It may be strange, but to me, one of the funniest lines in the movie is, after Culpepper's wife asks, "Now, what the HELL is the Smiler Grogan case?" he replies, "The tuna factory robbery!" Tracy delivers it with such exasperation, it sums up his character's frustration with his marriage, his job, his life!
shareI remember that line got a laugh when I saw it in the theater back in '63. I know what the man is feeling. I've made reference in conversations to something I've been talking about for years and had people respond with no idea what I'm talking about.
"All necessary truth is its own evidence." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Happens to me a lot.
shareJust to put that in perspective, according to the CPI Inflation calculator, that $350,000 in 1962 (when the movie was written) would be the same as $2,756,000 today. Not an insubstantial sum.
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I'm just a patsy!
Ha! Made you look!!
I know. That's what I mean. Who would keep that much cash on hand at a tuna cannery? Makes the line so much funnier. (Hehe.)
shareIt was probably a payroll robbery.
share*** SPOILER ALERT ***
That is kind of weird. Also it makes you wonder how many people were involved (besides Smiler), how they did it, and why the Hell they would pick a tuna factory to rob? And why they chose to bury the money in a park under a Big W. That's a whole movie in itself LOL.
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Even better, Culpepper's full line is "The tuna factory robbery! The case I've been talking about for the last fifteen years!"
So for ages she's been ignoring his conversations about what has been important to him. What he told her just went in one ear and out the other. I guess now he realizes this and it pushes him closer to his breaking point.
Indeed, I'm with you about how funny this dialogue is. And it's key to the plot.
What sort of chap is this brother-in-law of yours?
He's a nut!
It's possible that Smiler and his men payed people to look the other way as far as burying the money.
shareI love that line too.
I've always assumed Culpepper was being sarcastic. The Smiler Grogan case may have actually been a bank heist, and he had been talking about it for years. But when it becomes obvious to him that his wife has no idea what the hell the Smiler Grogan case is, he no longer cares to tell her so he just makes up some mundane location; a tuna factory.
EDIT: Apparently I thought too much into this. According to the movie canon it was indeed a tuna factory robbery.