Dialogue Of The Day: Jaws (1975).

Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton): “You yell ‘Barracuda,’ everybody says ‘Huh? What?’ You yell ‘Shark,’ we’ve got a panic on our hands on the Fourth Of July.”

Dialogue Of The Day: The Wrong Box (1966).

Bryan Forbes’ The Wrong Box (1966) is a very funny movie — a terrific cast in a very dark comedy of errors. It’s a shame it’s not better known, and it seems unfair that it played the UK in Technicolor, but Columbia released it in the States in Eastmancolor.

Michael Finsbury (Michael Caine): I never knew my parents. They were killed in a balloon ascension.

Julia Finsbury (Nanette Newman): Well, I only knew mine vaguely. My father was a missionary. He was eaten by his Bible class.

Michael Finsbury: Your mother?

Julia Finsbury: She too. They never eat one without the other.

Dialogue Of The Day: It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963).

Benjy Benjamin (Buddy Hackett): Look! We’ve figured it seventeen different ways, and every time we figured it, it was no good, because no matter how we figured it, somebody don’t like the way we figured it! So now, there’s only one way to figure it. And that is, every man, including the old bag, for himself!

For Mr. Richard Vincent.

Dialogue Of The Day: The Endless Summer (1966).

From Bruce Brown’s The Endless Summer (1966), the greatest surfing documentary ever made — with one of the best posters of them all.

Narrator (Bruce Brown): “The only way to avoid a wipeout is to take this wide, stink-bug stance.”

Dialogue Of The Day: Dragnet 1967.

Sgt. Joe Friday (Jack Webb): “Flinch, and you’ll be chasing your head down Fifth Street!”

From the Dragnet 1967 episode “The Shooting.” My God, I love Jack Webb!

And if anybody cares, that’s an Ithaca 37 Deer Slayer Police Special shotgun.

Dialogue Of The Day: The Killing (1956).

Sherry Peatty (Marie Windsor): You don’t understand me, Johnny. You don’t know me very well.

Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden): I know you like a book. You’re a no good, nosy little tramp. You’d sell out your own mother for a piece of fudge. But you’re smart along with it. Smart enough to know when to sail and when to sit tight, and you know you better sit tight in this case.

Sherry Peatty: I do?

Johnny Clay: You heard me. You like money. You got a great big dollar sign, there, where most women have a heart.

Dialogue Of The Day: Goldfinger (1964).

Q (Desmond Llewelyn): Now this one I’m particularly keen about. You see the gear lever here? Now, if you take the top off, you will find a little red button. Whatever you do, don’t touch it.

James Bond (Sean Connery): Yeah, why not?

Q: Because you’ll release this section of the roof, and engage and then fire the passenger ejector seat. Whish!

James Bond: Ejector seat? You’re joking!

Q: I never joke about my work, 007.

Dialogue Of The Day: Adam-12 (1968).

From the first episode of Adam-12, “The Impossible Mission,” which was actually directed by Jack Webb.

Pete Malloy (Martin Milner): “This black and white patrol car has an overhead valve V-8 engine. It develops 325 horsepower at 4800 RPMs. It accelerates from zero to 60 in seven seconds. It has a top speed of 120 miles an hour. It’s equipped with a multi-channeled DFE radio and an electronic siren capable of admitting three variables: wail, yelp and alert. It also serves as an outside radio speaker and public address system. The automobile has two shotgun racks, one attached to the bottom portion of the front seat, one in the vehicle trunk. Attached to the middle of the dash, illuminated by a single bulb is a hot sheet desk. Fastened to which you will always make sure is the latest one off the teletype before you ever roll.”

Felt like we were overdue for some Jack Webb. By the way, the patrol car Malloy’s referring to (and leaning on) is a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere.

Dialogue Of The Day: Jaws (1975).

Been meaning to post this since I started this blog. It’s Robert Shaw’s incredible scene in Jaws (1975) where he tells the story of the USS Indianapolis. Written by John Milius and reworked by Shaw himself, it’s an incredible thing, as good as acting ever gets — creepy and touching at the same time.

Quint (Robert Shaw): “Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into her side, Chief. We was comin’ back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We’d just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes.

Didn’t see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin’ from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn’t know, was that our bomb mission was so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn’t even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin’ by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin’ and hollerin’ and sometimes that shark he go away… but sometimes he wouldn’t go away.

Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn’t even seem to be livin’… ’til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then… ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin’. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin’ and your hollerin’ those sharks come in and… they rip you to pieces.

You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don’t know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin’, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boson’s mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he’d been bitten in half below the waist.

At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol’ fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin’ for my turn. I’ll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.

Anyway, we delivered the bomb.”

Dialogue Of The Day: Where Eagles Dare (1969).

Major John Smith (Richard Burton): “Broadsword calling Danny Boy… Broadsword calling Danny Boy.”