No Highway in the Sky (1951)

James Stewart: Theodore Honey

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Monica Teasdale : Why did you pick me out when you decided to save someone?

  Theodore Honey : Oh, but you ought to live. I mean, the work you do, you should keep on doing it.

  Monica Teasdale : Oh, the work. No, I don't think I'll buy that. A few cans of celluloid in a junk heap someday. Has been fun, but that's about all.

• Theodore Honey : It just folded up! It folded right up and sat down!

• Elspeth Honey : Miss Teasdale's gone and Miss Corder will be, and the people out in front of it, and everybody wanting to talk to me at school, that sort of thing isn't very permanent is it? It's like Christmas, everybody very nice to everybody else for a little while but then it doesn't last. Why is that, father?

  Theodore Honey : Oh I don't know dear, don't they talk to you all the time at school?

  Elspeth Honey : Oh no, I'm a swot, you know.

  Theodore Honey : Oh I didn't know you were a swot, what is a swot?

  Elspeth Honey : Well a swot is rather the sort of person people don't talk to very much because they're different, like my intelligent quotient being too high.

• Theodore Honey : I expect for the tail to fall off.

• Theodore Honey : Oh there'll really be a delay for everybody now won't there?

  Marjorie Corder : I don't think there's any doubt about that. Tell me why...

  Monica Teasdale : [enters]  He did do it, didn't he?

  Marjorie Corder : Yes I'm afraid he did.

  Monica Teasdale : If you believe in something, you believe in doing something about it, don't you?

  Theodore Honey : Well they wouldn't listen to me and the lever was right there so I just *keh* pulled it.

  Monica Teasdale : That's sticking your neck out pretty far isn't it if you just thought it was going to crash?

  Theodore Honey : I tried to get them to ground the airplane, they wouldn't listen to me and the lever was right there so I just, I...

  Monica Teasdale : You just pulled it. Don't those things cost an awful lot of money?

  Theodore Honey : Oh a tremendous amount of money! This is going to cause a good deal of trouble.

  Monica Teasdale : I should think it might.

  Theodore Honey : I don't know what they're going to do. I've never had any experience with anything like this before.

  Monica Teasdale : I should think nobody has. I think this is a kind of world record.

• Dennis Scott : [picks up The Bringing Up of the Child]  One of the more difficult sciences I imagine.

  Theodore Honey : What's that? Oh, oh yes. You know I didn't find that very satisfactory. They seem to have much different problems with their children than I've ever had with Elspeth.

• Theodore Honey : It's about the condition of this airplane, I'm afraid we're in very serious danger. I'm rather afraid that the tail may drop off at any moment. Now when that happens...

  Monica Teasdale : Is that so?

  Theodore Honey : Yes. When that happens, there may be a little time to go to the men's room and sit on the floor. The partition there is very rigid because the galley stove is bolted to the floor on the other side. If you survive the first impact, try to get out of the escape hatch and get on a life raft. They may pick you up when they search for us in the morning.

• Theodore Honey : I think I know more about this than either you or the captain. I think I know what's going to happen, and if it does happen, at this altitude ther'ell be a little less than three minutes before we hit the water. Now there's one place in this airplane where a personmight stand a chance to survive that impact. Come with me. Now at the first sign of trouble, go in here and sit on the floor with your back against the partition. This partition is very rigid because the stove here is bolted to the floor. I tried to tell Miss Teasdale that because I felt I owed her something.

• Theodore Honey : I estimated a required speed of 420 miles per hour to bring the forces into equilebrium. This can be obtained by a dominal flight path of 27 degrees below the horizontal. That angle would keep us from plunging straight in although at that speed the impact would be rather severe, see?

  Monica Teasdale : I see, I don't see it all of course, but I do understand that when you think something out, you don't stop halfway do you?

• Monica Teasdale : But you had a chance to play God for a little while, why did you pick me out?

