A Guy Named Joe (1943)

Spencer Tracy: Pete Sandidge

Photos 

Quotes 

• Pete Sandidge : Either I'm dead or I'm crazy.

  Dick Rumney : Well, you're not crazy, Pete.

• Pete Sandidge : Well, now, what's the beef this morning?

• Pete Sandidge : Well, when you're up there, you're-you're all alone. It's just you and your ship and the sky. And you don't want anybody up there with you. You don't want anybody to spoil it. Everything's kinda still. You have the feeling that you're halfway to heaven. You don't even seem to hear the sound of your own motor, just a kind of a buzz, like the sky was calling you - like the sky was singing you a song. Yeah. And somehow it's never 8:00 up there. It's - it's always now. And the earth is so far below you that it just doesn't matter anymore. The sky is the thing that's important. The sky is your pal. You feel like nudging it and saying, "Hi, sky. How are you today? And how's the old moon the last time you saw him?" The wind drift comes straight off the morning star, and beautiful white clouds drift towards you. And they're like old friends, friends you never want to say good-bye to. And you see a patch of clear area between 'em, and you duck in and out like a porpoise rolling in the ocean. And then you say to yourself, "Boy, boy, this is the only time a man is really ever alive, the only time he's really ever free." The old sky smiles back at ya and says, "Boy, you're right. You're dead right."

• Pete Sandidge : One of these days, you're gonna spin in and break that scrawny little neck.

  Dorinda Durston : Not scrawny!

  Pete Sandidge : It's a Turkey neck.

  Dorinda Durston : A Turkey neck. Who's talking? Why, Pete! You were worried!

  Pete Sandidge : Did you ever stop to think what one of those crates cost?

  Dorinda Durston : Hah! That's a cover-up. You love me.

  Pete Sandidge : I love airplanes.

  Dorinda Durston : That's the same thing.

• Pete Sandidge : Gimme a cigarette.

  'Nails' Kilpatrick : Why don't you ever buy a package of cigarettes?

• Pete Sandidge : Well, that gal Dorinda is certainly crazy about me. She's an hour late already. Our first day off in 3 weeks.

  'Nails' Kilpatrick : Maybe she figures it'd do you good to be held up once in a while. You know, it kinda keeps a fella's interest alive.

  Pete Sandidge : One of these days I'll put that dame across my knee and...

• Pete Sandidge : Will you have a little snort?

  Dorinda Durston : No, I don't feel like drinking this evening.

• Pete Sandidge : Why don't you wipe that smiling killer look off your face and tell us what's the matter?

• Pete Sandidge : Of all the trouble-making, back-stabbing, poison-shooting dames I ever saw! Nag, nag, nag, nag, nag...

• Al Yackey : Sometimes I wonder who he's fighting, us or the Nazis.

  Pete Sandidge : Aw, he's just like all the rest of these armchair pilots. He hasn't flown anything faster than a bathtub for 30 years. He's afraid to walk upstairs without a parachute strapped to his back.

• Pete Sandidge : Sing it again.

  Dorinda Durston : [singing]  I'll get by as long as I have you, Though there be rain and darkness, too, I'll not complain, I'll laugh it through, Poverty may come my way that's true, But what care I, say, I'll get by, As long as I have you...

• Dorinda Durston : Pete, did I ever give you the wrong impression?

  Pete Sandidge : Why?

  Dorinda Durston : Well, don't watch me blush; but, I tried to once or twice.

• Dorinda Durston : It's a lovely dress, Pete.

  Pete Sandidge : Yeah, it's pretty. Makes me realize you're a girl instead of a sky-flying cowboy.

  Dorinda Durston : I feel like a girl, too. I feel like my 16th birthday and the time I graduated from high school and the first time I flew solo all wrapped up in one.

• Pete Sandidge : Say, look, do you want to dance or talk?

  Dorinda Durston : I wanna bite your ear. Let me bite your ear.

  Pete Sandidge : Stop that. People are looking.

  Dorinda Durston : All right, then. Let's just dance. Come on.

• Pete Sandidge : You're a sweet girl, but when I fly for fun, I like to fly alone.

  Dorinda Durston : That's not fair.

  Pete Sandidge : It is what it is. It's just the way I feel.

  Dorinda Durston : Please, Pete, please.

• Pete Sandidge : The minute you got out of that uniform, you sure became a woman.

• Pete Sandidge : Sometimes I think you're daffy!

• Dorinda Durston : Pete, is that your plane?

  Pete Sandidge : The B-25 over there that looks like a ghost? Sure it's my plane.

• Dorinda Durston : Surprised?

  Pete Sandidge : You bet I'm surprised. You look shiny as a new propeller!

• Al Yackey : I reckon maybe you're missing Dorinda a little bit, huh?

  Pete Sandidge : Oh, you reckon, do you?

  Al Yackey : Me, too. Just don't seem like we can hardly get along without her, does it? You know, I've never been so lonesome for another guy's gal in all my born days.

• Dorinda Durston : I fell asleep. What did you do?

  Pete Sandidge : I listened to you snore and looked at your legs.

  Dorinda Durston : I don't snore and you're a lecherous old man.

