Original subtitles

♪ Green Acres is the place to be

♪ Farm livin' is the life for me

♪ Land spreadin' out so far and wide

♪ Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside

♪ New York is where I'd rather stay

♪ I get allergic smelling hay

♪ I just adore a penthouse view

♪ Dah-ling I love you but give me Park Avenue

♪ The chores ♪ The stores ♪ Fresh air

♪ Times Square ♪ You are my wife

♪ Good bye, city life

♪ Green Acres we are there

- What are you looking for?

- My dress shirt.

- Oh, that's in the D drawer.

A, B, C, D.

Here you are.

- That's a dress.

- Well, what are you looking for?

- My dress shirt.

- Oh, that is in the S drawer.

- Which one is the S drawer?

- Well, look in the I drawer,

that's where I keep my information.

Now why can't I come to the dinner with you?

- Because it's for the County Bar Association, no women.

Just men.

- Oh, it's going to be one of those kinds of things.

- No, it's not one of those kind of things.

- Well couldn't I just go along

and just listen to your speech?

- I'm afraid it'll be very boring.

- Well, I find all your speeches boring

but I still like to listen to them.

- Oh, that's very...

- What are you gonna talk about?

- Oh, society's obligation of reformed convict.

In my opinion... - Hold it, Charlie!

- What?

- What do you think you're doing?

- I'm gonna put my pants on.

- Not in front me, you're not.

- Lisa, we're married.

- For better or worse but not for putting on your pants.

- All right then, turn around.

- Why did you pick the subject of reformed convict?

- Because it's important.

It's seems that all society cares about

is putting a man in jail,

they don't care about what happens to him after he gets out.

You can turn around now.

- I didn't hear the zipper.

- I had it oiled.

- I wish I could go with you.

- Yeah so do I but...

Did you see my cummerbund?

- No, I had my back turned.

- May I have your attention please?

We're running a little late

but while the waiters take your dessert order,

I'll introduce our guest speaker for the evening.

- What do you have for dessert, sir?

- He will address us this evening on the subject

of society's obligation to the released convict.

- What'll be sir?

Rice pudding, canned peaches, or stewed prunes?

- Will you give a warm welcome

to Mr. Oliver Wendell Douglas?

- Peaches.

Douglas.

- Sir, I'll put you down for the stewed prunes.

- It's fine, fine.

Thank you, thank you.

Mr. Kelsey.

Stewed members, uh...

Distinguished members of the County Prune Associ...

Of the County Bar Association.

When a man has committed a crime

and the gates have closed behind him,

we on the outside...

It is up to us as attorneys or more importantly

as human being to see that they are given the opportunity

to make a new start in life.

We have got to give them jobs in our offices,

our shops, our stores, and on our farms.

They have paid their debt to society.

Now let society pay it's debt to them.

I thank...

I thank you.

Sorry, I didn't realized I had talked so long.

- Right through the stewed prunes.

- What?

- You blew 'em.

- You blew the stewed prunes.

- Well, I guess I got wound up in my subject.

As I pointed out, these men have made a mistake.

They go to jail to pay for it.

When they come out, they need help.

I think we should all...

- Are you starting with that pants business again?

- I'm getting undressed.

- Living with you is like living

in one of those nudie films.

- Look, close your eyes.

What I said was just because a man had made a mistake

and gone to jail for it,

when he comes out, he needs all the help he can get.

Just because a man is an ex-convict,

people shy away from him.

They won't give him a job.

They won't accept him socially.

Before you know it, he has no choice left

but to return to a life of crime.

Lisa, you can open your eyes.

Lisa.

Well, I've done it again.

Oh, good morning.

- Have you got your pants on?

- Yes.

- All right then.

- What's for breakfast?

- Would you like me to make you some harmony grits?

- Harmony?

No, just some corn flakes.

- Yes sir.

How do you want them?

Scrabbled or fried?

- Just pour them in a bowl.

- Oh, you want them raw.

- Yeah, raw.

- Mr. Douglas.

You're famous.

- What do you mean?

- They printed the speech you made last night

in the County Seat Paper.

- What page is in on?

- One, two, three, four, and five.

- What?

- That's only half of it.

They couldn't print the other half

because the reporter fell asleep.

Look Eb.

Who's that?

- I'll get it.

Oh, hello there.

- Hi.