  Theodore Honey : Oh but you ought to live, the work you do.

• Monica Teasdale : All the people who'll come to my funeral, that'll be quite an occasion.

  Theodore Honey : Do you have a family, Miss Teasdale?

  Monica Teasdale : No, not even a husband at the moment, but there's my agent. oh he'll be so sad, he had five more years at 10%. Then there's Lorene Calvart, oh she'll cry the most. She'll give a beautiful performance, and then she'll try to get the part in the picture I was going to make. I suppose that's why I don't feel the way I thought I would.

• Monica Teasdale : Maybe Providence is trying to tell me something. Maybe it took a first-class high dive into the middle of the Atlantic to make me quit. But maybe I'd rather it ended with a big splash.

  Theodore Honey : No. No. You make people happy you've never even met. Like my wife Mary. You know she took me to see one of your pictures that last night before the bomb came. She talked about it a lot w hen we got home. You made that last night very happy for her. That's worth doing, Miss Teasdale. You know when we used to go to pictures, we used to walk right out when Mary didn't like them. We never walked out on one of your pictures.

  Monica Teasdale : Mister Honey, this is not really the best compliment I've ever had, maybe it's the nicest.

  Theodore Honey : That's why I had to tell you what I did. I have to do everything I can for you.

  Monica Teasdale : You mean it too, don't you?

  [cries] 

  Monica Teasdale : You scientists are always so busy figuring out things, why don't you figure out a mascara that won't run?

• Marjorie Corder : Just what was it that you think you did wrong? You did think there'd be a crash didn't you?

  Theodore Honey : Yes but what I should have done is offer my hypothesis to the captain in an orderly manner and let him make his own decision but I didn't do that. No, when they wouldn't listen to me I kept thinking about you lying dead in Labrador like that other stewardess and Miss Teasdale, and all the rest of them and I wasn't orderly at all. not at all and the lever was right th ere so I *keh* pulled it.

  Marjorie Corder : Amd that seemed wrong to you.

  Theodore Honey : Of course it seemed wrong. How is anybody going to take my work seriously if I go around doing things like that? you know they're saying that I'm crazy now? And I don't blame them.

  Marjorie Corder : You don't mean that if you had it all to do again, you'd just let it go ahead and crash.

  Theodore Honey : That's just the point, I'd probably do it all again.

• Marjorie Corder : What happeend?

  Theodore Honey : Nothing, nothing happened at all, my figures clearly said that the tail should fall off and the tail didn't fall off. It's 7% above my figure, it didn't fall off.

  Marjorie Corder : Oh I'm sorry, what happens now?

  Theodore Honey : I've been thinking about that on the way home, I'll go to the inquery and stand up and I'll explain my figures to a group of very angry men and they'll reject the whole thing. I'll sit down, I'll sit down and listen to them say that I'm insane because of what I did in Gander, and perhaps I am, I'm not sure you know. A wualified psychiatrist will testify to that, I talked to 3 of them this afternoon, no that was yesterday, wasn't it? They showed me a page of ink blots and asked me if it reminded me of elephants and tigers, I said no it didn't remind me of elephants and ti - they were just ink blots.

• Theodore Honey : You're talking about me because of what I did in Gander, and this isn't personal, I didn't invent the mathematics that made me believe what I did and I still believe in my work, test or no test. And when you believe in something, that's what you've got to do isn't it? If you want to live with yourself! Now I don't know wh at I'm going to do about this, I sat there and I thought maybe I'd write the Times a letter but I don't think they'd understand either. So the first thing I'm going to do is to resign right here and now, so the establishment won't be mixed up in it. And then, every time a Reindeer is going to take off that shouldn't, I'm going out there and *keh* right! Now you may put me in jail, you may put me in jail, but they wrote a lot about me when I wrecked that one in Gander and they'll write more about me here. And people just won't get on those airplanes. And I'm going to tell you something else! The minute anything does happen to one of these Reindeers, you're going to have to think of something better to say than anything I've heard here this afternoon. That's all! Good day! That's all!

