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  • How would you like a $50 cut in salary?

  • Do I laugh now or wait till it gets funny? No, I'm serious.

  • I've just been talking to Norton. Too much stuff piling up on my desk.

  • Too much pressure on my nerves.

  • I spend half the night walking up and down in my bed.

  • I've got to have an assistant and I thought of you.

  • Me? Why pick on me?

  • Well, because I've got a crazy idea you might be good at the job.

  • That's crazy, all right. I'm a salesman.

  • Yeah. A peddler, a gladhander, a backslapper.

  • You're too good to be a salesman.

  • Nobody's too good to be a salesman. Phooey!

  • All you guys do is just ring doorbells and dish out a smooth line of monkey talk.

  • What's troubling you is that $50 cut, isn't it?

  • Well, that'd trouble anybody. Now look, Walter.

  • The job I'm talking about takes brains and integrity.

  • It takes more guts than there is in 50 salesmen.

  • It's the hottest job in the business.

  • Yeah, but it's still a desk job.

  • I don't want to be nailed to a desk. Desk job?

  • Is that all you can see in it?

  • Just a hard chair to park your pants on from 9:00 to 5:00, huh?

  • Just a pile of papers to shuffle around, and five sharp pencils...

  • and a scratch pad to make figures on, maybe a little doodling on the side.

  • Well, that's not the way I look at it, Walter.

  • To me, a claims man is a surgeon, that desk is an operating table...

  • and those pencils are scalpels and bone chisels.

  • And those papers are not just forms and statistics and claims for compensation.

  • They're alive. They're packed with drama...

  • with twisted hopes and crooked dreams.

  • A claims man, Walter, is a doctor and a bloodhound and a...

  • Who? Okay, hold on a minute.

  • A claims man is a doctor and a bloodhound and a cop and a judge and a jury...

  • and a father confessor, all in one.

  • And you want to tell me you're not interested?

  • You don't want to work with your brains?

  • All you want to work is with your finger on the doorbell...

  • for a few bucks more a week. There's a dame on your phone.

  • Walter Neff speaking. I had to call you, Walter.

  • It's very urgent. Are you with somebody?

  • Yes, I am. Can't I call you back, Margie?

  • No, you can't. I've only got a minute. It can't wait.

  • Listen. He's going tonight. On the train. Are you listening?

  • Walter? Yeah. I'm listening, Margie.

  • Only, make it snappy, will you? He's on crutches.

  • The doctor says he can go if he's careful. The change will do him good.

  • It's wonderful, Walter. Just the way you wanted it, on a train.

  • Only with the crutches it makes it much better, doesn't it?

  • Yeah. Yeah, that's 100% better.

  • Hold the line a minute, will you?

  • Keyes, suppose I join you in your office? That's all right. I'll wait.

  • Only tell her not to take all day.

  • Go ahead.

  • It's the 10:15 from Glendale. I'm driving him.

  • It's still the same dark street, isn't it?

  • And the signal is three honks on the horn. Okay. Anything else?

  • No.

  • Oh, uh...

  • what color did you pick?

  • Blue. Navy blue. And the cast is on his left leg.

  • Mmm-hmm.

  • Yeah, that suits me fine.

  • This is it, Walter. I'm shaking like a leaf.

  • But it's straight down the line for both of us.

  • I love you, Walter. Goodbye.

  • Sorry, Keyes. What's the matter?

  • Dames chasing you again? Or still? Or is it none of my business?

  • If I told you it was a customer...

  • Margie. I bet she drinks from the bottle.

How would you like a $50 cut in salary?

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