Doug Roberts Quotes in The Towering Inferno (1974)

Doug Roberts: I don't know. Maybe they just oughta leave it the way it is. Kind of a shrine to all the bullshit in the world.

[last Lines]

Chief O'Hallorhan: You know, we were lucky tonight. Body count's less than 200. You know, one of these days, you're gonna kill 10,000 in one of these firetraps, and I'm gonna keep eating smoke and bringing out bodies until somebody asks us... how to build them.

Doug Roberts: [looks up at the smoky building] Okay. I'm asking.

Chief O'Hallorhan: You know where to reach me. So long, architect.

Doug Roberts: [picks up ringing phone] Roberts.

Chief O'Hallorhan: It's out of control, and it's coming your way. You got about fifteen minutes. Now, they wanna try somethin'. They wanna blow those water tanks two floors above you. They think it might kill the fire.

Doug Roberts: [surveys room] How're they gonna get the explosives up here?

Chief O'Hallorhan: [after already having been given the task] Oh, they'll find some dumb son of a bitch to bring it up.

Doug Roberts: I thought we were building something that... where people could work and live and be SAFE! If you had to cut costs, why didn't you cut floors instead of corners?

James Duncan: Now listen. Any decisions that were made for the use of alternate building materials were made because I as a builder have a right to make those decisions; if I remain within the building code and god-dammit, I did!

Doug Roberts: [Chuckling] Building code? Jesus. Building code. Come on, Dunc, I mean that's a standard cop-out when you're in trouble. I was crawling around up there. I mean, duct holes weren't fire-stopped! Corridors without fire doors in it, sprinklers won't work, and an electrical system that's good for what? I mean, it's good for starting fires! Hoo boy, where was I when all this was going on? Because I'm just as guilty as you and that god-damned son-in-law of yours! What do they call it when you kill people?

Chief O'Hallorhan: [sighs] Architects.

Doug Roberts: Yeah, it's all our fault.

Chief O'Hallorhan: Now, you know there's no sure way for us to fight a fire in anything over the seventh floor, but you guys just keep building 'em as high as you can.

Doug Roberts: Hey. Are you here to take me on, or the fire?

Chief O'Hallorhan: For what it's worth, architect, this is one building that I figured wouldn't burn.

Doug Roberts: Either did I.

[O'Hallorhan starts to walk toward Roberts's office on the 79th floor, so Roberts decides to add the kicker]

Doug Roberts: And they're celebrating! A party.

Chief O'Hallorhan: Party? What party? Where?

Doug Roberts: In the Promenade Room. 300 people.

Chief O'Hallorhan: Well, why didn't you get them the hell out of there?

Doug Roberts: Why don't you go on upstairs and talk to Duncan? He ain't exactly listening to me.

Chief O'Hallorhan: I will.

[Duncan is talking about Roberts' unemployment after the Tower job]

James Duncan: You know, there's a saying that goes "No matter how hot it gets up there during the day...

James Duncan, Doug Roberts: [in unison] There isn't a damn thing you can do at night."

James Duncan: That's right. Now what the hell are you going to do at night in the middle of nowhere?

Doug Roberts: Sleep like a winner.

Doug Roberts: I'm not a cheeseburger.

Susan: No, you're way better, all protein, no bread, now all I need to take with you is eight glasses of water.

Doug Roberts: Hey Dunc, if that fire was caused by fluky wiring in this building, we could get fires breaking out everywhere!

[about breeches buoy lottery]

Doug Roberts: We'll send the kids out first, and then the women. Number this up to, I don't know - a hundred or so.

Susan: High-rise roulette.

Doug Roberts: High-rise roulette. That's right.

[Doug Roberts gets a call for Harry Jernigan from the Security station in the Tower basement]

Doug Roberts: Harry? It's for you.

Harry Jernigan: [Picks up the phone] Jernigan.

[There is a pause as Jernigan learns from a security officer on the other line that Lisolette Mueller is trapped on the 87th floor, trying to rescue the Albright family in their apartment]

Harry Jernigan: What? Damnit man, you should have sent a man up there!

[pause as the officer tells Jernigan that he called the Albright apartment earlier but there was no answer]

Harry Jernigan: How do you expect Mrs. Albright to hear a phone call? She's deaf!

[pause as the officer asks about the two Albright children]

Harry Jernigan: Sure the kids can hear!

[pause as the officer asks why didn't the Albright children answer their phone]

Harry Jernigan: I don't know. Maybe they were in the shower or something when you called.

[Another pause as the officer asks Jernigan something]

Harry Jernigan: No, you stay where you are. I'll get them down.

[Jernigan hangs up the phone as Doug Roberts listens while Kappy angrily demands reinforcements over his radio]

Harry Jernigan: There's still some people on 87. I'll get 'em down.

Doug Roberts: I'll give you a hand.

[Chief O'Hallorhan has just found out the fire is heading towards the elevator shaft]

Chief O'Hallorhan: You'd better call Duncan, tell him to stop those people in the car room from using that express elevator, or somebody's going to get killed.