Does Oliver Winkle Douglas live here?

- Oh, the only Oliver Winkle Douglas who lives here

is called Wendall.

- Oh.

Oh yeah, yeah.

I don't see too good without my glasses.

- Neither do I.

That's why I never wear them.

Who would like to come in?

- Thank you.

- Oliver.

Oliver, there's a man here to see you.

- Oh?

You wanted to see me?

- Yeah, my name is Willie Dunhill.

I read the speech you gave last night.

Did you mean all that stuff you said about helping ex-cons?

- Oh, I'm not in the habit of saying things I don't mean.

- Good.

When do I go to work?

- What?

- He said when does he go to work.

- Yes, I heard him.

- Well then why did you say what for?

- Because...

Are you an... - I just got out.

- Got of what?

- A stir, lady.

- What's a stir lady?

- He means he was in prison.

- Well, isn't that nice?

- What's nice about it?

What were you in for?

- Which time?

Well, how about the job?

I really can't use any...

- Oh then, your whole speech was malarkey.

- When did you learn how to speak malarkey?

I didn't.

Look, I'd gladly give you a job here

but this is a farm.

You have to know something about farming.

- Well, farming is my racket.

This last stretch I did they put me

to work on a prison farm.

I learned all about adjiculture.

- That's what we need around here

is somebody who knows something about adjiculture.

- What we need around here is someone who can pronounce it.

- I'm trying to go straight.

And if I don't get a job...

- All right, I'll try you out for a couple of weeks.

See how you work out.

- That's the same deal he gave me when we got married.

- Lisa.

Have you got some work clothes?

- Just these.

- I'm talking to Willie.

- In my suitcase.

- Uh-huh, well, you share our hired hand's room in the barn.

Now why don't you go change.

We'll put you to work right away.

- I'd appreciate it if you won't tell anybody

that I'm an ex-con.

The minute people find out that you was in stir,

they look at you as if you were some kind of freak

or something.

- Oh, that's all right with me.

You've paid your debt to society.

Look, we'll forget your past.

Nobody ever needs to know you were in prison.

- Thanks.

- Honey, this is a nice thing you are doing.

Now if you just learn to take your pants off

in the bathroom, you'll be perfect.

- Willie?

Oh. - Ready to go to work.

- All right, the first thing...

What are you wearing?

- My work clothes.

These are what I wore on the prison farm.

- Well, if you don't want people to know about your past,

I wouldn't wear those.

- I ain't got anything else.

- I'll go into Drucker's and buy you some...

- Hi Mr. Douglas.

I just dropped by to...

Oh boy.

Can I talk to you a minute?

- Yes, what's the matter?

- Don't look now

but there's an escaped convict standing right back of ya.

- Mr... - Act nonchalant.

- Mr. Kimball.

He's not an escaped convict.

He was in prison, he's been released.

I hired him.

- Does he know anything about adjiculture?

- Willie.

Willie, this is our county agent, Mr. Hank Kimball.

He's with the Department of Adji...

Department of Agriculture.

- How do you do?

- Hey, I used to read a lot of your farm bulletins

when I was in stir.

- Did you ever read the bulletin we put out

called How to Control the Meadow Spittlebug?

- No.

- Well, don't bother.

We're gonna make a picture out of it.

- What?

- Yeah, MGM just bought it.

Boy, I hope they put Debbie Reynolds in it.

She'd be perfect.

- He reminds me of a cellmate I had in Joliet,

Crazy Cronkite.

- Willie, why don't you see

if Mrs. Douglas needs some help around the house, huh?

- Right, warden.

- When did they make you the warden?

- I'm not...

- Boy, wait til I tell the chief

that I'ce met an honest to goodness ex-con.

- Oh, I'd prefer that you didn't tell anybody

that you met Willie.

- Why not?

- You know how people are, they're prejudiced.

- Well not me.

Boy, some of my best friends are ex-cons.

Well, not some of my best friends.

Although, I guess my brother was one of my best friends.

- Your brother was an ex-con?

- Yeah, I wish you wouldn't mention it.

You know how prejudiced people are.

- I'll keep your secret if you keep mine.

- That's a deal.

What is your secret?

- Ask my hairdresser.

- Oh.

What's your hairdresser's name?

- You'll find it in the phone book.

- Oh gee, thanks Mr. Douglas.

