Dark Command (1940)

[Cantrell has been defeated by Bob Seton in the election for marshal]
William Cantrell: Learning, studying, working like a dog... and what did it get me? The first chance I have to be somebody, I'm beaten out of it by an ignorant cowhand who can't even write his own name! Well, I can write mine... and I'm going to write it across the territory in letters of fire and blood if I have to! I'm going to be somebody in this country! Somebody big!

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Bob 'Shortcut' Seton: [to "Doc" before he makes his election speech] I gotta get outta here!

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Andrew 'Doc' Grunch: You know, you could make something of yourself if you tried.
Bob 'Shortcut' Seton: Yeah?
Andrew 'Doc' Grunch: Yeah. You could run for marshal.
Bob 'Shortcut' Seton: Me being a marshal? Are you loco?
Andrew 'Doc' Grunch: Well, you could try. It's better for a young fella like you to be working for Uncle Sam than against him.
Bob 'Shortcut' Seton: I can't even read or write. You know that!
Andrew 'Doc' Grunch: Listen, you don't read or write a man into jail.

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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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