T-1000: Hey, do you know this guy?
Tim: (shrugs) Nah, I don't know 'em. (casually turns the corner and then runs straight to John) John!
John: Not now.
Tim: Hey, there's this cop scoping for you. Check it out!... Split man, just go.
Someone is missing and being looked for. A photograph of them is being shown to everyone. The person may be dead, kidnapped, fallen among evil companions, etc. The people searching for them may be the police, private investigators, relatives, concerned friends, spies, adversaries, or all of the above.
The first places to be searched are where that person likes to spend their time. A bar, nightclub, library, park, restaurant, museum, etc. Expect a lot of people questioned to look carefully at the photograph, shake their head, and say they don't know them.
Except this one character. Show them the picture and they shrug, saying they never saw the person, have no idea who they are...
But they do know the person, and they're not telling. They may be guilty, protecting someone who is guilty, trying to protect someone from the truth, or maybe the person missing was a Jerkass who got what they deserved. It's also possible that they think they're protecting the person from those searching for them, and they could very well be right.
While this occurs across all genres, it's a staple of Hardboiled Detective and Film Noir. Definitely one of the Red Herring tropes. Expect I Never Said It Was Poison and We Do Not Know Each Other to come into play if the character unexpectedly knows information that they couldn't have known if they really didn't know the person. Don't be surprised to find this being hand-in-hand with Implausible Deniability, Blatant Lies, Obfuscating Stupidity, and perhaps Faking Amnesia.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Films — Live-Action
- 8mm. Tom Welles is searching for a teenage girl who appears to have been killed for a Snuff Film, and uses a photograph copied from the eponymous reel of 8mm film. He walks into the office of pornographer Eddie Poole and asks him to look at the picture. Poole scoffs at the idea that he'd even recognise her ("You know how much pussy walks through that door?") but when shown the picture, stares at it in shock, then abruptly turns away saying he's never seen her. Welles realises that he's gotten his first lucky break in the case and starts staking out Poole's office.
- Blade Runner. When Deckard shows bar owner Taffy Lewis a picture of the fugitive replicant Zhora, Taffy says he's never seen her. He's lying because he hired Zhora to do a snake act to entertain his customers.
- A variation in Enemy of the State, when mobster Paulie Pintero is shown a video of himself at a barbecue with some people that, as a condition of his parole, he's not allowed to associate with.
- The Fugitive: Deputy Gerard shows a picture to Dr. Charles Nichols that shows two people associated with Gerard's investigation of Richard Kimble (Sykes, a man with a prosthetic arm, and Dr. Lentz). Nichols denies knowing either of them. Turns out Nichols is doing this because he's the Big Bad, Sykes is The Dragon to him, and they both likely had Dr. Lentz killed as well.
- The Golden Child. After Chandler and Kee Nang beat up the Yellow Dragons biker gang, Chandler questions one of them about a missing girl. When Chandler shows him a picture of her, the biker says he's never seen her before. After Chandler punches him in the stomach, the biker confesses that his gang sold her to someone to be killed for her blood.
- Played for Laughs in The Naked Gun. After Nordberg is shot and wounded while working undercover, Drebin takes his photo and heads to the docks where it happened to snoop around.
Drebin: Recognize that face?
Dockworker: I dunno. My memory ain't so good.
Drebin: Maybe this'll help. (gives him a twenty)
Dockworker: It's still kinda hazy.
Drebin: How about now? (gives him another twenty)
Dockworker: Yeah, I used to see him around. Why do you wanna know?
Drebin: I can't tell you that.
Dockworker: Maybe this'll help. (gives Drebin a twenty)
Drebin: I still don't think I should tell you.
Dockworker: How about now? (gives Drebin another twenty)
Drebin: He's a cop. His name's Nordberg. - The Nice Guys:
- Private detective Holland March is tasked with finding a missing woman named Amelia, and naturally goes around with a picture of her asking if anyone has seen her. Amelia, who is indeed in danger, learns that a man is going around asking about her, and hires a professional leg-breaker named Jackson Healy to threaten March into leaving her alone. An inversion of this trope, as it's the detective who gets beaten up and learns nothing.
- Later, Jackson and Holland (now teamed up) show Amelia's picture to a bartender, who denies ever seeing her. Both Jackson and Holland can see that he's lying, and after getting his head bashed against the bar he admits that he's seen her. Interestingly, he's not a bad person. Despite getting roughed up, after he tells them how to find people who know Amelia where is, he specifically warns them that they're dangerous and not to be taken lightly, and encourages them to just stay at the bar and have a few drinks on the house.
