The Cheyenne Social Club (1970)

James Stewart: John O'Hanlan

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Quotes 

• John O'Hanlan : How much money do you want, Harley?

  Harley Sullivan : Fifteen or twenty dollars ought to do me.

  John O'Hanlan : What do you need it for?

  Harley Sullivan : Things.

  John O'Hanlan : Well, what kind of things?

  Harley Sullivan : Just-just things. You know, like a drink of whiskey if I wanted it, or a new shirt or something.

  John O'Hanlan : You already have two shirts. You don't want to wear but one of them at a time unless it's winter.

  Harley Sullivan : There you go thinking like a Republican again.

  John O'Hanlan : Well, you don't bring up politics while you're borrowing money, Harley. It ain't seemly!

• Harley Sullivan : Did I ever tell ya how my Uncle Charlie got stoved up?

  John O'Hanlan : No, Harley.

  Harley Sullivan : His home set right out in the prarie. One day he went in the outhouse and got caught right in the middle of a stampede. When he went in there wasn't a cow in sight. A few minutes late 365 longhorns ran over him. Broke him up something terrrible. That was nineteen years ago and he's still constipated.

• John O'Hanlan : I'm not opening any letter from a lawyer on an empty stomach.

• Jenny : Did you ever love a woman, Johnny? I mean, really love her?

  John O'Hanlan : Yeah. Thought I did once. Come to find out it was indigestion.

• Harley Sullivan : Ain't you gonna give notice you're quitting?

  John O'Hanlan : I did when I signed on.

• John O'Hanlan : Harley, with this much money, I can... I can... I can... Heh! What would you do?

  Harley Sullivan : John, if I had that much money and already had a business, I guess I'd just live high on the hog for as long as it lasted.

  John O'Hanlan : [testily]  That's not what a shrewd businessman would do, Harley!

  Harley Sullivan : You asked me what I'd do!

  John O'Hanlan : That was my first mistake!

• John O'Hanlan : Well, how much time do I have?

  Marshal Anderson : Oh, three days at the most. They live quite a ways out of town. But trouble rides a fast horse!

• John O'Hanlan : When you're out on the range with nobody to talk to most of the time but your horse, you do a lot of dreaming. And I dreamed of being a man of property. But you know... you know Mr. Willoughby, and I didn't realize it then, but I've always been a man of property. I have my horse. I have my blanket and I have the whole West to ride in. How could a man own more than that? No, Mr. Willoughby, I'm a cowboy. Always have been... I know now I always will be.

• Jenny : When I was young, I had all sorts of dreams. There's something awfully sad about an old dream.

  John O'Hanlan : Yeah, I know. When I was a boy down in the panhandle, that was before I slipped my hobbles, I was a real stargazer. I tell you, Jenny, I dreamed and I planned big things. And then I started drifting... and I've been drifting ever since.

• John O'Hanlan : I don't like to say this about my own brother, but he just never was what you'd call an outstanding citizen. The truth is, he, well, he wasn't worth the sweat on a waterbag.

• Harley Sullivan : What kind of business you figure your brother left you?

  John O'Hanlan : Well, the letter don't say - but that's just like a lawyer. They don't tell you no more than it takes to confuse you. But it's a... something called the Cheyenne Social Club.

• Harley Sullivan : Do you know how to make Indian whiskey, John?

  John O'Hanlan : No, Harley.

  Harley Sullivan : Well, you take a barrel of Missouri River water and a couple of gallons of alcohol and some strychnine to make them crazy, and tobacco to make them sick. An Indian wouldn't figure it was whiskey unless it made him sick. Add a few bars of soap to put a head on it and then a half-pound or so of red pepper to give it a kick. Put some tumbleweed in, boil it until it turns brown, and that's Indian whiskey.

• Harley Sullivan : What are you lookin' at?

  John O'Hanlan : You.

  Harley Sullivan : Why?

  John O'Hanlan : I don't know. You look different some how.

  Harley Sullivan : What do you mean different?

  John O'Hanlan : John, its kind of hard for me to put my finger on.

  Harley Sullivan : Well, try Harley. Use 'em all.

• John O'Hanlan : Solid. Solid. Respectable. Republican. Business. That's what makes America, Harley.

  Harley Sullivan : Our folks were Democrats, John.

  John O'Hanlan : Yeah and look where it got you. A lifetime on the range and sweat in the Summer and freezin' in the Winter and sleepin' on the ground and fightin' wolves and the rattlesnakes and - oh, no, Harley. There can't be a finer calling in the whole world - than being a Republican businessman!

  Harley Sullivan : I don't like to dispute you, John; but, didn't you always vote Democratic!

  John O'Hanlan : Well, well, that was when I didn't know any better.

