"Don't call us, we'll call you" (1963)

[Peter A. McGraw]

The line also occurs in a film which I'm pretty sure predates "Some Like it
Hot."  Now if I could only remember the name of the film!  In it Danny Kaye
(I'm almost sure) played a ventriloquist whose dummy kept messing up his
life by blurting out what was really on his mind.  Could it have been a
kind of frame story surrounding the main comic thriller plot of "Knock on
Wood"?  Maybe others more knowledgeable about films can remember this one
and date it.

Peter Mc.

--On Monday, April 2, 2001 12:10 PM -0400 Jesse Sheidlower
<jester at PANIX.COM> wrote:

>>
>>    OED News, July 1997, asked for any pre-1987 cites for "Don't call us,
>>    we'll call you."
>
> Since that time we have been alerted to a 1959 use in the Billy Wilder
> film _Some Like it Hot._ We have a note that it's being checked in the
> original script; the result isn't in yet.
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
> OED



****************************************************************************
                               Peter A. McGraw
                   Linfield College   *   McMinnville, OR
                            pmcgraw at linfield.edu