Quote: I used to be Snow White but I drifted (attrib Mae West 1938)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Many thanks for your comment, Dan. I also saw that claim in WikiQuote
and obtained a version of the film  "I'm No Angel" (1933) with a
running time of 1 hour 27 minutes. I watched the film and did not hear
the quotation on the soundtrack.

The movie does contain some other famous quotes from West.

I also visited a searchable database of movie subtitle text. The
database included the subtitles for "I'm No Angel" (1933). A query for
the word "drifted" returned nothing. Other queries targeting the
phrase failed.

It is possible that I saw an edited version of the film, and it is
possible that the subtitles are incomplete. However, there are other
examples of inaccurate claims about quotations in Mae West films.

Would love to hear solid evidence stating the version of the film that
contains the quote and the hour:minute of occurrence  (if possible).

Garson

On Sat, Jun 29, 2013 at 9:40 AM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Quote: I used to be Snow White but I drifted (attrib Mae West
>               1938)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I haven't checked this, but wiki quotes attributes the Snow White version =
> to Mae West in the film 'I'm No Angel' from 1933.
> =E2=80=94
> Sent from Mailbox for iPhone
>
> On Sat, Jun 29, 2013 at 8:03 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole
> <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header =
> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Quote: I used to be Snow White but I drifted (attrib Mae =
> West
>>               1938)
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>> The saying in the subject line is included in multiple references,
>> e.g., The Yale Book of Quotations, The Quote Verifier, The Penguin
>> Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations, The Oxford Dictionary of
>> Humorous Quotations, The Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations. The
>> YBQ had the earliest cite in 1967. I located a cite in 1938, and the
>> details are given on the Quote Investigator website:
>> http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/06/29/snow-drift/
>> There was a precursor joke that referencing white snow instead of the
>> character Snow White. YBQ provided a citation in 1923. Here is an
>> instance dated April 18, 1921 in =22The Virginia Reel=22:
>> [Begin excerpt]
>> =EF=BF=BDShe was as pure and as white as snow.=EF=BF=BD
>> =EF=BF=BDYes, but she drifted.=EF=BF=BD - Yale Record.
>> [End excerpt]
>> Perhaps Fred or LH knows whether the Yale humor magazine, the Yale
>> Record, has been digitized or whether there are any plans to digitize
>> it in the future.
>> Garson
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> org
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