Dark Command (1940)

Bob 'Shortcut' Seton: Folks, it's true. I don't know much about the law. Ain't had much book learning. But the good Lord gave me a nose for smelling a horse thief a mile off. And what you need in these parts is a marshal that's better at smelling than spelling.

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Mrs. Cantrell: You're no good, Will.
William Cantrell: I've killed men for saying less than that!
Mrs. Cantrell: You've killed a lot of men for saying nothing at all!

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Miss Mary McCloud: Now, will you please get to the point and tell me what you want?
Bob 'Shortcut' Seton: I want to marry you.
Miss Mary McCloud: You what?
Bob 'Shortcut' Seton: Well, I ain't got no job right now, but I figure to get one. And outside of a snort of hooch now and then, I got no bad habits.
Miss Mary McCloud: I'd say asking a perfect stranger to marry you is a very bad habit!

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The character of Will Cantrell is loosely based on the real life Confederate guerrilla leader William Quantrill. Like Cantrell, Quantrill was born in Ohio, taught school in Lawrence, Kansas, became a guerrilla fighter on the Confederate side and burnt Lawrence to the ground. However, the Confederacy eventually distanced itself from, and eventually disowned, him because of his band's propensity for executing prisoners, massacring civilians, looting and raping. The real Quantrill was killed in an ambush, beheaded by a Union cavalryman's saber, in Kentucky at the ripe old age of 27 instead of at the hands of Bob Seton.
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