Colonel Effingham's Raid (1946)

Charles Coburn: Col. Will Seaborn Effingham

Photos 

Quotes 

• Col. Will Seaborn Effingham : My people have always been soldiers. My grandfather fell at Chickamauga; his grandfather at Saratoga. When Beauregard fired on Fort Sumter, my own father, unfortunately was only nine.

  Earl Hoats : That WAS a little YOUNG.

  Col. Will Seaborn Effingham : I, myself, was wounded at San Juan Hill. I was at the seige of Panama. For fifty years, mister editor, the forces of civilization had been held at bay on the Isthmus... unable to join the waters of two great oceans. And do you know what blocked them? Gatling guns? Mini-balls? Superior forces? Guerilla bands?

  [shakes his head "no] 

  Col. Will Seaborn Effingham : Mosquitoes.

  Earl Hoats : Well, perhaps one of my boys could fix up a little story for Sunday...

  Col. Will Seaborn Effingham : Stegomyia faciata.

  [scientific name of mosquito] 

  Col. Will Seaborn Effingham : For half a century, the enemy - less than a quarter of an inch in stature - blocked the economic march of a nation of a hundred million people. It was insupportable.

  Earl Hoats : Well, Colonel...

  Col. Will Seaborn Effingham : We blockaded General Stegomyia, to wit: the mosquito. We cut him off from reinforcements. We hammered his communications.

  Earl Hoats : So you're back in Fredericksville for good, now, Colonel?

  Col. Will Seaborn Effingham : We sprayed his concentrations with oil. We screened his wells. We put fifth columns of fish in the water to attack his ammunition dumps. But, more of that another day.

• Col. Will Seaborn Effingham : I don't see why our biggest and most important project... the administration of government... should be handed over - lock, stock and barrel - to a bunch of incompetents!

• Albert 'Al' Marbury : Well, you're not going to see the mayor right now, are you?

  Col. Will Seaborn Effingham : Soon as I can change my clothes.

  Albert 'Al' Marbury : Well, there's no hurry, cousin Willie. Any old time will do.

  Col. Will Seaborn Effingham : Son, when you get to be sixty-five it's a good time to hurry!

• Ella Sue Dozier : Then you're not discouraged, Colonel?

  Col. Will Seaborn Effingham : Discouragement has no more place in a soldier's equipment than an inner-spring mattress.

• Col. Will Seaborn Effingham : What's the population now?

  Albert 'Al' Marbury : Oh, about 30,000.

  Col. Will Seaborn Effingham : How many voted in the last election?

  Albert 'Al' Marbury : Oh, four or five thousand, I'd say.

  Col. Will Seaborn Effingham : You mean 25,000 took no part in the action?

• Col. Will Seaborn Effingham : A community's history is its family tree.