Overland Trail

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Your daughter can sure handle a horse.

Rusty Ransom:
Does a pretty good job with men, too.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
What did he mean by that?

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
How should I know?

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Mind if I find out?

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
You generally do.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
I was just tellin' your father that you're real good on a horse. Not many women can handle them like you do.

Joan Ransom:
Oh, it's not hard - not if you know the tricks.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Oh? Is there something I can learn?

Joan Ransom:
I think so. First you have to distract there attention. Hey, look!

[when Flip turns, Joan knocks him to the ground]

Joan Ransom:
Then you put them in their place...

[Joan places her boot firmly in the middle of Flip's chest]

Joan Ransom:
Then you keep them there. Otherwise they think they're dealing with a fan-talker who's more interested in good looks than good sense... and when they've learned their first lesson you tell them to go on into the house and drink their coffee.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
And since when do horses drink coffee?

Joan Ransom:
Since when have we been talking about horses?

The O'Mara:
You know it's been a great big mistake. The horses are back in the corral already. Just talk to my deputy.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Which one.

The O'Mara:
The one you didn't shoot.

The O'Mara:
Listen, Kathy, I told you that I loved you.

Kathy:
But you forgot to ask me to marry you!

[last lines]

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
You know, Flip, if it wasn't for me, you might wind up like The O'Mara.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
How's that?

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Married!

[a nervous barber prepares to finish shaving Fred Kelly]

Phil:
I'm ready to finish you up now, Mr. Kelly.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Yeah... that's what I'm afraid of.

Johnny Caldwell:
If you have any more bright ideas, you'd better think up one now.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
All right, we'll use an old Cheyenne trick. Come on, this way.

Johnny Caldwell:
Up there?

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
I know what I'm doing.

Johnny Caldwell:
Yeah, but it'll be a first time.

[the major has been shot in the chest by attacking indians]

Aloka:
And I told him my people wanted only peace.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
They weren't your people, Aloka. This is a Commanche arrow. But it won't work; we'll get you and your treaty through to your own tribe. I promise you that.

Pvt. Frank Cullen:
Anything we can do for the Major?

[hands the private a shovel]

Lt. Adam King:
Start diggin'.

Pvt. John Sumter:
Guess we'll be turnin' back, huh, Lieutenant.

Lt. Adam King:
Yep, as soon as we finish our mission.

Pvt. John Sumter:
I say we ought to turn back now. There's only three of us left.

Lt. Adam King:
You're out of line, soldier. Help Cullen with that shovel.

Pvt. John Sumter:
We keep goin' we'll be diggin' our own graves.

Lt. Adam King:
Sumter, you're buckin' for a court martial.

Pvt. John Sumter:
That's better than ending up like Major Evans.

Lt. Adam King:
I'm tellin' you for the last time... get to work!

Pvt. John Sumter:
Yes sir! But remember, Lieutenant, I aim to get back to that fort one way or another... and you gotta get back, too, before their can be a court martial.

[Lt. King shoots Sumter when the soldier tries to kill Flip]

Lt. Adam King:
Sumter was right. He said we'd never get him back to the fort.

Aloka:
It is not easy for me to come and ask for friendship.

Lt. Adam King:
Then why are you bothering?

Aloka:
Because I must see if the peace in the treaty is true before we reach the village. If there can be no trust between the few of us, how can there be peace between our nations?

Lt. Adam King:
A lot of good men have died trying to get the treaty through. Isn't that proof enough?

Aloka:
No! They fought off an attack. It is the way of the soldier. What they really believed we shall never know. It is what happens to us that is important to me.

[Aloka's warning to Flip saves Lt. King's life]

Lt. Adam King:
I want to thank you. I guess you saved my life.

Aloka:
You risked yours for me. It is the way of friends.

Lt. Adam King:
Why were they trying to stop us? Kill their own chief's wife? What kind of animals are they, anyway?

Aloka:
Even animals have traitors among their own kind.

Aloka:
It is the custom of my people, when a friend goes away, to give him some gift with the hope he will come back.

[Aloka gives Lt. King her bracelet]

Aloka:
Goodbye, Lt. King.

[King salutes]

Lt. Adam King:
Goodbye.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
You know, somebody's got to keep you in line, Flip. Otherwise, you'd get to big for your britches. That's part of my job.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Oh. I always wondered what they paid you for.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Wait a minute. You know, it's a lucky thing for you I'm superintendent of this stage line. Why, if you were to say that to any other boss...

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Yeah, well, you're a right nice fellow, aren't you, Mr. Kelly?

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Well, I wouldn't say that myself...

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Neither would I.

[last lines]

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Well, are we going to make this run or not?

