Fred C. Dobbs Can you help a fellow American down on his luck?
Most-quoted character in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948): in 40 of its 66 quotes
Most scenes with: Bob Curtin (15), Howard (10), James Cody (2)
Just look at that fat, rich, printed number! That's the kind of sugar Papa likes. Oh, two hundred pesos! Welcome, sweet little smackeroos.
More lines from Fred C. Dobbs
17 quotes Fred C. Dobbs Fred C. Dobbs If I was a native, I'd get me a can of shoe polish and I'd be in business. They'd never let a gringo. You can sit on a bench til you're three-quarters starved. You can beg from another gringo. You can even commit burglary. But try shining shoes in the street or peddling lemonade out of a bucket and your hash is settled. You'd never get another job from an American.
Fred C. Dobbs [to Curtin]
Why not try gold diggin' for a change? Well, it ain't any riskier than waitin' around here for a break. And this is the country where the nuggets of gold are just cryin' for ya to take 'em out of the ground and make 'em shine in coins and on the fingers and necks of swell dames. Our money would last longer while we lived out in the open. The longer it lasts, the greater our chance of diggin' something up would be!
Fred C. Dobbs [to Curtin]
This is an all-or-nothing proposition, ain't it? If we make a find, we'll be lightin' our cigars with hundred dollar bills. If we don't, the difference between what you put up and what I put up ain't enough to keep me from being right back where I was this afternoon, polishing a bench with the seat of my pants. Put 'er there, pard.
Fred C. Dobbs That bandit with the Gold Hat that rode alongside the train - I had my sights on him nice as you please, but the train gave a jolt and I missed him. Sure wish I'd got him.
Fred C. Dobbs I sure had some cockeyed ideas about prospectin' for gold. It was all in the finding I thought. I thought all you had to do was find it, pick it up, put it in sacks, and carry 'em off to the nearest bank.
Fred C. Dobbs Well sure! You're old...I'm young. I need dough and plenty of it.
Fred C. Dobbs You can't catch me sleepin'...Don't you ever believe that. I'm not that dumb. The day you try to put anything over on me will be a costly one for both of you...Any more lip out of you and I'll haul off and let ya have it. If ya know what's good for ya, ya won't monkey around with Fred C. Dobbs.
Fred C. Dobbs [about Cody]
Fred C. Dobbs ain't a guy likes bein' taken advantage of - do the mug in, I say!
Fred C. Dobbs [after Cody is killed by the bandits]
One less gun.
Fred C. Dobbs Here's a sight if there ever was one. Federales, look at 'em. I could kiss every one of 'em...Oh, go get 'em. Sic 'em Tiger! Chew 'em up and don't spit 'em out - swallow 'em. Oh am I happy. To tell you the truth, I was already eatin' dirt.
Fred C. Dobbs [to Howard]
I'll let you remember this the next time you try to do a good deed!
Fred C. Dobbs [to Curtin, about Howard]
Ain't it always his burros that won't march in line...What was in your head when you offered to carry his goods for him that he couldn't manage by himself. He knew what he was doin' when he turned 'em over to us. Mighty cute of him, wasn't it?
Fred C. Dobbs [about Curtin]
Maybe I didn't kill him. Maybe he just staggered and fell down without being hit.
Fred C. Dobbs Conscience. What a thing. If you believe you've got a conscience, it'll pester you to death. But if you don't believe you've got one, what can it do to ya? Makes me sick all this talking and fussing about nonsense.
Fred C. Dobbs [about Curtin]
Maybe I'd better leave him like he is. Ain't very likely anybody will find him. In a week's time, the buzzards and the ants will have done away with him anyway. [A tiger's cry startles him.] I don't know what's getting into me. Was that really a tiger? No. What if his eyes are open, looking at me? Best thing to do is to get to the railroad in a hurry. It's better not to have buried him. I did right, yeah! What I should have done, maybe, bury his clothes and leave him to the ants and the buzzards...Buzzards! If somebody saw them circling, they'd know something was dead. Buzzards ain't spotted him yet. Lucky for me. [He runs back, but cannot find Curtin's body.] Curtin! Curtin! Curtin! Where are you? Curtin! I gotta get ahold of myself! Mustn't lose my head. There's one thing certain, he ain't here. I got it. The tiger. Yeah, yeah that's it. The tiger must have dragged him off to his lair, that's what. Yeah, pretty soon, not even the bones will be left to tell the story. Done as if by order.