- In Pee-wee's Big Adventure, at the traffic stop, Pee-Wee (in drag) and his escaped convict pal (in disguise) are shown a picture of... the escaped convict pal. The convict, thanks in part to Pee-Wee's over-the-top cutesy shenanigans, successfully fools the police officer into believing that he doesn't recognize his own photo.
- In Psycho, following Marion Crane's murder, Arbogast (a private investigator), and Marion's boyfriend and sister make separate visits to the Bates Motel and ask Norman Bates about her disappearance. It's plainly obvious, after Norman had already personally cleaned up the murder scene and disposed of Marion's car and body, that he lies when says he's never seen her. It's notable that he barely glances at the photograph of Marion that Arbogast shows him.
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day: When the T-1000 is looking for John Connor, he has a photograph and is showing it to the kids at the mall arcade while disguised as a cop. He shows it to one kid, who shrugs and hands it back, saying he doesn't know him. However, the audience already knows he's John's buddy. He wastes no time getting to John and telling him to run. It's a good thing because while he was warning John, the T-1000 showed the picture to another boy, who immediately pointed directly to John. Cue the T-1000 going into Kill Mode...
- Constantly happening in The Wicker Man (1973). Sgt. Howie arrives on remote Summerisle with a photograph of Missing Child Rowan Morrison, but all the locals insist they've never seen her before and that she cannot be from the island (initially, he's told that there are no Morrisons at all on the island, but after a bit of prodding, the harbourmaster "remembers" that yes, there are). The more he pokes around and uncovers, the more their stories change, gradually cluing him in that the whole town is in on the crime.
Literature
- Doc Savage: In an early story, Doc's associates Monk and Ham are looking for a missing woman. Entering a speakeasy, they show her picture to the bartender, who immediately denies ever seeing her. Ham, who is an experienced lawyer and very good at reading people, is suspicious because the bartender barely even looked at the photograph. It turns out the woman, who was the secretary for a wealthy businessman, was kidnapped by a local gang. The bartender was told to keep providing her with free drinks until she became so drunk she was unable to resist the kidnappers.
- In The Mandarin Cypher, British spy Quiller is identified by Chinese intelligence agents in Hong Kong from a surveillance photograph they took of him during the events of The Ninth Directive. At one point he's captured and interrogated, and during his Perp Sweating the interrogator slams down the photograph on the table.
"Christ," I said, "if I thought I looked like that I'd go and shoot myself!"
"This is your photograph. We know it is."
"Bloody insulting!"
Live-Action TV
- iZombie: In the pilot episode, the weatherman does this when Clive and Liv show him the picture of the victim. He reveals himself when Liv repeats the "Heeeeere's Johnny!" line she saw from the dead girl's memory. He's not the killer, however, and does provide them information on who she was and where she lived.
- The establishing scene of The Mandalorian has the eponymous Bounty Hunter confronting his bounty, who naturally denies being a wanted man even when a holographic puck is placed on the table in front of him. The same thing happens in the introductory scene of "The Return of the Mandalorian" in The Book of Boba Fett.
- Supernatural:
- In the episode "Last Call", Dean is looking for a missing girl. He's at a bar run by his ex-hunter buddy Lee. He shows Lee her photograph, and Lee denies knowing her. He's lying. It turns out that Lee got tired of hunting and made a deal with the Monster of the Week where he provides it with victims in return for health and money. Dean does not take this well, and Lee doesn't live through the episode...
- In the first season episode "Scarecrow", Sam and Dean are investigating a small town where young couples routinely go missing at the same time every year. Dean is showing a picture of the most recent couple to vanish to the townspeople, all of whom deny seeing them. Except for one young girl who isn't aware that the townspeople made a deal with a pagan god to sacrifice a man and a woman once a year in return for good fortune for the town. She tells Dean the couple did stop there, and it doesn't take long for Dean to start throwing monkey wrenches into things.
- In an episode of The Undeclared War, Saraa, a student getting work experience in the malware department of Britain's cybersecurity organization, is shown a series of photos on a tablet. The people are suspected to be working for Russia as cyberwarriors. Saraa does recognize one picture as that of Vadim, a Russian classmate at her university in London. She denies recognizing him at first but eventually admits she knew him.
Western Animation
- Timon & Pumbaa: In "The Law Of The Jungle", while Timon is being pursued by police vultures, he hides in a stump and has Pumbaa sit on it to hide him. The vultures show Pumbaa a photo of Timon and ask if he's seen him. This is Pumbaa's response.
Pumbaa: I have never seen Timon before in my entire life, and I would never rat out my bestest best friend— (Timon kicks him) Ow! I mean uhh, Timon is only a so-so friend— (Timon kicks him) Ow! I mean I wish he would stop kicking me— (Timon kicks him) Ow! I mean I don't know what you're talking about!
