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The phrase "There's gold in them thar hills!" came up on an English language discussion group (someone was asking about "thar"). Some examples of the phrase's usage were posted in the group's pondering of the matter; and I was able to proffer its censored usage in Destry Rides Again. "But, wait!" thought I. "By what route did a line censored before a film's release manage to enter the public consciousness?" Can anyone shed light on just how this deleted line became public knowledge?

Oh, no--that line was a translation from La Fanciulla del West!

Just kidding. (I think.) Hard to believe that line doesn't pre-date 1939 by years...perhaps many. If it derived from film, I should suspect it was a title out of some forgotten silent.

It's simply the representation of some Hillbilly dialects. Using Google Ngrams, I came up with a list of occurrence of "them thar" in written English from 1800 to the present day:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?c ... ar%3B%2Cc0" target="_blank" target="_blank

Searching for "gold in them thar hills" I found a couple of random occurrences going back to 1900 and the beginning of a trend about 1920 that peaked in the early 1940s. That would indicate it became what we call a meme these days in the late 1930s.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?c ... ls%3B%2Cc1" target="_blank

Bob

Just to clarify: I'm referring to my dubiety about just how this censored line became known to the public as being a censored line from this particular show, rather than to the "original origin" of the phrase.

A Google search of
site:newspaperarchive.com "gold in them thar hills" "destry rides again"
indicates that the December 24, 1939 Oakland Tribune had an article which stated

"There's gold in them thar hills" is the line deleted by the Hays office from "Destry Rides Again." Remember the scene where MARLENE DIETRICH deposits a handful of gold in her dress?

Bruce Long wrote:A Google search of
site:newspaperarchive.com "gold in them thar hills" "destry rides again"
indicates that the December 24, 1939 Oakland Tribune had an article which stated

"There's gold in them thar hills" is the line deleted by the Hays office from "Destry Rides Again." Remember the scene where MARLENE DIETRICH deposits a handful of gold in her dress?

Many thanks! That (and the ever obliging Mr. Google) helped me along to what seems to be how this deleted line became known to the public: A site called Dr. Caligari's Cabinet, in its December, 2012 edition, informs us that the preview audience "roared" at the line, which prompted the Hayes office to order its removal. I don't want to think about the implication that, had the audience let the line pass in stony silence, the Hayes office would not have ordered it removed, as my brain hurts enough already.

The 1934 Laurel & Hardy short THEM THAR HILLS used the term (in its title) five years before DESTRY...

No gold - "It's the IRON in it!!"

And there's a story that Alfred Hitchcock, on seeing Grace Kelley in her dress from To Catch a Thief, said "There's hills in them thar gold."

gretra