The Tall T (1957)

Randolph Scott: Pat Brennan

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Quotes 

• Doretta Mims : Well, what about you?

  Pat Brennan : I'm going to finish this. If they come, I'm going to finish this once and for all.

  Doretta Mims : Oh, but why?

  Pat Brennan : Some things a man can't ride around.

• [last lines] 

  [Pat, to the weeping Doretta, after he has killed three murderous kidnappers] 

  Pat Brennan : Come on now. It's gonna be a nice day.

• Pat Brennan : You got a fine boy there, Hank. He knows his stock. He'll make a first rate station man one day.

  Hank Parker : Not if I can help it, he won't. Ain't a fit life bein' stuck out in the middle of nowhere, all by yourself, knowin' nobody but stage drivers and shotguns. Ain't no fit life at all.

  Pat Brennan : Always thought you were happy at it.

  Hank Parker : Well...

  Pat Brennan : [excepts a gourdful of water from Hank]  Thanks.

  Hank Parker : ...I was. When Jeff's mother was alive, I was. Alone, it's different. My retire time comes up next fall and I'm gonna take it. A man shouldn't oughta be stuck off by hisself in this kind of country, Pat. It ain't natural!

  Pat Brennan : You wouldn't be half meanin' me by that, would ya, Hank?

  Hank Parker : Well, come to think of it, I guess I do. Ain't right your workin' that spread of yours all alone.

  Pat Brennan : Can't afford to hire hands - not yet, anyway. Still a lot of building to do, fences to run and such. But if I get to lonely, Hank, I can always talk to my stock!

  Hank Parker : Well, when they start talkin' back to ya, just remember what I told ya.

• Doretta Mims : Terrible things have happened these past two days, yet all I can do is think of myself. All I can do is look at myself and feel foolish. And do you know why? Because I know now he never cared for me! That he married me for his own interests!

  [She cries] 

  Doretta Mims : I saw him killed just now, and I couldn't even feel sorry for him. all I could do was think that he didn't love me. That he didn't care that...

  Pat Brennan : Now you listen to me, Mrs. Mims.

  [She sobs] 

  Pat Brennan : Your husband married you for money. You know it, and I know it. But you're alive, and he's dead, and that makes a difference. You can cry and moon about being a fool until they shoot us tomorrow, or you can start thinkin' about savin' your skin, but I'll tell you this

  [He turns her arounf to face her] 

  Pat Brennan : It'll take both of us working together to stay alive.

• Pat Brennan : Did you love him?

  Doretta Mims : I married him.

  Pat Brennan : That's not what I asked.

  Doretta Mims : Yes! Yes, I did.

  Pat Brennan : Mrs. Mims, you're a liar. You didn't love him, and never for one minute thought he loved you. That's true, isn't it?

  Doretta Mims : Do you know what it's like to be alone in a camp full of roughneck miners, and a father who holds a quiet hatred for you because you're not the son he's always wanted? Yes, I married Willard Mims because I couldn't stand being alone anymore. I know all the time he didn't love me, but I didn't care. I thought I'd make him love me... by the time that he asked me to marry him, I'd told myself inside for so long that I believed it was me he cared for and not the money.

• Usher : I'm gonna have me a place someday. I thought about it, I thought about it a lot. A man should have somethin' of his own, somethin' to belong to, to be proud of.

  Pat Brennan : And you think you'll get it this way.

  Usher : Sometimes you don't have a choice.

  Pat Brennan : Don't you?

• Pat Brennan : [Referring to Mims]  Who is he anyway?

  Ed Rintoon : Old man Gateway's son-in-law... as of this morning. Married into the richest copper mine in the territory.

  Pat Brennan : Then she must be Doretta Gateway.

  Ed Rintoon : Yep, she was scheduled to be an old maid till Willard came along. She's plain as adobe wall.

  Pat Brennan : But not too plain for Willard, huh?

  Ed Rintoon : Nothin' plain about Old Man Gateway's holdin's. Folks say that his worth's just the other side of one half million dollars. That's too much money for one man to worry about.

• Chink : [after shooting Rintoon]  I was waitin' for that old man to try something.

  Pat Brennan : You didn't have to kill him.

  Chink : I would have sooner or later.