[Roberts picks up the phone to comply]

Chief O'Hallorhan: [addressing a colleague] OK, Kappy... ring in a third alarm. I want some rescue squads here and I also want choppers. We're going to need them if we're going to get those people. - All right, come on, firemen. I'll be on 81.

Doug Roberts: [on the phone to Duncan as injured firemen are brought into the office to get medical help] The fire's moving towards the main shaft. Use the scenic elevator - don't overload.

James Duncan: OK, Doug.

[Duncan hangs up the phone and turns to do so but is confronted by Roger Simmons]

Roger Simmons: I don't like the way you talked to me.

James Duncan: You drunk?

Roger Simmons: Not yet.

James Duncan: Well then, get out of my way!

Roger Simmons: You didn't talk like this two years ago, did you? Running over budget and out of money? Did you ask me then how I could shave two million dollars off our electrical costs?

James Duncan: [making his way to the elevators] Shut up and help me with these people!

Roger Simmons: And let me ask you, my dear father-in-law! Am I the only subcontractor you encouraged to cut corners?

James Duncan: [addressing people in the crowd] Excuse me.

Roger Simmons: Where did you save the other $4 million in Doug's original budget?

[Duncan reaches the front of the crowd and pushes past Simmons]

James Duncan: [Addressing the crowd at the elevators, and lying to save his own life:] Please, please. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry. You'll have to move back into the Promenade Room, and we'll be taking you down by the scenic elevator. Now, these express elevators can be activated by fire, and with the probability of short circuits, the cars might stop on the floor where the fire is. So please, we'll use the scenic elevator. It's over here.

[Suddenly an elevator door opens behind Duncan, and several people surge past him into it. Duncan tries to stop them but is unable to, and the door closes behind him and the elevator starts down. Duncan hits the button to try to stop the elevator but it does not return]

Doug Roberts: [on security phone with Wes] Doug... I'm up on 83 with Will. Listen, we got a little wiring problem. If we've got an overload it could be trouble. Shut down as many of the Zone One systems as you can.

Wes: [into the phone] I'm afraid I can't do that, Mr. Roberts. We've got all the lights on for the dedication ceremony.

Doug Roberts: [in disbelief] All... you mean the whole building?

Wes: Well, we're taking the overload just fine.

Doug Roberts: [sharply] Well shut it down, right away!

Wes: But I can't do that without a direct okay from Mr. Duncan himself.

Doug Roberts: I'll accept the responsibility for that. Just turn off the goddamned lights!

Wes: What about the lights in the tower for the party?

Doug Roberts: I didn't say kill all the power, just the overload!

Wes: Yes sir, Mr. Roberts.

James Duncan: What I wanted to tell us is that Senator Parker is flying in for the dedication tonight. And he's almost guaranteed to sign the Urban Renewal Contract. Now do you know what that means? Skyscrapers like this all over the country! You design 'em, I'll build 'em.

Doug Roberts: Don't you think you're suffering from an edifice complex?

James Duncan: You'll never leave.

Doug Roberts: Right after the party - come on downstairs and watch me burn my black tie.

[to Duncan after hearing about Giddings on the phone]

Doug Roberts: Will Giddings is dead. He died twenty minutes ago.

[pause]

Doug Roberts: Oh, boy. Ohh! I wonder how many more will be dead by tomorrow.

Giddings: [Will has produced the original blueprints of the Glass Tower] Well Doug, here you are. The original specs. Zone 1 only, but we have to start somewhere.

[referring to Roger changing the electrical specs]

Giddings: You really think he did it?

Doug Roberts: Well, he didn't admit it, but two bucks'll get you ten that he did.

Giddings: Payoffs and kickbacks, that's the only way he could have swung it.

Doug Roberts: [referring to Roger's lack of cooperation in producing the wiring specifications]

Doug Roberts: Son of a bitch gave us an impossible job!

Doug Roberts: How did you get in the Navy? How did you get on our side? Oh you ignorant, arrogant, ambitious... keeping sixty-two men in prison 'cause you got a palm tree for the work they did. I don't know which I hate worse, you or that other malignant growth that stands outside the door

Capt. Morton: Why, you stinking little...!

Doug Roberts: How did you ever get command of a ship? I realize in wartime they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel, but where did they ever scrape you up?

Capt. Morton: There's just one thing left for you, Mister. A general court martial!

Doug Roberts: That suits me fine, court martial me!

Capt. Morton: You've got it!

Doug Roberts: I'm asking for it! If I can't get transferred, I'll get court martialed off! I'm fed up! But you'll need a witness. Call your messenger - I'll say it all over again in front of him. Go on, call him. You want me to call him?

