How to find source for quote from Mexican film legend Cantinflas?

November 20, 2006 10:00 AM

How to find source for quote from Mexican film legend Cantinflas?

Cantinflas was a Mexican star appearing in many, many films throughout his career. He was also a political activist. For reasons that won't interest anyone, I am looking for the correct source for a saying or quote often attributed to him by Mexicans.

The quote in Spanish: "El seguro social es muy social pero no muy seguro" or alternatively "El seguro social es muy social pero muy poco seguro."

In English (roughly): Social security is very social but not very sure/safe.

Essentially, more than one Mexican has repeated this quote to me (in varying forms) and attributed it to Cantinflas. I haven't been able to find the exact quote or its exact origin (film, or political speech).

Any ideas about where to look? For example, is there a Mexican equivalent of AskMeFi? Are there other online sources or offline reference books that I could try?

posted by mdion to media & arts (5 comments total)

Try this site for quotes. I don't know how to link.

http://en.thinkexist.com/
posted by JujuB at 10:10 AM on November 20, 2006

There is a Yahoo answers site for Mexico, but it seems to be populated by 14 year old kids.

The quote might be from El señor doctor, where Cantinflas represents a doctor in a social security hospital.

In case you don't know Spanish, the term for quote is cita, and Cantinfla's name was Mario Moreno. I couldn't find the quote in Google, but I asked a YouTube user who is uploading a lot of Cantinflas clips, maybe he knows the exact source.
posted by clearlydemon at 10:39 PM on November 20, 2006

Here's the YouTube link.
posted by clearlydemon at 10:42 PM on November 20, 2006

Mil gracias clearlydemon. Muy buen idea--a buscar en YouTube por un fanatico de Cantinflas. Voy a seguir el comentario y tal vez buscar una copia del DVD que mencionas. Me parece que no esta disponible en Netflix. Gracias de nuevo.
posted by mdion at 9:44 AM on November 22, 2006

De nada! The guy from YouTube told me he'll check the movie, hopefully he'll find the clip.
posted by clearlydemon at 10:14 PM on November 22, 2006