The Enemy Below (1957)

Russell Collins: Doctor

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Quotes 

• Doctor : Well, in time we'll all get back to our own stuff again. The war will get swallowed up, and seem like it never happened.

  Captain Murrell : Yes, but it won't be the same as it was. We won't have that feeling of permanency that we had before. We've learned a hard truth.

  Doctor : How do you mean?

  Captain Murrell : That there's no end to misery and destruction. You cut the head off a snake, and it grows another one. You cut that one off, and you find another. You can't kill it, because it's something within ourselves. You can call it the enemy if you want to, but it's part of us; we're all men.

• Doctor : Captain Murrell oughtn't to be here at all. He's as weak as a kitten. A man that gets his ship torpedoed and spends 25 days on a raft in the North Atlantic oughtn't to have to hit the ball again with only a few days in the hospital. I guess there aren't enough commanding officers to go around. Well, at least they gave him an easy ship.

  Lt. Bonelli : Huh! Boy, easy's no word for it. Listen, he'd get more rest on this boat...

  Lieutenant Ware : Ship!

  Lt. Bonelli : Ship, boat, what's the difference? He'd still get more rest here than he would if he were in a feather bed. Me, I'd like something to happen once in a while.

  Lieutenant Ware : If the Navy ever gets a load of this salty crew in battle, they'll send us all back to boot camp. I'll look so ridiculous with my head shaved.

• Doctor : Remember our talk on the bridge - the weighty one, death and destruction? You might be interested to know that I've seen another reason for hope. Found it in a funny place, too... in the middle of an ocean, right in the middle of a war.

  Captain Murrell : You had to come a long way to find it, though, didn't you, Doc?

  Doctor : It was worth the trip.

  Captain Murrell : Maybe.

• Doctor : I guess you're finding the sun kind of hard to take, after the North Atlantic.

  Captain Murrell : Oh, it doesn't matter. It's always either too cold or too hot, wherever there's a war on.

• Doctor : What was your work, Captain?

  Captain Murrell : This, the sea.

  Doctor : You mean you were a sailor?

  Captain Murrell : I was third officer on a freighter out of Boston to Liverpool, Le Havre, and back again.

  Doctor : Some of our crew will be glad to know that. Our saltiest boys were complaining mightily about getting a civilian skipper. A 'feather merchant', I think they called it.

  Captain Murrell : Well, I am a feather merchant.

  Doctor : Well, yes, but not exactly.

  Captain Murrell : No, exactly. On the freighter, we were men against the sea; here, we're men against men. Like every other civilian in the war, I had to learn a new way of thinking.

  Doctor : Why did you change over to the Navy?

  Captain Murrell : Well, the freighter I was on was cut in half by a torpedo. Thought I'd like to be on the shooting end for a change.