Fred C. Dobbs [Repeated line]
Can you stake a fellow American to a meal?
Scenes with Fred C. Dobbs
22 scenes
White Suit Such impudence never came my way. Early this afternoon I gave you money. When I was having my shoes polished, I gave you more money. Now you put the bite on me again. Do me a favor, will ya? Go occasionally to somebody else. It's beginning to get tiresome.
Dobbs Oh, excuse me, mister. I never knowed it was you. I never looked at your face. I just looked at your hands and the money you gave me. Beg my pardon, mister. I promise I'll never put the bite on you again.
White Suit [He hands over a peso]
This is the very last you get from me. Just to make sure you don't forget your promise, here's another peso. But from now on, you have to make your way through life without my assistance.
Gold in Mexico? Why sure there is. Not ten days from here by rail and pack train, there's a mountain waiting for the right guy to come along, discover a treasure, and then tickle her until she lets him have it. The question is, are you the right guy?...Aw, real bonanzas are few and far between that take a lot of finding. Say, answer me this one, will ya? Why's gold worth some twenty bucks an ounce?
Man
I don't know. 'Cause it's scarce.
A thousand men, say, go searching for gold. After six months, one of 'em is lucky - one out of the thousand. His find represents not only his own labor but that of nine hundred and ninety-nine others to boot. That's uh, six thousand months or five hundred years scrabbling over mountains, going hungry and thirsty. An ounce of gold, mister, is worth what it is because of the human labor that went into the finding and the getting of it.
Man
Never thought of it just like that...
Well, there's no other explanation, mister. Gold itself ain't good for nothin' except makin' jewelry with and gold teeth. Aw, gold's a devilish sort of a thing anyway. You start out to tell yourself you'll be satisfied with twenty-five thousand handsome smackers worth of it, 'so help me Lord and cross my heart.' Fine resolution. After months of sweatin' yourself dizzy and growing short on provisions and findin' nothin', you finally come down to fifteen thousand and then ten, finally you say, 'Lord, let me just find five thousand dollars worth and never ask for anything more the rest of my life.'...Here in this joint, it seems like a lot, but I tell you, if you was to make a real strike, you couldn't be dragged away. Not even the threat of miserable death'd keep you from trying to add ten thousand more. Ten you want to get twenty-five. Twenty-five you want to get fifty. Fifty, a hundred. Like roulette. One more turn, you know, always one more.
Dobbs It wouldn't be that way with me. I swear it wouldn't. I'd take only what I set out to get, even if there was still a half a million dollars worth lying around waitin' to be picked up.
I've dug in Alaska and in Canada and Colorado. I was with the crowd in British Honduras where I made my fare back home and almost enough over to cure me of the fever I'd caught. I've dug in California and Australia, all over the world practically. Yeah, I know what gold does to men's souls.
Man
You talk as though you struck it rich sometime or other, Pop. How about it? Then what are you doin' in here, a down-and-outer?
That's gold, that's what it makes of us. Never knew a prospector yet that died rich. Make one fortune, you're sure to blow it in trying to find another. I'm no exception to the rule. Aw sure, I'm an odd old bone now, but say, don't you guys think the spirit's gone. I'm all set to shoulder a pickax and a shovel any time anybody's willing to share expenses. I'd rather go by myself. Going it alone's the best way. But you got to have a stomach for loneliness. Some guys go nutty with it. On the other hand, going with a partner or two is dangerous. Murder's always lurkin' about. Partners accusin' each other of all sorts of crimes. Aw, as long as there's no find, the noble brotherhood will last, but when the piles of gold begin to grow, that's when the trouble starts.
Me, now, I wouldn't mind a little of that kind of trouble.
Dobbs I think I'll go to sleep and dream about piles of gold gettin' bigger and bigger and bigger...