- After I got out of Joliet, I wanted to go straight

so I got this job in a bank as a night janitor.

And I was coming to work one night

and I thought I wonder if anybody ever thinks

of cleaning the money so I opened the vault

and I started dusting it

and all the bells start ringing all over the place.

And for that, they give me 10 to 20 in Alcatraz.

- Just for being Mr. Clean?

- Well, it really wasn't too bad on the rock.

We had a great basketball team.

Al Capone, Frank Nitti,

Big John Dillinger, and Doug Schultz.

We was friends for life.

And that's what most of 'em were doing.

- Friends that you make in school are the ones that last.

- Yeah, yeah.

I kind of miss them guys.

Hi.

- Cheese it, here's the head screw.

- Oh, hi warden.

Oh now, stop calling me...

Look, here are your clothes.

Go change.

Lisa, did you... What?

- Permission to leave.

- You don't have to ask permission to leave.

- Just an old habit.

You know after being inside for over 40 years.

- Try to forget it, huh?

- Thank you.

- Do you know he's famous?

- Him?

- You've heard of the bird man of Alcatraz.

He's the mushroom man of Sam Quentin.

- San Quentin.

What do you mean the mushroom man?

- Well, one day he was digging this tunnel,

he snuck his head through the hole in the ground,

and the guard knew he wasn't a gopher

so they threw him in solitary refinement

- Confinement.

- Wherever he was, it was damp and dark

and there were mushrooms growing all around the wall.

Well he didn't have anything else to do so he studied them.

He's going to write a book about it.

- Oh, fine.

- He's got an idea for another book too.

Where he's giving crook lessons.

- Crook lessons?

- Yes, he showed me some of them.

How to open a lock without a key.

How to open blow a safe.

And how to pock pickets.

- No, not pock pickets.

Pick pockets.

- Well whatever they call it.

Do you want your wallet back?

I wonder if he'll squeal to the fuzz on me.

- Hiya Marty.

I want you to meet Willie Dunhill, my new cellmate.

- Let's get to work.

- Yes sir.

- What do you want me to do?

- Weed this corn.

- Which is the corn?

- Well, this is.

I thought you worked on a prison farm.

- Well I did but we never grew junk like this.

- Nobody does.

- Eb!

- These stalks are planted too close together.

And this soil would be better for beans.

- He's right.

You oughta do a stretch in prison

and learn something about farming.

- Eb, just get started, will ya?

- Yes sir.

- What are you waiting for?

- Oh, we never started working

until the head screw blew the whistle.

- I haven't got a whistle.

Just get to work.

Now what?

- I know this is silly but I'd work better

if you'd stand over me with a shotgun.

- Look, you're not in prison.

You don't need all those fancy trappings.

Now let's just get started.

- Mr. Haney, what are you doing?

- Installing your $50 burglar alarm.

- What do I need a burglar alarm for?

- Well, you have a burglar living here, don't you?

- He's not... - Will you hold this please?

Ooh!

- Thank you.

I never can tell which one has the electricity.

- Here, take this.

- Mr. Douglas, you just ruined a $400 burglar alarm.

- I thought you said it was $50.

- I'll take it.

- I don't want it.

- $50 is a small enough price to pay for protection

unless you wanna rent a $30 Haney safe deposit box.

- No, I don't want to.

- Are you just gonna leave your wife's jewels

and baubles lying around within reach of any crook

that happens to be living here.

- Mr. Haney, how can you call anybody a crook?

- Mr. Douglas, I detect a note of innuender in your voice.

- It's more than innuender.

The only difference between you and Willie Dunhill

is that he made the mistake of being caught.

- Mr. Douglas, would you mind repeating

that into my elk's tooth.

- Your?

- Teaching one, two, testing.

I wanna tape your accusations for the slander suit.

- Mr. Haney. - And speak slowly.

I'm recording you at two and seven eights.

- Get in your truck and get out of here.

- Well, I guess under the circumstances,

there's nothing to do but go home, lick my wounds,

and return some other time when you're more rational.

- Out!

Good morning.

- Hello there.

- What are you trying to do?

- Stirring the hotcake batter.

- Must you?

- I am making this especially for Willie.

- Look, he's already paid his debt to society.

- I learned this from a hamburger.

Oh, hello Eb.

- Hello.

What a night I had.

I didn't sleep a wink.

That cellmate of mine, holy sassafras.

