The Honeymooners (TV Series)

A Matter of Life and Death (1955)

Jackie Gleason: Ralph Kramden

Photos 

Quotes 

• Dick Gersh : Tell me, Dr. Norton, what school did you attend?

  Ed Norton : P.S., 31 Oyster Bay.

  Dick Gersh : No, I mean, what medical school?

  Ralph : Oh, uh, he went to Oxford.

  Dick Gersh : Oh, in England.

  Ed Norton : Is that where it is?

  Dick Gersh : You mean you went to school in Oxford and you don't know it's in England?

  Ed Norton : Well, to tell you the truth, sir, it was so foggy over there, I don't know where it was.

• Ed Norton : [Ralph tries to figure out what to leave Alice in his will]  Look, as long as you're going, anyway, why don't you sell your body to science? If they pay by the pound, she'll be left a millionaire!

  Ralph : Why don't you shut up?

• Alice : Ralph, there's only one thing you can do. Only one thing. You just gotta go down there, give them back the $5,000, and tell them the truth.

  Ralph : They don't care about the $5,000. This installment is on the stands now. They'll be laughed out of the business. What are they gonna put in the next installment, "Bus driver won't die from scratching fleas"?

• Ed Norton : [to Ralph]  You got a very interesting story there, a story of a man doomed to six months to live. Why don't you do like a friend of mine did? He had the hiccups for three weeks, and he sold his story to a magazine. You know, the American Weekly? He got $5,000 for it!

  Ralph : Five thousand dollars for a story about hiccups?

  Ed Norton : Yeah.

  Ralph : I ought to be a cinch to get $10,000 dying. This is a real human interest story. People will want to read about this. Everybody'll read it! I can see it now, the first installment, the title of it: "Doomed Man Has Only Six Months To Go."

  Ed Norton : Uh, I think that's a little lengthy for the title. They'll probably chop it down, make it shorter, like, uh... "In Six Months, Blimp Takes Off."

• [last lines] 

  Ralph : [screaming at Alice]  Did you have to give me blueberry pie?

• Ed Norton : Doctors can be wrong too, you know. How about a friend of mine. Doctor examined him, gave him only 6 months to live too. Boy, he made a monkey out of that doctor.

  Ralph Kramden : What happened?

  Ed Norton : He lived for almost 8 months.