MovieChat Forums > Cat Ballou (1965) Discussion > Rank your favorite quotes

Rank your favorite quotes

posted 17 years ago by hawks-bill
13 replies | jump to latest

The ones that made you laugh loudest, or that you're simply very fond of.

My top ten:

1: Jackson Two-Bears: Kid, Kid, what a time to fall off the wagon. Look at your eyes.
Kid Sheleen: What's wrong with my eyes?
Jackson Two-Bears: Well they're red, bloodshot.
Kid Sheleen: You ought to see 'em from my side

2: Jackson Two-Bears: He's a murderer, a hired killer. His nose was bit off in a fight.
Frankie Ballou: If I was gonna be scared, I'd be scared of the fella who bit it off, not him!

3: [after a drunken Kid Sheleen shoots at a target on the barn]
Clay Boone: He did it! He missed the barn!

4: Frankie Ballou: You'd like a drink better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stob, wouldn't you?

5: Clay Boone: I've never seen a man get through a day so fast

6: Frankie Ballou: Well now, there's a game for a sheriff - liar's poker. We got our unemployed off the street and made Wolf City safe all in one brilliant stroke.

7: Cat: [Looks at Frankie Ballou, lying in coffin]
Cat: Why is he smiling like that? My father never smiled like that in his whole life?
Cat: [looks in coffin again, apalled]
Undertaker: Well, he's going to smile like that forever, now. Courtesy of the Wolf City Development Company.

8: Jed: Ma'am, I can understand your objection to rustlin' - a girl with your background and gentle upbringing - but it's the only way we can raise money.
Cat: No it's not.
Clay Boone: Well, what do you think we ought to do that's fittin' and proper?
Cat: Rob a train.
[Without reacting or missing a beat, Clay continues to discuss the details of his rustling scheme]

9: Kid Sheleen: That right, mister? [shoots off the train messenger's hat]
Messenger: [rattles off safe combinations]

10: Frankie Ballou: I say Shalom Aleichem to you and you don't know nothing. Suddenly you're a mine of information.

[–] marbleann 17 years ago

Clay Boone: "I've never seen a man get through a day so fast" has to be the top because of the timing of the line. I still laugh just thinking about that whole scene.

[–] bodoe5783-1 17 years ago

with the old man laid out in his casket, surrounded by candles :

"mr. shelleen, don't you see what's goin on here?"

"hm.........."

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR FRANKIE, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!"......

then he blows out the candles....PRICELESS!

[–] Lakemystery3 17 years ago

Frankie Balloue: "You gave him 50 bucks worth of whiskey all at once?"

Frankie Ballou: "Why was I cursed in my old age with a nutty daughter and a bunch of slack-twisted idiots?"

Kid Shalleen (after throwing the bottle in the air and struggling to get his gun from his pants): "Where'd it go?"

Cat: "Some gang: A horse-ranch Indian, a drunken gunfighter, a sex maniac, and an uncle."

Cat: "I'm Catherine Ballou."
Uncle Jed: "I'm drunk as a skunk."

Uncle Jed: "Keep every sheriff easy move."

Kid Shalleen (drunk, riding an out of control horse): "Stupid beast!"

Old man at Hole In the Wall (possible Sundance): "Kid, can you lend me a bullet."

Cat: "Who's in love, and with who?"
Jackson: "With whom."
- Honestly, what kind of school teacher doesn't know when to use "who" and "whom"?

Lantanas took the best ones.

"She flattened a Dear John with a John Deere." - Douglas Wambaugh

[–] joejump-1 17 years ago

I was 6 when this movie came out. When he started singing Happy Birthday, I laughed so hard that I literally fell out of my chair and into the aisle. People in the theater actually moved away from me! It was and is the greatest movie scene ever made!

The last time there was a leak like this, Noah built hisself a boat!

[–] michael1951 17 years ago

Not exact. I don't have the script right in front of me so these are from memory.

We can't rob a train.
Why not?
We're rustlers, ma'am, not train robbers.
Well, if folks wouldn't try something new, there'd never be any progress.

Y'all say you love me, and you're beholden to me, and don't worry Cat, we'll take care of you Cat, and the first time I ask you to do one little thing for me like rob one little train....

Also, it's not a "quote" because it's wordless, but the two kids in the hayloft imitating their elders during the rumble at the square dance.

And another wordless scene that I love is the one where the stagecoach comes into town, the big hunk gets out of it and Cat and Jackson assume he's Kid, and then the family rushes up to greet him....

Conventionality is not morality.

[–] misspaddylee 16 years ago

My favourite: "They're trying to drive him off his ranch! They put manure in his well, they made him talk to lawyers..."

"Fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency."

[–] dm3588 16 years ago

I can't believe no one mentioned this one, from the square dance:

Jackson: I learned how to dance on the reservation. Buffalo dance, rain dance...(sees men glaring at him)...war dance.
Cat: Is a square dance anything like a war dance?
Jackson: (glaring back at the men) This one is.

That line's my absolute favorite in the whole movie. It cracks me up every time.

Cross my heart, smack me dead, stick a lobster on my head.

[–] sinatrachairman 16 years ago

I have to go with one I actually use in my life. Whenever my friends and I are out at the bar and we see someone really wasted I always find myself saying

"I never seen a man go through a day so fast"

I am also fond of the whole "Indians are the lost tribe of Israel" scene, simply for the way Jackson whines "But I didn't understand a word"

The world belongs to the meat eaters, Miss Clara, and if you have to take it raw, take it raw.

[–] shaznazzi 15 years ago

"he stood right here and spoke Hebrew at Jackson for 10 minutes and Jackson pretended he didn't understand a word. Now I call that stubborn!"

Your FACE is a signature!

[–] elena-28 14 years ago

Hallelujah brother ... and all like that.

The "Where are your lovers" song in the brothel. Together with the masculine scream as Kid Shalleen opens the door (I always assumed it was Sir Harry).

It's a regular Tintoretto.

Hey, Kid, you remember me: Old ... Old ...

We got a price on our head! Thirty dollars for Uncle Jed; thirty five for me!

And here is the song Frankie, Cat, Clay, Jed and Jackson sing on their way back from the dance:

POOR BEASTS !

The horse and mule live 30 years
And nothing know of wines and beers.
The goat and sheep at 20 die
And never taste of Scotch or Rye.
The cow drinks water by the ton
And at 18 is mostly done.
The dog at 15 cashes in
Without the aid of rum and gin.
The cat in milk and water soaks
And then in 12 short years it croaks.
The modest, sober, bone-dry hen
Lays eggs for nogs, then dies at 10.
All animals are strictly dry:
They sinless live and swiftly die;
But sinful, ginful, rum-soaked men
Survive for three score years and ten.
And some of them, a very few,
Stay pickled till they're 92.
Anon.

[–] princethomas 14 years ago

Almost everything Jed says in the first few minutes.

I'm drunk as a skunk.

Spins a good yarn does he?

Hallelujah Brother. I am hear to comfort the sinner and restore the stray lamb to the fold. Let him whos troubled let him whos....

And then.. my favorite.

pulls gun on lawman..
Make every Sheriff easy Move!

[–] tomloft2000 11 years ago

everything that Shileen says when they are shooting at the barn.won't inflict myself on you any further.