Never So Few (1959)

Frank Sinatra: Capt. Tom Reynolds

Photos 

Quotes 

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : You know, the movies have got it all wrong, a cigarette tastes lousy when you're wounded.

• Capt. Danny De Mortimer : [down with cerebral malaria]  I feel like an old serial. When does the train run over me?

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : [tending him]  Shut up.

• Cpl. Bill Ringa : Excuse me for saying so, sir... but you look terrible.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Inside of my mouth tastes like the outside of a crocodile.

  Cpl. Bill Ringa : Well, there's some toothpaste in here, sir. You can use it on your finger for washing your teeth. I've got some water for rinsing out your mouth. But I'd like to caution the captain against drinking that water. It has a tendency to cause ulcers. Now, for swallowing, I suggest the gin, sir.

• Head Nurse : [Sternly]  You get back into bed. That's an order. Get back into bed!

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : One of these days, I'm gonna meet a nurse who doesn't sound like a troop commander.

  Head Nurse : Captain, I'm going to report you to the colonel.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Tattletale.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : I'm not sure I can even spell democracy and I don't know what the big picture even looks like but I know you've got a big mouth.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : He thinks I should pray once in awhile; because, pray never hurt anybody and it don't cost a dime.

  Nautaung : America a very funny place, full of prayers and money.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : Margaret, this is Danny De Mortimer. He speaks English like he hates it.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : [explaining a kiss from a nurse]  Just a good old American salutation. You'd be surprised at some of the customs of my people.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : [admiring the Himalayan landscape]  Just like Indianapolis, only this goes up and down.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : What would you like for Christmas?

  Carla Vesari : [bored with his provincialism]  A twelve-foot statue of your grandfather.

• Capt. Danny De Mortimer : Whiskey! I just liberated it.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : How do you know it's not poisoned?

  Capt. Danny De Mortimer : I don't, that's why I decided to share it with you.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : [while visiting at Regas' posh villa in northern India, noticing the mix of people present]  Europeans, Sikhs, Chinese... Doctors, lawyers, merchants and thieves.

  Carla Vesari : [Mockingly]  You're a terrible poet.

• Carla Vesari : Captain Reynolds, is this your first war?

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : It is definitely my last.

  Carla Vesari : I think you love it. Like most men, you relish war.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Miss Vesari, this may come as a shock to you, but I do not like war.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : Danny, do you know anything about this guy, Regas?

  Capt. Danny De Mortimer : Well... He's supposed to be in shipping, but I think he's an opium smuggler in wolf's clothing.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : What about Carla Vesari? She's quite a crock of curry.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : [Meeting with his commanding officer at Army headquarters, Calcutta]  I want a doctor, Fred, and I want one right away. Or you won't have a single Kachin left.

  Col. Fred Parkson : Did you fly down here just to bicker about doctors?

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Among other things. But most important, the doctor. We've only been here a few hours, but I've seen 10, 15 doctors. Where they coming from? Where they going?

  Col. Fred Parkson : I'll listen to anything you gotta' say. But just who do you think you are? You and your jungle wallahs coming here, flexing your muscles. You're not the only guys fighting a backwash war.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : We're the only ones without a doctor.

  Col. Fred Parkson : Find yourself an unassigned doctor, and I'll tag him for your outfit.

• Col. Fred Parkson : Want you and Danny to take a holiday. Pick any rest area in the Himalayas. Take two weeks.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Holiday? No. Out of the question. I couldn't stay out of the hills for two weeks.

  Col. Fred Parkson : Kachins got by for hundreds of years before you... and they'll get by long after I spit on your grave.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : [while checking in at the hotel, receiving an unexpected invite from Nikko Regas]  Well, we're invited to a party tonight. By Mr. Nikko Regas.

  Capt. Danny De Mortimer : [Suspicious about how Regas knew they were there]  And how did he know? There's something spooky about that man.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : How can you say that? He's the squarest shooter on the road to Mandalay.

