Syncopation (1942)

Jackie Cooper: Johnny

Quotes 

• Kit Latimer : I've never been anywhere like this before. I never even knew it was here.

  Johnny Schumacher : Well, that's Chicago.

  Kit Latimer : Chicago.

  Johnny Schumacher : It's you and me. "Oh I see, flashing, that this America is only you and me. Freedom, language, poems, employments, are you and me. Past, present, future, are you and me."

  Kit Latimer : Walt Whitman, isn't it?

  Johnny Schumacher : Yeah.

  Kit Latimer : He's my favorite poet, too.

• Smiley Jackson : Say, cutie, uh, how do you look in tights?

  Johnny Schumacher : She's not in show business.

  Smiley Jackson : Oh, too bad. I got a marvellous spot in my show for a girl in tights.

• Kit Latimer : Oh, it's wonderful, Johnny!

  Johnny Schumacher : You really think so?

  Kit Latimer : Oh, swell.

  Johnny Schumacher : Oh, uh, it'll never be like Rex, though.

  Kit Latimer : You shouldn't be! You've got a style of your own. Rex is - is New Orleans, Basin Street, and you're Chicago. Ohh, you pick up where Basin Street leaves off.

• Johnny Schumacher : The world is yours, you do what you want with it.

  Kit Latimer : I wanna put it in my pocket and dance on the moon.

• Johnny Schumacher : I saw guys who were a lot worse off than me, guys who were beat down, slapped around, coming from no place, going nowhere. Yet every night, somewhere along the road, they'd stopped and come to life. They hadn't forgotten how to laugh. They could still sing - music made up by guys in a jam. Songs about broken lives and busted dreams. I was like crazy when I heard it. It made me see what brings people together. They wanna get rid of their troubles - talk 'em, sing 'em, or dance 'em away.

• Johnny Schumacher : I don't like things that make too much sense, Kit. People who always add one and one are two. Why can't it be three? Just once, one and one are three.

• Kit Latimer : Wonderful, Johnny.

  Johnny Schumacher : Ah, the one time you people come clear across town to hear us, we have to sound like six drunken plumbers in a tin shop.

• Johnny Schumacher : We'll meet again somewhere.

  Kit Latimer : Where one and one are three.

• Johnny Schumacher : Say, you fellas are terrific. I never heard anything like it before.

  Rex Tearbone : You just ain't been to the right place, boy. Stick around, we don't get warmed up until after midnight.

  Johnny Schumacher : Is that a special kind of cornet you use? Mine looks the same, but I can't get anything out of it like that.

• Rex Tearbone : Grab a chair, we'll show you how it's done.

  Johnny Schumacher : You mean I can sit in?

  Rex Tearbone : You can't learn this music with no book, soldier. Luke, toss him that brand-new horn.

  Johnny Schumacher : Gee.

• Johnny Schumacher : There's no room in the classy spots for a little jazz outfit. They don't go for hot stuff. They want it dished out sweet like a marshmallow sundae.

• Kit Latimer : Don't leave me! Please, Johnny.

  Johnny Schumacher : I was just gonna put on the light.

  Kit Latimer : I like the dark.

• Johnny Schumacher : He's not a bad guy. Whenever a musician gets bumped off in his place, he always gets a first-class funeral.

• Johnny Schumacher : The kinda jazz we know is dead. And you can count me out as a pallbearer.

• Kit Latimer : When did you first know you loved me, Johnny?

  Johnny Schumacher : When I started to take showers with my clothes on.

• Johnny Schumacher : You guys are chumps. Instead of coming along with me, you beat your brains out in nickel-and-dime joints.

• Johnny Schumacher : The House Dick, scram!

• Johnny Schumacher : I wonder how long this will last for us.

  Kit Latimer : It was worthwhile, even if it lasts only tonight.