Alias French Gertie

TV viewers of the 1950s familiar with The Lyons would be shocked to discover Ben Lyons & Bebe Daniels misspending their youth as a pair of career criminals who meet cute when Daniels posing as a French maid - who in private lapses into fluent Brooklynese - crosses the path of safe cracker Ben Lyon.

The original play by Bayard Veiller was called 'The Chatterbox', which aptly describes Lyon, who never stops talking and as he hubristically brags that "when I pull a job it's like I signed my name on it!" it's hardly surprising that he swiftly ends up in the slammer.

Upon release he tells his beloved "Gertie, we're turning square!" - which provides the interesting knowledge that the term 'square' was already in use long before it was employed pejoratively by beatniks - before finding out the hard way that legitimate businessmen are even bigger crooks than he; a message that still resonates today.