How Do the Judges Rule?
[Devoted solvers, be on alert: I'm about to give away answers from today's New York Times crossword.]
The theme unfolded just as it should. First came ELEMENTARY MY DEAR WATSON. When I then filled in PLAY IT AGAIN SAM, it started dawning on me. It was clinched with BEAM ME UP SCOTTY. Yes, we dealing with frequently misattributed film quotes here. But then came this final theme answer, the "surprise fact" about those three lines of dialogue: NONE OF THEM IS / A REAL QUOTE.
And that's where it all fell apart.
These are, in fact, real quotes. They're just spoken by different people from the ones we expect.
It's true that the line PLAY IT AGAIN SAM is never uttered in Casablanca, but it is in A Night in Casablanca by the Marx Brothers. Of course, it's also the title of a movie starring Woody Allen, so it's definitely a "well-known line of film."
The next one is most certainly a "well-known line of TV and film." Captain Kirk never said those words in that order on the TV show, but he did in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. And Captain Picard said it on TV (not that I would know any of this without looking it up).
I'm also willing to bet the Sherlock Holmes line is actually said by someone somewhere in some movie, but it doesn't show up here, and it's too late/early for me to keep searching.
Anyone? Anyone?
Update: somebody's already on the case.
The theme unfolded just as it should. First came ELEMENTARY MY DEAR WATSON. When I then filled in PLAY IT AGAIN SAM, it started dawning on me. It was clinched with BEAM ME UP SCOTTY. Yes, we dealing with frequently misattributed film quotes here. But then came this final theme answer, the "surprise fact" about those three lines of dialogue: NONE OF THEM IS / A REAL QUOTE.
And that's where it all fell apart.
These are, in fact, real quotes. They're just spoken by different people from the ones we expect.
It's true that the line PLAY IT AGAIN SAM is never uttered in Casablanca, but it is in A Night in Casablanca by the Marx Brothers. Of course, it's also the title of a movie starring Woody Allen, so it's definitely a "well-known line of film."
The next one is most certainly a "well-known line of TV and film." Captain Kirk never said those words in that order on the TV show, but he did in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. And Captain Picard said it on TV (not that I would know any of this without looking it up).
I'm also willing to bet the Sherlock Holmes line is actually said by someone somewhere in some movie, but it doesn't show up here, and it's too late/early for me to keep searching.
Anyone? Anyone?
Update: somebody's already on the case.


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