The Hunt for Red October (1990)

Courtney B. Vance: Seaman Jones

Photos 

Quotes 

• Capt. Bart Mancuso : [after hearing Jones's findings]  Have I got this straight, Jonesy? A $40 million computer tells you you're chasing an earthquake, but you don't believe, and you come up with this on your own?

  Seaman Jones : Yes, sir.

  Capt. Bart Mancuso : Including all the navigation maps?

  Seaman Jones : Sir, I-I've got all the...

  Capt. Bart Mancuso : Relax, Jonesy. You sold me.

• Capt. Bart Mancuso : All back full.

  Lt. Cmdr. Thompson : Captain...

  Capt. Bart Mancuso : I said, all back full!

  Lt. Cmdr. Thompson : Back full, aye.

  [the Dallas reverses, churning the water] 

  Seaman Jones : Captain, we're cavitating, he can hear us!

  Capt. Bart Mancuso : Conn, aye. All right, Ryan, we just unzipped our fly. Mr. Thompson! Open the outer doors, firing point procedures. Now if that bastard so much as twitches, I'm going to blow him straight to Mars.

• [telling young Sonarman Beaumont about Jones's most embarrassing moment] 

  Watson : Seaman Jones here is into music in a big way, and he views this whole boat as his own personal, private stereo set. Well, one day he's got this piece of Pavarotti...

  Seaman Jones : It was Paganini.

  Watson : Whatever.

  Seaman Jones : It was Paganini.

  Watson : Look, this is my story, okay?

  Seaman Jones : Then tell it right, COB. Pavarotti is a tenor, Paganini was a composer.

  Watson : So anyway, he's got this music out in the water, and he's listening to it on his headsets, and he's just happy as a clam. And then all hell breaks loose. See, there's this whole slew of boats out in the water...

  Seaman Jones : Including one WAY out at Pearl!

  Watson : Including one way the hell out at Pearl. All of a sudden, they start hearing, Pavarotti...

  Beaumont : Pavarotti!

  Watson : Coming up their asses!

• Seaman Jones : [Jonesy is teaching Beaumont]  Hear it now?

  Beaumont : [resigned]  No.

  Seaman Jones : Beaumont, at Caltech we used to do this in our sleep! You hear it now?

  Beaumont : Wait a minute...

  Seaman Jones : Uh oh...

  Beaumont : Disparaged surface clutter...

  Seaman Jones : Yeeeesssss?

  Beaumont : I should go to SAPS?

  Seaman Jones : Correct! Seaman Beaumont, Signal Algorithmic Processing System. Give it a week and you'll be teaching at Caltech. So, like Beethoven on the computer, you have laboured to produce... a biologic.

  Beaumont : A what?

  Seaman Jones : A whale, Seaman Beaumont, a whale. A marine mammal that knows a hell of a lot more about sonar than you do. Train her around to 269 and let's try it again?

• Capt. Bart Mancuso : Hang on, Jonesy. If I can get you close enough... can you track this sucker?

  Seaman Jones : Yes, sir. Now that I know what to listen for, I'll bag 'im.

  Capt. Bart Mancuso : [smiling]  Carry on.

• Seaman Jones : Conn, sonar! Crazy Ivan!

  Capt. Bart Mancuso : All stop! Quick quiet!

  [the ships engines are shut down completely] 

  Beaumont : What's goin' on?

  Seaman Jones : Russian captains sometime turn suddenly to see if anyone's behind them. We call it "Crazy Ivan." The only thing you can do is go dead. Shut everything down and make like a hole in the water.

  Beaumont : So what's the catch?

  Seaman Jones : The catch is, a boat this big doesn't exactly stop on a dime... and if we're too close, we'll drift right into the back of him.

• Beaumont : Won't he hear us?

  Seaman Jones : Not if we stay in his baffles, Seaman Beaumont. Not if we stay in his baffles. Come up right behind his propellor and he'll be deaf as a post!

• Seaman Jones : COB, we don't have time for sea stories. I was just teaching Seaman Beaumont, here, the intracacies of modern sonar, now...

  Watson : [chuckling]  Yea, and I ain't Chief Of the Boat, I'm actually Sheena, queen of the jungle!

• Seaman Jones : Sir, the moment that sub went silent and I thought I heard some singing, I heard something in the background, real faint. And then, after all those subs took off, I caught it again and I managed to get it on tape. I washed it through the computer a few times and was able to isolate this sound.

  [pressing "play" on a tape recorder, they hear a slow pulsing] 

  Seaman Jones : When I asked the computer to identify it, what I got was magma displacement. You see, sir, the SAPS software was originally written to look for seismic events. And I think when it gets confused, it kind of runs home to mama.

  Capt. Bart Mancuso : I'm not following you, Jonesy.

  Seaman Jones : Sir, I'm sorry. Listen to it at ten times speed.

  [playing it again, the pulsing sounds more like a steady clanging] 

  Seaman Jones : Now, that's got to man-made, Captain.

• Seaman Jones : The first contact was at 09:15, and the bearing was 2-6-9.

  Capt. Bart Mancuso : Mm-hmm.

  Seaman Jones : At 09:30, it was here. I came back to it at 11:00 and 11:15, here and here. Sir, remember the dispatch we got about Russian sub skippers running the Reykjanes Ridge at high speeds because they had hyper-accurate surveys of the underwater canyons?

  Capt. Bart Mancuso : Yeah, yeah, Red Route 1.

  Seaman Jones : And the front door to those canyons was a formation called Thor's Twins, right?

  Capt. Bart Mancuso : Yeah?

  Seaman Jones : Well...

  [with a ruler and marker, he connects the line of contacts all the way down to Thor's Twins] 

  Seaman Jones : Look at that.

  Capt. Bart Mancuso : Right into Red Route 1.

  Seaman Jones : Captain, you may think I'm crazy, but I'll bet that magma displacement was actually some new Russian sub, and it's headed for the Iceland coast.

• Seaman Jones : Conn, sonar. Target's flooded his tubes.

  Capt. Bart Mancuso : Has he opened his outer doors?

  Seaman Jones : Negative, Captain. He's just sitting there. Hold on. Hull popping. Target's coming shallow.

  Jack Ryan : What's that mean?

  Capt. Bart Mancuso : That means he's a very cool customer, your Russian. He knows we're here and we're ready to shoot. He's not gonna provoke us. He's heading to periscope depth to see what's on the surface. What's his course now?

  Lieutenant Commander Thompson - USS Dallas : Course is 2-7-0, Captain, due west.

  Capt. Bart Mancuso : Bring us alongside him.

• Captain Ramius : I present you the ballistic missile submarine Red October. My officers and I request asylum in the United States of America.

  Capt. Bart Mancuso : It's a pleasure, sir. Bart Mancuso, USS Dallas.

  Seaman : [hearing a torpedo pass over them]  Torpedo. The Americans are shooting at us again.

  Seaman Jones : Pitch is too high. The torpedo's Russian.

• Seaman Jones : Conn, sonar. New contact, bearing 0-9-7. Designate contact number Sierra 3-5.

  Capt. Bart Mancuso : Captain, aye. What do you got, Jonesy?

  Seaman Jones : Distant contact, probably submerged. It's a wild guess, but I'd say we hit a boomer coming out of the barn. Could be a missile boat out of Polijarny.