Kolchak: The Night Stalker (TV Series)

Chopper (1975)

Darren McGavin: Carl Kolchak

Photos 

Quotes 

• Carl Kolchak : There's an old simple axiom about the dead: Don't disturb them, not for any reason at all. Well, I decided to ignore that, and, so, I was almost beheaded by a phantom sword.

• Captain Jonas : Now, you're just upset, Mrs. Morton, and thanks to this man and his morbid, macabre babbling!

  Carl Kolchak : Babbling? And you're supposed to be the brightest and the youngest captain on the force, huh? Well, you're not even fit to be captain of the Rockettes! Suck in your gut!

• Carl Kolchak : Was Morton by any chance beheaded?

  Neil : Yes, and you could use a good trim yourself.

• Carl Kolchak : When people are young, they do crazy things. I remember I used to swallow goldfish. No, no, I did. Matter of fact, I'm still considering doing it - the price of food these days.

• [first lines] 

  Carl Kolchak : The teenage years - sixteen candles, fervent passions, aimless joyrides, and the forbidden taste of beer - a time the world allows for sowing one's wild oats; but, for some individuals I came to know in the summer of their discontent, it had been a time when they had sown the seeds of their own destruction.

• Prof. Eli Strig : [Luis is trying to get a guillotine exhibit working]  Ah, that's just marvelous, Luis. Fix it! And never mind excuses about 200-year-old wood, either. Hmm. I'm sorry, Mr. Kolchak, but you'll have to come back tomorrow. The exhibit starts tomorrow, and we're unprepared. We're totally unprepared.

  Carl Kolchak : Yeah, well, I'm only sorry I'm not gonna be able to make the exhibit. Maybe I can help you out with a feature story or... Even with pictures.

  Prof. Eli Strig : [Luis tests the guillotine exhibit behind them]  Wax. Wax, Luis! And some good old-fashioned elbow grease!

  Carl Kolchak : That always helps. Yeah.

  Prof. Eli Strig : I like your idea, Mr. Kolchak. But no pictures until we get it working right.

  Carl Kolchak : Oh, certainly.

  Prof. Eli Strig : What, um, aspect of the Reign of Terror would you like to concentrate your oeuvre on?

  Carl Kolchak : Oeu...

  Prof. Eli Strig : Picture ramifications? Social problems? Historical antecedents, perhaps?

  Carl Kolchak : Well, actually, I was thinking more about the supernatural aspects.

  Prof. Eli Strig : The supernatural aspects of the Reign of Terror? That's inane.

  Carl Kolchak : But original.

  Prof. Eli Strig : [chuckles]  There was nothing spooky about the French Revolution. People lopped off with the heads of thousands of aristocrats and carted them away in straw baskets, then turned the blades on themselves and killed thousands more. Just another segment of Western History.

  Carl Kolchak : Yeah, I know. I know that a lot of heads we're chopped off during that Reign of Terror. But, uh, were there any unearthly events resulting from that lopping off of heads? I mean, that you know of.

  Prof. Eli Strig : You're not interested in history, Mr. Kolchak. You're interested in wives' tales.

  [Luis still can't get the guillotine to work properly] 

  Prof. Eli Strig : Use some steel wood, Luis!

  Carl Kolchak : Try graphite! What about those wives' tales?

  Prof. Eli Strig : Oh, there was some...

  [scoffs] 

  Prof. Eli Strig : ... nonsense about, uh, burying the executed in common graves. Well, with careless gravediggers and what have you, the heads and the bodies were often separated, sent to different locations.

  Carl Kolchak : Oh, you mean like what happens to luggage out at at airport?

  Prof. Eli Strig : Exactly. Happened to me when I flew into Chicago.

  Carl Kolchak : It happens all the time here. It's terrible. What happened to those headless bodies?

  Prof. Eli Strig : Oh, legend has it that headless specters, corpses were seen wandering around the streets of Paris, attempting to wreak revenge on those that had decapitated them.

  Carl Kolchak : What did the people in Paris do about these wandering corpses?

  Prof. Eli Strig : A program was instituted to rebury the heads with the bodies, and to make sure that future burials were done with care.

  Carl Kolchak : And that stopped the dead form walking, right?

  Prof. Eli Strig : Legend would have us believe it did.

  [Luis tries to work the guillotine properly, to no avail] 

  Prof. Eli Strig : [sighs]  Will you get off that platform? I'll do it myself, Luis!

  Carl Kolchak : Uh, Dr. Strig?

  Prof. Eli Strig : Yes?

  Carl Kolchak : Try shoe polish.

  Prof. Eli Strig : Shoe polish?