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Film Mis-Quotes Part 2 |
(chronological) Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Return to Entire Quotes Index |
(Part 2) |
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| Film Misquote(s) | |
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It was NOT:
The misquote was heard in Clue (1985), when Miss Scarlet (Lesley Ann Warren) begged Wadsworth (Tim Curry) to forgive her for trying to shoot him:
And in The Mask (1994), the Mask/Stanley Ipkiss (Jim Carrey) spoofed the line after being shot:
[Note: Contrary to popular opinion, Gone With the Wind (1939) was not the first instance of the use of the word 'damn' in a film. It reportedly was said a few times in Glorifying the American Girl (1929) and in Pygmalion (1938, UK). Also, the phrase "March and sweat the whole damned day" appeared on a dialogue card in the silent epic war film The Big Parade (1925).] |
 Only Angels Have Wings (1939) |
In Only Angels Have Wings (1939), Cary Grant said the name 'Judy' numerous times to costar Rita Hayworth (playing a character named Judith McPherson), such as: "Hello, Judy" - but never repeated her name in rapid succession. The phrase: "Judy...Judy...Judy" has often been falsely attributed to Cary Grant.
[Note: Cary Grant vaguely recalled that at a party he attended, someone introduced Judy Garland by saying, "Judy, Judy, Judy" and the phrase was attributed to him. A 1960 New Yorker ad for several Judy Garland albums ("Judy! Judy! Judy!") reinforced the incorrect quote.] |
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It's generally misquoted as:
A misquote was heard in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) when the two Szalinski siblings, Amy (Amy O'Neill) and Nick (Robert Oliveri), realized that they had been miniaturized and trapped in a plastic garbage bag in their backyard:
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 Knute Rockne: All American (1940) |
Quite often, an actual quote has been adapted or abbreviated. This is the original lengthy famous line in the film Knute Rockne: All-American (1940), spoken by team coach Knute Rockne (Pat O'Brien) as a pep-talk to his losing Notre Dame team during half-time:
It has often been stated simply as:
[Note: In the film, Knute Rockne was recalling what his most famous player, George Gipp (portrayed by Ronald Reagan), had said earlier: "Ask 'em to go in there with all they've got, win just one for the Gipper." George Gipp was a real-life football star who died young of pneumonia and provided an inspiring anecdote to his coach.] |
 The Maltese Falcon (1941) |
The last line of the film noirish detective story The Maltese Falcon (1941) was a two-line conversation between Police Sergeant Tom Polhaus (Ward Bond) and Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart):
Spade's unusual reference paraphrased Prospero's speech in Act IV of Shakespeare's The Tempest, although it was a misquote of:
The actual final word of the film was the Sergeant's puzzled response: "Huh?" Many forget the real last word and believe that "The uh, stuff that dreams are made of" is the final line. |
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Variations on the line were spoken, however, by both leads in the 1942 film:
When "Play It Again Sam" became the title of a Woody Allen comedy Play It Again, Sam (1972) that, in part, spoofed the classic 1942 film, the misquote was further reinforced. The misquote, "Play it again, Sam" was also heard in at least three other films, including Moonraker (1979), Cut Off (2006), and I Want Candy (2007, UK):
[Note: However, contrary to popular belief, the Marx Brothers' spoof A Night in Casablanca (1946) did NOT contain the line.] |
 Casablanca (1942) |
In Casablanca (1942), Humphrey Bogart never said: "Drop the gun, Louis." However, he did give the following warning:
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Casablanca (1942) |
The last line of Casablanca (1942) is also often misquoted (and the name Louis, pronounced 'Louie' (in French), is often mis-spelled as Louie). The correct line, spoken by Humphrey Bogart, is:
It is often mis-stated as:
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One of the most oft-quoted lines in cinema history was in director John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948):
[Note: The line was derived from the 1935 novel by B. Traven that consisted of the following similar dialogue, with some Spanish obscenities added in:
It has often been misquoted or paraphrased, notably in director Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974), spoken by a Mexican bandit (Rick Garcia) as:
The line of dialogue has also been misquoted in a number of films, including The Ninth Configuration (1980), Gotcha! (1985), "Weird Al" Yankovic's UHF (1989), and Troop Beverly Hills (1989):
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The following popular catchphrase has multiple origins, and probably goes way back. It was first heard in the movies in Otto Preminger's film-noir Fallen Angel (1945).
It was most famously uttered by Bette Davis (as Rose Moline) in Beyond the Forest (1949).
It was not popularized until heard in the opening scene of the 1961 Edward Albee play, upon which the highly-acclaimed film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) was based. In the film, the exact same line was uttered by actress Elizabeth Taylor (as drunken and discontented 52 year-old wife Martha) as the opening line of dialogue, upon entering their living room - she even parodied Bette Davis' mannerisms, exclaiming:
She then berated her professor-husband Richard Burton (as George) for not remembering the film the line was from:
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 Knock on Any Door (1949) |
Actor John Derek (Bo Derek's future husband) in his first major film role (as young Italian hoodlum Nick Romano in the Chicago slums, who was accused of murdering a cop) stated the following line in the classic Humphrey Bogart film noir Knock on Any Door (1949), directed by Nicholas Ray. He told his girlfriend Emma (Allene Roberts) that his motto or credo in life remained as:
The last part of the phrase was fairly original (derived from the text of the 1947 novel written by the African-American novelist Willard Motley), while the phrase "live fast and die young" dated back to the early 1900s. [Note: The saying, although wrongly modified as “Live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse!” has often been wrongly attributed to actor James Dean - a quintessential symbol of disenfranchised youth.] |
 White Heat (1949) |
In the classic gangster film White Heat (1949), James Cagney's triumphant shout atop a oil tank before blasting himself into oblivion has often been erroneously quoted. The actual line was:
The line was not:
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 All About Eve (1950) |
Bette Davis' most famous film line as aging, jealous stage actress Margo Channing in All About Eve (1950) was delivered after she took another stiff drink during a birthday party. She walked over to the staircase, turned, and told everyone to buckle up their airplane seatbelts (cars didn't have seatbelts in the 1950s!):
The line has often been misquoted, substituting the word "ride" for "night."