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
What did I ever do to deserve you? That should be a lesson to me not to pick up stray orphans.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Oh, well if you feel that way about it, maybe I'll quit.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
What, again? Come on, roll 'em out.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Right now I want work, not words!

[last lines]

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Gentlemen, I want you to meet the little lady who has the honor to be first passenger to ride through this tunnel, Miss Nitro Nell. And now it's all aboard to Salt Lake and a big celebration. A friend of mine's gettin' married. Yes sir, no more carousin' around for him - drinkin' and gamblin' and runnin' around with girls. No sir, he's gettin' married! And you're all invited.

Nitro Nell:
Oh, won't it be wonderful to have a lot of people at our wedding, Jumbo?

Jumbo:
Our wedding?

[Nell nods]

Jumbo:
Fire in the hole!

[Jumbo slams the stagecoach door in Nell's face and Flip starts the coach down the road at breakneck speed]

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
How 'bout a bet, Calamity. The first one into Denver tomorrow wins; the loser pays.

Calamity Jane:
You're on, Flip Flippen. Hey, ah, what are we bettin'?

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
A kiss.

Calamity Jane:
A kiss! Well, what kind of bet do you call that?

[Dutton draws the blade from his sword cane]

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
I always figured you for some kind of a varmint, Dutton, but I didn't know where you kept your stinger.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
There's one thing I'll say for you, Miss Jackson.

Helen Jackson:
What's that, Mr. Kelly?

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
You're the only lawyer I ever saw who keeps his hands in his own pockets.

Capitan Porfirio Diaz:
The older man will be a Senor Kelly.

Estrelita:
And the younger one?

Capitan Porfirio Diaz:
They call him "Flip". He is - how do you say - your pigeon. They will be at the hotel; you will meet him.

Estrelita:
But Porfirio, how does someone go about meeting someone in that manner? I don't think I will be able...

Capitan Porfirio Diaz:
You're a woman... a beautiful woman. It will not be difficult. Is it too much to ask for Mexico?

Estrelita:
For Mexico, no. Wish me luck!

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
I don't know what it is, but you take almost any man with a voice that would frighten a timber wolf, put him in a bathtub and right away he thinks he's an opera singer.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Well, of course I can't tell you what to do, Flip, but I think you should look your best we get to "The Home of Beautiful Women".

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
So do I. That's why I'm going out tonight and do a little practicin'.

[Flip has turned down Estrelita's bribe]

Capitan Porfirio Diaz:
Honor is a quality to be admired, senor, but it can sometimes prove embarrasing to its possessor... as well as others.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Who are you?

Capitan Porfirio Diaz:
Porfirio Diaz at your service, senor

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
If you're at my service, how come you got that gun pointed my way?

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Howdy, Estrelita. Been in any bathhouses lately?

Estrelita:
I am pleased you are not angry with me.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Why should I be? Mr. Kelly always told me not to trust a pretty girl any father than I could throw a buffalo by its tail. Got nobody to blame but myself.

Estrelita:
It was a matter of necessity, you understand.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Sure - but if I had to do it all over again... I guess I'd do it all over again.

[Diaz's men have captured Flip, Kelly and the Princess]

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
My guess is they're going to either hold you for ransom, or...

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Not ransom, Kelly. Diaz isn't out for money.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Or it's a political thing. They don't want you to get to Washington.

Princess Teresa:
They want Maximillian to die. They resent being ruled by a foreigner.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
That's been the history with quite a few countries.

Capitan Porfirio Diaz:
It is strange when one considers himself a patriot to be accused of treason.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
What's a gandy dancer?

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
It's railroad talk for a track gang laborer. Railroad men have a language all their own.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
If you thought so much of 'em, how come you ever left 'em?

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
We put a stage line across the country before they ever made rails. We still beat their time on short hauls. General Palmer was my commanding officer during the war. He saved my life once, Flip. That's one reason I'm doing this.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
You've got another?

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Yes, I sure have - the Overland Stage lines. The railroads bring more people west than the stagecoach lines can. Most towns are off the railroad. They need service between them. It's as simple as that. We need the railroads to stay in business.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Suppose you need me there. I mean, those hombres can get rough.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
I can get rough, too.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
The Santa Rita wants to stop you real bad, don't they?

Mike Day:
Yeah. They almost did.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
As one Irishman to another - are things always as quiet as this?

Mike Day:
Kelly, don't tell me you've forgotten the pressures of railroadin' already?

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
No, nobody forgets them, Mike

Mike Day:
Well, I was just thinkin' a nice soft job like runnin' the Overland Stage had made you a little soft.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Nice, easy job? You ought to try to make just one run to Sacramento - indians, outlaws, roads washed out...

Mike Day:
That's too bad. You know, I was thinkin' about takin' up stagecoachin' when I got too old for railroadin'.

