# Movies that initiated some device/cliche/gimmick/line of dialogue **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 9, 2006, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-initiated-some-device-cliche-gimmick-line-of-dialogue/339170 "2006-01-09T16:32:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-initiated-some-device-cliche-gimmick-line-of-dialogue/339170/1 "2006-01-09T16:32:12Z")
I’d like this thread to serve two purposes: 1. Identify best guesses as to when some specific “idea” was first used in a movie 2. Provide earlier instances than the one(s) already cited. So if you can point to a movie that has the first use of something you see often nowadays, that would be a (1). Then if you can point to an earlier movie that used that same thing, that would be a (2). What gave me this notion was in seeing something recently where a team was losing badly and the coach/manager got the guys together and suggested they maim or cripple the star on the other team. Can’t recell the movie at this moment but it reminded me of a similar instance in the Charles Bronson/James Coburn movie _Hard Times_ where the guy managing the fighter that Bronson faced had him use brass knuckles to take Bronson out. The guy refused and Bronson won, but the device has to be much older than that movie. Much older. Can you think of the first movie where you saw this sort of gimmick? What’s something along similar lines that you wonder about? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-initiated-some-device-cliche-gimmick-line-of-dialogue/339170/2 "2006-01-09T16:50:54Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > What gave me this notion was in seeing something recently where a team was losing badly and the coach/manager got the guys together and suggested they maim or cripple the star on the other team. Can’t recell the movie at this moment but it reminded me of a similar instance in the Charles Bronson/James Coburn movie _Hard Times_ where the guy managing the fighter that Bronson faced had him use brass knuckles to take Bronson out. The guy refused and Bronson won, but the device has to be much older than that movie. Much older. **M_A_S\*H** had something similar five years earlier – the injected the player with something to put him to sleep during the football game finale. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-initiated-some-device-cliche-gimmick-line-of-dialogue/339170/3 "2006-01-09T19:11:20Z")
Well, this thread doesn’t seem to be doing much. Maybe my title and/or OP aren’t clear on what I was hoping to get at here. Here’s another example: In my moviegoing experience, the first movie to show blood in a fist fight was _Shane_. Can you name an earlier example? Along similar lines, when’s the first time you see blood in a gunshot wound? I can point to the shotgun scene in _Bullitt_ as an example, but I know there must be earlier instances. Speaking of _Bullitt_ the scene where we see his Mustang in the rearview mirror of the Charger is presaged by a mirror view in _The Best Years Of Our Lives_ (which I just saw for the first time last month) which helped to move along some of the techniques introduced in _Citizen Kane_ with the “deep focus” methods pioneered by Toland. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-initiated-some-device-cliche-gimmick-line-of-dialogue/339170/4 "2006-01-09T19:18:55Z")
MASH has already been mentioned and I never got an answer the last time I asked this question so: Did the line “I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you” originate on the first Colonel Flagg episode of MASH or was it already a cliche? ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-initiated-some-device-cliche-gimmick-line-of-dialogue/339170/5 "2006-01-09T19:26:03Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > MASH has already been mentioned and I never got an answer the last time I asked this question so: > > Did the line “I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you” originate on the first Colonel Flagg episode of MASH or was it already a cliche? Just guessing here: already a cliche. I suspect one of those ubiquitous spy thrillers of the 40’s-60’s might be an original source, one where the line isn’t after a laugh. Can’t begin to think of a real example, though. It does remind me of a sketch Rowan and Martin did, not on Laugh-In, where they’re two spies who meet under a lamppost on a dock in the fog. One says, “Repeat after me…” and goes into this long string of details the other is supposed to remember. Less than a full beat behind him, the other starts repeating what has just been said. It’s not quite in unison, which would be easy enough to do, but just enough off that you just marvel at how they could pull such a thing off. One of the funniest bits I ever saw. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-initiated-some-device-cliche-gimmick-line-of-dialogue/339170/6 "2006-01-09T23:16:56Z")
I’m 99% certain that **The Fly** (the 1986 J. Goldblum/G. Davis version) was the first instance of “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-initiated-some-device-cliche-gimmick-line-of-dialogue/339170/7 "2006-01-10T00:15:32Z")
> [@Rilchiam](#): > > I’m 99% certain that **The Fly** (the 1986 J. Goldblum/G. Davis version) was the first instance of “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” Similarly, did the “in \, no one can \ you \.” cliche start with the advertising for _Alien_? ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-initiated-some-device-cliche-gimmick-line-of-dialogue/339170/8 "2006-01-10T00:19:32Z")
Can you think of a movie before _Goldfinger_ where they had a functioning GPS device? That may be the first laser demonstrated as such instead of some sort of “death ray.”