# Origin of "Not the face!"/"Don't hit the face!"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 23, 2008, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730 "2008-01-23T22:41:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/1 "2008-01-23T22:41:25Z")
It’s a staple of dialog on "The Simpsons’, shouted out by Krusty or any other venal character who gets involved in a skuffle.
The first place I recall hearing it was about 20 minutes into ‘Rocky’ (1976), when Rocky is collecting a debt from a hapless dockworker named Bob\*. Any earlier cites?
\*Played, I believe, by obscure actor Jack Hollander. Imdb credits him in ‘Rocky’ as playing ‘Fats’, but I remember he also played a baseball fan who was about to get fleeced playing cards with the ballplayers in ‘Bang the Drum Slowly’.
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### Author:  [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/2 "2008-01-23T22:48:36Z")
I remember it from The Tick, but that is post Rocky.
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### Author:  [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/3 "2008-01-23T22:49:18Z")
Well, it predates Rocky by being used by Dom Deluise in [Blazing Saddles](http://imdb.com/title/tt0071230/) but prior to that, I dunno.
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### Author:  [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/4 "2008-01-23T22:49:35Z")
“Not in the face! Not in the face!” is Arthur’s battle cry from The Tick, but certainly not the origin.
edit: beaten by **Zebra** with hamsters running interference… ☹
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### Author:  [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/5 "2008-01-23T23:29:41Z")
[QUOTE=photopat]
Well, it predates Rocky by being used by Dom Deluise in [Blazing Saddles](http://imdb.com/title/tt0071230/) but prior to that, I dunno.
[/QUOTE]
I remember it from a black and white Beverly Hillbillies episode, but I remember it from before that too, I think. I want to say an Andy Hardy film (you know the ones with Micky Rooney), but I am not sure.
There was also an episode of the old Superman series (in the 50s) where the villians were getting plastic surgery on their faces to rob banks and stuff looking like other people and the surgery was unstable and they would tell people “Don’t hit the face.”
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### Author:  [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/6 "2008-01-23T23:34:11Z")
[QUOTE=TV time]
I remember it from a black and white Beverly Hillbillies episode (snip)
[/QUOTE]
Do you remember who said it, or anything more about the usage?
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### Author:  [@Two\_and\_a\_Half\_Inches\_of\_Fun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_and_a_Half_Inches_of_Fun)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/7 "2008-01-23T23:39:53Z")
I think I remember it from some old vaudeville stuff.
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### Author:  [@Two\_and\_a\_Half\_Inches\_of\_Fun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_and_a_Half_Inches_of_Fun)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/8 "2008-01-23T23:43:04Z")
It is also in Yankee Doodle Dandy which is from 1942.
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### Author:  [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/9 "2008-01-23T23:44:22Z")
[QUOTE=F. U. Shakespeare]
Do you remember who said it, or anything more about the usage?
[/QUOTE]
One of those actor suitors of Elie May’s…Dash Rip Rock or one of those great names had been put up to courtin’ Elie by one of Mr. Drysdale’s plans. The intentions of the pseudo suitor was taken wrongly and because he had been promised a part or a screen test and he was being chased by Pa or Grannie, he kept shouting “Not in the face, not in the face!” as they attempted to do him bodily harm.
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### Author:  [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/10 "2008-01-23T23:47:32Z")
[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun]
It is also in Yankee Doodle Dandy which is from 1942.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, that’s right when he was a kid and the other kids beat up on him outside the stage door.
I don’t suppose that was the Mickey Rooney I was thinking of.
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### Author:  [@fuffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fuffle)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/11 "2008-01-24T00:21:34Z")
I thought it was from \*The Godfather \*(the book), when Johnny Fantone (or whoever, the singer) is beating up his girlfriend, an actress, and she says “not in the face!” So he beats her on her body where the marks won’t show.
Then his godfather, Don Corleone, tells him he’s a pussy for not hitting her in the face. That now she wears the pants in the family.
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### Author:  [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/12 "2008-01-24T00:30:50Z")
[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun]
It is also in Yankee Doodle Dandy which is from 1942.
