MovieChat Forums > They Were Expendable (1945) Discussion > Mistaking dishwater for soup

Mistaking dishwater for soup


There is a scene in which some guy takes a drink out of a pot and asks the cook if he calls that stuff soup, to which the cook replies "no, that's dishwater".

I was instantly reminded of another movie I watched recently in which the exact same thing happened and I thought one might be a homage to the other, the only trouble is I can not remember which movie it was!

I am pretty sure it was a western of some sort and it might be a James Stewart one since I've watched a bunch of films with him recently.
Does this seem familiar to anyone else?

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Mr. Roberts perhaps had a similar scene.

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It was a classic putdown of a green junior officer by a long-serving enlisted man.

The ensign was giving the cook a long string of obvious and unnecessary orders: Keep the kitchen clean, wash the pots twice a day, don't throw the garbage into the bay, etc., etc.

So when the ensign put a ladle into the dishwater and tasted it, the cook held his tongue and watched the guy make an ass of himself.

A more senior officer was standing next to the two men. After the junior officer left, he just said to the cook: "Ensigns."

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I'm pretty sure that scene was from "The Enemy Below (1957)" starring Robert Mitchum.

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It's from Mister Roberts, another John Ford movie, spoken by Jack Lemmon.
It's not the only example of a line from a Ford movie repeated in another.
Apparently, if he liked a line, or a gag he did not shirk from running it into the ground.

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