"Okay, fellas" she yells, leaning against her shovel and wiping the sweat from her brow, "I just finished the new hole. You can move that s**thouse over here now!"

reflection on aging: May I be as gallant as when she was a gal, and as bouyant as when I was a boy.

Thet Mae West gag I like best is the one about her interviewing a series of male actors to choose one for an upcoming movie. She kissed the first one and he fainted. Same with the second and third. Mae West said sarcastically, they're sissies. I can't use any one of them.The fourth one made audible sounds of impending collapse, but rallied and managed to come back strongly. Mae West said "OK, I'll take him."
After she left, the fourth actor's agent said to him:"Gee, did she take much out of you?" His client relied in a very mushy voice :" Jushht my bwidgework."

I allus liked the one where she was reputed to have said to some fellow "Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?"

Geometrical fact: a line is the shortest path from a point to another.

More or less - of course I cannot to quote it precisely - she said
A curve is the more nice path from a point to another.

CapK, that's not "reputed". If recall serves, it's an line in the movie My Little Chickadee, Mae speaking to W.C. Fields. But with somewhat more punch: "grr, is that a pistol yer packin', or are ya happy ta *see me?

H:ere's a URL to 55 Mae West quotes:http://www.therightside.demon.co.uk/quotes/maewest/

according to at least one Mae West FAQ sheet, she never said it in a film until after she became famous for saying it!
the line often attributed to her, "Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" was actually never said in a Mae West movie until her last, "Sextette." And that was actually a self-reference, having had the line credited to her so long ago. It is rumored that she first muttered a version of the line to an interviewer.

other quotes from My Little Chickadee

Judge: Are you trying to show contempt for this court?
Flower Belle: No, your honor, I'm doin' my best to hide it!

Mrs. Gideon: Ohhh! I hope that wasn't whiskey you were drinking.
Cuthbert J. Twillie: Ah, no, dear, just a little sheep dip. Panacea for all stomach ailments.

Cuthbert J. Twillie: Come, my fox, my flower! I have some very definite pear-shaped ideas that I'd like to discuss with thee.

Cuthbert J. Twillie: During one of my treks through Afghanistan, we lost our corkscrew. Compelled to live on food and water -

Cousin Zeb: Uh, is this a game of chance?
Cuthbert J. Twillie: Not the way I play it, no.

Preliminary note: W.C. Fields was heavily involved in the screenwriting of many of his movies, and was given to wordplay.

Upon inquiry regarding My Little Chickadee, I went to one of those old-style paper-and-binding dictionaries, and learned that a chickadee is a small bird of the group known as the "titmouse".

Well done, WC! But I should add per the same source that "titmouse" traces back to the old english "tit", meaning (throat-clearing -e) "any small thing or animal".

And ya never did tell me who was whose little chickadee.

i checked out the site, and kept getting the same 7 quotes over and over.. almost as if the randomizer was broken..
i couldn't find my favorite.. so this might not be word perfect. but i liked
"Why don't you come up and see me sometime when i have on nothing but the radio?"
As i recall, it was a line in a movie, and characters where trying to schedule things, and one person when busy, kept saying "I have something on for that day, that time.."
and these two, from the quote site are very good..

When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better.

Good sex is like good Bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand.

But no mouse ever had tits like hers.Encyclopedia says her dates were 1892 - 1980. It also says she co-wrote My Little Chickadee.

And ya never did tell me who was whose little chickadee.
Sorry, F. In the movie, WCF calls Mae "my little chickadee".

The credits to WCF's movie often listed him as one of the screenwriters, but always under an alias. For example, in one movie (I believe it was My Little Chickadee) this credit-line names "Mahatma Kane Jeeves" -- which was WCF's pun on an upper-class Brit commanding the butler. ("My hat, my cane, Jeeves!")

Another Mae quote from that site sugesst what could be an interesting discussion topic.

I believe in censorship. After all, I made a fortune out of it.

My guess is that movie-makers of those days had to be very creative to craft entendres that would evade the censors' notice. Can any movie experts of buffs provide amusing examples? paulb?

In Mutiny on the Bounty, Clark Gable, reclining with Dorothy Lamour. reachs up, picks a banana. and with a lascivious leer, peels it. I doubt very much that bananas grew on Pitcairn's Island at the time of the Mutiny, but they do now.

There was an often quoted line in the Thirties: "I'm a success! my book has been banned in Boston!"

Another Mae quote from that url:

It's hard to be funny when you have to be clean.

Personal favorite:

I only like two kinds of men: domestic and foreign.

Since nobody else has, I will address relationship between Mae West and bouyancy. In WWII, everybody on a troopship wore a bulky kapok filled vest for flotation if boat sank. They were so unglamourous that it was no compliment to Mae West that they were popularly named after her. Aviators had an inflatable type
The only thing about them that might have given rise to the name was that in the pectoral region they were much bulkier, and made unconscious person float on back, with chin up.

Thanks, Keiva. With the help of Halliwell's filmgoer's companion, I offer the following excerpts:

"A much cleverer woman than she was usually given credit for being, [Mae West] seemed to talk in epigrams. In her seventies on TV, when someone gushed:
- Oh, Miss West, I've heard so much about you
the reply was:
- Yeah, but you can't prove a thing.

When a life jacket was named after her during World War II, her reaction had the appearance of spontaniety:
- I've been in "Who's Who" and I know what's what, but it's the first time I ever made the dictionary.

… For the rest, one can only list a few sparklers:

- She's one of the finest women who ever walked the streets.

- How tall are you son?
- Ma'am, I'm six feet seven inches.
- Let's forget the six feet and talk about the seven inches.

(On arriving at her office and being greeted by a score of virile young men):
- I'm feeling a little tired today. One of those fellows'll have to go."

