Mairzy Doats in a movie - solved

Mairzy Doats in a movie - solved Nov 22, 2018 19:47:58 GMT BATouttaheck likes this

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Post by Doghouse6 on Nov 22, 2018 19:47:58 GMT

Nov 22, 2018 19:25:08 GMT Hairynosedwombat said:

Nov 22, 2018 18:25:08 GMT Doghouse6 said:

The movie you cite sounds like Murder, He Says (1945), with Fred MacMurray, Marjorie Main, Helen Walker, Porter Hall and Jean Heather. In it, a nonsensical rhyme very much like Mairzy Dotes gives clues to the location of hidden money:

"Honors flysis (On horse, flies is)
Income beezis (In comb, bees is)
Onches nobis (On chest, knob is)
Inob keesis" (In knob, keys is)

Yes,,that's if. Funny how memory plays tricks on you.
I saw it on TV years ago.

It's an understandable conflation; Mairzy Doats works pretty much the same way:

Mairzy doats and dozy doats (Mares eat oats and does eat oats)
And liddle lamzy divey (And little lambs eat ivy)
A kiddley divey too (A kid'll eat ivy too)
Wouldn't you?

Murder, He Says is also the title of another song that has nothing to do with the film of the same name, and was performed by Betty Hutton in Happy Go Lucky (1943). Rather than nonsense rhymes, it's a compendium of hep-cat slang of the era. It's at 3:42 in the clip below.