[/QUOTE]
> [@TV time](#):
>
> Yeah, that’s right when he was a kid and the other kids beat up on him outside the stage door.
I believe that you’re thinking of the scene in _Yankee Doodle Dandy_ when the young George M Cohan had just cost his family the chance to move up to “the big time” and his father wanted to punish him. But when he started to hit George on the hand his mother stopped him.
“Not on the hand, he has to play the violin.”
His father then started to swat him on the face.
“Not on the mouth, he has to sing.”
Finally, his father put George over his knee and started swatting him on the ass. “Well, here’s one part that doresn’t have any talent!”
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/13 "2008-01-24T02:21:36Z")
[QUOTE=fuffle]
I thought it was from \*The Godfather \*(the book), when Johnny Fantone (or whoever, the singer) is beating up his girlfriend, an actress, and she says “not in the face!” So he beats her on her body where the marks won’t show.
Then his godfather, Don Corleone, tells him he’s a pussy for not hitting her in the face. That now she wears the pants in the family.
[/QUOTE]
This did not happen in the movie.
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### Author:  [@fuffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fuffle)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/14 "2008-01-24T02:36:08Z")
> [@What Exit?](#):
>
> This did not happen in the movie.
Sure. But I do remember it vividly from the book. I read it when I was maybe 14 or something and the sheer raw, twisted emotion of the scene made a permanent impression on me. I found the passage online, I hope it’s not too much to quote here.
> [@](#):
>
> In a garishly decorated Los Angeles hotel suite, Johnny Fontane was as jealously drunk as any ordinary husband. Sprawled on a red couch, he drank straight from the bottle of scotch in his hand, then washed the taste away by dunking his mouth in a crystal bucket of ice cubes and water. It was four in the morning and he was spinning drunken fantasies of murdering his trampy wife when she got home. If she ever did come home…
>
> Gulping at his bottle of scotch, he heard finally his wife’s key in the door, but he kept drinking until she walked into the room and stood before him. She was to him so very beautiful, the angelic face, soulful violet eyes, the delicately fragile but perfectly formed body. On the screen her beauty was magnified, spiritualized. A hundred million men all over the world were in love with the face of Margot Ashton. And paid to see it on the screen.
>
> “Where the hell were you?” Johnny Fontane asked.
>
> “Out fucking,” she said.
>
> She had misjudged his drunkenness. He sprang over the cocktail table and grabbed her by the throat. But close up to that magical face, the lovely violet eyes, he lost his anger and became helpless again. She made the mistake of smiling mockingly, saw his first drawback. She screamed, “Johnny, not in the face, I’m making a picture.”
>
> She was laughing. He punched her in the stomach and she fell to the floor. He fell on top of her. He could smell her fragrant breath as she gasped for air. He punched her on the arms and on the thigh muscles of her silky tanned legs. He beat her as he had beaten snotty smaller kids long ago when he had been a tough teenager in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. A painful punishment that would leave no lasting disfigurement of loosened teeth or broken nose.
>
> But he was not hitting her hard enough. He couldn’t. and she was giggling at him. Spread-eagled on the floor, her brocaded gown hitched up above her thighs, she taunted him between giggles. “Come on, stick it in. Stick it in, Johnny, that’s what you really want.”
>
> Johnny Fontane got up. He hated the woman on the floor but her beauty was a magic shield. Margot rolled away, and in a dancer’s spring was on her feel facing him. She went into a childish mocking dance and chanted, “Johnny never hurt me, Johnny never hurt me.” Then almost sadly with grave beauty she said, “You poor silly bastard, giving me cramps like a kid. Ah, Johnny, you always will be a dumb romantic guinea, you even make love like a kid. You still think screwing is really like those dopey songs you used to sing.” She shook her head and said, “Poor Johnny. Goodbye, Johnny.” She walked into the bedroom and he heard her turn the key in the lock.
I’m not trying to make any particular point, I just think it’s an incredible passage.