Her best film (according to most critics) was She done him wrong (1933) with Cary Grant, adapted from her stage success Diamond Lil. The film society which I'm involved with has programmed this film in May 2002. Lucky us!

WCF calls Mae "my little chickadee".

Well, I've never seen the movie but I had heard and I have found one* site that claims that it was the other way around. This may be like "We don' need no steenkeeng badges" or "Play it again, Sam".

Or, who played the title role in the movie The Great Lebowski ?

*But we all know the value of *one site and it does say that they were reversing roles. He asked her, "Why don'cha come up and see me sometime."

to F: Now I know what movie I'll be renting this weekend!

to paulb: ROTFLMAO, tears running down my ... face!
as to "One of those fellows'll have to go," see last paragraph at
http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?
Cat=&Board=miscellany&Number=41194&page=&view=&sb=&vc=1#Post41194
And I'd thought I was being original!

faldage quotes:

"We don' need no steenkeeng badges"

I finally gave up and googled it, and found this: http://www.insectdissection.com/badges/badges1.wav

F, are you saying that there is doubt as to whether this was the original source of this oft used phrase? I've certainly heard the "We don't need no steenkin' [insert name here]" sentiment used (and not just in this forum, by mavarchnot to be confused with plutarch), but its roots've always been greek to me. shoulda figured it was a movie quote.

Humphrey Bogart and his companions in Treasure of the Sierra Madre were accosted by some Mexican banditos claiming to be Federales. He asked them to show him some badges. They repiled:

¡We don' got (or maybe have) no badges!

¡We don' need no badges!

¡We don' have to show you any steenkeeng badges!

Somehow the addition of steenkeeng obviated the double negative (perfectly legal in Spanish) but when quoted the double negative and the steenkeeng always seem to stay together.

the .wav that gymk linked to sounds like a bit from the actual® soundtrack, to me.

Didn't Cheech and Chong riff on this, too? I seem to have some sort of memory of a co-worker that knows all the C&C dialog by heart saying this one.

you're right, consuelo! actually®, the quote is pervasive (see the link).

http://www.darryl.com/badges/

Did anyone else have trouble going to this url(for the spoken phrase) a second time? When I did, it went into perpetual load and froze. I had to shut down computer with it still on the screen (ouch!) to get rid of it.

Unless you are using a Mac, windows 3.1, or Windows NT, there is an other solution. at once, press contol + Alt + delete. It will open a window, showing all active programs. One, usually the hightlighted one, will be labled "Not Responding" there are three buttons on the window, End Task, Shut Down and Cancel
(Actually, now that i think about it, it might have different choices, since i did it with out a frozen machine.. but in any case, the choices might be wait and End Task but End Task is the one to push.

Select end task. Machine becomes un- frozen. sometimes the url even opens!

Our film society is screening this film on 20 November so I can check the actual quote for you. (As the projectionist, I get the print a few days in advance for preview purposes.)

Thanks, Helen! I never knew that. I've had freezes, plus I've gone to a couple of sites where, to my dismay, their window takes my entire screen, including the bottom bar where my Start button is (which I have managed to move to the side of my screen twice, and I have no idea how).
My computer gets discombobulatated (Hi, Aunt mav!) when I turn it off the same way I turn it on. Why is that, can anyone tell me? Is it just too logical, or something?

My Dear Double-dub, I have no idea. I know a lot more now than when I signed on to this board, but I'm still basically computer-illiterate. But it sounded to me like this c-a-d bit might be a way to get out of that kind of screen take-over.

Control + Alt + Delete-- is a switch. Some Operating Systems (OS's) use this switch all the time (NT for example)in Windows 3.1, the switch was crude-- all it did was shut down your computer. in newer OS's it is more useful.

and Jackie, the only difference between us is, i have been doing computers longer, and i am more prone to make mistakes.. as i figure out what i did wrong, why and how... i get to know an awful lot. Some of the guys here actually have degrees in Computer science. i have just have been making mistakes for 20 years.. (and hanging out with some of those guys who do have have a CS degree.)

and as for how come you don't start your computer the same way you stop it.. think about your car.. yes, you just turn the key to start it... but it has to be in neutral, and you give it a bit of gas.. but when you park, you first put it in neutral, engage the parking brake, (maybe even turn the wheels.. I think of Kentucky as being mountainous.. i live on a hill, and i always turn my wheels to the curb) and then, finally, after you have done all that, then you turn the key to turn it off.

if you didn't, you would first have to put the car in neutral to start, engage the emergency brake, etc... and you sure don't stop your car in the middle of something (say driving down a highway) by removing the key! You use your brakes.. Hmm.

So why would you expect to start and stop a computer exactly the same way?

In discussing Con,Alt,Del nobody has mentioned that in Windows 98 it brings up a window "Close Program" which gives you a chance to shut down just the offending program and puts you back to Start. So re-boot is not necessary. I have been using it a lot lately when window changes get unbearably slow. Incidentally some software installs better if in the Close Program window you shut down everything except Explorer and Systray.

With a Mac (at least with OS X, perhaps Anna knows if it works in earlier versions) you can use command-alt-escape to open a Force quit window that lets you force an incapacitated program to quit. It's actually nicer than the Windows equivalent because you don't see any extra background programs. I guess Apple has made a superior operating system in which background stuff won't malfunction.

It figures. We have a perfectly good bawdy thread going -- note titular reference to Mae West and buoyancy -- and the techies digitize it. Control these alternates! (expletive-deleted -e)

Froze means froze. All I could do to it was minimize and maximize. I did the control+Alt+delete thing, too, más nada. I have Windows ME.

Keiva: I'll titular reference you!

Et tu, consuelo?!

But of course! I started it, didn't I?