- 3 months ago
Lucas McCain hires a bitter ex-Confederate to help him around the ranch. When General Philip Sheridan and his staff stop at McCain's ranch to camp, Lucas is afraid there will be trouble.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00The Rifleman
00:06Starring Chuck Connors
00:30Starring Chuck Connors
00:59Sign should have a drink for you sonny
01:09good morning
01:10would you share me a nickel worth of water
01:13my bottle is plumb drying
01:16you can have all the water you want
01:18free
01:19Paul couldn't get the name of ginger
01:21drinking water
01:23I'll go prime at the pump
01:28Stop it up. It's a-wasting. It's a-wasting.
01:37We got a cistern behind the hill. Pull up all the year round.
01:40That's how we work for his marigolds.
01:45I was noticing the pretty colors on them.
01:49The water sure has it over whiskey when the time comes.
01:52You better take it slow. You're too thirsty.
01:55I know all about thirsty, boy.
02:00Oh, you're welcome to a shower bath.
02:02Paul and me rigged it up behind the house.
02:05All you do is stand under and yank the rope.
02:08You'll find some soap and a scrub brush.
02:10You stand here telling me to my face that I smell like I don't belong with human company?
02:15Why, you squeaky little yanky.
02:17I don't let nobody. Don't go stepping your head off the one side.
02:20Now, don't you do it, Jesus.
02:21Hey, what are you looking for?
02:26Oh.
02:28Well, why don't you go ahead and shoot me with that there rifle gun so you won't have to feel sorry for me?
02:33Why'd you like a cup of coffee, mister?
02:37I don't care if I do.
02:39I'll go get it, Paul.
02:46Well, come along.
02:46Ham and egg.
03:01It's a tastiest eaten food the Lord ever put on a man's table in the garden of satisfaction.
03:07How about some apple brandy to finish it off with?
03:10Well, the ferment of the fruit is again my principle, sir, but thank you anyway.
03:16I reckon this five-cent piece will cover it.
03:21No, we asked you to sit friendly.
03:23Just a coffee would have been friendly.
03:25Ham and eggs is a handout.
03:26Put your money away.
03:27You were our guest.
03:31Mr. McCain, suppose I was to ask you for a job.
03:35Well, I can do most anything in any two-handed man you'd ever have working for you can do.
03:40I can pitch some hay, feed the stock, and...
03:43I'm sorry.
03:45It's not once a year we take on an extra hand.
03:47I mean hire help.
03:50I know what you mean.
03:52Here.
03:53Take this, huh?
03:54Did you find something else?
03:55A whole card, will you?
03:59You know, once a man starts taking something for nothing, he ain't no man no more.
04:04He's just charity.
04:09Anyways, you can stop fumigating with that there seagull.
04:13Gosh, I'm sure I'm glad you didn't take him on, Paul.
04:22Why?
04:23He makes me shiver.
04:25He's so ugly.
04:26That arm of his.
04:27Where are you going?
04:29Try to hire the both of us to clear conscience?
04:32Oh, no, Paul.
04:33Please.
04:34I can't even stand to look at him.
04:38Neither can I, son.
04:39Which means we're both in worse shape than he is.
04:43Hey, mister!
04:56What would you run for?
04:58I reckon you aimed to put on me.
05:00Put on you?
05:01Why?
05:02Fun, maybe.
05:04There has to be a why.
05:06What's your name?
05:08I said, what's your name?
05:11Frank Blandon.
05:13I'm glad that I could start you at $10 a month with room and board.
05:18Half pay for half a man.
05:19Fair enough.
05:20Best I can do.
05:21Cash is our short crop.
05:23I said it was fair enough, ain't I?
05:25I can just sleep right over there in that there stall.
05:41We don't bed men in a stall.
05:43Man, are you afraid of my poison, Mr. Stark?
05:45This bunk just needs a little repair and it'll be more than comfortable.
05:48Hey, with anybody liable to come through that door, me without my shirt on, that's unfortunate.
05:54It's a little more modest than a young girl.
05:57Let's go, Paul.
