It is considered an iconic line from the golden era of movies, uttered by a lovelorn Ingrid Bergman requesting a meaningful tune on the piano.
But the phrase Ilsa Lund delivers to Sam in Casablanca as she mourns her lost romance with Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine has emerged as one of the most misquoted in film.
Rather than “Play it again, Sam”, in the 1942 film the actress actually entreats “Play it, Sam. Play As Time Goes By”.
The gaffe comes fourth in a list of the 10 most mangled movie lines following a poll of 2,000 cinema fans.
Top is “Houston, we have a problem.”
Astronaut Jim Lovell actually told mission control on the 1970 spaceflight: “Ah Houston, we’ve had a problem” but the hit 1995 film changed the tense to make the transmission more dramatic.
Other famous muddled lines include “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” from Disney’s classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
In fact, the line, which ranked third in the poll by board game Clipology, is “Magic mirror, on the wall”.
Darth Vader revealing he is Luke Skywalker’s dad in The Empire Strikes Back, Chief Martin Brody commenting on the size of the boat in Jaws and Clint Eastwood’s taunt to a robber in the first Dirty Harry flick also feature.
TV and film expert Boyd Hilton said: “When there are so many brilliant movie quotes to remember, it’s understandable for people to get some muddled up.”