• Pete Sandidge : What do you think I'm gonna do? Go back and start teaching a lot of kids to fly? That's all right for a lot of guys, including Nails, but not for me. Sit around in some officer's club in Kansas City? I'd go crazy and you know it. Besides, I hate kids.

• Pete Sandidge : You know, Dorinda, the madder you get, the prettier you are.

• Dorinda Durston : Pete, you're pulling your eyebrows again.

  Pete Sandidge : She loves me.

  Dorinda Durston : Well, stop it.

  Pete Sandidge : She loves me not.

  Dorinda Durston : Stop it, stop it. I'm resigned to your being bald some day, but a bald man without eyebrows looks just like an egg.

• Dorinda Durston : Well, now, look here, wait a minute, my buckaroo. Just how do you plan to stop me?

  Pete Sandidge : Just by saying no.

  Dorinda Durston : That sounds like an order, Pete, and I don't like orders very well. Or, had you forgotten?

  Pete Sandidge : All right, then I'll ask ya. Now, I'm asking you, Dorinda, don't be a pig-headed fool.

  Dorinda Durston : Oh, sweet, sweet, irresistible Pete. Gentle, tactful, clever.

• Dorinda Durston : Let's talk about something else.

  Pete Sandidge : Yeah. You know you got feet like a monkey's I bet you could pick up a dime off a marble floor.

• Pete Sandidge : Say, there's something cockeyed here.

• The General : I've been studying your record.

  Pete Sandidge : Oh, it isn't much.

  The General : Well, I agree with you about that. You can fly fairly well if you obey orders.

  Pete Sandidge : "Fairly well"? Why, I do things with a plane the designer didn't even think of.

  The General : That's just the point, Sandidge. We work here on the general lines of trying to do things with the plane the designer did think of.

• Dorinda Durston : Pete. We never seem to get a break, do we?

  Pete Sandidge : What are you talkin' about? Meeting you was a break.

• The General : You're not under the impression that you learned to fly all by yourself, are you?

  Pete Sandidge : Well, if I didn't, sir, I'd like to know who helped me.

  The General : Well, I guess I can tell you that. You were helped by every man since the beginning of time who dreamt of wearing wings, by pioneers who flew pieces of wire and paste board long before you were born, by every pilot that ever crashed into the ground in order that others could stay up in the sky.

• Pete Sandidge : You mean I went out and let those Heinies knock me over?

• Pete Sandidge : What a pouf! Yeah, what a pouf.

• Pete Sandidge : Down we go. Down. Down, down, down. Take it easy, now. Remember, you're a soap bubble. You're a feather. Easy. Easy, easy, easy, easy.

• Pete Sandidge : It's kind of fun punching some brains in that guy's head.

• Pete Sandidge : Now, listen buddy, there's a few corny ideas you gotta get out of your head if you're gonna fly an airplane. Most things are just the reverse of what people think. The higher you are, the safer you are. The earth down there, that's your enemy. 'Cause once you hit that boy, you splatter. Now, take it easy. Relax. Enjoy it. Get a kick out of it. There. That's pretty good. That's better. Take a look around. Kinda pretty up here, isn't it? Pretty nice.

• Pete Sandidge : There's a dame that's headed for the booby hatch.

• Pete Sandidge : Hey. You know, you've got the rest of your life to read that book. Why don't you step out there and ask one of those dolls to dance? Or does a guy with your kind of dough only dance with society dames? Look at that girl over there. Look at her, you dope. She's a honey. She's a dish.

• Pete Sandidge : Aren't you afraid to go around without a parachute? You might fall into a spittoon in your office.

• Pete Sandidge : You look good enough to eat, Dorinda. You look pretty as a picture. I think I'll just stay here a minute. You still the same girl? You know, Dorinda, some people seem prettier when you dream about them than they really are. But a funny thing about you - you're even prettier than the dream.

• Pete Sandidge : I remember how you used to burn up when I'd ball you out.

• Pete Sandidge : Don't let that baby-faced killer pull the wool over your eyes.

• Pete Sandidge : This plane'll hold up under anything. You know that. Come on, you lady killer, fly this crate right down to the wing bolts.

• Pete Sandidge : I wish you could hear what I'm saying to you, Dorinda. When I look at you now, I sure wish I'd been different. Wish I'd told you a lot of things that I thought of but I just couldn't find the words to say 'em. I wish I'd told you how cute your nose is and how it turns up at the end all of a sudden, and how good the smell of your hair is, how your eyes light up when you laugh, and how you fit into my arms just as though you belonged there. But I didn't tell you.

• Pete Sandidge : You're gonna have a wonderful life. Everything's gonna seem prettier than it was before. The rain's gonna have a little more smell to it. The trees are gonna seem a little greener. And the nights are gonna be all chock full of stars. And when you go to sleep, Dorinda, you're not gonna have any bad dreams. And when that morning sunlight hits you in the face, you're gonna wake up laughing.

• Pete Sandidge : Come on, twist her out, Dorinda, twist her out!

• Pete Sandidge : I'm right behind you, Dorinda. Open up that hot lead! Now, Dorinda!