The Navy has changed a great deal. Not that the officers of my day were bad, because I served under a lot of good officers, believe me. But there were a few bad ones, too.

You get kicked around long enough, you become a professor of pain.

I'm still watching all those old-timers really going along, and I'm enjoying it so much, not just looking at the pictures, but looking at the acting. Paul Muni. Beautiful character. Edward G. Robinson. Jimmy Cagney. All those old boys. You don't find those characters anymore.

Today's work, I don't know it just doesn't make sense, a lot of it. It's just guns and sex and more guns and more sex. You say to yourself, when the hell are you gonna get down to the nitty-gritty and do something good so people can be entertained? I mean if they call this entertainment.

A lot of people forget that today. They come to the point where you walk on a set and the first thing you know you're looking at the sound man and you're saying to yourself, "How the hell can they get any sound when nobody is talking!" They get all mumbly. You can't make out what they're saying! And you're 6 feet away from them! Whereas in the old-time movies, you hear them, you understand every word they're saying, and you didn't have to put on your loudspeaker.

There's an awful lot to be desired. I've gone to places where people say to me, "What's your technique?" Technique? What the hell technique is there to acting? We're acting because even with my voice I'm giving what I think is what I want to say.

It's not your word that matters, it's who you give it too.