O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Movie Quote Quiz

Washington Hogwallop: Mrs. Hogwallop up and R-U-N-N-O-F-T.

Ulysses Everett McGill: What'd the devil give you for your soul, Tommy?
Tommy Johnson: Well, he taught me to play this here guitar real good.
Delmar O'Donnell: Oh son, for that you sold your everlasting soul?
Tommy Johnson: Well, I wasn't usin' it.

Pappy O'Daniel: I'll press your flesh, you dimwitted sumbitch! You don't tell your pappy how to court the electorate. We ain't one-at-a-timin' here. We're mass communicating.

Ulysses Everett McGill: I don't get it, Big Dan.

Ulysses Everett McGill: I'm not sure that's Pete.
Delmar O'Donnell: Of course it's Pete! Look at him... We gotta find some kind of wizard to change him back.

Delmar O'Donnell: Hey mister! I don't mean to be tellin' tales out of school, but there's a feller in there that'll pay you ten dollars if you sing into his can.

Pappy's Staff: The reason he's pullin' our pants down.
Pappy's Staff: Gonna paddle a little behind.
Pappy's Staff: Ain't gonna paddle it - gonna kick it, real hard.
Pappy's Staff: No, I believe he's gonna paddle it.
Pappy's Staff: I don't believe that's a proper characterization.
Pappy's Staff: Well, that's how I'd characterize it.
Pappy's Staff: I believe it's more of a kickin' sitcheyation.

Ulysses Everett McGill: I detect, like me, you're endowed with the gift of gab.

Ulysses Everett McGill: Tommy, what you ridin' there?
Tommy Johnson: Uh... Roll top desk.

Delmar O'Donnell: Jacking up banks. I can see how a fella'd derive a whole lot of pleasure and satisfaction out of it.

Ulysses Everett McGill: Me an' the old lady are gonna pick up the pieces and retie the knot, mixaphorically speaking.

Homer Stokes: Is you is, or is you ain't, my constituency?

Ulysses Everett McGill: Pete's cousin turned us in for the bounty.
Pete: The hell you say! Wash is kin.
Washington Hogwallop: Sorry, Pete, I know we're kin, but they got this depression on. I got to do for me and mine.
Pete: I'm gonna kill you, Judas Iscariot Hogwallop.

Ulysses Everett McGill: I was not hit by a train. Damnit, I am the paterfamilias.

Ulysses Everett McGill: Ain't you gonna introduce us, Pete?
Pete: I don't know their names. I seen 'em first.

Delmar O'Donnell: You work for the railroad, Grampa?
Blind Seer: I work for no man.
Delmar O'Donnell: Got a name, do you?
Blind Seer: I have no name.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, that right there may be the reason you've had difficulty findin' gainful employment. You see, in the mart of competitive commerce.

Delmar O'Donnell: Can't you see it, Everett? Them sirens did this to Pete. They loved him up and turned him into a... horny toad. Pete! Pete! Pete! Pete! Pete! Pete. It's me - Delmar. Everett.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Delmar. What the.
Delmar O'Donnell: What are we gonna do?
Ulysses Everett McGill: I'm not sure that's Pete.
Delmar O'Donnell: Of course it's Pete. Look at him.

Big Dan Teague: Thank you for the conversational hiatus. I generally refrain from speech durin' gustation. I find it course and vulgar. Where were we?
Delmar O'Donnell: Makin' money in the service of the Lord.
Big Dan Teague: Heh, you don't say much, friend, but when you do, it's to the point and I salute you for it.

Factual error: When the "Little Wharvey Gals" are singing they show a shot of the crowd in which there is a man smoking a filtered cigarette. Cigarettes were not filtered until the late '40's.

Sam Martin

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Trivia: George Clooney (Everett) was going to sing "Man of Constant Sorrow" for the film but his singing voice was very poor so he ended up lip-synching the songs instead. He said "I'm not my aunt [referring to the late singer/actress Rosemary Clooney, best known for her role in "A White Christmas" (1954)]. I decided it would be easier to just do a passionate lip-sync." He was so nervous that the tapes of his singing would get out that he returned to the studio to ensure all the evidence had been erased. The musical director of the film confirmed this but said "George is a very good singer but that style of music is very difficult and one almost has to grow up singing it in order to sing it convincingly. George did a really good version of the tune but it wasn't as good as he wanted."

More trivia for O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Question: In the KKK scene, Homer Stokes says "The color guard is colored." Did he mean this literally, like Everett was a black man, or did he mean that he was white (unlikely because John Goodman is white and so is he), or is he mistaking Everett for a black man because of his dirty face?

Answer: He mistook Everett for a black man because of his dirty face. It's the only way the line makes sense.

J I Cohen

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