Quote: Give 'em what they want. (George Jessel March 8, 1942)

[Victor Steinbok]

We need a database of scripts for the most popular (at least) screwball
comedies, B-movies and Film Noir, as quite a few catchphrases generated
from them.

Quite a few of them exist, but in multiple formats, some infected, and
all disorganized. I suggest someone with access to university computer
resources try to find a place where they can be converted to text-only
searchable database. Then the rest of us can upload them as we find them.

It's more difficult, but I wonder if it is also possible to start a
database of classic TV and radio episodes (pre-1960).

VS-)

On 12/4/2013 9:39 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
> ...
> [ref] 1942 March 8, Washington Post, Strictly Screwball by Katharine
> Brush, Quote Page L1, Column 3 and 4, Washington, D.C. (ProQuest)
> [Begin excerpt] And there was George Jessel's boxofficeish remark
> about a funeral which was drawing enormous crowds of people into a
> church door as he passed—"Well, there you are, you see," said Jessel.
> "Give 'em what they want." [End excerpt] [ref] 1955 August 13, The
> Saturday Review, TV and Radio: The $64,00 Answer by Goodman Ace, Start
> Page 23, Quote Page 23, Saturday Review Associates, New York.
> (Unz)[/ref] [Begin excerpt] THEY tell the story of George Jessel's
> once passing a funeral home where a celebrity lay in state and the
> crowd waiting to file by for a last glimpse was four-deep. "You see,"
> said the veteran showman, "you give the people what they want and
> they'll come." [End excerpt] Skipping forward to 1958. Here is a fun
> Groucho cite that Stephen Goranson kindly verified. [ref] 1958 May 11,
> The Observer, At The Theatre: Musing Out Loud by Kenneth Tynan, Quote
> Page 15, Column 2, London, UK. (ProQuest)[/ref] [Begin excerpt] But
> that reminds me of Groucho Marx's comment when 3,000 people turned up
> at the funeral of a commercially successful but universally detested
> Hollywood mogul. "You see what I mean?' he said. 'Give the public what
> they want, and they'll come to see it." [End excerpt]

...

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