• John O'Hanlan : I never knew you were married.

  Harley Sullivan : Well, John, it ain't something I like to talk about, but I was married once. And once is enough for any man. You can't smoke, chew, dip, drink, scratch in the parlor, or cuss. When you leave the house, they ask you where'd you go. And when you come home, they ask you where have you been. And right now with you, it is just like when I was married.

  John O'Hanlan : Why, how is that, Harley?

  Harley Sullivan : Well, John, when a woman's talking to you, you can be pretty sure that she thinks she's in control. And when she's not talking to you, you can be pretty certain you're in control.

• John O'Hanlan : Harley, I want... want you to do me a favor. Don't ever tell anyone here in Cheyenne I voted Democratic. You'll do that for me, won't you?

  Harley Sullivan : If you say so.

  John O'Hanlan : Thank you.

  Harley Sullivan : John, you don't mind if I still vote Democratic, do you?

  John O'Hanlan : Just so long as you're not seen with me when you do it. Be bad for business.

• Harley Sullivan : I thought you know me better than that, John, after all the years we rode together.

  John O'Hanlan : Well, I guess it just goes to prove that you never really know a man until the chips are down and you need him the most.

• John O'Hanlan : Well, how much money does he need to get her liver fixed?

  Jenny : Five hundred dollars.

  John O'Hanlan : Five hundred dollars for a liver?

  Jenny : That's what the big doctor in Chicago charges. And he's got all kinds of fancy letters in back of his name.

  John O'Hanlan : I don't care what's in back of his name! Five hundred dollars - that's more than you have to pay for a good horse!

• John O'Hanlan : Harley, this is more money than I ever dreamed! Do-do-do you know what I can do with this much money?

  Harley Sullivan : We passed some nice looking saloons.

• John O'Hanlan : Will you tell Mr. Willowby I would like to talk to him?

  Harley Sullivan : He's still in the Doc's office.

  John O'Hanlan : I didn't know he was sick.

  Harley Sullivan : He weren't until you started that fight. He was hit in the face with a piano stool, so they say. I hear that saloon looks like it was in the path of a buffalo stampede.

  John O'Hanlan : All for a good cause, Harley. All for Texas.

• Harley Sullivan : How ya doin'?

  John O'Hanlan : I never felt better glued together!

• John O'Hanlan : [as she begins to leave after the bell rings for her]  Now, hold on, Carrie Virginia! When I gave you away to that Pete Dodge feller, I told him to stay away until after the wedding!

  Carrie Virginia : And Pete is staying away, too!

  John O'Hanlan : Well, then, who's that?

  Carrie Virginia : That's just his brother, Edgar, coming to pay his respects. They're such a close family.

  [she leaves] 

  John O'Hanlan : [dumbfounded]  Close? Close?

• Barkeep - Great Plains Saloon : [O'Hanlon enters the saloon, looking for the man who beat up Jenny]  What do you want, O'Hanlon?

  John O'Hanlan : The man that beat up one of my... one of my girls. They tell me his name is Corey Bannister, and they tell me I can recognize him by a streak of yellow down his back.

• Clay Carroll : Not many men would have the guts to close down a historical monument.

  John O'Hanlan : What historical monument is that, Mr. Carroll?

  Clay Carroll : The Cheyenne Social Club - that's the historical monument!

  John O'Hanlan : The Cheyenne Social Club is a...

  Clay Carroll : It was there when there wasn't a railroad for 300 miles. It withstood prairie fires and Indian attacks. And the first ounce, O'Hanlan, the first ounce of gold discovered in this territory was spent wisely and well at the Cheyenne Social Club. And you? You come up here from Texas and close it down!

  John O'Hanlan : Well, now, Mr. Carroll, I didn't figure I was doing anything all that terrible. The fact is, where I come from, it would be considered a public service.

  Clay Carroll : You don't say?

  John O'Hanlan : Yes sir, I do say.

  Clay Carroll : You must come from some part of Texas that I ain't heard of.

• John O'Hanlan : What's this?

  Opal Ann : Just what it looks like, Johnny. D.J. always had a glass of warm milk with a raw egg in it before he went to bed. He claimed it kept his strength up, and it helped his complexion. It wasn't his complexion I cared about.

  [laughs] 

  Opal Ann : Well, if I can do anything else for you, I'm just down the hall. Third door on the right.

• John O'Hanlan : You ever hear about what we do down in Texas to a man who beats up on a woman?

  Corey Bannister : Suppose you tell me?

  John O'Hanlan : We drag him through cactus.

  Corey Bannister : No cactus around here.

  John O'Hanlan : So I noticed.

• Corey Bannister : [approaches John's dinner table in the saloon]  Mind if I sit down?

