lose everything.”

“A fella can always keep something.”

Jeri on Men…

“Men are idiots. You’re an idiot. Paul’s an idiot…You’re all idiots.”

Jack on getting drunk…

“About every six months, I figure I owe myself a good drunk. It rinses your insides out, sweetens your breath, tones up your skin.”

Bondi to Jack…

“You’re the only man alive who would break into jail, just to see an old friend off to the penitentiary.”

Jack to Guiterez the jailer…

“Take it easy…Temper like that and you’ll find yourself riding through town with your belly to the sun, your best suit on, and no place to go but hell…Believe me buddy, you better watch it.”

To Jeri as Jack prepares his escape after breaking jail…

“I didn’t want a house. All those pots and pans. I didn’t want anything but you, and it’s God’s own blessing that I didn’t get you…I’m a loner clear down to my very guts. And do you know what a loner is? He’s a born cripple. The only person he can live with is himself. It’s his life, the way he wants it. It’s all about him. He’d kill a woman like you…’Cause he couldn’t love you, not the way you are loved.

“…If I got a big kiss, I could probably beat the sun to the top of that hill.”

OPEN RANGE (2003)

Robert Duvall (Boss) Kevin Costner (Charlie) Annette Benning (Sue)

Screenplay by Craig Storper

Music by Michael Kamen

This is a new one, just released last year. It received mixed reviews from the critics and one of my friends insists that, because it used quick change stirrups and a nylon rope in one scene that “Open Range” is a failure as a Western. And others have complained that it moves too slowly to the point of being ponderous….I don’t care; I still love this film. The slow and deliberate way “Open Range” moves forward toward its ultimate violent climax gives us more time to get to know the characters. They may not say a lot, but that tells you something about who they are. The scene in Sue’s kitchen where neither Boss nor Charlie can get their fingers through the handle in the tea cup is one of the most tender scenes I’ve ever seen in a cowboy movie. It’s a film that deserves to be watched more than once. Much of the dialogue is subtle–you need to hear it twice. I’ve heard it about 38 times now.

“A man’s trust is a valuable thing, Button. You don’t want to lose it over a handful of cards.”

“Ol’ Boss sure can cowboy.”

“Yep…Broke the mld after him.”

Boss takes on the Cattle Baron…

“Cows is one thing. One man tellin’ another where he can go in this country is somethin’ else. That rancher sat in that jailhouse, sneerin’ and lettin’ his lawman llay down the law ‘til he figured it was time to show us who gives the orders around here…sticks in my crawl.”

A tender moment with Boss…

“I was married once…Never knew that did you Charlie? Had a wife and child. Sweet little spread too. Nothing fancy but we was young, loved each other…never had a cross word. They caught the Typhus and died and after that, home didn’t seem a place to spend time…Believe I’ve changed my mind on that, now that I’m gettin’ on in the years….If Button lives, and we survive Baxter, I am to see there’s a home he’s sleepin’ in, instead of the cold prairie.”

Boss at a graveside service…

“If you wanna speak with the man upstairs, go on and do it. I’ll stand here and listen, hat in hand. But I ain’t talkin’ to that son of a bitch.”

Charlie’s ghosts…

“You may not know this but there things that gnaw at a man worse than dyin’.

“Men are going to get killed today, Sue, and I’m going to kill them. Do you understand that?”

Last words before the shoot out…

“Boss, I ain’t goin’ to my Maker without knowin’ your given name. Mine ain’t ‘Waite,’ it’s ‘Postelwaite…Charles Travis Postelwaite.’ What’s yours?…It sure ain’t boss…I mean it Boss. I’m askin’ you straight up.”

“……It’s…Blue Bonnet…Just Blue Bonnet Spearmint and don’t you go tellin’ no one.”

SHANE (1952)

Alan Ladd (Shane) Van Heflin (Joe Starret) Jack Palance (Wilson)

Screenplay by A.B. Guthrie, based on the novel by Jack Schaefer

Maybe the greatest Western of all time. On the one hand, by today’s standards, it’s about as corny as a movie can get. I doubt if too many 21st Century women will do anything but cringe at Joe Starret’s constant referrals to his “little woman.” Shane’s syrupy plea to the homesteaders after Riker’s hired gun, Jack Wilson, has cut down their friend Corey always makes me squirm. And yet…and yet it still works brilliantly. With the Grand Tetons as the ultimate scenic backdrop, “Shane” offers the most malevolent performances ever seen in a Western by Jack Palance as Wilson. Director George Stevens knew Alan Ladd could act, as long as he didn’t have too many lines, and so Ladd turns in a silently brooding performance that may have been his best. The final shootout at Grafton’s Saloon has never been equaled—it’s the Cowboy Shootout upon which all other shootouts are compared.

Shane meets little Joey…

“You were watching me down the trail quite a spell weren’t you?”

“Yes, I was.”

“You know…I like a man who watches things goin’ around…he can make his mark someday.”

