"What we have here... is failure to comunicate."

[John_Mace]

@Miller

I had an English teacher in high school who, when someone answered a question incorrectly, would shout, “What we have here is a failure to communicate!” To which the class would shout back, in unison, “My mind’s right, boss!”

Someone should have correct the teacher. There is no “a” before “failure”. It’s just, “what we have here is failure to communicate”. A common mistake.

[zagloba]

Did you know that Cool Hand Luke is really a Christian allegory? Learn more about this and other surprising facts about this film from Tim Dirks’ rundown on filmsite.org:

[Luke’s dependence on “nothin’” and the many parallels between Luke and Jesus Christ recall the Biblical reference in Luke 1:37: “For with God, nothing shall be impossible.”]
<snip>
As a prelude to the film’s memorable, comic egg-eating contest scene, Dragline bets on his boy Luke: “He can eat busted bottles and rusty nails, any damned thing.” Luke boldly wagers that he can eat fifty hard-boiled eggs in one hour. [The number 50 becomes significant - since there are 50 prisoners’ souls and 50 eggs, Luke’s ingesting of the eggs parallels Christ’s taking upon himself the sins of the world and bringing about a rebirth. Eggs, the celebration of Easter, and the resurrection are symbolically tied together.] The men exuberantly bet against him, disbelieving that he can perform the miracle without throwing up: “Fifty eggs gotta weigh a good six pounds…A man’s gut can’t hold that. They’ll swell up and bust him open…They’re gonna kill him.” Remarkably, Luke takes the challenge - it’s raining and the activity will pass the time: “It be somethin’ to do.” After a period of preparatory training, stretching his stomach’s skin to make room for the eggs (“What we gotta do is stretch that little ol’ belly of yours. Get all this stuff out of the way. Them eggs are coming down!”), and eating speed tests, Luke is about ready. He sits on his top bunk with a towel draped over his head [another Christ image].
<snip>
As time is running out, and Luke approaches the elusive goal of 50 eggs, Dragline coaxes him on: “Just nine more between you and everlastin’ glory…Just little ol’ eggs. They pigeon eggs, that’s all.” The men mimic his chewing action. Up until the last second, it is uncertain whether he has swallowed the last egg. After his winning victory, Luke is laid out on a table strewn with egg shells. The men quickly forget about him and abandon him after using him for their own amusement. Luke is left alone - from an overhead shot, his arms are outstretched, his legs are crossed at the ankle, his eyes are closed, and his head is tilted toward the left - [a symbolic Christ-like crucifixion pose]. An enigmatic grin crosses his face.

Dirks has extensive rundowns on hundreds of films. The valuable aspect of them is that they describe the plots and scenes quite thoroughly and include nearly all the famous quotes. He also often gives a good history of the film.

The real entertainment comes from his stretching to find symbolism in random objects and occurences combined with purple prose. He never shrinks from stating the obvious, though, often devoting a sentence to summarizing the one sentence quote that follows.

[samclem]

@Homebrew

Actually, it’s not exactly wrong. The phrase is first said by Captain early in the film, sans the “a”. However, Luke mocks Captain with the line while trapped in the church near the end and includes the “a”.

And in ads in newspapers from late that year, it is publicized as “a failure to communicate.” Which makes much more sense to the average person, hearing it for the first time.

[picunurse]

@zagloba

Did you know that Cool Hand Luke is really a Christian allegory? Learn more about this and other surprising facts about this film from Tim Dirks’ rundown on filmsite.org:
Dirks has extensive rundowns on hundreds of films. The valuable aspect of them is that they describe the plots and scenes quite thoroughly and include nearly all the famous quotes. He also often gives a good history of the film.

The real entertainment comes from his stretching to find symbolism in random objects and occurences combined with purple prose. He never shrinks from stating the obvious, though, often devoting a sentence to summarizing the one sentence quote that follows.

