Gun Street (1961)

James Brown: Sheriff Chuck Morton

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  [Sam is practicing handling his pistol] 

  Sheriff Morton : You're overdoin' that, boy. That fast gun business is overrated.

  Sam Freed : Yeah, I know, Sheriff, but since I watched you handle a gun, well, I-I got a lot to learn.

• Sheriff Morton : You know, I remember in school he broke into a desk and stole a watch. Everyone let it pass; he was just a young man growing up. He grew up... to be a gunman of reputation.

• [explaining why Gary Wells wasn't hung for bank robbery and murder] 

  Sheriff Morton : So the trial came and a jury of local citizens didn't want to hang a boy they had watch growing up. They made the mistake of feeling sorry for him.

• Mayor Phillips : He'll be in town pretty soon, if he isn't already, and the townspeople are going to wonder what you're going to do about this.

  Sheriff Morton : The townspeople? Go find those twelve townspeople on the jury who should have taken his rotten, stinkin' life and they didn't. Go find those townspeople and ask them what they're going to do now that he's killed again!

• Sheriff Morton : We're here on business.

  Pat Bogan : What business?

  Sheriff Morton : It's about that big, sweet brother of yours.

  Pat Bogan : Gary? What about Gary?

  Sheriff Morton : To add to his rich, full life, he killed a guard as he escaped from the penitentiary this morning.

• Sheriff Morton : How can God make a night so beautiful and a world so rotten?

• Sheriff Morton : Say, why don't you and the boy pick up and leave town for a little while? Maybe go to Copper City...

  Dr. Knudson : I've thought about it. I admit it would be the easy way. I'm a doctor - the only doctor for hundreds of miles. These people depend on me. I can't run away.

  Sheriff Morton : Do they appreciate it? Do you think they know or care what you're going through? Would they do the same for you?

  Dr. Knudson : Do they appreciate you, Sheriff? I doubt it. Do they know what you're going through? That you hate your job of hurting people and even of sometimes taking a life? Do they know what you're doing for them? Some way, some how, we gotta make ourselves believe that they do. Why don't you run away, Sheriff? We're both trained, well-equipped - you for protecting life, me in the hope of saving them. They need us.