- Steve: I got to get nursie out of here or she never will come to.
- [picks up Mme de Bursac who passed out from chloroform, Slim follows]
- Slim: What are you trying to do, guess her weight?
- Steve: She's heftier than you think.
- [lays her down on a bed]
- Steve: Better loosen her clothes.
- Slim: You've been doing all right.
- [Steve starts to loosen]
- Slim: Eh, maybe you'd better look after her husband.
- Steve: He's not going to run out on me.
- Slim: Neither is she.
- Slim: You know you don't have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything, and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow.
- Slim: You know Steve, you're not very hard to figure, only at times. Sometimes I know exactly what you're going to say. Most of the time. The other times... the other times, you're just a stinker.
- Eddie: Drinking don't bother my memory. If it did I wouldn't drink. I couldn't. You see, I'd forget how good it was, then where'd I be? Start drinkin' water, again.
- Steve: You're both going to take a beating 'til one of you uses that phone. That means one of you will take a beating for nothing.
- Eddie: [Steering the boat] What's the matter? Why are you lookin' at me like that fer? What are you laughin' at?
- Steve: Just a joke that neither one of us knows the answer to.
- Eddie: What joke?
- Steve: Whether you're gonna hold together or not.
- Eddie: [His feelings hurt] Don't say that, Harry! I'm a good man! You know I am!
- Steve: Yeah, I know you are, but you're goin' all over the ocean. Stay on your course.
- Eddie: Why do you always... Hey, could I have just one? I don't want to get the shakes.
- Steve: Make it short! I want you rum brave, not useless.
- Eddie: [Anxious to get below decks to have his drink] Thanks, Harry!
- Steve: Anybody got a match?
- Slim: Change your mind?
- Steve: No money, those guys cleaned me out.
- Slim: I forgot too - maybe I can do something, its been a long day and I'm thirsty.
- [surveys club patrons]
- Steve: Picked him out yet?
- Slim: You don't mind do you?
- Steve: You're thirsty, go ahead. If I get tired of waiting, I'll be back at that hotel.
- Slim: All right
- [starts moving through tables]
- [first lines]
- Title Card: Martinique, in the summer of 1940, shortly after the fall of France.
- Title Card: Forte de France
- Steve: Morning.
- Officer at port: Good Morning, Captain Morgan. What can I do for you today?
- Steve: Same thing as yesterday.
- Officer at port: You and your client wish to make a temporary exit from the port?
- Steve: *That* is right.
- Officer at port: Name?
- Steve: Ha - Harry Morgan.
- Officer at port: Nationality?
- Steve: Eskimo.
- Officer at port: What?
- Steve: American.
- Steve: [to the Bursacs] Get down on the deck flat and stay there!
- Paul de Bursac: [Apprehensively] But I don't know what good it'll be to try to resist. We will be killed!
- Steve: [Angrily] Shut up, both of you! Get down on that deck flat! You save France - I want to save my boat!
- Eddie: You know, you got to be careful of dead bees if you're goin' around barefooted, 'cause if you step on them they can sting you just as bad as if they was alive, especially if they was kind of mad when they got killed. I bet I been bit a hundred times that way.
- Slim: You have? Why don't you bite them back?
- Eddie: That's what Harry always says. But I ain't got no stinger.
- Cricket: [singing] It's the story of a very unfortunate colored man, Who got arrested down in old Hong Kong, He got twenty years privilege taken away from him, When he kicked old Buddha's gong, And now he's poppin' the piano just to raise the price, Of a ticket to the land of the free...
- Steve: You didn't bring him here?
- Gerard aka Frenchy: In the cellar.
- Steve: Why didn't you put him on the center table in a goldfish bowl and be done with it?
- Mme. Hellene de Bursac: I'm just having a hard time trying to say something.
- Steve: Go ahead, say it. I'm not gonna bite you.
- Slim: You're sore, aren't you?
- Steve: Why should I be?
- Slim: I didn't behave very well, did I?
- Steve: You did all right. You got the bottle, didn't you?
- Slim: You're sore, aren't you?
- Steve: Now, look, get this straight, I don't care...
- Slim: I know. I know. You don't give a whoop what I do. But when I do it, you get sore.
- Beauclere - Gaullist: Mr. Morgan, I thought all Americans were friendly to our side.
- Steve: Well, that's right, they are. But, you see, there's a rumor going around that they put fellas on Devil's Island for doing what you're doing. I'm not that friendly to anybody.
- Beauclere - Gaullist: One thing, Mr. Morgan. Last night you very definitely refused to have anything to do with us. Why have you changed your mind?
- Steve: I need the money now. Last night I didn't.
- Beauclere - Gaullist: If you knew what this means to us.
- Steve: I don't want to know.
- Beauclere - Gaullist: I'm glad you're on our side.
- Steve: I'm not. I'm getting paid.
- Gerard aka Frenchy: Why are you doing this, Harry?
- Steve: Well, I don't know. Maybe because I like you, maybe because I don't like them.
- Cricket: You all set, Slim?
- Slim: Sure, but don't make it sad, Cricket. I don't feel that way.
- Cricket: You don't look that way, either. Let's go. Top note, boys.
- Slim: [singing] Maybe it happens this way, Maybe we really belong together, But after all, how little we know, Maybe it's just for a day, Love is as changeable as the weather...
- Steve: Come on.
- Slim: What are you talking about? Say, mister, what's got into you?
- [Steve escorts her to a room, closes and locks the door]
- Slim: What do you think you're gonna do?
- Steve: I'm gonna get that wallet, Slim.
- Slim: I'd rather you wouldn't call me Slim. I'm a little too skinny to take it kindly.
- Steve: Quit the baby talk. Which is it?
- Slim: You know, Steve, I wouldn't put it past you.
- [pulls out Johnson's wallet from underneath her top]
- Slim: I didn't know you were a hotel detective.
- Steve: Go ahead. Slap me.
- Capt. M. Renard: Come, come, Capitaine. This is not a brawl. We merely wish to get to the bottom of this affair.
- Steve: You'll never do it by slapping people around. That's bad luck.
- Capt. M. Renard: Well, we shall see.
- Steve: Sorry. Now, look, boys, we could stay at this all night and the answer would still be the same. I don't care who runs France or Martinique or who wants to run it. You'll have to get somebody else.
- Slim: It doesn't work. I brought that bottle up here to make you feel cheap. That didn't work either. Instead, I'm the one who feels cheap. I've never felt that way before.
- Slim: The story of my life. Where do you want me to begin?
- Steve: I got a pretty fair idea already.
- Slim: Who told you?
- Steve: You did. That slap in the face you took.
- Slim: What about it?
- Steve: You hardly blinked an eye. It takes a lot of practice to do that. Yeah, I know a lot about you, Slim.
- Slim: The next time I get slapped I better do something about it.
- Slim: What's the name of that tune?
- Cricket: It hasn't got a name yet. I've just been foolin' around with the lyrics. They're not so hot, either. Would you like to hear them?
- Slim: Sure.
- [strikes a match, lights a cigarette, Cricket plays the piano]
- Slim: Hmm-hmm-hmm. Hmm-hmm.
- Cricket: [sings] I run to the telephone, Whenever it rings, I can't be alone, It's one of those things, I tell a star, My little whoas, Hang around the bar, Till it's ready to close, So it goes.
- [speaks]
- Cricket: And that's about as far as it goes.
- Slim: I like it.
- Cricket: Yes, if I could get the right lyric.