The line of dialogue supposedly spoken by Tony Curtis in either THE PRINCE WHO WAS A THIEF or THE BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH – or THE SON OF ALI BABA  is :

“Yonder lies the castle of my father.”

But the legend goes than Tony Curtis, born in the Bronx,New York, said:

“Yonda  lies da castle of  my faddah.” 

Thus making fun of , and implying that Tony had a pronounced and modern accent in an Arabian Nights fantasy.

But the fact is that Tony very quickly lost his Bronx accent after entering movies. And there is no such dialogue line in any of these films.

The nearest is in “Son Of Ali Baba”, in which he says, quite clearly and plainly,  “This is my father’s castle. And yonder lies the  valley of the sun.”

But, as Carleton Young said to James Stewart in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”,

“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

 

Tony Curtis, in his autobiography, indicated he felt  a little hurt by the comment and said it might have originated with Debbie Reynolds!

Just as anyone impersonating James Cagney will always say, “You dirty rat!”  Or Cary Grant pleading , “Judy! Judy! Judy!”,  I guess the phrase tagged with Tony’s  name will always be known in Hollywood.

Still,Bette Davis fans know that she really did say, “What a dump!” – in BEYOND THE FOREST.