05:58Mark.
05:58Well, you made your charity offer.
06:00The man just wouldn't take it up.
06:02I've got my own chores waiting.
06:04You'll have to do the repair yourself.
06:05A broken down bed for a broken down man.
06:10Well, that depends on how well you fix it.
06:13Oh, by the way, there's some tools in that locker.
06:16Glad to have you with us.
06:16Oh, Lordy!
06:28He hurts.
06:31He's getting washed.
06:35Is it going to be a big one this time?
06:39Lord, you know I can't stand no more of them.
06:44Tell me, won't you?
06:46He hits right at me this time, Lord.
06:50Now, please.
06:51Please don't leave it.
06:52Keep on.
06:55Make it pass for me, Lordy Lord.
06:58Make it pass.
07:01I'll try, Lord.
07:03I promise you.
07:04I'll really try.
07:08Please, please.
07:15I'll try.
07:16You're doing a mighty fine job, Frank.
07:38I strike you a funny bone?
07:40I couldn't help it.
07:41A man as big as you, raising posies alongside a port.
07:47My wife always liked to have marigolds around the house, Frank.
07:50I've watched my old woman die of the hungry when I come back with his shoulder in the spring of 64.
07:57Where's your home, Frank?
07:59Brandon Notch, back Tennessee.
08:01Most everybody's Brandon back in them hills.
08:03It's hardly a night that I, I ain't minded if a sunrise fog gets to lean over a stand of hardwood.
08:12No, no, I'll green the hens for you and, and, and, and swill the hog as soon as I finish this chore.
08:22All right, Frank.
08:23What are you doing, son?
08:46Just watching.
08:49Hello!
08:50Ah, come on, horse.
08:52Don't go on, lazy horse.
08:54Why don't you get off and give him a hand?
08:55Not me.
08:56There's a nesty yellow jacket right by where he's working.
08:58Yellow jacket?
08:59You didn't warn him?
09:00I don't like to go near him, Paul.
09:02Are you all right?
09:13We'll douse that nest with coal oil tonight.
09:18Come here, come here.
09:21Come here.
09:22Let me get that shirt off.
09:24Hold still.
09:24Hold still.
09:24Hold still.
09:26Hold still.
09:27Hold still.
09:28Hold still.
09:29Hold still.
09:30Hold still.
09:31Hold still.
09:31I don't own but nary one shirt.
09:38Will you go in the house and get one of mine, Blandon?
09:58Sorry, son, but sooner or later you had to find out.
10:00Why did I?
10:01I didn't want to.
10:03Paul, his shoulder wasn't healed.
10:05Not only poor Blandon's shoulder, but I mean all the ugly, useless suffering in the world.
10:10In time, you'll learn to accept it and bring it into balance for the good things.
10:13I'll never be able to, Paul.
10:15You will, son, because you have to.
10:17It's the price you pay on staying alive and in your right senses.
10:20It's manhood.
10:20And I can promise that when you come to the far end of it, you'll raise your old hands to bless this wonderful life you've been given.
10:26Taking it all together with the roast beef and the moon rises and a boy and his father riding out in the morning.
10:32After you've grown up to be a father yourself.
10:33Oh, look.
10:41Cavalry patrol.
10:42Look at them.
10:43The size of that white...
10:44Gosh, ain't they fun?
10:45General Sheridan.
10:54Eddie.
10:55How do you know me?
10:56Well, sir, I served under the general from Yellow Tavern to the end of the war.
11:00And you should know enough not to salute when you're out of uniform.
11:03What outfit?
11:0419th, Indiana, sir.
11:06Good regimen.
11:07Rank?
11:08Well, sir, I got my lieutenant's bar the morning of Five Forks.
11:11Well, if you'd been a sergeant, I'd remember you.
11:13Major Cushman.
11:14There's military governor of the Southwest Territory.
11:18The general's conducting an inspection tour.
11:20He's finished the day's duties, and he's looking for a place to bivouac tonight.
11:23Well, he's welcome to the use of my place.
11:25Obliged to you, sir.
