The Right Stuff (1983)

Levon Helm: Jack Ridley, Narrator

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  Narrator : There was a demon that lived in the air. They said whoever challenged him would die. Their controls would freeze up, their planes would buffet wildly, and they would disintegrate. The demon lived at Mach 1 on the meter, seven hundred and fifty miles an hour, where the air could no longer move out of the way. He lived behind a barrier through which they said no man could ever pass. They called it the sound barrier.

• [repeated lines] 

  Chuck Yeager : Hey, Ridley, ya got any Beeman's?

  Jack Ridley : Yeah, I think I got me a stick.

  Chuck Yeager : Loan me some, will ya? I'll pay ya back later.

  Jack Ridley : Fair enough.

• [last lines] 

  Narrator : The Mercury program was over. Four years later, astronaut Gus Grissom was killed, along with astronauts White and Chaffee, when fire swept through their Apollo capsule. But on that glorious day in May 1963, Gordo Cooper went higher, farther, and faster than any other American - 22 complete orbits around the world; he was the last American ever to go into space alone. And for a brief moment, Gordo Cooper became the greatest pilot anyone had ever seen.

• Jack Ridley : [talking to TV]  Attaboy, Gus!

  [talking to Yeager] 

  Jack Ridley : Pull that stuff on flight test, it's all over for him. I say he screwed the pooch, pardner. Plain and simple.

  Chuck Yeager : Yeah, well, sometimes you get a pooch that can't be screwed, ya know?

  Liaison Man : [chuckling]  Exactly! Right now the President's got his own problems with the Bay of Pigs, he doesn't want the astronauts' image tarnished. Nothing these guys do is gonna be called a failure. You'd think the public would know they're just doing what monkeys have done.

  Chuck Yeager : Monkeys? You think a monkey knows he's sittin' on a rocket that might explode? These astronaut boys, they know that, see? I'll tell you somethin'. Takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially when it's on TV. Ol' Gus, he did alright.

• unknown : Is that a man?

  Jack Ridley : You damn right it is.

• Chuck Yeager : Hey, Ridley, make another note here, would ya? Must be something wrong with this ol' Mach meter. Jumped plumb off the scale. Gone kinda screwy on me.

  Jack Ridley : You go ahead and bust it, we'll fix it. Personally, I think you're seein' things.

  Chuck Yeager : Yeah, could be. But I'm still goin' upstairs like a bat outta hell.

• [about Yeager's bruised ribs] 

  Jack Ridley : How bad did you ding 'em?

  Chuck Yeager : Well, you might say as I broke a couple of the sons-o'-bitches.

• Jack Ridley : Put the spurs to her, Chuck.

• Jack Ridley : [showing Life Magazine cover with astronaut chimp]  Here he is, Captain Ham!

  [pilots all laugh] 

  Jack Ridley : Grinnin' like a possum eatin' a sweet potato.

  Chuck Yeager : Heh heh.heh heh. Look at the teeth!

  Jack Ridley : Does he look like the kinda guy who'd put doo doo in the capsule?