Stolen Lines: Tony Blair & Disturbia

"You are my 10th prime minister. The first was Winston. That was before you were born."

-- Michael Sheen as Tony Blair in The Queen as written by Peter Morgan and/or Tony Blair in Real Life??

Tony Blair writes this line in his new memoir A Journey: My Political Life, which also appeared in the 2006 critical darling The Queen staring Oscar winner Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II, and Michael Sheen as Tony Blair.

Peter Morgan, the Queen's Screenwriter, has claimed Blair plagerized his film for his memoir, and that line from the film was entirely created by Morgan. Tony Blair has been quoted as saying he has never seen the film The Queen, which while possible, I find very surprising. I'd see a film that had me as a main character...but hey, maybe that's just me.

In related copy-write news: A Judge Laura Taylor Swain of Manhattan, New York ruled that the 2007 film Disturbia did not bear enough similarities to Alfred Hitchcock's film Rear Window to warrant a case for damages.

Disturbia is about a young man under house arrest (Shai LeBeouf) who spies on his neighbor committing what appears to be a murder. Rear Window has a similar plot regarding an injured man who spies from his apartment window.

The lawsuit was actually filed by the Sheldon Abend Trust that owns the rights to the 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder" by Cornell Woolrich from which rear window was adapted. The lawsuit sued among others Steven Spielberg as a Dreamworks studio founder.

I wonder how many times Judge Taylor watched these films before she made her ruling before dismissing the case?