11:27It's the spread over there.
11:28If you'd like to go on ahead, we'll be coming up directly.
11:35Life sure is funny.
11:36What do you mean by that?
11:39Well, Blandon and now Sheridan.
11:41One, a poor, raggedy old private from the Confederates, and the other, a big, important general from the North.
11:47Tonight, they'll both be staying in the same house together.
11:49Oh, Shenandoah, I love your daughter.
12:04Away, you.
12:07Oh!
12:08Ha-ha!
12:09In the most of me.
12:11Woo!
12:12Ha-ha!
12:13Coffee, gentlemen?
12:14Thank you, Mr. King.
12:15You met everybody, Major Cushman, Colonel Stroud, staff surgeon, and yonder, Lieutenant McLennan, who at the moment is performing special duty for the general.
12:23I should have told you there's a pretty fair hotel in North Fork.
12:26You might have found a more comfortable sleep in there.
12:27The general prefers to conduct his inspections without fanfare.
12:30Little element of surprise.
12:32Well, he's welcome to my bunk.
12:33If the general desired bunks, McCain, naturally he'd have requisitioned him.
12:36Oh, I see.
12:37Prefers to simulate field conditions.
12:39I don't suppose you got any ice?
12:41Ice, no, but the hotel I spoke of in North Fork has...
12:43How far is it?
12:44It's about an hour's ride.
12:45Detach Lieutenant McLennan as soon as he's off duty.
12:47Psst, psst.
12:52Paul, Blandon's drunk.
12:54Drunk?
12:55Where did he get it?
12:56He changed his mind about your apple brandy.
12:58Give me that, you fool.
13:13That horse liniment.
13:14You'll burn a hole in your stomach.
13:15What's it to you?
13:28It ain't my stomach, ain't it?
13:30Well, it ain't your liniment.
13:30Oh, you dirty, plastic Yankee!
13:34You see a man swing in his place, or you gotta take it away from him.
13:38Look, Frank, you're welcome to drink anything we have for that purpose.
13:41But liniment is reserved special for horses' ailments, nothing else.
13:43I just wanted something to keep me warm for the road, and it's gonna be cold, cause I can,
13:48I can always have.
13:50Are you aiming to leave?
13:52You ain't expecting me to stay on the same property with them Yankee bluecoats, are you?
13:57Oh, so that's it, huh?
13:58Well, I reckon it ain't none of your fault, McCain.
14:02You're a fair man, and I hadn't ought to spoke out at you for the way I did.
14:06You haven't finished furrowing that field yet.
14:11So be it.
14:12Landon!
14:13Oh, come on, let's get you to bed.
14:15Nobody will bother you.
14:17You wake up in the morning, they'll all be gone.
14:19You need a good night's sleep anyway.
14:22You know, Frank, uh, you know, I'd appreciate you finishing that plowing, Frank.
14:25You're welcome to leave afterward.
14:27If you ever mind.
14:29I-I'll oblige you, Mr. McCain, if that's what you want.
14:34Just so long as I-I-I don't have to come with insight nor smell of them Yankee bluecoats
14:40watching him carrying on like they thought they was the kings of the land.
14:55Of course, at the finish of that Shenandoah campaign,
14:58I had to report back to Grant at City Point.
15:01And he says to me, Phil, how did things look back there?
15:03I says to him, General, sir, I said, if a crow was to cross that valley now,
15:09he'd got to carry his own rations.
15:12It was true, too.
15:14A little later on, old Uncle Billy Sherman took a leaf out of my field order book down in Georgia and Carolina way.
15:22Oh, sonny, you think you know who I am?
15:30Yes, sir, my pa learned me.
15:32I can even say all seven stanzas of Sheridan's ride.
15:35Up from the south at the break of day, bring into Winchester, a fresh dismay.
15:44The affrighted air was a shudder bore, like a herald in haste to a chieftain's door.
15:50The terrible grumble, the rumble and roar, telling the battle was on once more.
15:55And Sheridan, twenty miles away.
15:58Briard McCain, dismiss.