Dobbs Do you believe what that old man who was doin' all the talkin' at the Oso Negro said the other night about gold changin' a man's soul so that he ain't the same kind of a guy that he was before findin' it?
Guess that all depends on the man.
Dobbs That's exactly what I say. Gold don't carry any curse with it. It all depends on whether or not the guy who finds it is the right guy. The way I see it, gold can be as much of a blessing as a curse.
Dobbs [about Howard]
He's too old to take along with us, of course. We'd have to pack him on our backs.
You can't tell about some of those old guys. It's surprising sometimes how tough they are. I don't know what gold looks like in the ground. I've only seen it in jewelry store windows and people's mouths. Do you know anything about prospectin'?
Dobbs Eh, not much, when you come right down to it.
We might have real use for an experienced guy like that old-timer.
Dobbs Let's go hunt him up right away.
Dobbs Hey, if there was gold in them mountains, how long would it have been there? Millions and millions of years, wouldn't it? So what's our hurry? A couple of days more or less ain't gonna make any difference.
Remember what you said back in Tampico about having to pack an old man on our backs?
Dobbs That was when I took him for an ordinary human being - not part goat. Look at him climb, will ya?
What gets me is how he can go all day long in the sun without any water.
Dobbs Maybe he's part camel too.
If I'd known what prospecting meant, I'd have stayed in Tampico and waited for another job to turn up.
Dobbs You know what I'm thinkin'. I'm thinkin' we ought to give up. Leave the whole outfit - everything behind and go back to civilization.
What's that you say? Go back? Ha, ha. Well, tell my old grandmother! I've got two very elegant bedfellows who kick at the first drop of rain and hide in the closet when thunder rumbles. My, my, my, what great prospectors, two shoe clerks readin' a magazine about prospectin' for gold in the land of the midnight sun, south of the border, or west of the Rockies, ha, ha, ha...
Dobbs [picking up a rock]
Shut your trap! Shut up or I'll smash your head flat.
Go ahead, go ahead, throw it. If you did, you'd never leave this wilderness alive. Without me, you two would die here more miserable than rats.
Let me tell you something, my two fine bedfellows, you're so dumb, there's nothin' to compare ya with, you're dumber than the dumbest jackass. Look at each other, will ya? Did you ever see anything like yourself for bein' dumb specimens. You're so dumb, you don't even see the riches you're treadin' on with your own feet. Yeah, don't expect to find nuggets of molten gold. It's rich but not that rich. And here ain't the place to dig. It comes from someplace further up. Up there, up there's where we've got to go. UP THERE!
Dobbs It don't look much different from sand...plain sand. It don't glitter - I thought it would glitter.
It'll glitter when it's refined. That's some other guy's job. All we gotta do is mine it and get it back there. You know, gold ain't like stones in a riverbed. It don't cry out to be picked up. You got to know how to recognize it. And the findin' ain't all. Not by a long shot. You got to know how to tickle her, so she'll come out laughin'. Yeah, it's mighty rich. It will pay good.
How much?
Oh, about twenty ounces to the ton.
Dobbs When are we gonna start dividing it up?
What the use of dividing it at all? I don't see any point. We're all going back together when the time comes. Why don't we wait until we get paid for the stuff and then just divide up the money?
Dobbs I'm for dividing it up as we go along. Make each guy responsible for his own goods.
...
Suppose you were charged with takin' care of the goods. One day I'm deep in the bush and Curtin's on his way to the village to get provisions. That'd be your big chance to pack up and leave us in the cold.
Dobbs Only a guy that's a thief at heart would think me likely to do a thing like that!
After we save and got a couple of hundred ounces, it'll be a nuisance carryin' little bags hangin' from our necks, and each of us will have to hide his share of the treasure from the other two - and having done so will be forever on the watch that his hiding place is not discovered.
Dobbs What a dirty filthy mind you've got.
Oh no, not dirty, not dirty baby. Only I know what kind of ideas even supposedly decent people get when gold's at stake.
Dobbs I owe my life to you, partner.
Forget it.