  John O'Hanlan : Not at all. Not at all. Here... have a cigar?

  Corey Bannister : Never use 'em... You know what I don't like about you? You and those women of yours think they're better than everybody else. I was out at that place of yours, once. She insulted me. That one called Jenny? The way she acts, you'd think she was the Queen of England. She said I smelled bad. Heh! Wouldn't even let me hold her hand unless I took a bath.

  John O'Hanlan : Well, did ya'?

  Corey Bannister : Did I what?

  John O'Hanlan : Take a bath.

  Corey Bannister : You must be soft between the head handles, mister. This here territory's FULL of women you don't have to smell like lilac water just to get next to.

  John O'Hanlan : I'll bet that's the dyin' truth. Now if you don't mind, I'll eat my beefsteak.

  Corey Bannister : No, sir. I don't like you at all.

  [glaring, gets up and leaves John's table] 

• John O'Hanlan : I suppose you've come to see me about that little thing last night.

  Marshal Anderson : That wasn't any little thing you did, O'Hanlan. That was a Bannister you shot. I've been wanting to do it for years.

• Harley Sullivan : Hank Jameson - had fourteen brothers and sisters. She only had three toes on her left foot. I remember one day...

  John O'Hanlan : Harley, who only had three toes on her left foot?

  Harley Sullivan : Hank's sister, Cora B. Cora B. Jameson was her name. Folks used to pay her to take her shoe off.

• Jenny : Johnny, why don't you say your speech at breakfast in the morning. That's the quiet time at the Cheyenne Social Club.

  John O'Hanlan : Breakfast! Who says I'm gonna be here for breakfast?

  Jenny : Well, sure you'll be here. It's your home now, honey.

• Jenny : Johnny, I got to go. That's my sweetie. Just come in on the 6:15.

  John O'Hanlan : Jenny...

  Jenny : Harvard man.

• Harley Sullivan : Sometimes you leave folks with the taste of gone bad pooch. You know what I mean? I mean, some of the words I heard you put on folks, I'm surprised you ain't been brought up to a stiff rope and a short drop.

  John O'Hanlan : Well, is there anything else?

  Harley Sullivan : Well, yeah John, there is one other thing. I was - wonderin' if you could see a way clear of loanin' me some money? You don't have to if you don't wanna. But, I thought, since you got so much, you might see your way clear to...

• John O'Hanlan : What is all this about poor Pauline's liver?

• Pauline : I wondered how long it was gonna take you.

  John O'Hanlan : I beg your pardon?

  Pauline : I was D.J.'s favorite too.

  John O'Hanlan : Well, Pauline, I've come to give you something.

  Pauline : I'll just bet you have!

• Harley Sullivan : What happened John?

  John O'Hanlan : [sitting in jail]  Harley, you'd think I was closing down the Alamo.

• John O'Hanlan : I ain't comin out, and you ain't comin in and that's the way it's going to be all day!

• John O'Hanlan : [the Marshall has just warned John that the kin of the man he killed will be coming for him]  Well how much time do I have?

  Marshal Anderson : Hmm, three days at the most. They live quite a ways out of town, but trouble rides a fast horse.

  [Rides off] 

  John O'Hanlan : What do you suppose we should do, Harley?

  Harley Sullivan : What do you mean "we", John?

• Jenny : O'Hanlan! Are you the late D.J.'s brother?

  John O'Hanlan : Yes, ma'am. I sure am. Did you know D.J.?

  Jenny : Oh! Know him? Why, bless your heart, I hope to tell ya I knew him. I was his favorite. Come on in, I'll introduce you to the other ladies.

  John O'Hanlan : Excuse me, which ladies are these?

  Jenny : Why, your ladies, of course! Oh and now don't you worry about a thing, honey. Every single one of us was hand picked by D.J. personal!

• Harley Sullivan : You just ain't the man you was yesterday. At least ways not from where I stand.

  John O'Hanlan : Well, maybe you're not standin' in the right place Harley! What do - what do you mean I'm not the man today I was yesterday?

  Harley Sullivan : Just, like you lost yourself when you took a bath!

• Opal Ann : I was his favorite, you know.

  John O'Hanlan : Well, thank you, eh, eh...

  Harley Sullivan : Opal Ann.

  Opal Ann : Why, how sweet of you to remember! You know, you wouldn't look bad at all, honey, if you scrap off some of the topsoil.

• John O'Hanlan : I declare.

  Jenny : Purty, ain't it?

  John O'Hanlan : I've seen some beds in my time, but, I - I never - I can't - I just - I - I can't find the words to - to - it just kinda grabs you, doesn't it?

  Jenny : I had it custom made! Solid mahogany. Ivory rollers. A goose down mattress and Swiss springs.