But, did he make any mention of luke singing his favorite little ditty?
“I don’t care if it rains or freezes, ‘long as I got my plastic Jesus settin’ on the dashboard of my car…”
Until I saw the movie, I thought that was the whole ditty. IIRC, he sang at least a couple verses.

[Scissorjack]

I didn’t know it was in a G’n’R song, and I use it all the time: it used to be a catch-phrase for particularly dumb students in the English school where I worked in Japan. That, and “Do you expect me to talk?”

[elfkin477]

@Trunk

Before, easily. That was a popular movie, and filled with quotable quotes.

Yet you left out one of the most quoted lines “calling it your job don’t make it right.”

And Shakes, you can tell your friend my first thought on reading your OP was “Are you friggin’ kidding me?!” They honestly think a song release 23 years after the move - which I’ve only heard twice - popularized that line from a classic? His/her belief isn’t too far removed from kids thinking the Police ripped off Biggie G.

[Diceman]

@Homebrew

Actually, it’s not exactly wrong. The phrase is first said by Captain early in the film, sans the “a”. However, Luke mocks Captain with the line while trapped in the church near the end and includes the “a”.

Yeah, and look what happened to him after that.

The moral of the movie: Never misquote the Captain

[Robot_Arm]

@Case Sensitive

“Do you expect me to talk?”

“No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!”

[NoCoolUserName]

Strother Martin, playing “Captain, Road Prison 36” says:

What we’ve got here is… failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it… well, he gets it. I don’t like it any more than you men.

(from the IMDB).

The problem here is a failure to communicate, because it’s text, ya know? What we need is an actual sample of the audio.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@NoCoolUserName

What we need is an actual sample of the audio.

And here is the money quote from the film (click on the last link), where it clearly is “a failure to communicate.”

Here’s a direct link to the wav file: http://new.wavlist.com/movies/201/chl-lastwords.wav

[Bryan_Ekers]

“That’s one small step for failure…”

[ftg]

Re: the possibly missing “a”:

What we have here is a failure to enuciate.

[lissener]

@zagloba

Did you know that Cool Hand Luke is really a Christian allegory? Learn more about this and other surprising facts about this film from Tim Dirks’ rundown on filmsite.org:
Dirks has extensive rundowns on hundreds of films. The valuable aspect of them is that they describe the plots and scenes quite thoroughly and include nearly all the famous quotes. He also often gives a good history of the film.

The real entertainment comes from his stretching to find symbolism in random objects and occurences combined with purple prose. He never shrinks from stating the obvious, though, often devoting a sentence to summarizing the one sentence quote that follows.

Dirks goes overboard, true, but there’s really no question that CHL was intended as a pretty hamhanded Christian allegory.

[lissener]

@John Mace

Someone should have correct the teacher. There is no “a” before “failure”. It’s just, “what we have here is failure to communicate”. A common mistake.

As is your misquote, John. As has been pointed out above, the actual quote is “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”

[Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker]

Just in case anyone’s interested, here’s a recent article on Donn Pearce, the man who created Cool Hand Luke.

[Chefguy]

@mobo85

Now that one is actually “We don’t need to show you no stinkin’ badges!”

It was a combination of both, actually:

“Badges? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges.
I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!” --Gold Hat (Alfonso Bedoya)

[Miller]

@John Mace

Someone should have correct the teacher. There is no “a” before “failure”. It’s just, “what we have here is failure to communicate”. A common mistake.

Corrected.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@lissener

As is your misquote, John. As has been pointed out above, the actual quote is “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”

The actual quote is: “What we got here is a failure to communicate.”

[Casey1505]

It depends on what the meaning of “a” is.

[Trunk]

@Hentor the Barbarian

The actual quote is: “What we got here is a failure to communicate.”

In post #11

@Homebrew

Actually, it’s not exactly wrong. The phrase is first said by Captain early in the film, sans the “a”. However, Luke mocks Captain with the line while trapped in the church near the end and includes the “a”.