From Tedium to Apathy and Back Again

Mister Roberts is a 1955 picture, prepare in the waning days of World War Two, in which the Usa Navy cargo ship Reluctant and her coiffure are stationed in the "backwater" areas of the Pacific Ocean. Problem ensues when the coiffure members are granted liberty.

Directed by John Ford, Mervyn LeRoy, and Joshua Logan (uncredited). Written by Frank Due south. Nugent and Joshua Logan, based on the 1946 novel by Thomas Heggen and the 1948 play by Heggen and Joshua Logan.

The Vi-Year Phase Smash on the Screen!

You're a smart boy, Roberts. Merely I know how to take care of smart boys. I detest your guts, you smart higher guys! I've been seeing your kind effectually since I was 10 years one-time, working as a busboy. "Oh, busboy, it seems my friend has thrown upwardly on the tabular array. Clean up that mess, boy, volition'ya?" So when I went to sea equally a steward, people poking at you with umbrellas. "Oh, boy! You, boy! Careful with that luggage, boy!" And I took information technology. I took it for years! But I don't have to take it anymore. At that place's a war on, and I'm captain of this vessel, and now you tin have information technology for a change! The worst thing I tin can practise to you is to continue you right here, Mister, and hither is where you're going to stay.

Just came to me all suddenly. I was lying in my bunk here this morning, um, thinking. And there wasn't a breath of air. And all of a sudden, a funny thing happened. A piffling breeze came up, and I took a big, deep breath, and I said to myself, "Pulver, boy, there's women on that isle!"

Captain, information technology is I, Ensign Pulver, and I just threw your stinkin' palm tree overboard!

Right now, I'one thousand looking at something that'south hanging over my desk-bound. A preposterous hunk of brass fastened to the almost ailing piece of ribbon I've ever seen. I'd rather have it than the Congressional Medal of Honor. It tells me what I'll always be proudest of: that at a time in the world when backbone counted most, I lived amid 62 dauntless men.

Lieutenant, junior class Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts [edit]

• [to Lieutenant "Dr."] Then I looked downwardly from our bridge and saw our captain's palm tree. Our trophy for superior achievement! The Admiral John J. Finchley award for delivering more toothpaste and toilet newspaper than any other Navy cargo ship in the safety expanse of the Pacific.

Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver [edit]

• [reading Lieutenant, junior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts's alphabetic character] "I've been aboard this destroyer for two weeks now, and we've already been through four air attacks. I'm in the state of war at last, Physician! I've caught upwards with that task force that passed me by. I'm glad to exist hither. I had to be hither, I guess. But I'1000 thinking now of you, Dr., and you, Frank, and Dolan, and Dowdy, and Insigna, and everyone else on that bucket. All the guys everywhere who sail from tedium to apathy and dorsum again, with an occasional side trip to monotony. This is a tough crew on here, and they have a wonderful battle record. Simply I've discovered, Medico, that the unseen enemy of this war is the boredom that eventually becomes a faith and, therefore, a terrible sort of suicide. And I know now that the ones who refused to surrender to information technology are the strongest of all. Right at present, I'm looking at something that's hanging over my desk-bound. A preposterous hunk of brass attached to the about bilious piece of ribbon I've ever seen. I'd rather have it than the Congressional Medal of Honor. It tells me what I'll ever be proudest of: that at a time in the globe when courage counted nigh, I lived among 62 brave men.
• [to Lieutenant Commander Morton] Captain, it is I, Ensign Pulver, and I but threw your stinkin' palm tree overboard! Now what's this crud about no flick tonight?

Lieutenant Commander Morton [edit]

• [on the loudspeaker in reference to his missing palm tree] All correct, who did information technology? Who did information technology? You are going to stand sweating at those battle stations until someone confesses! It's an insult to the honor of this ship! The symbol of our cargo record has been destroyed, and I'k going to notice out who did if it takes all nighttime!

Dialogue [edit]

Lieutenant, junior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: Physician, that new hospital hasn't got nurses, has information technology?

Lieutenant "Doctor": Information technology didn't have yesterday.

Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver: It has today.

Lieutenant "Doc": And how did you find out they were there?

Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver: Just came to me of a sudden. I was lying in my bunk here this morning, um, thinking. And there wasn't a breath of air. And all of a sudden, a funny thing happened. A piddling breeze came up, and I took a large, deep jiff, and I said to myself, "Pulver, male child, in that location's women on that isle!"

---

Lieutenant, inferior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: Frank, I similar you. At that place'south no getting around the fact that you're a real likable guy.

Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver: Yeah? Yeah!

Lieutenant, junior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: But...

Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver: But what?

Lieutenant, junior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: Well, I also think you're the most hapless, lazy, disorganized, and in general, the nigh lecherous person I've ever known in my life.

Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver: I am not!

Lieutenant, junior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: Y'all're not what?

Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver: I'm not disorganized, for one thing!

Lieutenant, junior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: Take you ever in your life finished i affair you lot started out to practice? Y'all sleep sixteen hours a twenty-four hour period. You pretend you want me to meliorate your mind. You lot've never finished one book I've given you to read.

Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver: I finished God's Piddling Acre, Doug male child!

Lieutenant, junior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: I didn't requite you lot that. [to Lieutenant "Doc"] He'southward been reading God'due south Little Acre for over a yr at present. He's underlined every erotic passage and added exclamation points. And subsequently a sure pornographic climax, he's inserted the words "well written".

---

Lieutenant, junior course Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: Doc, he lies in his sack all day long, bores me silly with great, moronic plots against the helm. He's never carried out one of them.

Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver: I haven't, huh?

Lieutenant, junior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: No, Frank, y'all haven't. Whatsoever happened to those marbles you lot were gonna put in the captain'southward overhead then they'd whorl around all night and go on him awake?

Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver: Now you lot've gone also far. Now you've asked for it. [He pulls out a box.] What does that look like? Five marbles. Got another one in my pocket. Vi marbles. I'm looking for marbles all day long!

---

Lieutenant, junior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: We've got zero to do with the war. Maybe that's why we're on this transport, 'cause nosotros're not good enough to fight. 'Cause our glands don't secrete enough adrenaline or our great-great-grandmothers were agape of the nighttime or something.

Lieutenant "Medico": What is it yous want to exist, Doug, a hero?

Lieutenant, junior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: Hero? Md, y'all haven't heard a give-and-take I've said. Look, Doc, the state of war's fashion out there, and I'chiliad here. Well, I don't want to be here, I wanna be out there. I'thou sick and tired of being a lousy spectator.

---

Lieutenant "Doc": That's mostly what makes physical heroism. Opportunity. Information technology'southward a reflex. I recollect 75 out of a hundred young males have that reflex. You take whatsoever one of them. Say even Frank Thurlowe Pulver, here. Put him into a B-29 over Nippon, and you know what you'd have?

Lieutenant, junior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: No, I don't, Medico.

Lieutenant "Doc": You lot'd have Pulver, the Congressional Medal of Honor winner. Pulver who, single-handed, shot down 23 attacking Zeros. Pulver who, with his blank easily, held together the severed wing struts of his plane and, with his bare anxiety, successfully landed his mortally wounded aeroplane on his home field. Reflex. It'southward like the knee jerk. Strike the patella tendon in whatsoever human being, you produce the knee jerk. Look. [He hits Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver in the knee, and nothing happens.]

Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver: What's the matter, Doc?

Lieutenant "Physician": Zippo, but, uh, stay out of B-29s, Frank, my male child.

---

Lieutenant, junior course Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: Captain, you told me...

Lieutenant Commander Morton: Never heed what I told you! I'grand telling you.

---

Lieutenant, junior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: How did you become in the Navy? How did you get on our side? Ah, y'all ignorant, arrogant, ambitious... keeping 62 men in prison house, 'cause you got a palm tree for the piece of work they did. I don't know which I detest worse, you or that other malignant growth that stands exterior the door.

Lieutenant Commander Morton: Why, you stinking piffling...!

Lieutenant, junior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: How did yous ever get control of a ship? I realize in wartime they take to scrape the bottom of the barrel, but where did they always scrape you up?

Lieutenant Commander Morton: At that place'due south just one thing left for you lot, Mister. A general courtroom martial!

Lieutenant, junior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: That suits me fine, court martial me!

