"Print the legend" Was Re: "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story" (J. Frank Dobie?)

[Fred Shapiro]

On Tue, 9 Jan 2007, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> Reminds me of "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."  This is
> usually attributed to John Ford, as it appears in his movie _The Man who
> Shot Liberty Valance_ (1962).

Please note that many movie quotes actually are just taken from the novel
or play or short story upon which the movie is based.  "There is no place
like home," to me, is not a movie quote because it appeared in L. Frank
Baum's book.  According to the astonishingly good new quotation
dictionary, The Yale Book of Quotations, so it is with this one, at least
partially:

If the myth gets bigger than the man, print the myth.
        Dorothy M. Johnson, _Indian Country_ "The Man Who Shot Liberty
Valance" (1953)

>  The John Wayne character says something very similar to newspaper
> reporters at the end of _Fort Apache_ (1948). Unfortunately I don't have
> the exact words. Interestingly enough, the senior writer listed on that
> film was also WWI flier and novelist James Warner Bellah.

I'd be very interested in the details of this.

Fred


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