Steamboat Round the Bend (1935)

Eugene Pallette: Sheriff Rufe Jeffers

Quotes 

• Sheriff Rufe Jeffers : [performing wedding ceremony in jail]  Friends, we're gathered here in the eyes of God and one another for the purpose of joining together this here man and this here woman in holy matrimony. Can't nobody rightly say nothin' agin marriage, 'cause I reckon God intended everybody to live that-a-way. 'Cause every living human on this earth has got to find his mate sometime or other. And when God put Noah in the ark, he told him to take two of everything. 'Cause God knowed that was right, and I guess he knowed what it was to be lonesome. Now, if Duke and Fleety Belle here had a notion, they're only carrying out the Word of God.

• Sheriff Rufe Jeffers : Well, good heaven Betsy. What are you doin' down there this time of night, Doc? Can't you let a man sleep?

  Doctor John Pearly : Come on down. Duke - Duke killed a man.

  Sheriff Rufe Jeffers : Well, doggone me. Who was it, Duke? Somebody I knowed?

  Duke : A fella named Big Steve.

  Sheriff Rufe Jeffers : Never heard of him.

• Sheriff Rufe Jeffers : Mighty sorry to hear about the way Duke's case turned out.

  Doctor John Pearly : Well, ain't hung him yet.

  Sheriff Rufe Jeffers : That's the truth as I see it.

• Jonah : Ain't nobody in here.

  Sheriff Rufe Jeffers : Thunderation!

  Jonah : Ain't nobody in here, white folks.

• Doctor John Pearly : How's Duke?

  Sheriff Rufe Jeffers : Oh, fine as a frog hair. Never knowed a man could keep so happy. Wait'll you hear him play on that saw. Man, he really whips 'er. And he eats more'n a horse.

• Sheriff Rufe Jeffers : Here she comes!

  Doctor John Pearly : Yeah. Darned ol' train. It would be on time.