Lieutenant Commander Morton: You've got it!

Lieutenant, junior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: I'thousand asking for information technology! If I can't get transferred, I'll go court martialed off! I'm fed up! Only you'll need a witness. Call your messenger. I'll say information technology all over over again in forepart of him. Proceed, call him. You lot want me to call him?

Lieutenant Commander Morton: No. Yous're a smart boy, Roberts. But I know how to have care of smart boys. I hate your guts, yous smart college guys! I've been seeing your kind around since I was 10 years old, working as a busboy. "Oh, busboy, information technology seems my friend has thrown upwardly on the table. Clean up that mess, male child, will'ya?" And then when I went to body of water equally a steward, people poking at you with umbrellas. "Oh, boy! You, boy! Conscientious with that luggage, boy!" And I took it. I took information technology for years! But I don't take to take it anymore. There's a war on, and I'm helm of this vessel, and now you can take it for a change! The worst matter I can do to yous is to keep y'all right here, Mister, and here is where you're going to stay. Now, become out!

---

Shore Patrol Officer: A little while ago, six men from your transport bankrupt into the home of the French colonial governor. Started throwing things through a plate drinking glass living room window. We establish some of the things on the lawn. Big world world. Small love seat. A lot of books. A bust of Balzac. The French writer? Nosotros also plant an Army private, first form, who was unconscious at the fourth dimension. He claims they threw him, too.

Lieutenant, junior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: Through the window?

Shore Patrol Officer: That's correct. It seems he took 'em at that place for a little joke. He didn't tell 'em information technology was the governor's house. He told 'em information technology was uh...well, what we call in Alabama...

Lieutenant, inferior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts: Yeah, we call information technology the same affair in Nebraska.

Shore Patrol Officeholder: Well, that's about all, Lieutenant. If it makes yous feel any better, Admiral Wentworth says this is the worst send he'due south ever seen in his entire naval career.

---

Schlemmer crashes his police motorcycle off the end of the dock.

Chief Boatswain'south Mate Dowdy: Schlemmer! Schlemmer, you alright?

Schlemmer: Yeah.

"Chief Boatswain'due south Mate Dowdy': Get up here, you idiot! What're y'all tryin' to do? Get upwards here!

Schlemmer: I forgot my motorbike!

Primary Boatswain's Mate Dowdy: Come up back here, Schlemmer! [Schlemmer jumps back into the water.]

---

[Angered over Morton'south cancelling the movie and the death of Roberts, Pulver finally snaps. He runs upstairs and yanks the chain, effectively breaking information technology. Pulver takes the replacement palm tree over the chain rails and throws it overboard, much to the pleasure of the coiffure. He walks inside and knocks on Morton's door loudly, to the badgerer of the latter equally he'southward reading a comic volume.]

Lieutenant Commander Morton: Aye, who is it?

Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver: Captain, information technology is I, Ensign Pulver, and I merely threw your stinking palm tree overboard! [This gets Morton'due south attention as he puts town the comic volume and faces Pulver.] At present what'due south all this crud nearly no movie this night?!

[Pulver takes upwards a confrontational pose and Morton turns away wearily, realizing that though Roberts is gone, his problems will never go abroad.]

Cast [edit]

• Henry Fonda - Lieutenant, junior grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts
• James Cagney - Lieutenant Commander Morton
• William Powell - Lieutenant "Doc"
• Jack Lemmon - Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver
• Betsy Palmer - Lieutenant Ann Girard
• Ward Bond - Principal Boatswain's Mate Dowdy
• Phil Carey - Mannion
• Nick Adams - Seaman Reber
• Perry Lopez - Seaman Rodrigues
• Ken Curtis - Yeoman 3rd Class Dolan
• Robert Roark - Insignia
• Harry Carey, Jr. - Stefanowski
• Patrick Wayne - Bookser
• Frank Aletter - Gerhart
• Tige Andrews - Wiley
• Martin Milner - Shore Patrol Ensign

External links [edit]

• Mister Roberts quotes at the Internet Movie Database
• Mister Roberts (1955 picture) at Rotten Tomatoes
• Mister Roberts at Allmovie

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Source: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mister_Roberts_(1955_film)

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