Boom Town (1940)

Spencer Tracy: Square John Sand

Photos 

Quotes 

• Jonathan Sand : [to Vanmeer's maid]  Scram you! I'll buy you a diamond daybed for Christmas.

• Jonathan Sand : [to Evie]  Evie, you're a good kid, but keep all your teeth.

• Hiring boss : [about Big John]  Why don't you let me bust him, boss?

  Jonathan Sand : [restaining him]  I'd rather have you keep your health.

• Jonathan Sand : He wanted these guys to produce less oil so that their wells would flow years longer and not ruin the fields. And that way they'd get all the oil there was to get out of the wells. Don't you get the idea? He was for conservation! Now, how can a guy be breaking laws when he's trying to save the natural resources of the country? He didn't know that he was doing anything that you might call noble; but, being one of the best oil men there is, he's got the right hunch about oil. He knows that it took billions of years to put it here and if we keep taking it at the rate we're going; why, before long, there won't be any oil left in the good old U.S.A. Won't be any left for him or men like him to break up into lube and fuel and gasoline so that people can get their stuff moved around in trucks. and so that you can light furnaces and homes and schoolhouses. If that time comes, what'll be the good of American schoolhouses, anyway? Cause what'll be the good of your two oceans? What are you gonna run airplanes and battleships on? Tomato soup?

• Jonathan Sand : Well, you can always say you were a big man once.

• Jonathan Sand : Don't call me Shorty.

  Big John McMasters : Why not, Shorty?

• Harry Compton : Who's your cheerful friend, John?

  Big John McMasters : Him? That's Shorty.

  Jonathan Sand : Name is Sand. John Sand.

  Harry Compton : Well, John. Two Johns. Oh, we gotta do something about that. Get all mixed up. But, first, I've got to find a nice girl for you to talk to.

  Jonathan Sand : If you don't mind, I'll just stick to whiskey.

• Jonathan Sand : I'm an oil man too, you know. I haven't been drilling all my life for gophers.

  Big John McMasters : Wait, I was pulling oil out of the ground when your ma was giving it to you for your health.

• Big John McMasters : Come on, you wild kitty. Spit.

  Jonathan Sand : Begins to get you about now, don't it?

  Big John McMasters : Yeah. Yeah, like when you're sparking around some dame. Oh, I forgot about that gal of yours, Shorty. Well, don't worry. She'll be walking' around in platinum garters.

• Harmony Jones : [drill strikes oil]  You're rich, mister. There's yeast in the buckwheat.

  Jonathan Sand : Boy, ain't that a beautiful black cloud? Let's cap her. She'll run all over the state.

  Harmony Jones : Boy, listen to her. She's just a-puffing and a-blowing.

• Jonathan Sand : Evie, you're a good kid, but keep all your teeth.

• Jonathan Sand : I could use somebody to smoosh these candy politicians.

• Big John McMasters : Hey, I heard about you stumbling onto that big field out there.

  Jonathan Sand : Yeah, I was pretty lucky, I guess. The biggest field in Oklahoma now. I bought out the Murphys.

• Jonathan Sand : I guess I was always supposed to play the lone wolf. One head is better than two, I say.

• Jonathan Sand : What goes on here?

  Big John McMasters : You're buying a couple dozen suits.

  Jonathan Sand : I got two suits.

  Big John McMasters : Two suits? It's New York. You look like a Houston house detective.

• Jonathan Sand : You know you're the prettiest gal east of Frisco in that little rig? Get me a little drink of whiskey, honey?

• Jonathan Sand : [to Karen's maid]  Scram, you. I'll buy you a diamond day bed for Christmas.

• Jonathan Sand : Karen, you're a pretty smart little gal. Yes, sir, you're a smart little gal. This income-tax thing is getting to be a heck of a note. Would you believe that I'll pay 220,000 this year?

  Karen Vanmeer : Well, I'd say you're very lucky.

• Jonathan Sand : You know, Karen, I may not look much like a lady's man, but many a gal has cried when I left.

  Karen Vanmeer : If I were a man, I'd consider that a great compliment. But why tell me?

  Jonathan Sand : Well, I'll get to the real point. I'll skip my better ones, like my not snoring and knowing when a dame needs a walloping to be sure that I'm in love with her. And that I've got all the money in the world, outside of some change. I got an idea. I'm asking you to marry me.

• Jonathan Sand : What do you say? Let's go to the Hall of Records and make it legal.

  Karen Vanmeer : You obviously dislike me.

  Jonathan Sand : Ain't it the truth. I don't like poachers, male or female.

• Jonathan Sand : It's a heck of a fuss to make over a Dutch daffodil.

• Elizabeth Bartlett McMasters : You don't know how it is to love someone so much. When being in love like that is stopped it's worse than your breathing being stopped.

  Jonathan Sand : Take it easy, honey.

  Elizabeth Bartlett McMasters : But it's true; because, if you stop breathing you're dead and you don't have to feel anymore, but when they stop your love, you're alive and you keep on feeling. Oh, Jonathan, it's horrible being in love like that.

• Harry Compton : Evans has signed with him. That means the entire Elk Creek crowd will follow. What's the matter with us?

  Jonathan Sand : Him. He's got a great line of smoosh and he knows the oil business. I'm heading for a drink.

• Jonathan Sand : What do you think? What do you think I'm doing here? What do you think happens to a woman, anyway? She's a little human too, you know.

• Big John McMasters : You got it all fixed, haven't you?

  Jonathan Sand : Sure I have.

  Big John McMasters : Back-dooring me, that's what you're doing. Sneaking in my back door!

• Jonathan Sand : I wouldn't go back with that bull snake if he was the last thing in the world to eat.

• Jonathan Sand : McMasters is a wildcatter. If it wasn't for automobiles, he'd be driving a covered wagon. It's always been his breed that has opened up the country and made it what it is. So now I'm wondering is it getting to be out of line, in these United States, for a man like him to make a million dollars with his brains and with his hands? Because, if that's true, then we've got to rewrite this land-of-opportunity stuff! Oh, I admit that he's ornery and he's mean; but, he's an oil man with the right idea of what to do with our oil.