I reckon I'll settle down in some quiet place. Get me a little business...a hardware or grocery store, and spend the better part of my time readin' comic strips and adventure stories. Ha. One thing's for sure. I'm not gonna go prospectin' again and waste my time and money trying to find another gold mine.
I figure on buying some land and growing fruit - peaches maybe...One summer when I was a kid, I worked as a picker in a peach harvest in the San Joaquin Valley. Boy, it sure was something. Hundreds of people, old and young, whole families workin' together. At night, after a day's work, we used to build big bonfires and sit around and sing to guitar music, till morning sometimes. You'd go to sleep and wake up and sing, and go to sleep again. Everybody had a wonderful time. Ever since then, I've had a hankering to be a fruit grower. Must be grand watching your own trees put on leaves, come into blossom and bear...watching the fruit get big and ripe on the boughs, ready for pickin'...
Dobbs Well, first off, I'm goin' to a Turkish bath and I'm gonna sweat and soak till I get all the grime and dirt out of my system. Then I'm goin' to a haberdasher's and I'm gonna get myself a brand new set of duds...a dozen of everything. Then, I'm goin' to a swell cafe - order everything on the bill of fare, and if it ain't just right, or maybe even if it is, I'm gonna bawl the waiter out and make him take the whole thing back...
The next thing on the program would be dames.
Dobbs Yeah.
If I were you boys, I wouldn't talk or even think about women. It ain't good for your health.
There's no use makin' hogs of ourselves.
Dobbs Hog, am I? Maybe you don't know it, but I'd be within my rights if I demanded half again as much as you get.
How come?
Dobbs There's no denying I put up the lion's share of the cash, is there?
I think it would be wise not to put things strictly on a money basis.
Dobbs [Curtin uses the scales to weigh out a portion of his gold dust (with interest) to repay Dobbs for his bigger share] [flinging the dust away into the fire]
I just don't like being called a hog, that's all.
Dobbs Don't get the idea you two are putting anything over on me.
Take it easy, Dobbs.
Dobbs I know what your game is.
Well, you know more than I do.
Dobbs Why am I elected to go to the village? Why me instead of you and Curtin? Oh, don't think I don't see through that! You two have thrown together against me. The two days I'd be gone would give you plenty of time to discover where my goods are, wouldn't it?
Why don't you take your goods along with you?
Dobbs And run the risk of having them taken from me by bandits?
If you was to run into bandits, you'd be out of luck anyway. They'd kill you for the shoes on your feet.
Dobbs Oh, so that's it! Everything's clear now. You're hopin' bandits'll get me. That would save you a lot of trouble, wouldn't it? And your consciences wouldn't bother you none neither.
All right, Dobbs. Forget about it.
I simply couldn't resist the desire to sit around and jaw with an American.
Dobbs We're full up. No vacancies. Understand? And in case I don't make myself clear, I think you'd be doin' yourself a favor by packin' up and gettin' out of here tomorrow morning. Go back where you came from. Take our blessings with ya. [Howard hands Cody a plate for grub]...Help yourself. We don't mind 'cause we don't let guys starve to death. Tonight you're our guest. But tomorrow morning, look out - no trespassin' around here. Ya know - beware the dogs. Get it?
I thought perhaps I was among civilized men who wouldn't begrudge me a little fresh water.
Dobbs WHO'S NOT CIVILIZED?! [punches Cody]
Hola, senor. We are Federales. You know, the mounted police.
Dobbs If you're the police, where are your badges?
Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinkin' badges!
Dobbs You'd better not come any closer.
We aren't trying to do you any harm. Why don't you try to be a little more polite? Give us your gun and we'll leave you in peace.
Dobbs I need my gun myself.
Oh, throw that ol' iron over here. We'll pick it up and go on our way.
Dobbs You go on your way without my gun and go quick!
[Dobbs fires a warning shot with his rifle at Gold Hat, piercing a big hole in the top of the bandit's hat]
Look here, amigo. You got the wrong idea. We don't wanna get your gun fer nothin'. We wanna buy it. Look. I have a gold watch with a gold chain, made in your own country. The watch and the chain - they worth at least two hundred pesos - I 'change it fer yer gun. Y'better take it, thatsa good bizness for you!!
