The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Dana Andrews: Fred Derry

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Homer Parrish : I was afraid you wouldn't be able to stand up for me.

  Fred Derry : I'd stand up for you, kid, til I drop.

• [last lines] 

  Fred Derry : You know what it'll be, don't you, Peggy? It may take us years to get anywhere. We'll have no money, no decent place to live. We'll have to work, get kicked around...

  [Peggy, not caring one way or the other about these things, kisses him] 

• Marie Derry : Say, who is this Peggy Stephenson?

  Fred Derry : She's a girl.

  Marie Derry : I didn't think she was a kangaroo!

• Fred Derry : You gotta hand it to the Navy; they sure trained that kid how to use those hooks.

  Al Stephenson : They couldn't train him to put his arms around his girl, or to stroke her hair.

• [Al and Fred have arrived at Al's fancy apartment building] 

  Fred Derry : Some barracks you got here. Hey, what are you? A retired bootlegger?

  Al Stephenson : Nothing as dignified as that. I'm a banker.

• Fred Derry : I dreamed I was gonna have my own home. Just a nice little house for my wife and me out in the country... in the suburbs anyway. That's the cock-eyed kind of dream you have when you're overseas.

  Peggy Stephenson : You don't have to be overseas to have dreams like that.

  Fred Derry : Yeah. You can get crazy ideas right here at home.

• Marie Derry : What do you think I was doing all those years?

  Fred Derry : I don't know, babe, but I can guess.

  Marie Derry : Go ahead. Guess your head off. I could do some guessing myself. What were you up to in London and Paris and all those places? I've given you every chance to make something of yourself. I gave up my own job when you asked me. I gave up the best years of my life, and what have you done? You flopped! Couldn't even hold that job at the drugstore. So I'm going back to work for myself and that means I'm gonna live for myself too. And in case you don't understand English, I'm gonna get a divorce. What have you got to say to that?

  [Eight seconds of silence] 

  Fred Derry : Don't keep Cliff waiting.

• Marie Derry : What are you gonna do?

  Fred Derry : I'm going away.

  Marie Derry : Where?

  Fred Derry : As far away from Boone City as I can get.

  Marie Derry : That's a good idea. You'll get a good job someplace else. There are drugstores everywhere.

• Fred Derry : How long since you been home?

  Al Stephenson : Oh, a couple-a centuries.

• Peggy Stephenson : Well, what have you been doing with yourself lately?

  Fred Derry : Working.

  Peggy Stephenson : Yes, Dad told me he heard you were in some kind of building work.

  Fred Derry : Well, that's a hopeful way of putting it. I'm really in the junk business - an occupation for which many people feel I'm well-qualified by temperament and training.

• [Mr. Thorpe has offered Derry a job as asst. floor manager and part-time soda jerk] 

  Fred Derry : At what salary?

  Mr. Thorpe : Thirty-two fifty per week.

  Fred Derry : Thirty-two fifty. I used to make over four hundred dollars a month in the Air Force.

  Mr. Thorpe : The war is over, Derry.