Did this hackneyed phrase actually appear in a movie as a line? Which one? What was the context?
I was wondering about it when I saw it on the cover of Smithsonian magazine, which this month includes an article about the actual Casbah, which is an area in Algiers.
Some Googling tells me the line was supposedly said by Pepe le Moko, a character played by Charles Boyer in the movie Algiers. He never uttered this phrase in the film, although a parody of the character- Pepe Le Pew- has said the line a number of times. Indeed, the Smithsonian article comes to the same conclusion.
Pepe le Moko never actually uttered the line (either in the French film, Pepe Le Moko or the US remake, Algiers), but it was the gist of what he was saying. Pepe was king of the Casbah (the underworld district of the city) and the police couldn’t touch him there. So they sent a woman to draw him out.
The line was associated with Boyer.
It’s been decades since I saw Casbah (1948) in which Tony Martin played the role of Pepe Le Moko, so I can’t confirm or deny the phrase in that movie. I do remember a few of the songs and that Martin is married to Cyd Charisse who was a dance partner of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in those days. Tony Martin’s singing was quite good, too.