Greatest Film Misquotes

Some of the most classic film lines or scenes are really only legendary and/or apocryphal, or they are merely movie misquotes, but after many years of repetition, they have become part of the filmgoing public's consciousness. Many of these examples are film quotes that were either commonly attributed wrongly, or in fact were never actually spoken, such as:

In The Virginian (1929), one of the earliest Western talkies, Gary Cooper's taunting line was not: "Smile when you call me that!", or "When ya call me that, smile!", but "If you wanna call me that, smile."

The legendary blood-sucking Count Dracula (Hungarian-born actor Bela Lugosi) never said "I want to suck your blood" in the Universal horror classic, Dracula (1931). However, the line was used in a humorous context by Dr. Tom Mason (Ned Bellamy) practicing his Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau) impersonation in director Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994).

The mobster refrain, "You dirty rat!" - was never said verbatim by James Cagney, although he did say something similar, "Mmm, that dirty, double-crossin' rat," in Blonde Crazy (1931). [In Home Alone (1990), Macauley Culkin watched a scene from a fictional B/W gangster film videotape titled, "Angels With Filthy Souls" (a take-off on the Cagney film Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)), in which a gangster shoots his girlfriend, while saying, "Take that, you dirty rat!"]

Greta Garbo's most famous quote of all, "I want to be alone," was often thought to be non-existent or merely a statement of her reclusive nature in private life. However, it prominently appeared, with her famous accent spoken by the character Grusinskaya in Grand Hotel (1932)

Find more film misquotes (compiled by Tim Dirks) HERE.