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In the closing of the classic film noir Sunset Boulevard (1950), faded silent film star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) descended her marble staircase as she warned famed movie director Cecil B. DeMille (as Himself) that she was approaching the camera for a close-up:
Many times, the line has been misquoted as:
The line was misquoted in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) by Daniel Hillard/Mrs. Doubtfire (Robin Williams), while speaking to Frank (Harvey Fierstein) as he/she was made up:
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 Alice in Wonderland (1951) |
In Disney's animated classic Alice in Wonderland (1951), the Cheshire Cat (voice of Sterling Holloway) has often been erroneously thought to have said:
The actual lines in the film were:
In Lewis Carroll's original novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland published in 1865, however, the extended quote was:
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 Son of Ali Baba (1952) |
One of the more interesting misquotes was attributed to actor Tony Curtis. In many tributes and obituaries when he died in the year 2010, he was quoted as having said the following line with a heavy New York accent:
Although many sources claimed that Curtis said the line in The Prince Who Was a Thief (1951) and/or The Black Shield of Falworth (1954), Curtis didn't utter the above quote in either film. However, a variation on the line was spoken by Curtis in Son of Ali Baba (1952):
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 Tea and Sympathy (1956) |
Director Vincente Minnelli's melodramatic Tea and Sympathy (1956) began as playwright Robert Anderson's stage play, debuting in NYC in 1953. The controversial film was about bullying and social prejudice against "unmanly" prep school student Tom Lee (John Kerr), who was shown understanding and friendship by Laura Reynolds (Deborah Kerr) - the lonely, frustrated wife of Bill (Leif Erickson), the school's coach. The film's title came from his description of his wife's role at the school, when she completed his sentence:
The Rolling Stones 1969 song Let It Bleed, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (and performed by Mick Jagger), modified the line in one of the verses:
[Note: The acclaimed film, bowdlerized and with a tacked-on ending, should have ended with Laura's advice to Tom:
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There were a few variations on the famous James Bond 007 drink preference quote: "...shaken, not stirred," first heard uttered by the Bond character (Sean Connery) himself in Goldfinger (1964):
Villain Dr. Julius No (Joseph Wiseman) offered the familiar drink to Bond in the earlier first Bond film Dr. No (1962) - with the words:
In You Only Live Twice (1967), the drink instructions were reversed, with Bond politely agreeing with his host Henderson (Charles Gray) and accepting the altered drink: "Perfect!"
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In the UK film Alfie (1966, UK), Michael Caine (as the title character) said a lot of phrases such as:
However, Alfie never said: "(And) not a lot of people know that" - although the catchphrase (in many variations) was attributed to him for many decades. Caine claimed that it was actually Peter Sellers who had impersonated his voice with the phrase on his telephone answering machine: ("This is Michael Caine, Peter Sellers is out. Not many people know that"). Sellers repeated the humorous phrase during an appearance and impersonation of Michael Caine on BBC-TV's The Michael Parkinson Show in 1972.
The phrase was also given to Caine (as the character of Dr. Frank Bryant) as an in-joke in the film Educating Rita (1983, UK), who drunkenly spoke:
[Note: Caine's first trivia book published in 1986, Almanac of Amazing Information, was sub-titled: "Not Many People Know That." Proceeds from the book went to a charity: the National Playing Fields Association. Another published in 1988 was sub-titled: "And Not Many People Know This Either!"] |
 Cool Hand Luke (1967) |
The tagline from Cool Hand Luke (1967) has often been modified from its original. In its most famous utterance, the Captain (Strother Martin) said to recalcitrant chain gang prisoner Luke (Paul Newman):
It was NOT:
However, the line with the word 'a' added was later sarcastically repeated (by character Luke to the prison warden before he was shot) -- as:
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He did NOT ask either of these two questions:
Shortly later upstairs in her home, Mrs. Robinson went further and asked Benjamin:
The misquote (in a number of variations) was heard in a few films, for example, The Ladies Man (2000), Van Wilder (2002), and A Walk to Remember (2002).
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 Planet of the Apes (1968) |
In Planet of the Apes (1968), captured astronaut George Taylor (Charlton Heston) screamed at one of the apes:
He did NOT say:
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 The Italian Job (1969, UK) |
In the original British caper film The Italian Job (1969, UK) about a gang stealing gold bullion from a bank vault in Turin, Italy, this famous quote was heard from Cockney gangster Charlie Croker (Michael Caine) as the film ended:
He did not say:
[Note: From the same film, the following line was voted the favorite film one-liner in a 2003 poll of 1,000 British film fans, reported in The Telegraph.
It demoted the previous most favorite line down to the # 2 spot - Rhett Butler's (Clark Gable) retort to Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) in Gone With the Wind (1939) - see earlier:]
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He never said:
The same full quotation was ritualistically repeated again almost verbatim at the film's conclusion, when Callahan confronted the killer Scorpio (Andrew Robinson):
Misquotes of the same lines were heard in a number of films, including Short Circuit 2 (1988), Scary Movie 2 (2001), and Showtime (2002):
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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.
