Taking my lead from here
How many well “known” phrases are people famous for uttering, when in fact they never did?
“Play it again, Sam” is a good example for Bogie.
Taking my lead from here
How many well “known” phrases are people famous for uttering, when in fact they never did?
“Play it again, Sam” is a good example for Bogie.
Sherlock Holmes never spoke the exact words “Elementary, my dear Watson” (at least in the stories).
Its universally thought that James Cagney never said “you dirty little rat” in a movie, but rent Taxi (1932), and you will see he did, or came darn close.
“Judy, Judy, Judy” - Cary Grant (probably came from the impressionist Frank Gorshin)
“Badges, we don’t need no stinkin’ badges” - Gold hat from Treasure of the Sierra Madre, it’s said in Blazing Saddles and others, but not the original
“Beam me up, Scotty” - Kirk, never said by him in TOS
I’d always heard the Cagney line as “You dirty rat”, no “little”.
John Lennon never said “You’ve got a lucky face.” He had a bad hangover and was having hair of the dog, and he mumbled something like “Thank you very much” into the mic and then wobbled back to his chair. It was misheard by everyone, and reproduced as something entirely different.
I think it’s something like “dirty yellow-bellied rat.” The term “rat” does come up at least one other time in the movie.
Clint Eastwood didn’t exactly say, “Do you feel lucky, punk?” in Dirty Harry. The exact line was “you’ve got to ask yourself a question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?”
In the entire run of Cosmos, Carl Sagan never said “billions and billions.”
The greatest minds the SDMB can field have tried valiently to tie “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown aside with great force.” to Dorothy Parker’s tail, to no avail.
Apropos of nothing, the search for these threads using “Dorothy Parker” as the search string turned up many entertaining threads, most of which made me pine mightily for Eve. Come back, Eve!
Close, though – the bandidos posing as a federales responded to Bogie’s challenge with, “We don’t got to show you no stinking badges!”
See this book for a compendium of misquotes and misattributions.
This is closer to what I meant. Its in the scene where two taxis box Cagney in and he gets out to give them a beating- for all those who have a copy handy
I once saw a documentary (hosted by Michael J. Fox) on the life and career of James Cagney. There’s a clip from an appearance Cagney made late in life at some sort of awards ceremony. He told the audience, “For the record, I never said, ‘You dirty rat!’ [laughter and applause] But I did say, ‘Judy-Judy-Judy!’ [more l&a]”
That same documentary flatly asserts that when Cagney was departing from his appearance before HUAC, he said to one of his people, "We are going to make the most patriotic movie ever!" And the result was Yankee Doodle Dandy – but the Wiki article say that’s a myth, “or at least a stretching of the truth.” The article on Cagney mentions no HUAC testimony, saying of Cagney’s politics only:
I see this mostly involves movie stars, but the first thing I thought of was Marie Antoinette and her infamous cake.
Samuel Goldwyn probably said very few of the Goldwynisms attributed to him.
Mark Twain never said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco” although it’s a clever line. Edited to add that I found a page of such misattributed quotes on Snopes here.
“I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more” is the commonly cited though incorrect version of Judy Garland’s line “I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more.”
W.C. Fields (who left his estate to endow an orphanage) never said, “Anyone who hates dogs and small children can’t be all bad.” Nor does his tombstone read, “On the whole, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.”
“The only thing blacks can do for me is buy my records and shine my shoes.”
–attributed to Elvis Presley but Snopes says false.
A black man angry at an Elvis-loving Steve Buscemi in the movie Coffee and Cigarettes similarly misattributes the quote.
Ava Gardner and her “infamous” remark about Melbourne when she was shooting the film On the Beach there in 1959.