Thunder Road (1958)

Robert Mitchum: Lucas Doolin

Photos 

Quotes 

• Lucas Doolin : [to a noisy customer, about the nightclub's singer]  She's trying to make a living. If you want to bray, go find yourself a barnyard.

• Lucas Doolin : [talking on pay telephone]  Hello, Kogan?... Doolin.

  Carl Kogan : What's on your mind, Mr. Doolin?

  Lucas Doolin : You. You're on my mind. You finally made the big mistake tonight, Kogan. Niles Penland was a mistake... Jethro Moultrie and Williams - that was a mistake, that was a big mistake, a bad mistake, but tonight you made the *big* mistake. You put your dirty, fat hands on my kid brother. I swore I'd *kill* anybody who tried to make him a whiskey runner. I'm on my way into Memphis right now, and when I get there, you're gonna find out that I meant *exactly* what I said.

• Lucas Doolin : You smell sweet enough. When you gonna get a job down in Mama Dunn's dance hall?

  [Roxy slaps Lucas] 

  Lucas Doolin : No need to get mincey about it., Roxy. You don't have to shake that stuff all over yourself.

  Roxanna Ledbetter : Maybe some day you'll come tippy-toeing around - even if you think you're the lord of the valley because you've been to a war and all those big towns - but I may not be here!

• Lucas Doolin : How about giving Roxy a tote back down to the store?

  Niles Penland : It'd be a puredee pleasure. Come on, Roxy.

• Lucas Doolin : I don't like being shot at.

  Carl Kogan : Hardly anybody does.

• Troy Barrett : You can change names, routes, cars, but eventually we'll nail you. You'll stand up before a Federal judge. Sure there's nothing you wanna tell me?

  Lucas Doolin : Yeah, I got one thing to tell you. I reckon you can do all you say, only first you got to catch me - if you can.

• Lucas Doolin : I don't remember anything dark and shameful, I just recollect the dogwoods and laurels with little tags of ice on the ends of them - just snip off clean like when you brushed by them. I was just a little boy, following my daddy's footsteps up Sorrowful Mountain.

• Lucas Doolin : How about that rain, huh?

  Francie Wymore : I like the rain - except when you're driving in it. Then it scares me.

• Lucas Doolin : I remember when I was a little kid trailin' my daddy up to the still through those mountain winters. I suppose I knew then that what he was doing was contrary to somebody's law, but my granddaddy had done it before him, his daddy before him and so on clear back to Ireland. They held that what a man did on his own land was his business. They didn't have any noble notions then, of course. And still don't. When they came here and fought for this country and scratched up those hills with their ploughs and those skinny old mules, they did it to guarantee the basic rights of free men. They just figured that whisky-makin' was one of 'em.

• Francie Wymore : It's like we're running out of time. Time's all we've got. And my time is yours. I'd just like a little more of you. That's all.

  Lucas Doolin : Well, honey, it's like we're standing behind the clock with our thumbs just ready for the starter's gun. We can't talk till the race is over. This we've got - we've got this hour, this night, this rain, this music. Honey, things aren't so bad as they actually are if we just accept them.

• Francie Wymore : I just wanna be normal people. I just wanna *be* somebody.

  Lucas Doolin : You are, honey. That's the big trouble. You are somebody - and I'm a whisky man.

• Lucas Doolin : There's another brand-new day coming up. You just try that on for size and enjoy it.

• Lucas Doolin : My head's full of so many other things. I've been across an ocean, met all the pretty people, I know how to read an expensive restaurant menu, I know what a mobile is.

• Lucas Doolin : You're never gonna have a lick of sense, are you Roxy?

• Lucas Doolin : Stacey Gouge, you dirty turncoat! You make one more move toward that shotgun, I'll make a skullcap out of it for you.

• Lucas Doolin : You really like messing around with motors, don't you?

  Robin Doolin : I'm a fair hand.

  Lucas Doolin : You know, that's not a bad deal. Those big city newspapers are just filled with jobs for engineers. I don't mean just cars - turbo jets, ramjets, rockets. You know, it's not gonna be too long before the engineers will have every house in these hills lighted with atomic power.

  Robin Doolin : I don't know. I guess that's a little bit over my head.

• Lucas Doolin : No, honey. Don't say anything. Just sing. Find some words to that pretty music.

  Francie Wymore : [singing]  While all alone, Beneath the tree, Where once you pledged your love to me, My lonely heart cries out to you, The whippoorwill, Is crying too...