• Theodore Honey : Oh, I'm afraid all I can offer you is some Sherry.

  Dennis Scott : Oh, that'd be very nice.

  Theodore Honey : Oh. Probably not very good. I've had it quite a while.

  Dennis Scott : Well, perhaps it's time we tested it to see if it's suffering from fatigue.

  Theodore Honey : Oh, that wouldn't happen to Sherry.

• Dennis Scott : What are you doing to it?

  Theodore Honey : I'm vibrating it.

• Dennis Scott : I was quite interested in that experiment of yours, with the Reindeer tail group. Would you like to tell me just what your idea is?

  Theodore Honey : Well, it's rather difficult to explain a thing like that in words of one syllable.

  Dennis Scott : Well, I have managed as much as two syllables on occasion, Mr. Honey.

  Theodore Honey : Well, to put it as simply as I can, the purpose of my work has been to arrive at an end result for the original theoretical hypotheses of Kerslinger, of Bâle and Schilgarde of Uppsala, in which they postulate vibration as a source of energy. I reasoned that since this energy does not appear in any of the ordinary forms, such as heat or electrical potential, it must be absorbed by the metal itself. And that sufficient absorption would result in nuclear fission of the aluminum atom in an isotopic form with crystalline affinities.

  Dennis Scott : I see. And that means the tail will fall off.

  Theodore Honey : Exactly.

• Theodore Honey : I'm afraid it's become a little cluttered in here. Oh, well why didn't I see that? I think I'd better leave this. This is some correspondence I've been having with Tanggye, a Tibetan, and the Abbe Delville in Louvain. It's on the theory of numbers. In 1742, Goldbach postulated that every positive, even integer is a sum of two primes. It's been verified to 10,000, but never proved. We're trying to prove it. Yes, I'd want to know where to find that.

  Dennis Scott : By all means. It sounds interesting, but isn't it a little pointless?

  Theodore Honey : Well, quite. That's the beauty of it.

• Theodore Honey : You don't understand. I'm a scientist - and science is very exacting. It requires the utmost concentration. I can't be concerned about people!

• Theodore Honey : You don't know me, but Honey's my name, Theodore Honey.

• Theodore Honey : I think we're quite near to the point of no return anyway.

  Monica Teasdale : The point of no return?

  Theodore Honey : That's where it's as short to go on as it is to turn back.

  Monica Teasdale : Oh, I thought you meant something else.

• Theodore Honey : I've always felt I owed you a great deal. Your pictures meant a lot to my wife and I - that's why I want to talk to you.

  Monica Teasdale : You're very kind.

• Theodore Honey : Couldn't you believe me, Miss Corder? You've been so very kind and you -you ought to live and get married and bring up a family. You'd be very good at that.

  Marjorie Corder : Well, thank you very much for that, Mr. Honey. You said that just about as nicely as anybody could. You know, I'd almost not go if it would help you stop worrying, but it's my job, and there's no way of making sure, and I don't think it's right to walk out on something like that.

• Marjorie Corder : Well, did you notice anything?

  Theodore Honey : Well, she was asleep.

  Marjorie Corder : Anything different, I meant, about the house.

  Theodore Honey : Well, you - you haven't got your clothes on.

• Marjorie Corder : I know you have to be a scientist. I know you have important work to do. But you're a person too, Mr. Honey.

  Theodore Honey : Well, it's evidently quite difficult to be a person, Miss Corder.

• Theodore Honey : Is anything the matter?

  Elspeth Honey : No. I was just thinking.

  Theodore Honey : What about?

  Elspeth Honey : Nothing. Just about the impermanence of events and things like that.

• Elspeth Honey : Have you got your sandwich?

  Theodore Honey : Yes, yes I have.

  Elspeth Honey : Tomoto, cheese, and there were some nice fish.