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### Author:  [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/15 "2008-01-24T02:36:08Z")
I believe there may be a truly ancient source not for the actual quote, but the underlying concept.
ISTR in my reading of classical history (Herodotus, Thucydides, Tacitus, Plutarch, or some such) an incident in which an army is facing an opposing mounted force composed mostly of aristocratic young men. The first army is instructed to aim their pikes at the faces of the preppies, instead of their chests or their horses. Sure enough, when they realize their beautiful faces might be scarred, the vain young men retreat.
At least that’s how I remember the story. Perhaps someone with a better memory can provide the cite I’m thinking of.
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/16 "2008-01-24T02:48:24Z")
[QUOTE=fuffle]
Sure. But I do remember it vividly from the book. I read it when I was maybe 14 or something and the sheer raw, twisted emotion of the scene made a permanent impression on me. I found the passage online, I hope it’s not too much to quote here.
I’m not trying to make any particular point, I just think it’s an incredible passage.
[/QUOTE]
Wow, I forgot about that passage. The weird part, is that was suppose to “kind of sort of” be the beautiful Ava Gardner.
I might need to reread the book again.
Jim
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### Author:  [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/17 "2008-01-24T03:03:26Z")
After a few minutes’ Googling (searching on “aimed at their faces”), I found my own cite: [Plutarch’s Life of Caesar](http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Caesar*.html), section 45.
It was the Battle of Pharsalus, 48 B.C., Caesar vs. Pompey.
> [@](#):
>
> Originally posted by **Plutarch**
> 45 When the infantry had thus clashed together in the centre and were fighting, Pompey’s cavalry rode proudly up from the wing and deployed their squadrons to envelope the enemy’s right; 2 and before they could attack, the cohorts ran out from where Caesar was posted, not hurling their javelins, as usual, nor yet stabbing the thighs and legs of their enemies with them, but aiming them at their eyes and wounding their faces. 3 They had been instructed to do this by Caesar, who expected that men little conversant with wars or wounds, but young, and pluming themselves on their youthful beauty, would dread such wounds especially, and would not stand their ground, fearing not only their present danger, but also their future disfigurement. 4 And this was what actually came to pass; for they could not endure the upward thrust of the javelins, nor did they even venture to look the weapon in the face, but turned their heads away and covered them up to spare their faces. 5 And finally, having thus thrown themselves into confusion, they turned and fled most shamefully, thereby ruining everything. 6 For the conquerors of the horsemen at once encircled the infantry, fell upon their rear, and began to cut them to pieces.
What’s the Latin for “Not in the face!”?
(Who says a classical liberal arts education is useless?)
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### Author:  [@Kaotic\_Newtral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaotic_Newtral)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/18 "2008-01-24T03:09:42Z")
[QUOTE=fuffle]
Sure. But I do remember it vividly from the book. I read it when I was maybe 14 or something and the sheer raw, twisted emotion of the scene made a permanent impression on me. I found the passage online, I hope it’s not too much to quote here.
I’m not trying to make any particular point, I just think it’s an incredible passage.
[/QUOTE]
(bunches of stuff cut) That may be the greatest cite I’ve read on the boards. Now I need to read the dang books to see what I missed! Thanks!
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### Author:  [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/19 "2008-01-24T03:22:58Z")
[QUOTE=commasense]
After a few minutes’ Googling (searching on “aimed at their faces”), I found my own cite: [Plutarch’s Life of Caesar](http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Caesar*.html), section 45.
It was the Battle of Pharsalus, 48 B.C., Caesar vs. Pompey.
What’s the Latin for “Not in the face!”?
(Who says a classical liberal arts education is useless?)
[/QUOTE]
Goddamn, I love the SDMB…
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/20 "2008-01-24T03:31:24Z")
[QUOTE=Kaotic Newtral]
(bunches of stuff cut) That may be the greatest cite I’ve read on the boards. Now I need to read the dang books to see what I missed! Thanks!
[/QUOTE]
The book is as good as the two movies. I have not read it in about 15 years. Like “To Kill a Mockingbird”, both the movies and the books are nearly perfect.
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