O Brother, Where Art Thou?

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O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a 2000 comedy film about three stumblebum convicts who escape to go on a quest for treasure and who meet various characters while learning where their real fortune lies in the 1930s Deep South.

Directed by Joel Coen. Written by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen

Inspired by The Odyssey by Homer.

They have a plan, but not a clue.

1 Song Snippets
2 Everett
3 Delmar
4 Others
5 Dialogue
6 Taglines
7 Cast
8 External links

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Song Snippets

In the Big Rock Candy Mountain

The cops have wooden legs

The bulldogs all have rubber teeth

And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs

Big Rock Candy Mountain by Harry McClintock

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are gray

You'll never know dear how much I love you

Please don't take my sunshine away.

You are my Sunshine by Jimmie Davis & Charles Mitchell

Don't you weep pretty baby.

She's long gone with her red shoes on, going to meet another loving baby

Go to sleep little baby

You and me and the devil makes three, don't need no other loving baby.

Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby Traditional Folk song with additions by Gillian Welch & T Bone Burnett

I am a Man of Constant Sorrow

I've seen trouble all my days

In this world I'm bound to ramble

I have no friends to help me now.

I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow (Traditional Folk Song sung by the Soggy Bottom Boys)

You've got to walk that Lonesome Valley. You got to walk it by yourself. Nobody else can walk it for you. You've got to walk it by yourself.

Lonesome Valley (Traditional Folk song)

O come angel band, Come and around me stand. O bear me away on your snow white wings to my immortal home

Angel Band (Traditional Folk Song)

As I went down in the river to pray

Studying about that good old way

And who shall wear the starry crown

Good Lord, show me the way!

Down to the River to Pray by Alison Krauss

I'll fly away, oh glory

I'll fly away; (in the morning)

When I die, hallelujah, by and by,

I'll fly away.

I'll Fly Away by Alison Krauss & Gillian Welch

O, Death

Won't you spare me over 'til another year

Well what is this that I can't see

With ice cold hands takin' hold of me

O Death by Ralph Stanley

In the highways, in the hedges

I'll be somewhere working for my Lord.

In the Highways by Sarah, Hannah & Leah Peasall

I had a friend named Ramblin' Bob

Who used to steal, gamble, and rob

He thought he was the smartest guy around

But I found out last Monday

That Bob got locked up Sunday

They've got him in the jailhouse way down town

He's in the jailhouse now he's in the jailhouse now

In the Jailhouse Now by The Soggy Bottom Boys

Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side

Keep on the sunny side of life

It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way

If we'll keep on the sunny side of life

Keep on the Sunny Side by The Whites

[edit]

Everett

Say, any o' you boys smithies? Or, if not smithies per se, were you otherwise trained in the metallurgic arts before straitened circumstances forced you to a life o' aimless wanderin'?

Baptism! You two are just dumber than a bag of hammers.

Well, of course there's all manner of lesser imps'n demons, Pete. But the Great Satan hisself is red and scaly with a bifurcated tail and carries a hayfork.

A woman is the most fiendish instrument of torture ever devised to bedevil the days of man.

I'll tell you what I am - I'm the damn paterfamilias! You can't marry him!

I'm goddamned bona fide!

[Repeated several times during the course of the movie] Damn! We're in a tight spot!

Well, ain't this place a geographical oddity. Two weeks from everywhere!

I didn't think this was a one-horse town, but try and find a decent hair jelly.

Well, any human being will cast about in a moment of stress. No, the fact is, they're flooding this valley so they can hydrelectric up the whole durn state. Yes, sir, the South is gonna change. Everything's gonna be put on electricity and run on a paying basis. Out with the old spiritual mumbo jumbo, the superstitions, and the backward ways. We're gonna see a brave new world where they run everybody a wire and hook us all up to a grid. Yes, sir, a veritable age of reason. Like the one they had in France. Not a moment too soon.

I don't want FOP, god dammit, I'm a Dapper Dan Man!

The personal rancor reflected in that comment I dont intend to dignify with comment. But I would like to address your general attitude of hopeless negativism.

[edit]

Delmar

Gopher, Everett?

(George "Baby Face" Nelson shoots a herd of cows during the getaway) Oh, George, not the livestock.

Them syreens did this to Pete. They loved him up and turned him into a horny toad!

(Speaking about George "Baby Face" Nelson) He's a live wire, though, ain't he?

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Others

Wash Hogwallop: I expect you want those chains knocked off.

Blind Seer: You will find a fortune though it will not be the fortune you seek, but first, first you must travel a long and difficult road, a road fraught with peril. You shall see things wonderful to tell.

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

Audience member: Hot damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!

George Nelson: ...Not Babyface!! I'm George Nelson! Born to raise hell!

