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Film Mis-Quotes Part 1 |
(chronological) Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Return to Entire Quotes Index |
(Part 1) |
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| Film Misquote(s) | |
 The Virginian (1929)  The Virginian (1946) |
In The Virginian (1929), one of the earliest Western talkies, Gary Cooper (as the Virginian) gave a famous taunting line to bad guy Trampas (Walter Huston) at the saloon's bar. At the start of the heated exchange, Trampas challenged the Virginian:
It was not:
Note however that Owen Wister's 1902 Western novel The Virginian actually used the phrase:
A second version of the novel was filmed 17 years later, also titled The Virginian (1946), starring Joel McCrea as the title character. In the remake, the Virginian used the same "smile" line as in the novel when he confronted Trampas at a card table for lying:
|
 Animal Crackers (1930) |
In the Marx Brothers comedy film Animal Crackers (1930), Groucho Marx (as African jungle explorer Captain Geoffrey T. Spaulding) delivered the following line:
It has often been misquoted as:
|
 Dracula (1931)  Ed Wood (1994) |
In the Universal horror classic, Dracula (1931), the legendary blood-sucking Count Dracula (Hungarian-born actor Bela Lugosi) never said:
However, the line was spoken in director Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994). It was used in a humorous context by Dr. Tom Mason (Ned Bellamy) practicing his Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau) impersonation:
|
 Frankenstein (1931)  Young Frankenstein (1974) |
Often misquoted is Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) - yes, Frankenstein was the name of the mad scientist - and his famous shout in Frankenstein (1931), with the stirring of life within his non-human Monster (Boris Karloff):
Frankenstein has often been quoted as saying instead:
Mel Brooks' irreverent spoof Young Frankenstein (1974) featured grandson Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) resuming his late grandfather's experiments, and his loud exclamation to bug-eyed Igor (Marty Feldman) and voluptuous lab assistant Inga (Teri Garr):
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The mobster refrain: "You dirty rat!" - was never said verbatim by James Cagney, although he did say something similar in two films:
It was misquoted in Cole Porter's Broadway 1934 stage classic Anything Goes, starring Ethel Merman. It was also misquoted in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) when Michelangelo imitated James Cagney:
[Note: In Home Alone (1990), Macauley Culkin watched a scene from a fictional B/W gangster film videotape titled, "Angels With Filthy Souls" (a take-off on the Cagney film Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)), in which gangster Johnny shoots a rival gangster named Snakes, while saying, "Keep the change, ya filthy animal!"] |
 Grand Hotel (1932)  Ninotchka (1939) |
Greta Garbo's most famous quote of all prominently appeared, with her famous accent spoken by the character Grusinskaya (a forlorn ballerina), in Grand Hotel (1932):
Slightly later in the same scene, she also stated two
other variations: "I
just want to be alone", and "But
I want to be alone." Play clip (excerpt): Garbo also stated a similar line, including her partner-lover Leon (Melvyn Douglas) in her solitude, in Ninotchka (1939):
It was often thought that statements about Garbo wanting to be alone were non-existent or merely a comment on her reclusive nature in private life. |
 Tarzan The Ape Man (1932) |
"Me Tarzan, you Jane" - was a catch-phrase inaccurately-quoted from Tarzan, the Ape Man (1932). However, in a 1932 interview, Johnny Weissmuller (as Tarzan) actually claimed: "I didn't have to act in Tarzan, the Ape Man, just said: 'Me Tarzan, You Jane." See (and hear) the actual conversation between Tarzan and Jane below:
|
 The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933) 
The Old Fashioned Way (1934) |
In the short two-reel W.C. Fields comedy The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933), the comedian often stated the following line (with the famous gag of a handful of fake snow being thrown in his face from an opened cabin door).
Later, W.C. Fields would reprise the gag during the "play-within-the-play" in The Old-Fashioned Way (1934).