Dobbs You keep your watch. I'll keep my gun!
O, you keep it? You will keep it?? We won't get it?? I'LL SHOW YOU!!!
[Howard aims and blasts the gold watch] Note: the bolded line is ranked #36 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema.
It'll take another week to break down the mine and put the mountain back in shape...Make 'er appear like she was before we came...We've wounded this mountain and it's our duty to close her wounds. It's the least we can do to show our gratitude for all the wealth she's given us. If you guys don't want to help me, I'll do it alone.
You talk about that mountain like it was a real woman!
Dobbs She's been a lot better to me than any woman I ever knew!
Dobbs We'll be lonesome without you, but you know my Sunday school teacher used to say, 'You've got to learn to swallow disappointments in this sad life.'
Pick me out a good-looking squaw and marry her. They're easy to dress and feed and entertain. They don't nag at you either. Well, so long partners.
You talk like you're boss of this outfit.
Dobbs Maybe you are. Let's hear you say it.
Dobbs I was just thinkin' what a bonehead play that old jackass made when he put all his goods in our keeping...Figured to let us do his sweatin' for him, did he? We'll show him...Oh man, can't you see? It's all ours. We don't go back to Durango at all, savvy? Not at all...Don't be such a sap. Where did you ever grow up? All right, to make it clear to a dumbhead like you - we take all his goods and go straight up north and leave the old jackass flat.
You aren't serious are you? You don't really mean what you're saying?
Dobbs Fred C. Dobbs don't say nothin' he don't mean.
As long as I'm here and can do anything about it, you won't touch a single grain of the old man's goods.
Dobbs I know exactly what you mean. You want to take it all for yourself and cut me out.
No, Dobbs. I'm on the level with the old man. Just as I'd be on the level with you if you weren't here.
Dobbs Get off your soapbox, will you? You only sound foolish out here in this wilderness. I know you for what you are. For a long time, I've had my suspicions about you and now I know I've been right.
What suspicions are you talking about?
Dobbs Oh, you're not puttin' anything over on me. I see right through you. For a long time, you've had it in your mind to bump me off at the first good opportunity and bury me out here in the bush like a dog. So's you could take not only the old man's goods but mine in the bargain. And when you get to Durango safely, you'll have a big laugh, won't ya, thinkin' how dumb the old man and I were?
Dobbs [Dobbs draws his gun on Curtin]
Was I right or was I? You and your Sunday school talk about protectin' people's goods. You. Come on, stand up and take it like a man.
[Curtin fights Dobbs, disarming him] [drawing his own gun]
The cards are dealt the other way now, Dobbs.
Dobbs So you could fall on me from behind, sneak up, and shoot me in the back?
All right, I'll go first.
Dobbs And wait for me on the trail and ambush me?
Why wouldn't I do it right here and now if I meant to kill you?
Dobbs I'll tell you why. 'Cause you're yella. You haven't got nerve enough to pull the trigger while I'm lookin' you straight in the eye.
If you think like that, there's nothing to do but to tie you up every night.
Dobbs [He laughs]
I'll tell you what. I'll make you a little bet. Three times thirty-five is a hundred and five. I'll bet ya a hundred and five thousand dollars you go to sleep before I do.
Dobbs The cards are dealt the other way now and for the last time no more shuffling...I'm gonna finish this right now. No more takin' orders from you like I had to do today. Get me?
You mean you're gonna murder me?
Dobbs No brother, not murder. No. Your mistake. I'm doing this to save my life that you'd be taking from me the minute I wasn't lookin' at ya.
The old man will catch up with ya.
Dobbs Oh he will, will he? Well, I got an answer for that one too. You know what I want to tell him? I want to tell him you tied me to a tree and made your getaway taking all the goods - yours, mine, and his. So they'll be looking for you and not me. Up. March. Today I had to march to your music - now you march to mine.
Where?
Dobbs To your funeral. Come on, keep going. Get up. Sleepy huh? You'll be asleep soon enough. Sound asleep.
