"Thanks! I Needed That!"

[Jonathan Lighter]

I found _Journey's End_, the quintessential British WW1 drama by R. C.
Sherriff. (it was revived recently on Broadway, or at least in NYC.)

That was the good news. The bad news is that although the play contains
a comparable scene (the hero inspires a man who's lost his nerve by
threatening to shoot him: the man soon thanks him), there's no hysteria, no
slapping, and no "Thanks! I needed that!"

There is, however, an alleged Cockneyism: "sambridges" for "sandwiches."

JL

On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 3:05 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Thanks! I Needed That!"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> When I started this thread I had an unconvincing feeling that the incident
> is in R. C. Sheriff's 1929 play, "Journey's End," which was filmed in 1930.
>
> I didn't mention it because I thought I could check my personal copy -
> which
> I haven't found after hours of looking. Paul's thinking leads me to float
> the suggestion.
>
> Nothing I saw on the Web, however, supports this attribution.
>
> Will search my shelves some more.
>
> JL
>
> On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 2:42 PM, Paul <paulzjoh at mtnhome.com> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Paul <paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: "Thanks! I Needed That!"
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >  This may be a red herring, but I have a memory of that scene from a
> > pre 1940 british film., either WWI or british colonial outpost.
> > Vaguely, as I remember, outnumbered, probably going to die, "must show
> > these buggers how a gentleman/Englishman dies"
> > Sorry, can't be more help than that
> >
> > On 8/22/2010 1:23 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > > The Mennen Skin Bracer ad came long before _Airplane_.  And presumably
> > after
> > > the gopher cartoon.
> > >
> > > Is the phrase just a "folk version" of the movie dialogue?
> > >
> > > If it isn't really in the movie, anything becomes possible.
> > > JL
> > > On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Joel S. Berson<Berson at att.net>
>  wrote:
> > >
> > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > >> -----------------------
> > >> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > >> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson"<Berson at ATT.NET>
> > >> Subject:      Re: "Thanks! I Needed That!"
> > >>
> > >>
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >>
> > >> At 8/22/2010 10:49 AM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> > >>> A few years later, in 1957, another plane crash movie was released --
> > >>> "Zero Hour!", which served as the basis for "Airplane!" The makers of
> > >>> "Airplane!" bought the rights to "Zero Hour!", so they were able to
> > >>> crib dialogue verbatim. This video has a side-by-side comparison of
> > >>> scenes from the two movies:
> > >>>
> > >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BjU-e01zQ4
> > >>>
> > >>> About 2 minutes in there's a scene with a woman screaming, "I've got
> > >>> to get out of here!" In "Zero Hour!" a man just shakes here, but in
> > >>> the "Airplane!" version, she's shaken, slapped, and otherwise abused
> > >>> by a series of passengers. Anyway, no "thanks" here either, so that
> > >>> doesn't really help us.
> > >> Is there different scene in "Airplane" which does have a slap and
> > >> "Thanks! I Needed That!", perhaps in the cockpit?  Or am I
> > >> half-remembering such an incident from some other of Leslie Nielson's
> > >> spoof movies?
> > >>
> > >> "Airplane" is 1980.  Has anyone searched Gann's 1953 "The High and
> > >> the Mighty" yet?
> > >>
> > >> Joel
> > >>
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> > >
> > > --
> > > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> > truth."
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> > --
> >
> >
> >
> > He could sell you the time and get a commission from the man who owned
> the
> > watch.
> > said of Colin Chapman
> >
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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