- What did he do?

- First of all, when it was time to go to bed,

he moved all the furniture.

- What for?

- He was looking for the sink in the corner.

I finally convinced him there wasn't any.

So now we go to bed, then he wouldn't turn out the light.

- Well why not?

- He was waiting for a bed check.

- Well, I guess it isn't easy to adjust to civilian life.

- Permission to enter.

- Oh, come in.

- Oh, hello Willis, sit down.

- Thank you.

- Breakfast will be ready in a moment.

- Hey, how was the food in prison?

- Oh, fair.

For breakfast, you'd get fresh orange juice,

strawberries and cream or melon,

eggs with ham, bacon, or sausage,

and then they had these little biscuits with honey.

- According to those prison pictures, the food is lousy.

I saw one where the cons banged on the tables

and yelled, "Yah, yah, yah!"

- Hey, that might have been the picture I was in.

This movie company come up to the big Q

and they used some of us.

I had a speaking part.

The guy comes in and he puts the food down in front of me

and I took one look at it

and I said, "I ain't gonna eat this slop.

"Yah, yah, yah, yah!"

- Here's your breakfast.

- I ain't gonna eat this slop.

Yah, yah, yah, yah, yah.

- Holy smoke, the warden's gone stir crazy.

- Yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah.

Yah, yah, yah, yah.

Oh, hi Willie.

- Hi.

- Just gonna bed Eleanor down for the night.

- Oh.

- What are you doing?

- I'm whittlin'.

It's a hobby I picked up while I was in stir.

How do you like it?

- Oh, a...

- Of course, it'll look like the real thing

when I smear some black shoe polish on it.

We all use to make these.

Used to drive the screws crazy.

- I could imagine.

- I was thinking tonight is the night

they always showed movies in stir.

I don't suppose you show 'em?

- Oh, no.

Look, why don't you watch television?

- Too much violence.

- They have comedy shows.

- A widower with three kids or a widower with two kids.

What's funny about that?

- Look, why don't you read?

- Oh, is there a library around here?

- There's one in Hooterville.

Oh, that closes at 5:30.

- In stir, they always stayed open til' eight.

I use to love them art books they had.

I use imagine what the pictures was like

that they cut out.

- Well, maybe you...

- I sure miss that old gang in our cellblock.

Sneaky, Clyde the Pink, Mort the butcher, great guys.

We use to sit around at night planning how to break out.

- Look, you're free.

You don't have to plan to break out.

- I know, it takes all the challenge out of life.

I don't know if I like being on the outside.

- Look, Willie, tomorrow's your day off.

- Well, what does that mean?

- You don't have to work.

- What am I suppose to do?

Lie around in my cell all day?

- Willie, why don't you go to Pixley?

They got a movie theater there, bowling alleys, a pool hall.

- I don't know anybody there.

- You'll meet somebody.

People who live in farming communities are very friendly.

- Well.

- Willie, you're just having trouble adjusting.

In a couple of weeks, you'll get use to being out.

- I sure hope so.

Bang, bang, bang.

Go away, go away.

Go away.

- You waiting for somebody?

- No.

- Well, what are you doing?

- I'm just standing here.

- We got a law against loitering, move on.

- Yes sir.

- He's going to plead guilty?

- Yes, I offered to defend him.

- But he wants to take the wrap.

- Yeah, he wants to...

- What are they going to do with him?

- Send him back to Sam Quentin.

- San Quentin.

- Yeah, I...

- Well why didn't he take it on the lam,

instead of standing there

and letting the fuzz catch him with the loot?

- Lisa, it's obvious.

He wanted to be caught.

He wanted to go back to jail.

He kept talking about his friends.

It was almost as if he enjoyed it.

- I guess it must be a fun place.

- How could it be?

You're locked in.

You can't go any place.

Somebody always telling you what to do all the time.

You have to eat what they throw at you.

Just like being married.

- I have a feeling we're going to regret we said that.

Aren't you?

- Oh, I wasn't talking about our marriage.

I don't feel like I'm in jail.

- Well.

- No, more like being in bootcamp.

- Oliver!

- You know I didn't mean that.

See you in a little bit.

- Where you going?

- I'm going to the bathroom to take my pants off.

- Wow, at least Willie did some good.

He made a gentleman out of you.

This has been a Filmways presentation, darlin'.