The Big Heat (1953)

Glenn Ford: Sgt. Dave Bannion

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Quotes 

• Dave Bannion : [having figured out Bertha's blackmail scheme]  Our city is being strangled by a gang of thieves, and you protect Lagana and Stone for the sake of a soft, plush life.

  Bertha Duncan : The coming years are going to be just fine, Mr. Bannion.

  Dave Bannion : There aren't going to be any... "coming years" for you. None at all.

• Dave Bannion : [to Lagana]  You know, you couldn't plant enough flowers around here to kill the smell.

• Tierney : All any of these dames owe me is a night's work, one night at a time. They come and go like flies.

  Dave Bannion : Only this fly got herself strangled.

  Tierney : These things happen, Sergeant. Outside of my place, some of these babes keep pretty shady company. It figures. They know nobody cares much what happens to 'em.

• Dave Bannion : [about Lucy Chapman]  Where did she live?

  Tierney : If I ask for an address, they lie. It's not worth the bother. They're floaters. Not much more than a suitcase full of nothin' between them and the gutter.

  Dave Bannion : Hey, you know somethin'? You ought to be doin' radio commercials - how to talk a lot and say nothin'.

• Debby Marsh : [leaving Bannion's hotel room]  You really want me to go?

  Dave Bannion : I wouldn't touch anything of Vince Stone's with a ten-foot pole.

• Lt. Ted Wilks : You have any doubt Duncan killed himself?

  Dave Bannion : No, none at all, but I just got back from the county morgue.

  Lt. Ted Wilks : You mean the barfly? I read the teletype about your identification.

  Dave Bannion : Lucy Chapman used to be Duncan's girlfriend.

  Lt. Ted Wilks : And the army's and navy's.

• Dave Bannion : [to Larry Gordon]  I'm through with you, but your friends aren't. I'm going to spread the word that you talked. You're out of business, thief.

• Dave Bannion : [in Bannion's hotel room]  You know Mike Lagana, don't you?

  Debby Marsh : Just say hello and goodbye to him. Vince talks business, I go out and get my legs waxed or something. I don't like to hear things. Why don't you stop the cross examination? I didn't come up here to talk out of school.

• Dave Bannion : Do you mind if I walk around the yard? Talk to your men?

  Atkins : I have to mind. When it comes to my bread and butter, I stay careful.

  Dave Bannion : It doesn't matter to you that Slim might have been mixed up in a murder, huh?

  Atkins : Sure it matters. But what can I do about it? I don't know anything.

  Dave Bannion : You're a liar.

  Atkins : You can't insult me, mister. I said I don't know anything, and that's how it stands.

  Dave Bannion : You know, I've been meeting your kind every day now for ten years - scared rabbits who never see a thing. You wouldn't stick out your big fat neck for anybody, would you?

  Atkins : That's the truth. But it's my big fat neck. So now if you're through talking, I'll get back to work.

  Dave Bannion : [approaches Atkins threateningly]  I ought to...

  Atkins : That won't change my story. Cops are paid to take risks. I'm not. You see, I've got a wife and kids, too.

  [Bannion glares at him, then walks away] 

• Lt. Ted Wilks : It was bad judgment to bother a cop's widow about the love life of her husband.

  Dave Bannion : Good or bad, it was my judgment.

  Lt. Ted Wilks : You're missing the point. I'm the one that gets the pressure calls from upstairs. I'm the one that has to explain. You don't keep an office like this very long stepping on a lot of corns.

  Dave Bannion : You want me to go upstairs and explain?

  Lt. Ted Wilks : Not you. You're a corn stepper by instinct.

• Dave Bannion : [to Bertha Duncan]  That's the way you arranged it, didn't you, bright lady? You got it all put away someplace. That's how you kept Lagana over a barrel. But I'm not Lagana. With you dead, the big heat follows, the big heat for Lagana, for Stone, and for all the rest of the lice.

• Dave Bannion : Keep the coffee hot, Hugo.

• Dave Bannion : Hey, what about Joyce? She go to bed all right?

  Katie Bannion : Just the usual tug of war. She had to go to the bathroom a few times, hear three stories, and have a glass of water before she finally went to sleep. She's angelic all day, but at night, she's a holy terror.

  Dave Bannion : That's the way I usually describe you.