Rationing (1944)

Wallace Beery: Ben Barton

Photos 

Quotes 

• Iris Tuttle : Get that goat outta here! She'll be sleeping on the foot of my bed next!

  Ben Barton : You could do worse!

• Ben Barton : [Dorothy walks in]  Oh, hello Dorothy.

  Dorothy Tuttle : I'm not talking to you, Ben Barton.

  [Dorothy walks past, Ben looks bewildered, follows her] 

  Dorothy Tuttle : Grandmother?

  Iris Tuttle : Hello...

  Ben Barton : [to Dorothy]  Bad temper, huh? Well, you come by it honestly.

  [gestures towards Iris] 

  Iris Tuttle : If that crack's for *me*, I've got a disposition like a cooing *dove*.

  [walks toward office, then turns] 

  Iris Tuttle : And the next time you even hint I got a bad temper I'm gonna hit ya over the head with one of your own HAMS!

• Iris Tuttle : [answering knock at her door, sees it's Ben and tries to bar him from entering]  What do you want this time of night?

  Ben Barton : [holding forms he's been trying to fill out]  Help, mercy and a Philadelphia lawyer.

• Ben Barton : Well, my knowledge of French was a little bit rough. How did I know, I meant to order a root beer, and I got a wife.

• Ben Barton : [to Wilfred Ball, who Ben suspects is hoarding food]  Well, there's nothing that I can call you *legally*, but if I was a pig and walking down the street and *you* came by, I'd certainly say, "Hello, brother." Get out of here.

• Ben Barton : [to the Senator's secretary]  Well, uh, it's, uh, sort of a personal matter, it's, uh, it's about rationing. I've got a complaint to make.

  Roberts : Uh, well, the OPA takes care of the complaints. You'll find that on "E." Past the FBI and the WPB. Uh, department J. Oh, uh, just beyond HOLC. You won't have any trouble finding it, because it's *just* across the street from WMPC. Get it?

  Ben Barton : Yes, yeah, I got it.

  [starts walking towards the door, counts on fingers] 

  Ben Barton : OPA... FBI... HOLC... Okay?

  Roberts : WMPC.

  Ben Barton : WMPC- yeah. Well, I'll find it or I'll come back PDQ!

• Ben Barton : [to Iris Tuttle, exasperatedly]  Darn... let's see, do I get this right- I file this number 2 form, which I don't understand, in a file that I can't buy on a form that you haven't received as yet, just so I can sell something that I've run out of to a fella with a ticket that he ain't got...

  [sighs] 

  Ben Barton : ... keeps up I'll wind up in a lunatic asylum that they haven't built yet.

• Mrs. Beachman : [in frustration, with her ration book]  With all these points and things to bother about Ben, I *wish* you'd tell me how my husband and I can get a good dinner.

  Ben Barton : That is very simple. First of all, you take a steak away from a Marine down in Guadalcanal and, uh, you cook it with some potatoes that *should* go to one of the coast guardsmen on the Aleutian Islands, then you add some fresh vegetables from the mess of our troops down in Northern Africa and add a couple of pounds of butter that you were going to send to some sailors on a submarine, with two cups of coffee that belongs to an aviator in the South Pacific.

  [Mrs. Beachman, with indignantly pursed lips, walks off] 

• Ben Barton : [answering knock at the door]  Come in, come in.

  [in walks Iris] 

  Ben Barton : Well, if it ain't my ooold pal Iris.

  Iris Tuttle : I'm not your pal and I'm not old.

  [puts her hand to her cheek] 

  Iris Tuttle : Nothing short of a tooth that's kickin' up like a bucking bronco could bring me here.

  Ben Barton : I take it you want... a little whiskey?

  Iris Tuttle : Yes, and as little conversation as possible.

  Ben Barton : Now, let's not be hasty, Iris Tuttle. Are you addressing me as, uh, the owner of the general store, or as your *very fine friend* and barterer.

  Iris Tuttle : As a storekeeper.

  Ben Barton : Then you're all outta luck because it's after 8 o'clock and I can't sell you none.

  Iris Tuttle : Well, you'll never get me to call you my fine friend, not even for a *gallon* of whiskey.

  Ben Barton : With a gallon you couldn't say "fine friend."

• Ben Barton : I can tell you right now, there's no such thing as going directly to Washington.