[edit]

Dialogue

Everett: The treasure is still there boys, believe me.

Delmar: But how'd he know about the treasure?

Everett: I don't know Delmar. The blind are reputed to possess sensitivities compensating for their lack of sight, even to the point of developing paranormal psychic powers. Now, clearly seeing into the future would fall into neatly into that category; its not so surprising then that an organism deprived of its earthly vision...

Pete: He said we wouldn't get it. He said we wouldn't get the treasure we seek on account of our ob-stac-les.

Everett: Well what the hell does he know, he's just an ignorant old man?

Pete: You miserable little snake! You stole from my kin!

Everett: Who was fixin' to betray us.

Pete: You didn't know that at the time.

Everett: So I borrowed it until I did know.

Pete: That don't make no sense!

Everett: Pete, it's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart.

Pete: Well I'll be a sonofabitch. Delmar's been saved.

Delmar: Well that's it, boys. I've been redeemed. The preacher's done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It's the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting's my reward.

Everett: Delmar, what are you talking about? We've got bigger fish to fry.

Delmar: The preacher says all my sins is warshed away, including that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo.

Everett: I thought you said you was innocent of those charges?

Delmar: Well I was lyin'. And the preacher says that that sin's been warshed away too. Neither God nor man's got nothin' on me now. C'mon in boys, the water is fine.

Pete: The Preacher said it absolved us.

Everett: For him, not for the law. I'm surprised at you, Pete, I gave you credit for more brains than Delmar.

Delmar: But they was witnesses that seen us redeemed.

Everett: That's not the issue Delmar. Even if that did put you square with the Lord, the State of Mississippi's a little more hard-nosed.

Pete: Wait a minute. Who elected you leader of this outfit?

Everett: Well Pete, I figured it should be the one with the capacity for abstract thought. But if that ain't the consensus view, then hell, let's put it to a vote.

Pete: Suits me. I'm voting for yours truly.

Everett: Well I'm voting for yours truly too.

[Pause]

Delmar: Okay... I'm with you fellas.

Everett: You can't display a toad in a fine restaurant like this! Why, the good folks here would go right off the feed!

Delmar: I just don't think it's right keeping him under wraps like we's ashamed of him.

Everett: Well, if it is Pete, I am ashamed of him! Way I see it, he got what he deserved, fornicating with some whore of Babylon. These things don't happen for no reason, Delmar. It's obviously some kinda judgment on his character.

Delmar: Well, the two of us was fixin' to fornicate!

Tommy Johnson: I had to be up at that there crossroads last midnight, to sell my soul to the devil.

Everett: Well, ain't it a small world, spiritually speaking. Pete and Delmar just been baptized and saved. I guess I'm the only one that remains unaffiliated.

Pete: I've always wondered, what's the devil look like?

Everett: Well, there are all manner of lesser imps and demons, Pete, but the great Satan hisself is red and scaly with a bifurcated tail, and he carries a hay fork.

Tommy Johnson: Oh, no. No, sir. He's white, as white as you folks, with empty eyes and a big hollow voice. He likes to travel around with a mean old hound. That's right.

[Inside the theater, with both talking in stage whispers, each word drawn out]

Pete: Do...not...seek...the...treasure.

Delmar: We...thought...you...was...a...toad!

Everett: Pete, the personal rancor reflected in that remark I don't intend to dignify with comment. However, I would like to address your attitude of hopeless negativism--consider the lilies of the goddamn field...or hell, look at Delmar here as your paradigm of hope!

[Pause] Delmar: Yeah, look at me.

General Store Clerk: I can get the part from Bristol. It'll take two weeks, here's your pomade.

Everett: Two weeks? That don't do me no good.

Clerk: Nearest Ford auto man's Bristol.

Everett: Hold on, I don't want this pomade. I want Dapper Dan.

Clerk: We don't carry Dapper Dan. We carry Fop.

Everett: Well, I don't want Fop, goddammit. I'm a Dapper Dan man.

Clerk: You watch your language, young fella; this is a public market. If you want Dapper Dan, I can order it for you, have it in about two weeks.

Everett: Well ain't this place a geographical oddity! Two weeks from everywhere!

Everett: Why are you telling our gals that I was hit by a train?

Penny: Lots of respectable people have been hit by trains. Judge Hobbie over in Cookville was hit by a train. What was I gonna tell them, that you got sent to the penal farm and I divorced you from shame?

Everett: Uh, I take your point. But it does put me in a damn awkward position, vis-a-vis my progeny.

Everett: Well, you lying... unconstant... succubus!

Vernon Waldrip: Whoa, whoa, whoa! You can't swear at my fiancé!

Everett: Oh, yeah? Well, you can't marry my wife!

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