I finally got around to watching Hitchcock’s classic, North by Northwest, and I quite enjoyed it, but one bit confused me, because I didn’t get the reference:
Roger Thornhill’s mother tells him jokingly, “Pay the two dollars,” after he futilely attempts to shed light on his kidnapping and be exonerated from his DWI charge. The line is a reference to a Depression-era Willie Howard vaudeville sketch written by Billy K. Wells. A man is in court to pay a $2 fine for spitting on the subway, but his lawyer insists on fighting the case. As the lawyer incurs greater and greater sentences, his defendant keeps pleading, “Pay the two dollars!” This sketch also appeared in Ziegfeld Follies (1946) with Edward Arnold portraying the attorney.