Maverick (TV Series)

The Day They Hanged Bret Maverick (1958)

James Garner: Bret Maverick

Photos 

Quotes 

• [the sheriff is checking the strength of the rope that will hang Maverick] 

  Sheriff Chick Tucker : Hey, Maverick, how much do you weigh?

  Bret Maverick : Ninety-eight pounds.

• Sheriff Chick Tucker : Looks like you've got important company coming. The mayor and the whole honking town counsel's heading this way.

  Bret Maverick : See anything that looks like a pardon?

  Sheriff Chick Tucker : [chuckles]  You've got a good sense of humor.

  Bret Maverick : Yeah. Be the death of me yet.

• Mayor : Them's your last words, sir?

  Bret Maverick : Pretty close to it, I guess.

• Sheriff Chick Tucker : Uh, this brother of yours, you know, the one that you said could prove that you wasn't here in Hallelujah that night. Now, he could certainly use the five thousand, couldn't he? Why don't you think about him?

  Bret Maverick : Well, I have been thinking about him, Sheriff, I've been thinking about how we tossed a coin to see who'd go east and who'd go west, thinking about how he'd be here instead of me if that coin had come up tails. With luck like that, he doesn't need my money, Sheriff.

• Bret Maverick : Well, as my pappy always said, "There's more than one way to please a lady."

• Bret Maverick : I'm sure sorry to be a wet blanket, but that's the trouble with innocent men. They're just no fun at a hanging.

• Bret Maverick : I couldn't eat breakfast at 7 A.M. on any morning... let alone tomorrow.

• [last lines] 

  Bret Maverick : I'd like to leave you with one last thought. If it hadn't been for those two crooks you have behind bars there... this whole town would have been guilty of hanging an innocent man. So remember, Mayor, there's a little good in the worst of us.

  Coroner Oliver Poole : Now what's going to happen?