seeking quote source (poss WC Fields)

Subject: seeking quote source (poss WC Fields)
From: rich-joy
Date: 13 Nov 24 - 07:52 PM

I can't believe I had trouble easily finding this online, but here goes:

This was a quote my friends and I would once commonly use, but, after you get to being one of the oldest in your crowd, it is far less commonly used and rarely recognised!!!

I always thought WC Fields was responsible for this line, but strangely, my Search Engines have let me down :

"Sounds like a line from a song"

Okay, so who said it and in what film???

Thanks, R-J

Subject: RE: seeking quote source (poss WC Fields)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Nov 24 - 11:37 AM

That's awfully general to aim at a general search. I suggest you use Google Advanced Search and play with the settings.

If you know the phrase is exact, then put it in the "this exact word or phrase" line, otherwise try "all these words" with quotes (almost the same as exact phrase, but might yield different results). Choose different sites or domains to narrow it (.edu, .com, .org, etc.) and you can add W.C. Fields (may want more about him - his full name was William Claude Dukenfield) as a qualifier.

You might also want to see if that phrase appeared in print around the time he said it, so try the Google NGrams search. With that one you can narrow it down by years, so the years he was most active making films (or the years you remember first using the phrase) might reveal a written source. Keep in mind that scholarly works in later years might be as or more likely to mention that phrase, so you can search on books or book chapters about Fields and then plug the years into the NGram search. Google has scanned a gazillion books, and while they don't make all of them available through Google Books (yet another place to look), all of those words are available to the NGram search.

It also occurs to me that sometimes these old memories take a left turn from way back when - in case it *wasn't* W.C. Fields who said it, but someone in one of his movies, or a similarly portly older actor of his day, you might want to do the search without Fields' name.

This may be more information than you need, but here are the tools to start with. (Ex-university-research-library here.)

Subject: RE: seeking quote source (poss WC Fields)
From: Helen
Date: 14 Nov 24 - 12:19 PM

As an ex-librarian, I agree, SRS.

I tried a basic search on the quote, with quotation marks around it, with and without the name W.C. Fields. No luck. I don't remember ever hearing the quote, either in a movie or in conversation but it's a long, long time since I saw a movie with W.C. Fields as a member of the cast so I'm unlikely to remember the quote anyway.

When I searched the term:

movie quote "Sounds like a line from a song" W.C Fields

a couple of sites were mentioned which compile movie quotes but I didn't look at those sites. It might be worthwhile checking those out.

Subject: RE: seeking quote source (poss WC Fields)
From: GUEST,Groovy
Date: 14 Nov 24 - 12:58 PM

It's just the sort of trite garbage that Fields would avoid like the plague.

Subject: RE: seeking quote source (poss WC Fields)
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Nov 24 - 01:45 PM

I always liked his 'I went to Philadelphia once, but it was closed'

Subject: RE: seeking quote source (poss WC Fields)
From: gillymor
Date: 14 Nov 24 - 02:37 PM

Fields was hard on Philly-

"It's a wonderful town, I spent a week there one night."

"First prize is a week in Philadelphia, second prize is 2 weeks in Philadelphia."

(approximately)

Subject: RE: seeking quote source (poss WC Fields)
From: GerryM
Date: 14 Nov 24 - 04:42 PM

"Better here than in Philadelphia" (allegedly inscribed on his tombstone)

Subject: RE: seeking quote source (poss WC Fields)
From: Helen
Date: 15 Nov 24 - 12:28 PM

rich-joy, I'm wondering if you can remember anything else about that quote, e.g. what it might have been in the movie which "sounds like a line from a song", or the plot or details of the movie so that we could search for the movie itself, confirm whether or not it was W.C. Fields who said it, and then try to find the quote.

I think there is not enough specific information to do a search based on that quote alone (i.e. the words are very common and there are no specific clues to narrow it down) so we might just have to wait for someone else who has heard the quote to drop into the thread and provide some more clues.

Subject: RE: seeking quote source (poss WC Fields)
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 15 Nov 24 - 03:00 PM

Just for the record, urban legends aside, the only thing on W.C. Fields's interment niche is:

W.C. Fields

1880 - 1946

Nothing whatsoever about Philadelphia.

W.C. Fields niche

I've seen lots of Fields films over the years and I have never heard that quote attributed to him. I'm curious as to where it may actually have come from.


Jay

Subject: RE: seeking quote source (poss WC Fields)
From: rich-joy
Date: 15 Nov 24 - 06:42 PM

Thanks All, esp SRS and Helen, for your help!

No, I can't recall anything else about the quote, except that it used to be fairly commonly recognised years back (WC Fields movies were often on Sat/Sun arvos in 1960-70s Perth, West Aussie!!).
I am now presuming it was this actor as I can 'hear' his particular kind of droney inflection saying it!!! :)

Oh Well. Something will turn up ...... some day!

R-J

Subject: RE: seeking quote source (poss WC Fields)
From: Helen
Date: 15 Nov 24 - 09:05 PM

Yes, maybe in a decade or two? :-D

But hopefully sooner.

Subject: RE: seeking quote source (poss WC Fields)
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Nov 24 - 02:19 AM

groucho marx?

Subject: RE: seeking quote source (poss WC Fields)
From: Thompson
Date: 16 Nov 24 - 04:45 AM

The best line by Fields isn't spoken - it's where he brings a adorable sweet innocent kid - Shirley Temple, I think - to a soda fountain, and when they're served their foaming floats, he turns and blows the foam off the top as drinkers used to do with beer.
rich-joy, why are you looking for this particular line - is it to find what song he's talking about? A bit of context would help in the search.

Subject: RE: seeking quote source (poss WC Fields)
From: GUEST,Groovy
Date: 16 Nov 24 - 12:28 PM

Fields and Temple never made a film together (see https://davelandblog.blogspot.com/2022/06/temple-tuesday-wc-and-shirley.html).

Baby LeRoy was Fields' troublesome child in three films in the early 1930s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_LeRoy).