The phrase became popularized as an easy way to describe awful weather. It has often been misquoted as:
|
 42nd Street (1933) |
These are all misquotes of the original line (see below) in 42nd Street (1933):
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The following line, a classic double entendre, was not spoken by Mae West in She Done Him Wrong (1933):
Note: The line was parodied in at least three other films: Blazing Saddles (1974), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), and America's Sweethearts (2001): In Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974), Madeline Kahn as Lili Von Schtupp quipped:
In Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Dolores (Joanna Cassidy) asked Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) - with Roger Rabbit concealed in his pants pocket:
And in the romantic comedy America's Sweethearts (2001), in a revenge fantasy sequence, the line was parodied in a scene between two movie stars who were at odds with each other after a break-up:
|
 She Done Him Wrong (1933)  I'm No Angel (1933) |
Bawdy actress Mae West has often been misquoted, especially with these mis-stated lines:
In fact, the line was stated differently in the 1933 film She Done Him Wrong (1933). Mae West (as Lady Lou) propositioned her co-star Cary Grant (as Captain Cummings) thusly:
Later in the film, she again offered her services to Captain Cummings, with a modified invitation:
Much earlier in the film, she had already invited suave Serge Stanieff (Gilbert Roland) with the same words:
Toward the end of another Mae West film in the same year, I'm No Angel (1933), the actress (as lion tamer Tira) also thanked (on the telephone) Juror # 4 for her acquittal and some "beautiful flowers," with her own, self-referential oft-misquoted line:
|
 Sons of the Desert (1933) |
In the Laurel and Hardy classic comedy, Sons of the Desert (1933), Oliver Hardy exclaimed to partner Stan Laurel:
He did NOT say:
|
 King Kong (1933) |
At the conclusion of the classic adventure film King Kong (1933), Robert Armstrong (as Carl Denham) uttered the famous closing line:
Some have heard it to say this variant (see below), although there's little doubt:
|
 The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) |
In The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), Douglass Dumbrille (as treacherous and sinister Mohammed Khan) said the following line as a taunting threat to Bengal Lancers. In his delivery, he paused after "Well, gentlemen" to give a smile and then a scowl:
He did NOT say:
The movie was reportedly Adolph Hitler's favorite. The torture method to get them to talk involved sharp slivers of bamboo inserted under fingernails that were set on fire. |
 Poppy (1936) |
At the end of the film Poppy (1936), conniving patent-medicine salesman Prof. Eustace P. McGargle (W.C. Fields) bid farewell to heiress Poppy (Rochelle Hudson), who always thought he was her father. He told her:
The proverb meant that one should not give a fair chance to a fool (or one easily deceived). It became the title of Fields' later film: Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941). It has been misquoted, often written as:
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 Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937) |
The misquote (such as: "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?") has been heard in a number of films, including Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988), 101 Dalmatians (1996), 54 (1998), and Shrek (2001):
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 Algiers (1938) |
"Come with me to the Casbah," followed by "we'll make beautiful music together" - was never said by Charles Boyer to co-star Hedy Lamarr in Algiers (1938). Boyer claimed it was invented by his press agent. It was voiced by cartoon character Pepe LePew in subsequent Looney Tunes cartoons, among others. In fact, animator Chuck Jones based the Warner Brothers cartoon character Pepe LePew, a French skunk, on Charles Boyer's Pepe Le Moko.
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 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) |
"Elementary, my dear Watson!" - was a phrase never spoken by the lead character in the many Sherlock Holmes novels from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This mis-quote was found in a film review in the New York Times on October 19, 1929. The closest phrases in Doyle's writings were in:
The misquoted catchphrase became popularized
only after its trademark use in two films:
It was also stated twice by the Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) character in the 1939 20th Century Fox classic:
There was also a clever reversal of the phrase spoken by Holmes' companion Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) in the 1939 film's last lines.
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Greatest Movie Mis-Quotes: Some of the most classic film lines or scenes
are really only legendary and/or apocryphal, or they are
merely movie
misquotes, but after many years of repetition and being misquoted
in subsequent films, they have become part of the filmgoing public's
consciousness. Many of these examples are film quotes that were either
commonly attributed wrongly, or in fact were never actually spoken.