16:00Sheridan, twenty miles away.
16:08Now, that's what a man gets for trying to serve his country.
16:11They write poems about him.
16:13I wish it were true, but it wasn't.
16:16As when your front brakes, a field commander doesn't come dashing up through the route on a big black horse,
16:21yelling and waving a saber.
16:23He rides for it real slow, praying, maybe,
16:27that all those scared, worn-out boys has a chance to see him, calm and sure, like at Parade.
16:33And once he has their attention, he'll curse a few of the worst ones,
16:37while the rest of them fix bayonets in four months.
16:40And then, if he's born lucky,
16:44then the cheering starts.
16:46Not just the old-timers first,
16:48but then more,
16:49and bigger,
16:51and wilder,
16:51until it's one solid roar of anger and shame.
16:56And so, finally,
16:57you and your horse give him something to follow back to them lost guns.
17:01Lord have mercy on the enemy when we get there.
17:04Howdy, General.
17:06Nice to see you again.
17:08We've met.
17:10Once or four.
17:11Where?
17:11In Missionary Ridge.
17:13I was there.
17:15How do I know you were?
17:16Your blue coat broke ranks to advance against orders,
17:19and you come up to the ropes with the first scramble of them.
17:22Both sides could hear you holler over the top of the guns.
17:24What do I have in my right hand?
17:26A big pistol gun.
17:27And the other?
17:29The same as now.
17:30He was there.
17:34What regiment?
17:3511 Tennessee.
17:37It's Confederate States.
17:39You stopped to have one right down in front of my rock hole,
17:42and you're looking straight up my sights.
17:44I just couldn't have missed.
17:46But for some reason, I hung fire.
17:54But you never waited, though.
17:55Not a snap second.
17:57You glimpsed me, and right then you blowed out my shoulder.
18:01Well, here I is.
18:06Maybe so.
18:07I don't remember every Johnny Rabbi Wingdon combat.
18:11I remember it for you, Sheridan.
18:12I was a real light-stepping boy then.
18:16Of course, I aged about two for one since.
18:19Johnny, I'm sorry for it.
18:22I didn't ask you to be sorry, General.
18:24Because it's the South's turn now.
18:27Now, don't nobody think they can gun me before I squeeze this trigger.
18:30That was war, Johnny.
18:32A fair fight.
18:33It's over now.
18:35When they bury us both tomorrow, General,
18:36you ain't going to have no face.
18:39You're a big, wordy man.
18:42High and mighty.
18:44Well, say something now.
18:46Whatever it is, it's going to be your last talking between here and purgatory.
18:50That is, McCain.
18:53Gentlemen, I'll handle this myself.
18:56And that's official.
19:00All right, Johnny Rep.
19:02What are you hanging fire for this time?
19:06See you sweat like I sweat?
19:09Me?
19:09Every day of my life, I do sums in my head, Johnny.
19:14Casualty totals from every battle order I ever issued.
19:17You expect me to be afraid of what might come out of that little hole?
19:21You're a big man.
19:22You'd like to go on licking your gravy.
19:25I've done my gravy licking, Johnny Rep.
19:27The plate's clean.
19:29Here comes Sir Sherman's shield of the Union.
19:31Grant's left side and me the spear of victory in his right hand.
19:35Can life hold anything to match that from here in?
19:38You're right up your nose.
19:39Why ain't you fighting now, Fattenville?
19:41What would you know about a fight?
19:43Snivelling, weak, mediocre,
19:45culking in the rocks while your comrades are dying like flies?
19:48Lord, you just keep on talking.
19:49You're making it easier.
19:50You're easier.
19:51That's you.
19:52Not so easy for the stars and bars you fought under.
19:55You disgraced and betrayed it.
19:57You're a Yankee liar.
19:58Am I?
19:59That's a Yankee liar.
20:00Johnny Rep had filled Sheridan in his sights
20:03and flinched the shot that might have tipped the whole balance of the war
20:07in favor of the Confederacy.
20:08You, Johnny Rep.
20:10You.