Introductions from Joe Starret…

“If this don’t beat all. I’m Joe Starret and this is Joey. You heard what my little woman said. Come on in…please.”

“Call me Shane.”

The Stump…

“I been fightin’ this stump off and on for two years. Use the team now and this stup could say it beat us…Sometimes nothin’ll do but your own sweat and muscle!”

Marion’s warning to Joey...

“Joey…Don’t get to liking Shane too much…he;ll be moving on someday.”

Riker gets tough with Shane…

” Ok Shane. You had your chance! Nobody roughs up one of my boys and gets away with it. We’re gonna rough you up a bit and ride you out and you’re going to stay out!”

After Shane & Starret whup Riker’s boys…

“I’m through foolin’ around. Next time we fight with them, the air is going to be filled with gunsmoke.”

Shane defends his gun…

“A gun is a tool, Marion. No better or worse than any other tool. A shovel or axe…anything. A gun is as good or bad as the man using it.”

The Shoot Out…Last words before the bullets fly…

“So you’re Jack Wilson.”

“What’s that mean to you?”

“I’ve heard about you.”

“What have you heard, Shane.”

“…I’ve heard you’re a low-down Yankee liar.”

“….Prove it.”

The aftermath…

“That was him…That was Wilson alright. He was fast…fast on the draw.”

“A man’s got to be what he is, Joey. He can’t break the mold. I tried it and it didn’t work for me….Joey, there’s no living with a killing. There’s no going back from it. Right or wrong, it’s a brand. A brand that sticks…There’s no going back…Now you run home to your mother and tell her..tell her everything is alright. And there aren’t any more guns in this valley.”

“Goodbye Shane!”

LONESOME DOVE (1988)

Robert Duvall (Augustus McRae) Tommy Lee Jones (Capt Woodrow F. Call)

Screenplay by Bill Wittliff based on the novel by Larry McMurtry

It doesn’t get better than this. The six hour epic about two aging Texas rangers who decide to embark on one last adventure, a 2500 mile cattle drive to Montana, is to many, the greatest Western ever made. Duvall has called his performance as Gus McRae the best of his career. There was once a time when I had committed to memory the dialogue of the entire film. (See next page for yet another embarrassing encounter–this time with Duvall.) The sets and costumes are painstakingly authentic, the cinematography stunning (and remember this was shot for television), the dialogue rich and moving. But of all the performances in “Lonesome Dove,” it’s Jones’ that stands out most prominently in my mind. Call lived inside his own head, grappling silently with the ghosts that tortured him. Jones had to convey Call’s agony without many words and he did it brilliantly. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such haunted eyes as those of Capt Call. Great soundtrack too…

On Growth and development…

“This town sure has growed since the last time we here.”

“The dern people are buildin’ towns everywhere. And it’s our fault too.”

“Our fault?”

“Well, we chased off all the Indians didn’t we? Killed off all the good bandits. Did it ever occur to you that everything we done was a mistake? Me and you did our work too well, Woodrow. Hell we killed off most of the people that made this country to begin with didn’t we…

On Cuisine…

“Our boys ain’t gonna take much to eatin’ bugs.”

On Death…

“Gus is right, boys…the best thing you can do with Death is to ride off from it.”

On Greek…

“I told you Woodrow, it ain’t Greek, it’s Latin.”

“What’s it say, that Latin?”

“Well…it just says itself…yo varum. Yo varum fit. Yo varum double fit…”

“You ain’t got no idea what it says. You probably found that in some old book or something. For all you know, it invites people to rob us!”

“The first man to come along who can read Latin is welcome to rob us, as far as I’m concerned. I’d like the chance to shoot at a educated man, once in my life.”

Gus’s advice to Lori on the ‘Little things’…

“Listen to me now…pretty little thing. Life in San Francisco is still Life. If you want just one thing too much, it’ll turn out to be a disappointment. Now the only healthy way to live, as I see it, is to like all the little ever’day things.”

“Yeah…like what.”

“Well…like a sip of fine whisky of an evening. Or a soft bed…Or say, a feisty gentleman like myself.

Gus on aging…

“Well the older the violin, the sweeter the music.”

“Me and Woodrow always like to get where we’re startin’ for, even if it don’t make a damn bit of sense.”

“Well it don’t make sense.”

“Well I know it don’t. But I’d like to see at one more place that ain’t settled before I take up the rockin’ chair.”

Woodrow F. Call…

“I can’t stand rude behavior in a man…I won’t tolerate it.”

Deets’ epitaph…

“I’ve seen your pa bury many a man, but I never seen him carve a sign before. Let’s see what he wrote. It reads…

Josh Deets. Served with me 30 years. Fought in 21 engagements with the Commanche and Kiowa. Cheerful in all weathers. Never shirked a task. Splendid behavior…

“That’s what it says.”

Gus on Life, as he’s about to leave it…

“I God, Woodrow…it’s been quite a party, ain’t it.”