  Capt. Danny De Mortimer : I wish I had a copy of 'Who 's Who in India.' Or 'The Bombay Police Blotter.' I'd like to look up friend Regas.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Anybody who invites *us* to a party can't be all that bad. And let's not bite the hand that buys the booze.

• Nikko Regas : [Greeting Tom and Danny at his cottage in Chandigarh]  Welcome, allies.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Mr. Regas.

  Capt. Danny De Mortimer : We didn't realize you were tossing a gala.

  Nikko Regas : Oh, nonsense. This sort of thing goes on every night. But I want you to consider this your home in Chandigarh. Your 'foxhole away from your foxhole,' so to speak.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : You live here with Nikko?

  Carla Vesari : I want to tell you something, Captain, and then perhaps you'll let me alone. I live here with Nikko. So why don't you go back to the hills and play with your popguns?

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : [Upon seeing a Sadhu - a Hindu ascetic holy man - while they are visiting a shrine]  Danny lived like that once.

  Capt. Danny De Mortimer : For a while, but I couldn't stand it. So I came back to the world of men and their commodities. I couldn't stand that, either.

• Carla Vesari : Tell me about when you were a kid.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Well, I was a sneak and I was satanic.

  Carla Vesari : That's enough. Tell me about your grandfather.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : He was a sneak and he was satanic. And once he told me he could never trust a man who claimed that he never had a hankering for women.

  Carla Vesari : "Hankering"?

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Hankering. To hanker. It means to have a strong desire for something or someone. In this case, a girl.

  Carla Vesari : I see. You - hanker.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : I hanker - for you alone.

  Carla Vesari : Don't sweep me off my feet.

• Carla Vesari : When do you think it will be over? The war, I mean.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : I don't know. It may never be over.

  Carla Vesari : When it is over, what will you do back in America?

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : I've never thought about it. I may never go back to America... I better stay in the jungle. It's a lot simpler there.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : [Having entered Carla's bathroom, in which she is bathing in a large bathtub]  Is that why you invited me in your bath?

  Carla Vesari : Don't be so provincial. In Japan, men and women bathe together.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : This is not Japan, and you well know it.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : [Parting words to Carla before heading back to the Kachins]  You've taken up with a no-good G.I... who's gonna' keep you barefoot and pregnant and on the edge of town. We're gonna' be married. I'll be back. Learn to cook.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : [the new doctor is nonchalantly whistling while attending the injured from the previous night's ambush on the camp]  All right, doc, knock off the whistling. Nobody's interested in how medically unconcerned you are.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : [Referring to the American supply detachment that is supposed to truck weapons from the Chinese border to Reynolds and his men in support of their impending raid on Ubachi airfield]  That's a lousy detail. I'd rather shinny up a thorn tree with an armful of eels.

• Capt. Danny De Mortimer : Tom, you're a man of gruesome courage... but moving on Ubachi without support is as sensible as a hotfoot in hell.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Nothing in this war makes sense. Why do you expect it to make sense now?

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : [Being called in front of his superiors on account of the incursion into China to retaliate for the Chinese warlord's attack on the American supply detachment]  I've just seen 34 American GI's with their heads blown off by Chinese troops.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : [Grabs his duffel bag and theatrically dumps its contents on the table: dog tags, wallets and other personal effects of the slain American soldiers]  And I wanna' know why.

  Gen. Sloan : [Reacting to the pile of dog tags etc. on the table in front of him]  This is sickening.

  Col. Fred Parkson : Doesn't it strike you that your actions were, to say the least, unprecedented?

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Doesn't it strike you that we're fighting a rather unprecedented kind of war? Isn't that right, general?

  Gen. Sloan : Well, it has its bad moments. But in the long run...

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : I don't give a damn about the long run if it adds up to this! You can't deny what's been going on or what'll continue to go on unless something's done about it! I know I'm right about this. And if you don't know it, I pity you.

• Capt. Alofson - Psychiatrist : Reynolds, I've got to examine you.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Okay. Mind if I smoke?

