WIlliam at the Circus

I watched a British movie, William at the Circus, aka Willlian Comes to Town, directed by Val Guest. 1948.

In one scene, the kid, WIlliam, antagonizes a delivery driver who says, "If you were my son, I'd give you poison."

"If you were my father, I'd drink it," the kid says.

It was a line that was attributed to Winston Churchill. An anonymous woman supposedly said that, if he were her husband she would poison his coffee, and he says if she were his wife he'd drink it. The joke didn't work as well when it was about the hypothetical murder of a child.

But which came first---the movie or Churchill's alleged witicism?

According to the internet, the movie came before the joke's first attribution to the genocidal racist Churchill. But it turns out the joke had been around at least since the 1890's.

The movie was cute enough. About Little Rascal-like 13-year-old middle class English schoolboys who are always into mischief, part of a series.

Available on Pub-D-Hub.