Jennifer Dean:
How do you manage it, Mike, to offend everyone you meet?

Mike Day:
Oh, only the men I meet, beautiful.

Jennifer Dean:
My name is Jennifer Dean - Miss Dean preferably, Jennifer if you must, but not beautiful!

Mike Day:
Kelly, I'll get him there safely if I have to carry him on my back.

Jennifer Dean:
Probably won't be the first time the President rode a mule.

Mike Day:
Why do we always have to fight?

Jennifer Dean:
Because you're an egotistical stubborn man who thinks every woman he meets should swoon into his arms.

Mike Day:
Well, most of them do!

Jennifer Dean:
Ohh!

Mike Day:
Besides, whoever said you were a woman. You act more like an Irish section hand - and just as tough.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Wait a minute! Wa-a-ait a minute. Hold it. Is this a private fight or can anyone get in?

[Mike kisses Jenny]

Mike Day:
Jenny, lets you and I be friends.

Jennifer Dean:
No...

[Mike grabs Jenny and kisses her passionately]

Jennifer Dean:
Oh, all right. Friends...

[Jenny slaps Mike]

Jennifer Dean:
...forever.

[last lines]

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
I can't see what you like about railroadin'. Too peaceful to suit me. It's like ridin' in a rockin' chair. I'll take a Concord coach any day.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
You know something, Flip. I decided the same thing a long time ago. Just the same, railroading has it's moments.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Yeah, but no girls.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Well...

[Mike, seated next to two beautiful women on the back of a train, waves to Kelly and Flip, then kisses the blonde passionately]

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Yep, railroadin's a hard life. Get up, Agnes!

[Kelly cracks his whip and the stagecoach heads down the road]

[first lines]

[Cole Younger is trying to rob a stagecoach]

Cole Younger:
You know, a man could set his watch by the Overland Stage schedule. Makes it easy for me.

First Stagecoach Driver:
Not when they catch up with ya.

Cole Younger:
That isn't yet. Now throw down that box!

[the stagecoach driver drops the express box to the ground]

First Stagecoach Driver:
I'll remember your face.

Cole Younger:
Then you might as well have the name to go with it. It's Cole Younger!

[although badly injured, Annie announces that she is ready to travel]

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Annie, I've never seen the like. You're supposed to be dead.

Sour Annie Tatum:
Yep. Well, fellow once told me that I was half bear and half devil. I guess maybe he was right.

Sour Annie Tatum:
Friend, you seen any strangers passing through lately?

Storekeeper:
Not too many. Anybody in particular on your mind?

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Yeah! Goes by the name of Harland Deal.

Storekeeper:
No, I don't think so. Don't know anybody by that name anyway. Friend of yours?

Sour Annie Tatum:
Well, you could put it that way, but you'd be dead wrong.

Sour Annie Tatum:
Where is that man now?

Storekeeper:
Now take it easy! He's still around. He's in that backroom.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Stay here, Annie. I'll save you a piece of him.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Fool's gold! Annie Tatum, you spent half your life prospectin' and you don't know the difference between fool's gold and real gold?

Sour Annie Tatum:
'Course I know the difference! But most people don't and I got sick and tired of 'em laughin' at me for chasin' rainbows, so I just flash this at 'em. Besides, I carried it for good luck... or when I found the real thing.

[last lines]

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Mr. Kelly, did I ever tell you the time I was all alone in the Mojave without water, chased by hundreds of Indians, almost clawed to death by a mountain lion...

Frederick 'Fred' Kelly:
This boy spent too much time with Annie.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
I sure did.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Sometimes I wonder why I ever picked a job like this. I've got the home life of a coyote and the security of a paper canoe.

James Addison Reavis - The Baron of Arizona aka Jack Morton:
Some people get excited and do stupid things. I don't have that excuse. You take me, sir - I do stupid things without being excited at all.

[to his horse as he makes calculations on a backboard]

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Two times two is four, two times three is six, two times... I don't think you're concentratin'. What's a matter? You want to be a horse all your life?

[Matt has just murdered a man to steal a letter]

Tom:
Say anything about Jim and Kate?

Matt:
'Course it does. You think I'd kill a man for nothin'?

Cap:
Why not?

[Flip proposes that their stagecoach lay over in Red Rim so Fred can get treatment for his cold]

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Couldn't be because Molly O'Day is back in Red Rim could it?

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Is she?

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Yeah. Seems to me I heard you mention her name last night.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
I did?

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Yeah.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Well, it just goes to show ya. I'm so concerned about the state of your health, that Molly O'Day just slipped my mind.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Anytime you lose track of a pretty girl between the Missouri and the Sacramento, I'll know you're sick. A-choo!

Marshal:
Did you here the news?

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Sure did. When the law is standin' on its head when it decides to hang a woman.