Capt. Morton: No. You're a smart boy, Roberts. But I know how to take care of smart boys. I hate your guts, you smart college guys! I've been seeing your kind around since I was ten years old... working as a busboy. "Oh busboy, it seems my friend has thrown up on the table. Clean up that mess, boy, will'ya?" And then when I went to sea as a steward... people poking at you with umbrellas. "Oh, boy!", "You, boy!", "Careful with that luggage, boy!" And I took it. I took it for years! But I don't have to take it any more. There's a war on, and I'm captain of this vessel, and now YOU can take it for a change! The worst thing I can do to you... is to keep you right here, Mister, and here is where you're going to stay. Now, GET OUT!

Lt. 'Doc': That's mostly what makes physical heroism. Opportunity. It's a reflex. I think that seventy-five out of a hundred young males have that reflex. You take any one of them. Say even Frank Thurlowe Pulver, here. Put him into a B-29 over Japan, and you know what you'd have?

Doug Roberts: No I don't, Doctor.

Lt. 'Doc': You'd have Pulver, the Congressional Medal of Honor winner. Pulver, who single-handed shot down twenty-three attacking Zeros. Pulver who, with his bare hands, held together the severed wing struts of his plane, and with his bare feet successfully landed his mortally wounded plane on his home field. Reflex. It's like the knee jerk. Strike the patella tendon in any human being, you produce the knee jerk. Look.

[Doc hits Pulver in the knee and nothing happens]

Ensign Pulver: What's the matter, Doc?

Lt. 'Doc': Nothing, but stay out of B-29s, Frank, my boy.

Doug Roberts: Frank, I like you. There's no getting around the fact that you're a real likable guy.

Ensign Pulver: Yeah? Yeah!

Doug Roberts: But...

Ensign Pulver: But what?

Doug Roberts: Well, I also think you're the most hapless, lazy, disorganized, and in general most lecherous person I've ever known in my life.

Ensign Pulver: I am not!

Doug Roberts: You're not what?

Ensign Pulver: I am not disorganized!

Doug Roberts: You pretend you want me to improve your mind. You've never finished one book I've given you to read.

Ensign Pulver: I've finished "God's Little Acre," Doug boy!

Doug Roberts: I didn't give you that. He's been reading "God's Little Acre" for over a year now. He's underlined every erotic passage and added exclamation points. And after a certain pornographic climax, he's inserted the words "well written."

Shore Patrol Officer: A little while ago, six men from your ship broke into the home of the French Colonial Governor. They started throwing things through a plate glass living room window. We found some of the things on the lawn. Large world globe. Small love seat. A lot of books. A bust of Balzac. The French writer? We also found an Army private first class. He was unconscious at the time. He claims they threw him, too.

Doug Roberts: Through the window?

Shore Patrol Officer: That's right. It seems he took them there for a little joke. He didn't tell 'em it was a governor's house. He told 'em is was, uh... well, what we call in Alabama...

Doug Roberts: Yeah, we call it the same thing in Nebraska.

Shore Patrol Officer: Well, that's about all, Lieutenant. If it makes you feel any better, Admiral Wentworth says this is the worst ship he's ever seen in his entire naval career.

Doug Roberts: I looked down from our bridge and saw our captain's palm tree! Our trophy for superior achievement! The Admiral John J. Finchley award for delivering more toothpaste and toilet paper than any other Navy cargo ship in the safe area of the Pacific.

Doug Roberts: We've got nothing to do with the war. Maybe that's why we're on this ship, cause we're not good enough to fight. Cause our glands don't secrete enough adrenaline, or our great-great- grandmothers were afraid of the dark or something.

Lt. 'Doc': What is it you want to be, Doug, a hero?

Doug Roberts: Hero? Doc, you haven't heard a word I've said. Look, Doc, the war's way out there, and I'm here. Well, I don't want to be here, I wanna be out there. I'm sick and tired of being a lousy spectator.

Doug Roberts: Captain, you told me...

Capt. Morton: Never mind what I told you. I'M TELLING YOU!

Doug Roberts: Doc, he lies in his sack all day long, bores me silly with great, moronic plots against the captain. He's never carried out one of them.

Ensign Pulver: I haven't, huh?

Doug Roberts: No, Frank, you haven't. What ever happened to those marbles you were gonna put in the captain's overhead so they'd roll around all night and keep him awake?

Ensign Pulver: Now you've gone too far. Now you've asked for it.

[Pulls out a box]

Ensign Pulver: What does that look like? Five marbles. Got another one in my pocket. Six marbles. I'm looking for marbles all day long!

Doug Roberts: Doc, that new hospital hasn't got nurses, has it?

Lt. 'Doc': It didn't have yesterday.

Ensign Pulver: It has today.

Lt. 'Doc': And how did you find out they were there?

Ensign Pulver: It just came to me all of a sudden. I was lying on my bunk this morning, thinking. And there wasn't a breath of air. And all of a sudden, a funny thing happened. A little breeze came up, and I took a big, deep breath, and I said to myself "Pulver, boy, there's women on that island!"

Doug Roberts: [Pulver is expecting the company of a woman. Roberts reads out the embroidered words on one of Pulver's pillows in dismay] Tonight or never. Compliments of The American Harvester Company. We plough deep while others sleep.