Rest in Peace Mon-sooor.

In the midst of the human and financial carnage ongoing, Stuart Whitman passed away at age 92.  Described as “ruggedly handsome” in Ashley Southall’s New York Times obituary, I will always remember Whitman as Monsieur Paul Regret--or "Mon-sooor," as Texas Ranger Jake Cutter (John Wayne) insisted on calling him.  

“The Comancheros,” based on a Paul I. Wellman novel, has Cutter catching up with the New Orleans dandy (Regret) who killed a judge's son in a duel just after that gentlemanly practice was banned. 

Cutter eventually teams with his prisoner in an undercover effort to defeat a band of renegade arms merchants and thieves known as Comancheros.

Patrick Wayne joined his dad in the star-studded cast, including Lee Marvin, Jack Elam, Bruce Cabot and scene-stealing Edgar Buchanan as Circuit Court Judge Thaddeus Jackson Breen. 

In an especially poignant scene:

Circuit Court Judge Thaddeus Jackson Breen:

Most say, except for them who are unfair minded, that I have the finest legal mind in the entire southwest. So you can have faith in your lawyer, son. How much money you got?

Paul Regret:

I don't have any.

Circuit Court Judge Thaddeus Jackson Breen:

Well, I'm beginning to doubt your chances against the law.

Circuit Court Judge Thaddeus Jackson Breen:

Major here has told me what your troubles are. I've been thinking it over and in light of my forty years experience in legal jurisprudence, I have come to the positive conclusion that there ain't no way to do this legal and honest... but being good sensible Texans, we'll do it illegal and dishonest! Now all the boys here in the room have agreed to sign a paper I have prepared. They all are going to commit perjury. That's legal language for just a plain, dumb blasted lie.

I used that dialog in a talk before young students at the Mises Institute while explaining how fractionalized banking was codified into British common law.  My audience was not as amused by the scene as I had hoped.  

Rest in Peace Mon-sooor.