20:10You.
20:10I, I, I don't know.
20:27I, I, I don't think, Cleo no more.
20:30It's true, like he say, I, I shamed my kid.
20:43I ain't nothing to nobody.
20:47Spoke too hasty.
20:50Soldier, you're Johnny Rep himself.
20:53You've borne enough for a full division.
20:55Don't you come near me, Johnny.
20:57I, I ain't worth nothing.
20:59Son, I know of an old white-headed college president
21:03in the name of Robert E. Lee.
21:04Be almighty proud to shake your hand.
21:07General Lee.
21:09General Lee.
21:10Some light-stuckin' boys that fit and died with him.
21:14Died, Johnny?
21:17Such men never really did.
21:21Burst out of the woods on us.
21:22Keen in that wild wolf yell.
21:26Half the time we have to turn our backs to him and run.
21:30Ask my staff, how many nights now do I wake up
21:33standing barefoot,
21:34howling for more and more artillery
21:36to stop him with, and it don't stop him.
21:39Like you blame near didn't stop him.
21:42We was mean to fight them, boys.
21:44Four mortal years.
21:47A third our manpower,
21:48a thirtieth our military supplies,
21:50and you rag-tailed scarecrows
21:53held the mightiest army in the history of warfare.
21:57You held us, Johnny,
21:58to the last razor edge of laying down.
22:01Swords and bayonets blunted.
22:04Hearts and the Union broke.
22:05We'd had a couple more corncobbs
22:10if we'd have whipped him.
22:12Johnny, I most believe you would.
22:16Let's have a look at that shoulder.
22:17May God I'm your father, you won't mind.
22:22I did that.
22:25Earl Straub,
22:26have a look at this.
22:27Well, you've had private quarters
22:34and purgatory, haven't you, Rep?
22:35This operation is butchery.
22:38The brigade certainly didn't have
22:39nothing more than an old hard knife
22:41and some throwaway doctor tools.
22:43Tissures retracted and sloughed open.
22:45This man's whole system is poison.
22:47What can you do?
22:49Well, we can go back in here
22:50through the sound area,
22:51make a couple of Z incisions,
22:53and then rotate healthy skin
22:54over the whole concern.
22:55No, sir, I can't.
22:57I can't take no more.
22:59I just can't take no more of that cuttle.
23:01Son, you'll never feel the pain.
23:04They'll give you something for it now.
23:06You'll wake up getting well.
23:10Lord, it looks like it ain't gonna hurt no more.
23:16McCain, I'm requisitioning a wagon and team.
23:19Yes, sir.
23:20Cushman, Stroud,
23:22escort this man to Galveston Base Hospital.
23:24We'll sign him in as one of Sheridan's special veterans.
23:27When do we start, sir?
23:28Soon as it's daylight.
23:29No, really, Phil.
23:30A full colonel and a major
23:31escorting a private and a rebel at that.
23:33General Staff isn't gonna like this.
23:34Hang the General Staff.
23:36Yes, I know, Phil.
23:36You heard what I said.
23:40I'm carrying out the last and greatest order
23:42of my wartime commander-in-chief.
23:45Bind up the nation's wombs.
23:47Is that everything, General?
23:59Yes, thank you, McGee.
24:00Do you use some sort of an anodyne
24:02to get him over the rough stretches?
24:03I ain't but one anodyne for a Tennessee man.
24:06Landon, see the officers.
24:08Don't get the hooks on that.
24:09I'll drink it real slow.
24:11Thank you, General, sir.
24:12All right, Crispy.
24:14Hey, on!
24:20Bye, Mr. Blandon.
24:22Be sure and come back soon as your arms all will.
24:24Bless you, Sonny.
24:26As sure we're.
24:31Mark, I want you to tell me something honest.
24:33Did you mean what you just said to Blandon?
24:36Oh, he got me thinking.
24:38Well, he was in the war, too.
24:39Could have been you got his arm all shot up.
24:42Oh, he asked me to tell you.
24:47Oh, he's very activist.
25:06THE END
25:36THE END
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