Major Dundee (1965)

Richard Harris: Captain Benjamin Tyreen

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Quotes 

• Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : [addressing his troops]  We will serve under Major Dundee's command. And until that time, any disrespect you show the Major will be taken as a personal insult by *me*.

  Jimmy Lee Benteen : Don't you worry none, Uncle Ben, when the time comes, we'll turpentine that cauky, chicken-pickin' Yankee...

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : [completely deadpan]  I am *not* your uncle, you redneck peckerwood. And if you say one more word, you'll spend the rest of this campaign in *chains*.

• Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : How many men do you need?

  Maj. Amos Dundee : Twenty. Good ones.

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : Until the Apache is taken or destroyed - only that?

  Maj. Amos Dundee : Agreed.

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : If it's... too rich for you... hang us now, and be done with it.

  Maj. Amos Dundee : I might just hang you and that Injun from the same tree, Ben.

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : You'll play hell getting it done, Amos!

• Maj. Amos Dundee : Captain Tyreen, is the prospect of serving under your country's flag once again seem more attractive than dragging its chains in this prison?

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : It is not my country, Major Dundee. I damn its flag and I damn you! And I would rather *hang* - than serve!

  [the Confederate prisoners begin whistling "Dixie" and rattling their chains, creating a loud racket] 

  Sgt. Gomez : [to Dundee]  Corporal Veitch just died, sir.

  Maj. Amos Dundee : [shouts]  Then hang you will!

  [noise dies down] 

  Maj. Amos Dundee : You and your four good friends, you're going to stand trial on a charge of murder. That guard you clubbed just died.

• Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : Move 'em out.

  Jimmy Lee Benteen : Which way, Captain?

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : To Mexico, you bloody idiot!

• O.W. Hadley : [Hadley is to be executed for desertion]  You gonna let them shoot me, sir?

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : I'm obliged to, son. You should've remembered you belong to the Major, and not to me.

• Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : Major, I shall see you in Texas!

  Maj. Amos Dundee : You're damn right you will! Bugler!

• Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : You are either - a $70, red-wool, pure-quill military genius - or the biggest damn fool in northern Mexico.

  Maj. Amos Dundee : No question of it.

• Maj. Amos Dundee : Don't you ever have any doubts about who you are?

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : I've been three men already, Amos. That's enough for one lifetime.

  Maj. Amos Dundee : Irish immigrant...

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : Cashiered American officer.

  Maj. Amos Dundee : And Confederate renegade. I don't like any of 'em.

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : Well, now, isn't that a coincidence.

• Maj. Amos Dundee : You surveyed this whole area with Grant in '47, didn't you?

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : Yes, the tequila was excellent.

• Tim Ryan : [as he's being operated on]  DAMN IT TO BLOODY CONFEDERATE HELL!

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : WHAT?

  Tim Ryan : Sorry.

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : He's alright, Reverend. He'll live forever and have a hundred children. But if you find that you have a weakness for being shot in that vicinity, I suggest you wear an iron plate in your pants.

• Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : Mr. Aesop, I am... we would like to complement you and your men on the way you handled the river crossing this afternoon.

  Aesop : Thank you, sir.

• Maj. Amos Dundee : Why don't you get two of your best men to help Sergeant Gomez take those children back to Fort Benlin?

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : [chuckles slightly]  We'll still outnumber you, Amos!

  Maj. Amos Dundee : You surely will, Ben. Now go do as you're told.

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : Yes, sir.

  [brief pause] 

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : But only until the Apache is taken or destroyed.

• Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : [as Graham's artillery fires during the rescue of Dundee]  Aha! Lieutenant Graham will be a General before he's thirty!

• Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : [trying to restrain his men]  I said will shall serve under this command and we will serve! But only until the Apache is destroyed. And then, Amos - and then, I'm going to kill you!

  Maj. Amos Dundee : Are you, Ben?

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : Yes. Yes, Amos.

• Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : You're getting leave, Major. And it's time you did. And in fact you'd ought to give up soldiering altogether. You were trapped at the river, ambushed like a shavetail! You caused that boy's death, you split your command. And just what are you doing outside your picket line? Are you trying to seek refuge in the arms of a woman - a woman, I might add, of rather doubtful virtue? Just what in the bloody hell are you doing here in the first place, Amos?

• Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : "Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night, Has cast the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight"

  Maj. Amos Dundee : What are you doing here?

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : I've come to rescue you. We spent all night looking for you.

  Maj. Amos Dundee : Why?

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : So I can kill you myself.

  Maj. Amos Dundee : Makes sense.

• Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : [the command comes across a troop of French cavalry]  Congratulations, Major. It seems like you've found yourself a real war after all.

• Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : [to Dundee]  I have orders, appropriate to your character. I have to take you out the back door.

  [punches Dundee] 

• Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : Now Major, or across the river in Texas?

  Maj. Amos Dundee : Here's just fine, Ben.

  Samuel Potts : [surveying the French army from a high rock]  You boys want a fight? I've got one for you! Come up here and look!

• Maj. Amos Dundee : For God's sakes, Ben - leave me be!

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : Why not, Amos? You aren't worth killing anyhow.

• Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : We got whipped, Major. Burying your dead is not going to change it.

• Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : I'll need five men, mounted. We'll attack their flank after you break their charge.

  Maj. Amos Dundee : Bully!

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : Bully...

• Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : You don't have the temprament to be a liberator, Amos.

• Maj. Amos Dundee : [Tyreen and his men are caught after trying to escape]  Evening, Ben.

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : Good evening, Amos.

  Maj. Amos Dundee : You should've tried it *before* I took command.

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : Command of what? The burial detail?

• Arthur Hadley : [Tyreen and his escaped men are brought back into the fort as Dundee orders the garrison to assemble]  They're gonna throw us a party, Captain.

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : It sure looks like it.

• Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : Major, we can't follow the Apache.

  Maj. Amos Dundee : I'm not letting go of that Injun.

• Maj. Amos Dundee : The woman?

  Samuel Potts : I don't know, Amos. If they hanged her, they cut her down. Them boys in the pretty hats make the Apache look like missionaries.

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : Never underestimate the value of a European education.

• Maj. Amos Dundee : There was - something about that woman.

  Capt. Benjamin Tyreen : Yeah. There sure, sure was.

  Maj. Amos Dundee : Made me think of - satin. Soft, white satin.