Meet John Doe (1941)

Walter Brennan: The 'Colonel'

Photos 

Quotes 

• Beany : What's a helot?

  The Colonel : You've ever been broke, sonny?

  Beany : Sure, mostly often.

  The Colonel : All right. You're walking along, not a nickel in your jeans, you're free as the wind, nobody bothers ya. Hundreds of people pass you by in every line of business: shoes, hats, automobiles, radios, everything, and they're all nice lovable people and they lets you alone, is that right? Then you get a hold of some dough and what happens, all those nice sweet lovable people become helots, a lotta heels. They begin to creep up on ya, trying to sell ya something: they get long claws and they get a stranglehold on ya, and you squirm and you duck and you holler and you try to push them away but you haven't got the chance. They gots ya. First thing ya know you own things, a car for instance, now your whole life is messed up with alot more stuff: you get license fees and number plates and gas and oil and taxes and insurance and identification cards and letters and bills and flat tires and dents and traffic tickets and motorcycle cops and tickets and courtrooms and lawers and fines and... a million and one other things. What happens? You're not the free and happy guy you used to be. You need to have money to pay for all those things, so you go after what the other fellas got. There you are, you're a helot yourself.

• The Colonel : I don't read no papers, and I don't listen to radios either. I know the world's been shaved by a drunken barber, and I don't have to read it.

• Long John Willoughby : Hey, stop worryin', Colonel, fifty bucks ain't gonna ruin me.

  The Colonel : I've seen plenty of fellas start out with fifty bucks and wind up with a *bank* account!

  Beany : Hey, what's wrong with a bank account, anyway?

  The Colonel : And let me tell you, Long John, when you become a guy with a bank account, they gotcha! Yes sir, they gotcha!

  Beany : Who's got him?

  The Colonel : The helots!

• The Colonel : I've seen guys like you before. Guys that never had to worry. Then they get a hold of some dough and go goofy.

• The Colonel : Gangway, you helots!

• The Colonel : [criticizing John's anti-separatism speech]  Tear down fences... why, if you tore one picket off your neighbor's fence, he'd sue you!

• The Colonel : Get a hold of some dough and the first thing that happens to a guy is he wants to go into a restaurant and sit down to a table and eat salad and cupcakes and tea. Boy, what that kind of food does to your system!

• The Colonel : $5,000. Holy mackerel! I can see the helots coming now. A whole army of them.