Mae West? Aristophanes? Apocryphal?
Dear Quote Investigator: Screenwriter and sex symbol Mae West is usually credited with the following ribald line:
Is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?
But I have seen many variations of this comical remark:
- Is that your pipe in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?
- Is that a banana in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
- Are you packin’ a rod or are you just glad to see me?
- Is that your sword or are you just glad to see me?
Can you determine which joke is the original and when it was spoken or written?
Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence located by QI was in a 1958 book about a New York theatre producer titled “The Nine Lives of Michael Todd” by Art Cohn. In 1944 the play “Catherine Was Great” which was produced by Todd and starred Mae West opened on Broadway. Cohn stated that West improvised the humorous line of dialog when she was interacting with her fellow star Gene Barry:[1] 1958, The Nine Lives of Michael Todd by Art Cohn, Quote Page 193, Random House, New York. (Verified with scans)
Barry, playing Lieutenant Bunin, was unaccustomed to carrying a sword, and in the second act, during an embrace, his scabbard came between him and his Empress.
A covert smile stole over Mae’s face. “Lieutenant,” she ad-libbed with a Westian leer, “is that your sword or are you just glad to see me?”
There is some confusion about whether a version of this quip was used by Mae West in a movie during the 1930s or 1940s. Top quotation expert Fred R. Shapiro writing in The Yale Book of Quotations states that the line was not used by West in her early films:[2] 2006, The Yale Book of Quotations by Fred R. Shapiro, Section Mae West, Page 809, Yale University Press, New Haven. (Verified on paper)
Often ascribed to West’s film She Done Him Wrong, but the line does not appear in that or any of her other pre-1967 movies.
West claimed in remarks published in the 1980s that she employed the saying in the 1930s while speaking with a policeman. In addition, West did utter the saying in the 1978 film Sextette which was based on a play she wrote. Details for these citations are given further below.
Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
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