“Play it again, Sam” – not said by Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca
“Do you feel lucky punk?” – not said by Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry
“Beam me up Scotty” – not said by William Shatner in any episode of Star Trek
“Elementary, my dear Watson” – not said by Sherlock Holmes in any Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel or story
“Luke, I am your father” – not said by Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back
“Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges.” – not said in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
“If you build it, they will come.” – not said by the voice in Field of Dreams
“We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” – not said by Roy Scheider in Jaws
“You dirty rat!” – never said by James Cagney in any role
“Judy, Judy, Judy” – never said by Cary Grant in any role
"Life is like a box of chocolates." – not said in Forrest Gump
"Life is like a box of chocolates." – not said in Forrest Gump
I’m one of those (possibly annoying) people that loves quoting movies. You may have noticed that I start every movie category parent post with a quote related to the category. A small part of what makes a good movie to me is how many lines from it are memorable.
A lot of other people love quoting movies, too. The problem is that so many people misquote them that the wrong quotes actually take on a life of their own and replace the real quotes. This is hardly a new phenomenon. Shakespeare has been getting misquoted for centuries. (i.e. It’s not “Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him well.” that Hamlet says; it’s “Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio.”)
In this category I’m going to review movies that tend to get misquoted. You may have noticed some quotes above that don’t relate to a specific movie. In those cases I will select a movie to represent the characters or actors involved.
As I post the reviews, I will come back and add links here for those posts:
Dirty Harry (1971) - (posted February 16, 2011)
Casablanca (1942)
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
Sherlock: A Study in Pink (2010)
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Field of Dreams (1989)
Jaws (1975)
White Heat (1949)
North by Northwest (1959)
Forrest Gump (1994) - (posted December 28, 2012)
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
Sherlock: A Study in Pink (2010)
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Field of Dreams (1989)
Jaws (1975)
White Heat (1949)
North by Northwest (1959)
Forrest Gump (1994) - (posted December 28, 2012)
Here is a short video of James Cagney at his 1974 AFI Lifetime Achievement ceremony. The “Frankie” he refers to is Frank Gorshin, who was famous for his impersonation of Cagney.
If you’d like to see the whole speech that this is excerpted from, you can watch it here.
On to the reviews…
Cool post! I love memorable quotes as well. Darth Vader does say "No, I am your father".(I just listened to it in short clip on youtube). Correct he doesn't start with "Luke".
ReplyDeleteCorrect. Thanks.
DeleteFor a lot of these, the "remembered" quote is very close to the actual. In Jaws, for instance, the line is "You're gonna need a bigger boat. I know this one intimately, as it is the lead-in for my film choice on The Demented Podcast.
ReplyDeleteCorrect. Most of these misquotes are close, actually. That's probably why they gained traction - because they were close enough to sound right.
DeleteMan, I love that Cagney clip.
ReplyDeleteThanks. So do I. I saw it originally back in the 80s when Cagney died and they were showing some of the honors he had received.
DeleteHa, this is brilliant. I love how so many of the most famous movie quotes of all time aren't actually movie quotes at all. Nice compilation.
ReplyDeleteThanks. There are even more that I didn't include because I wasn't going to write a recommendation for the movie. The most famous is probably Mae West not saying "Come up and see me sometime" in She Done Him Wrong. What she does say is, "Why don't you come up sometime and see me?"
Delete