  Capt. Alofson - Psychiatrist : Supposing I said I wished you wouldn't?

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : If you gave me a good reason, I probably wouldn't. But seeing as how you don't outrank me, I think I will.

  Capt. Alofson - Psychiatrist : [Grudgingly impressed]  That's a specific, logical answer.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Thank you, doc.

• Gen. Sloan : Now, may I say that I owe you a debt of gratitude. Perhaps you're not aware of the fact that I got my Medal of Honor... for disobeying orders.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : No, sir.

  Gen. Sloan : I'd forgotten how fine it feels to do what you think is right... regardless of the consequences.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : [Ringa has helped repel the Japanese ambush on the camp]  You're pretty good with a mortar. Where'd you learn it?

  Cpl. Bill Ringa : I didn't. I was just trying to find something to shoot 'em with.

• Colonel Dr. Barry : I'm not running a bar for Kachins.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Well, you feel they're below your station, Doctor? You know, your type of so-called democratic Americans burns my butt.

  Head Nurse : The captain is a mental case!

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : [to Ringa, after Capt. De Mortimer has been killed]  I'm giving you a field commission: Second Lieutenant. You let it change your ways, and you're a damned fool.

  Cpl. Bill Ringa : Yeah. A meat-headed Second Lieutenant. William Lewis Ringa, a gentleman, by act of Congress. I'm just sorry it had to happen this way. But I'll tell you one thing: I'd give you the shirt off my back.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : You already did, remember?

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : Get out.

  Capt. Danny De Mortimer : Tom. Tom, you can't do it.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Would you rather he suffer for another 12 or 15 hours? You'd shoot a lousy horse with a broken leg to end his misery. Now, get out.

  Capt. Danny De Mortimer : A human being is not an animal.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Don't give me any sermons. You're not the chaplain.

  Capt. Danny De Mortimer : You can't murder a man without killing part of yourself.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : I've been killing men all night long. Now, get out!

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : Clever, these Japanese.

  Capt. Danny De Mortimer : Ah, brilliant.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : You're a real soldier now, Bye Ya. You have tasted the pain of wound in combat.

• Capt. Danny De Mortimer : This is a grand way to live.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : It's even a better way to die.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : Where's the colonel?

  Cpl. Bill Ringa : Well, he's locked in a military mission. He said he'd meet you at headquarters at zero - at zero eight hundred in the morning, sir.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : What's he expect us to do till zero eight hundred in the morning? Play a fast game of jacks?

  Cpl. Bill Ringa : Well, he suggested the captain use the time to adjust himself to civilization. You know, girls, booze.

• Capt. Danny De Mortimer : Well, when do we eat?

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Take it easy, Pappy. This isn't hurrying-up time. This is slowing-down time. Let's drink easy and long and consistently.

  Capt. Danny De Mortimer : Right-o. We'll drink ourselves into a *tortured* hunger.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : Margaret, don't ask him how he keeps it in.

  Sgt. Jim Norby : How do you keep it in?

  Capt. Danny De Mortimer : Well, the problem is getting it out.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : Sometimes men brawl to forget combat.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : Relax.

  Carla Vesari : I beg your pardon?

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Let it go. I'm a mild-mannered, soft-spoken man, and I'm a gentleman and an officer. And I never make a sudden move.

  Carla Vesari : I'm very pleased to hear it.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : And what's your rank and serial number?

  Carla Vesari : I'm cautious, conventional, and very, very careful.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : And you're on the green side of 25. You're put together like a Christmas package. And you remind me of a pretty girl I once saw in a perfume ad before I became a lonely soldier.

• Sgt. Jim Norby : We'll find you a girl, Danny. As a matter of fact, if it weren't for Tom and this and that, you'd have me completely enslaved. I think it's the monocle. I think it's very chic.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Oh, it's smashing.

  Capt. Danny De Mortimer : Well, I have an injured eye, through which I take a rather jaundiced view of the world.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : Somebody had to leash the dogs of war.

