On Thursdays I am a man of my word

[venta]

Spot question for the day:

Without googling, does the following phrase mean anything to anybody ?

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.

Comments

[nalsa.livejournal.com]

Yes. And now I'm going to be wracking my brains as to why.

It's a trigger phrase, isn't it? From a film, someone says it and people start doing stupid things, like crashing their cars into walls and killing presidential candidates? Or am I confusing it with The invisible worm that flies in the night?

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

IIRC the film was Telefon, and yes, it was used in that as a trigger for sleeper agents.

But I'm sure it comes from something else, like the communist party manifesto or something like that.

Can I google for it now?

[venta.livejournal.com]

You may indeed google now. I just wanted to make clear that I was wanting people's opinions (first) rather than just that I was too lazy to google for the answer myself.

This trigger-for-sleeping-agents bit is a new one on me. That's not where I know it from.

[nalsa.livejournal.com]

Excellent. I'm glad that my half-remembered knowledge is accurate :-)

IMDB says

[wimble.livejournal.com]

The code used to activate sleepers is taken from a poem by Robert Frost, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening", originally published in 1923 in his collection titled "New Hampshire". The exact lines are: The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

Although, since I don't know the film myself, I can't say that Now is the time... doesn't occur in there somewhere.

Re: IMDB says

[venta.livejournal.com]

Which is one of my favourite extracts from a poem, ever.
Never got on so well with the poem as a whole, though, the bits about his 'little horse' are unbearably twee.

(Full text (http://www.ketzle.com/frost/snowyeve.htm))

Re: IMDB says

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Whoops! Your threads have collapsed m'dear.

Oh god! I've never paid attention to the full text. Poor horse. He must think it's queer indeed. What an awful line.

It's a pity that it's also everybody else's favourite extract: it does get horribly over exposed. It can be wonderfully spine tingling, in the right circumstances.

Re: IMDB says

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Wow! IMDB really is the fount of all knowledge!

I'm sure the pgrase was used in one film, unless I'm getting confused with the book?

Sadly google has not managed to find where the original came from...