Marshal:
That's not up to me. The jury found her guilty and they didn't recommend mercy. The judge sentenced her, I guard her, you transport her. That's it.

[Fred is pretending that he lost the key to the handcuffs locking Flip to Kate, a pretty murderess]

Marshal:
Aren't you being kind of hard on him under the circumstances?

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Depends on how you look at it, Marshal.

Marshal:
Well, a boy like Flip with a woman like that...

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
That's why he had to come along on this trip. Flip's gotta grow up like the rest of us; gotta learn to tell the good from the bad.

Marshal:
But trickin' him into it...

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
I know Flip - there isn't any other way. Oh, he'll be mad; might even do something... I don't know. One thing I do know - he'll learn a lesson, even if it's a hard one. You know, most of the time when I play tricks on Flip, it's just for fun. Sometimes I do it for his own good. This is one of those times.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Cattle Kate's inside. We're takin' her to Denver.

Marshal:
So they found her guilty. What'd she draw?

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
A rope.

Marshal:
That don't seem right, hangin' a woman. There's too few of 'em in the territory as it is.

Marshal:
Many more like her, there won't be any men left.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
You know, they say a man's knowledge can't go beyond his experience.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
I wish you would round up those four passengers. I'd like to keep the stage on schedule.

The O'Mara:
What the devil do you think I'm trying to do? Those are your four passengers there.

[indicates four beautiful young women]

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Oh, no. Four women on a stage and Flip in the driver's seat? Oh, no, no, no...

The O'Mara:
Look here, Mr. Kelly. Your company has a deposit of mine and I've got a contract that says that you have to deliver me and those four girls safe and sound to Nevada... or maybe you'd like to make a little trouble about it, would ya?

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Oh, no. No, I wouldn't have to make any trouble. No, trouble will follow us clear across the country like a calf follows a mother cow.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
About that Kathy girl. If I were you, I wouldn't get any ideas.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
You're not me - that's why I got ideas.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
That Kathy girl. She sure had me fooled.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
You're tellin' me.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
But you take Belle Malone - she's different!

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
Oh, yeah, she's different. She's a blonde.

[Maggie is dealing a three-card monte game]

Kathy:
Twenty dollars will get you forty if you can find the queen.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
I can always use forty dollars.

[instead of betting on one of the three visible cards, Flip puts his money on Maggie's right hand]

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
You'll never get it that way.

[Fred puts his money on Maggie's left hand, then turns it over to reveal the queen, then pockets the forty dollars]

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
You know, you'd have a hard time making a living in Brooklyn.

[Flip kills the Sabine Kid in a fair gunfight]

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
I didn't want to kill him.

Frederick Thomas 'Fred' Kelly:
I know, Flip, don't worry about it. The way I figure it, shootin' coyotes doesn't count.

[last lines]

[Anne Michaels died saving Flip's life]

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Mrs. Michaels... Mrs. Michaels! It's not fair. It's not fair!

Fred Kelly:
Sometimes things even out, Flip. You have to learn that - even when it hurts.

[Kelly and Flip are pretending to be notorious outlaws]

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
You think this play actin' is necessary?

Frederick 'Fred' Kelly:
The Overland Stage is carrying more than gold and passengers this time, Flip. This time it's bringing in law and order, too. There's an organized gang operating in Montana Territory and a smart man behind it. No one knows who he is. We've got to find that out and we've got to stop him... and this is the quickest way I know to smoke him out.

[Kelly is posing as an outlaw named Sweeney]

Frederick 'Fred' Kelly:
Pass the word - Sweeney makes his own rules and the first one is... hands off Sweeney.

Will Purdue:
Are you sure he's Reno Sweeney.

Sam Kemp:
There's only one way to find out - force him into a fight. If you're dead before you hit the floor, it's Reno.

Arnold Braun:
The big money, sir, is made by the men who mine the miners.

[last lines]

Frederick 'Fred' Kelly:
You know something, Flip? If I'm not careful, you're going to surprise me and grow up.

Reb Haslett:
You know, I can't figure out why a woman like that is wasting her time in a rathole like Mesa Flats.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
She's going to teach school at the new schoolhouse.

Reb Haslett:
New schoolhouse? Well, they've still got saloons here they ain't finished buildin' yet. Why should they build a schoolhouse?

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
[to Fred Kelly] Something wrong! Why, this whole trip was a trick! You tried to make Priscilla think we weren't meant for each other!

Priscilla Cabot:
Then I say we owe Mr. Kelly a vote of thanks.

Frank 'Flip' Flippen:
Priscilla! How can you say that?

Priscilla Cabot:
Without much difficulty.

Wild Bill Hickok:
I never had much use for Darby myself, but he's one of the founders of the town and I can't go around shootin' the taxpayers.