The Star Witness (1931)

Charles 'Chic' Sale: Private Summerill

Photos 

Quotes 

• Ma Leeds : [while sitting down at dinner]  Well, Father, how've you been?

  Pvt. Summerill : Oh, just fine, Abby - just fine. But I tell yuh, it does a feller good ta get back to his own folks and... siddown with someone that cares whether he lives or dies.

  [Ned pats him on the shoulder] 

  Pvt. Summerill : Course, I ain't complainin'. Everything's mighty nice at the home. But after all, blood's thicker than government pea soup.

• Pvt. Summerill : I ain't never gonna get too old to tell the truth.

• Pvt. Summerill : I'm thinking of what it means to be American.

  Jackie Leeds : Yeah well what do we get out of that?

  Pvt. Summerill : What do we get out of it - what do we get? Well jumping cornstalks!

  Pvt. Summerill : Did our forefathers ask that when they was clacking around on their bare feet at valley forge? Did we ask that when we was at the battlefields of bull run?

  Pvt. Summerill : I'll tell you what I got. I got a mini-ball in this here leg. But I kept my self respect. And we took the country together for a lot of young scamps like you. Standing around sucking cigarettes, saying "what do we get out of it". Sometimes when I look at you I wish we hadn't. But we did. We put the old flag up there for you. And you can keep it up there and you can holler down because you're scared of a bunch of backstabbing yellowbellied foreigners.

  Pvt. Summerill : Now what are you going to do about it, you whining whelp?