M*A*S*H (TV Series)
Mail Call Three (1978)
Alan Alda: Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce
Photos
Quotes
-
Captain Ben Pierce : Captain Pierce, I'm Captain Pierce.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Huh? Oh, the letter snafu.
Captain Ben Pierce : I was passing through, and I thought we could exchange our mail.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Well, it's a pleasure to meet me.
-
Capt. B.J. Hunnicutt : A guy makes a pass. She laughs it off.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Beej, cut it off at the pass.
-
Captain Ben Pierce : Here are your letters.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Oh, thanks. Oh, isn't that nice? All unopened.
Maj. Charles Winchester : Pity you can't extend the same courtesy to Captain Pierce.
Captain Ben Pierce : I don't understand. You mean you looked at my letters?
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Well, one of them fell on the ground and broke open.
Captain Ben Pierce : What do you mean, broke open?
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : That was just a little levity to ease the tension.
[chuckling]
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : You know... I just--I only read one of them.
Maj. Charles Winchester : Uh, which one was that, Pierce? The one from Sheila, Joyce, or Gloria?
-
Captain Ben Pierce : [Hawkeye has read the other Capt. Ben Pierce's letters] Hey, Captain, that's not a nice thing to do.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Look, I'm sorry, but up here a letter, any letter, is as good as gold, and yours are platinum.
Maj. Charles Winchester : Yes, you're quite a Romeo.
Captain Ben Pierce : No, no, I'm no Romeo.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : You're not? I don't do that well in my dreams.
Captain Ben Pierce : I wish they'd stop writing me. I never answer them.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : I tell you what. I'll write to them. I've always wanted to be a foreign correspondent.
Captain Ben Pierce : What do you mean, a foreign correspondent?
Capt. B.J. Hunnicutt : Joke. Little joke.
Captain Ben Pierce : Oh. Yeah.
-
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly : Come on! This is my mom we're talkin' about!
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Radar, she's a woman. She's a warm human being. Where do you think you came from, the Monkey Ward catalog?
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly : That was my regular father.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Radar. Radar, you're jealous.
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly : Me? Jealous?
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Yeah, sure. You have to share her with somebody else for the first time since you were a little kid.
-
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly : Well, you know my mother.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Only by mail.
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly : Well, you know, she's been without my dad for a long time now.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Yeah, I know. yeah.
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly : She started keeping company with this man. He's been a teller at the Farmer's Bank for 30 years. He's a third degree Mason. He's an elder in his church.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Sounds like a pretty shady character.
-
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly : Yeah. Maybe I am jealous.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : I was the same way. The same thing happened to me. My father's a widower, you know.
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly : Yeah?
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Yeah.
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly : You mean just like my mom?
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Yeah, right. When I was about 12 years old, he got interested in this very nice lady. She was a bookkeeper. And I was sore as hell. I didn't say anything, but he knew I was sore. And he really wanted me to like her, but I wouldn't. Anyway.
[Long pause]
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Well, I guess he needed my approval so much that, uh... he didn't marry her. And he's been alone to this day. And loneliness is everything it's cracked up to be.
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly : Yeah, I guess it is.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : So, with your mother, I'd wait and see what happens.
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly : Yeah, well, if you say so.
-
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly : Well, I don't even know this guy, and he's going around with my mom. It's, uh, look, bingo on Wednesday night at the Masonic Lodge. On Friday it's square dancing at the Pentecostal Church. Every Sunday he gets her in his Nash Metropolitan, and he takes her over to Lockport for snow-cones. Just the two of 'em. They never stop. It's go, go, go!
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : So what's wrong, wrong, wrong?
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly : Well, old people aren't supposed to go runnin' around like that.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Sure they are. I think it's great.
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly : Well, yeah, but what if he, uh... suppose he wants to horse around?
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Great. It's good for the cardiovascular system.
-
Captain Ben Pierce : Well, nice meeting you.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : Wait, wait, just a second. I-I No offense, Pierce, but you don't exactly look like Clark Gable, and you don't sound like Ronald Colman, and you don't move like Fred Astaire. How do you do it?
Captain Ben Pierce : Do what?
Capt. B.J. Hunnicutt : Get all the girls to go wild about ya.
Captain Ben Pierce : Oh, that. Uh, I guess it's 'cause I make them laugh.
Maj. Charles Winchester : [in disbelief] I beg your pardon?
Captain Ben Pierce : I make them laugh. It's my sense of humor. I'm a very funny guy.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : [after the other Capt. Pierce leaves] He's a VERY funny guy.