• Carla Vesari : I'm always interested in improving myself. What could you offer me?

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Well, I could send you flowers, I could mow your lawn. I could buy you an ice cream soda. And we could hold hands in the movies.

  Carla Vesari : You tempt me.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : You ever seen any combat?

  Cpl. Bill Ringa : Oh, here and there, sir. A little bit.

  Capt. Danny De Mortimer : Well, where and where, a little bit?

  Cpl. Bill Ringa : New York City, mostly. I've seen action in Williamsburg, Hell's Kitchen, Yorkville, Weehawken. Well, of course, that's in New Jersey. You know, the funny part about it is, since I've joined the Army and the war started, I've led a comparatively sheltered life.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : Miss Vesari, can I see you again?

  Carla Vesari : Hell no.

• Carla Vesari : You are the most depressing seducer I ever fought off.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Then don't fight.

• Carla Vesari : What do you believe in?

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Live and let live. It's funny when you think of the business I'm in.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : Hey, you all right, chum?

  Capt. Danny De Mortimer : I feel a bit clammy. Too much nightlife and lazy living.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : Nikko tells me you ride every morning.

  Carla Vesari : Not *every* morning.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Would you ride with me tomorrow?

  Carla Vesari : Perhaps.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : All right, you wanted me to squirm, so I did. But there's another thing. I don't like striking out until I get to bat.

  Carla Vesari : You've got the wrong girl. Wrong place, wrong time.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Okay. I'll see you get a Good Conduct Medal to add to the rest of your loot. Meantime, let me pin this one on you.

  [kiss] 

  Carla Vesari : You're very sure of yourself.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : I am now. I kissed you, lady, and you kissed me back.

  Carla Vesari : You!

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : I got the message.

  [kiss] 

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : I'm going to miss you. Where I'm going nobody smells of soap.

• Carla Vesari : Must it be like this just because I'm not in the market for an affair?

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Oh, you're in the market. It's just a matter of price.

  Carla Vesari : I know when I'm well off.

• Carla Vesari : I kiss you and the bells ring wildly in my temples. Temple bells.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Why do you suppose that is?

  Carla Vesari : Because you put me in a turmoil.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : Have a drink.

  Capt. Grey Travis : Not while I'm working.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Don't be an ass! Have a drink.

• Capt. Grey Travis : You're a lousy barbarian. You're a murderer!

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : You're an idealist. And a lousy idealist.

• Colonel Dr. Barry : Captain, may I remind you that this is a hospital, and not a circus?

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : That's just a matter of opinion.

• Carla Vesari : Can you sneak out the back door?

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : I don't like back doors, Carla.

  Carla Vesari : Whatever you say. I don't care, darling.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : All right, Doc, knock off the whistling. Nobody's interested in how medically unconcerned you are.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : Look, we don't drink to get drunk. We - we nip! The booze just helps to keep you going. Take my word for it.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : What am I gonna do, Danny?

  Capt. Danny De Mortimer : You're the boss. It's your decision.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : How tangled can a knot get?

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : What's the sense of fighting a war if you can't yell for what's right?

  Capt. Danny De Mortimer : How can you be so damn sure you *know* what's right?

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : I'm not sure. But I'm sure I'm gonna do something, even if it's wrong.

• Capt. Tom Reynolds : Message to Parkson. To Parkson for Chongqing: "Go to hell." To Parkson for headquarters, CBI: "Go to hell." To Parkson for Parkson, if he goes along: "Go to hell."

• Capt. Danny De Mortimer : I found these men in the village up ahead. They say these guys weren't killed by the Nips, they were killed by the Chinese.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : What kind of Chinese?

• Nautaung : I still can't understand how the Nips had us figured out.

  Capt. Tom Reynolds : Neither can I. According to the scouts, there wasn't a Yellow within 40 miles.

  Sgt. John Danforth : Well, I imagine we'll soon find out. Ringa's got a Jap out there - and I imagine he'll talk.