O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Movie Quote Quiz

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.

Big Dan Teague: You don't say much my friend, but when you do it's to the point, and I salute you for it.

Homer Stokes: The color guard is colored.

Pete: Well hell, it ain't square one! Ain't nobody gonna pick up three filthy, unshaved hitch-hikers, and one of them a know-it-all that can't keep his trap shut.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Pete, the personal rancor reflected in that remark I don't intend to dignify with comment. But I would like to address your general attitude of hopeless negativism. Consider the lilies of the goddamn field or... hell! Take at look at Delmar here as your paradigm of hope.
Delmar O'Donnell: Yeah, look at me.

Penny Wharvey McGill: I've spoken my piece and counted to three.
Ulysses Everett McGill: She counted to three. Goddamit! She counted to three. Sonofabitch.

Ulysses Everett McGill: I am the only daddy you got! I'm the damn paterfamilias.
Wharvey Gal: But you ain't bona fide.

Pete: Crazy! No one's ever gonna believe we're a real band.
Ulysses Everett McGill: No, it's gonna work. I just gotta get close enough to talk to her. Takin' off with us has got more future than marryin' a guy named Waldrip. I'm Goddamned bona fide.
Delmar O'Donnell: Everett, my beard itches.

Big Dan Teague: Thank you boys for throwin' in that fricassee. I'm a man of large appetite, and even with lunch under my belt, I was feelin' a mite peckish.
Ulysses Everett McGill: It's our pleasure, Big Dan.

Ulysses Everett McGill: Jesus! Can I count on you people?
Delmar O'Donnell: Sorry, Everett.

Soggy Bottom Customer: Do you have the Soggy Bottom Boys performing "Man of Constant Sorrow"?
Record Store Clerk: No ma'am. We got a new shipment in yesterday. Sorry, but we just can't keep 'em on our shelves.

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Mistakes

Continuity mistake: There are seven Wharvey Gals. Three on the stage singing, three with the wife, and one that she's holding. One of the girls even says that there are seven of them. Yet in the end, when Everett and his wife are walking down the street, there are only six. One that she is carrying, and five following.

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Trivia

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."

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Questions

Question: The only way that the valley could be flooded by rampaging water is that a dam was broken up river. Otherwise the water rises very slowly. Does the movie explain this? If so I missed it. In which way was that river flooded?

Answer: Probably they have dismantled the coffer dam that was used while constructing the main dam. Hence, the flooding.

Good and reasonable last resort explanation - have the Coens ever addressed it?

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