Has anyone ever noticed subliminal messages on Hudson Hawk? I know the movie sucks. I was watching it for the first time last night and noticed a disturbing phrase uttered by Charlton Heston. When Bruce Willis is in Rome and he comes out of the phone booth after beating up Butterfinger he bumps into Heston on the street. When they finish talking as Heston turns away he says, “Free them niggers”. I rewound the movie like 10 times and everyone heard it then. Before I rewound it everyone thought I was nuts. Before I heard it I was thinking it was a very racist film. Has anyone else heard this before?
Sorry, never seen the movie, but I happened to be looking at its information on www.imdb.com and Charlton Heston isn’t listed as appearing in it. Was it a cameo, or is the actor in question maybe someone else? If so, you might get more answers.
RR
Here’s the script for Hudson Hawk. The words you mention aren’t in there.
I have heard some odd sounding mangling of words where there is an overdub in the TV version to cover a swear word or phrase. Was this on TV or a video store rental?
Never mind I see you indicate it’s a tape. Unless it’s from Walmart it should have the entire uncensored movie.
[hijack]When I read the OP I originally mis-read “Charlton Heston” as “Charles Nelson Reilly”. 
Then I read the first reply.
[Emily Lutella]
Never mind.
[/Emily Lutella]
[/hijack]
–SSgtBaloo
I like that movie. It’s James Coburn, you’re thinking of … and I’ve never heard any such thing.
This was James Coburn not Charlton Heston. Sorry about that. I always mix them up. His name was Kaplan in the movie.
Obviously the words were not in the script. I already checked the script. If you watch the movie and listen for it it’s there though.
This was purchased at blockbuster by my sister’s boyfriend. No one is going to not remember hearing it if they heard it. It is very very subliminal but there is no need to turn the volume up or anything. Just watch the scene right after he beats up Butterfinger in the phone booth. When he’s talking to Kaplan and Kaplan turns around to leave he says it. It’s obvious if you’re listening for it.
Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll go home after work and throw in the DVD, and see what he really says there.
Will that make you happy?
Yes, please do. I just want someone other than me and the two people i watched it with to hear this. And I know it sounds crazy but there is no doubt about what he says. It is perfectly clear.
“Brief him, Snickers.” - according to my ears, and the subtitles.
I’d be very interested if this were true. It would be a more interesting world if every, or even 15%, of the conspiracy theories and subliminal mindfucks we hear tell about were true.
But I doubt this is one of the true ones.
Hudson Hawk is 13 years old, now. Bruce Willis and some others from the show are Big Names, and Americans have a strange fixation on what the Big Names were up to way back when. If there was any hint of racism in a Bruce Willis film, no matter how obscure, it would have been served up hot by all the tabloids, from the full-color slicks to the cheap pulp rags.
I’ve never heard of this before. Neither, it would seem, has anyone else.
But I reiterate: Everyone who reads this thread and has access to a copy of Hudson Hawk should check this out. Take a few quiet minutes and listen hard. I want this to be an interesting world.
Well subtitles are not usually done from the scripts. And “Brief him Snickers” does not appear in the script.
I’ve seen this flick a couple of times (yes, i like it. A lot. Now leave me alone.) and I never heard this line.
Per CandidGamera’s note, in saying “Brief him Snickers” quickly it’s evident (at least to me when I say it) that it can easily morph into a slurred “breefemsniggers”. The most noticable parts of this audibly would be the “ree” “em” and “sniggers” . I think this is close enough to what you think you are hearing to put this to bed.
OK, I’ve never seen the movie, but I’ve got to know – why would anyone say “Brief him, Snickers”?
I’ve found that if you mishear a mumbled or indistinct phrase once, you always hear it wrong everytime you hear it again. And if you suggest to people what a hard-to-hear phrase should be, they’ll hear it that way too. For example, the other day I was convinced the whip-o-will outside my window was singing “webster, webster” and I couldn’t force my self to hear it differently. So you probably heard it wrong once and your suggesting it to your friends convinced them to hear it that way as well.
There’s probably some sort of fancy scientific name for this phenomena but I can’t think of what to search for…
Some of the characters in the movie have candy bar names as their codenames.
Ah, thanks.