I heard this from a friend, so I can’t swear to the veracity.
My friend had been a missionary in Tanzania. He said they watched a movie in which a minor African character delivered some news to the main characters. The line was spoken in Swahili with an English subtitle. The Tanzanians in the audience roared with laughter and claimed the actor had said “I’m not paid enough for this job.”
The other day I was watching an American rom-com on Netflix Japan with Japanese subtitles. One character mentioned having an appointment with Mark Cuban (tech billionaire). The Japanese subtitle read as E マスク (E Musk = Elon Musk).
I work in subtitling. In the example mentioned in the OP, it depends on the dialogue in question. If there was a subtitle for the dialogue but another woman’s name was there instead of Jean Harlow’s, it’s because the reference was localized for German-culture audiences. Since not all American celebrities are known worldwide, some translators may choose to substitute a comparable German one. However, if the dialogue was just Jean Harlow’s name, then there may also be no subtitle for this because proper nouns aren’t translatable, and since German uses the Roman alphabet, it’s not necessary to transliterate either.
For foreign language films, one reason the subs may not match the dialogue is because of the differences between the original language audio and the English dub. Dialogue translated into English isn’t going to be grammatically or structured the same way as the source language; while the translation will convey the same information, it’s likely to be worded differently. Where you run into noticeable issues is when the subtitles are based on a different audio than is being used for the film. If a Japanese film were to use the original Japanese audio but run with subtitles based on the English dub, you will notice differences between the dialogue and subtitles.
“…the Turkish Prime Minister, Mr Ed.”
Disney does it all the time for their Studio Ghibli import DVDs. They generally come with their original Japanese soundtrack and an English dub. The dub will often stray from from the original script to reduce lip flap. Two sets of English subtitles are offered, one following the dub and the other with a more accurate translation of the Japanese.
Some years ago a repertoire theater in Palo Alto had a festival of student films from Stanford. To advertise the festival they had a film of snippets satirizing various famous directors’ styles. One of them was a b&w Fellini-esque shot of two young women earnestly speaking Italian at a sidewalk cafe table (shot in the courtyard of the theater). The subtitle had one of them saying, “I always find Fellini so deeply moving,” while the Italian spoken was, “Fellini always makes me fall asleep.”
All the time. Or the give too literal translations like, in a car show, they’d say “the alloys in this car (referring to the rims)” and the translation would be “aleaciones”.
Or, they go way literal and when they say “we’re almost doing 100 mph” the translation would be “casi vamos a 160.9 km/h”
Same with dubbed shows. What the actors say in dubbed Spanish is not the same as the subtitles/cc.
It’s fun watching war movies on a Mexican channel. A sergeant will cuss a blue streak, and the subtitle will say “Maldito.”
The Shirley Maclaine movie What A Way To Go! did an amusing parody of the trope. (Go to 42:27 if you’re interested.)
As soon as I saw What a Way to Go! I knew what scene you were referring to. I don’t speak French but a girlfriend I had spoke it fluently and when we were watching it on broadcast television, she gasped at the old man’s dialogue and said, “I’m surprised they let that on the air!”
“What’d he say?”
“Well, let’s just say he’s describing what’s pretty.”
They did censor the moment where McLaine and Newman were clinching in a shower.
Nowadays, Russian cinema normally uses overdubbing instead of subtitles. Since most Russians who think they know English don’t,* this regularly produces howlers. I was watching one movie where two Good Ol’ Boys are careening through the countryside like the Duke Brothers. “Look out, you’re gonna hit that shed!” was translated as “Look out, we’re gonna be in the shit!”
On The Avengers, “the Anastasia Clinic” was “the clinic of professional anesthesiologists.”
On Dynasty, Alexis’s line “You should remember the Boston Tea Party!”** was “You should remember the reception thrown by the Boston Tea Company!”
In First Blood, “Lone Wolf” was “Long Wolf.”
Sometimes they have to have understood the English but evidently just didn’t give a damn:
In First Blood, Part 2, “It’s all about money. We promised reparations, but Congress reneged!” was “The armed forces don’t have the money to mount an operation at this time!”
In Rambo III, “I’m your worst nightmare!” was "I am the sword of almighty God! "
In a documentary on the Cold War, the US president was “Franklin Theodore Roosevelt,” and one document was signed by “D Edgar Guver.”
The list goes on and on!
*This includes professional translators.
**There is actually a Russian name for this historical event, bostonskoye chaepitiye.
Or the dialog will say “Motherfucker,” and the subtitle will say “Idiota!” (which admittedly is a more serious insult than it is in English).
Sounds like The Sopranos on A&E, where “Cocksucker!” was regularly transformed into “Bloodsucker!” and “Fuck you!” became “Forget you!” (Though these are hardly more insulting than the originals…) :rolleyes:
I seem to remember a great pop song from a few years back where that happened! 
I do kind of like the Rambo III “I am the sword of the almighty God” for “I’m your worst nightmare,” though.
Makes me think of Thai soap operas, only the reverse. For a good, long while, in tense situations many of the characters would scream, “Fuck you!” in English. It was thought by the locals at the time that it was akin to “Drop dead!” or some such. I think someone finally told them.
You don’t even need subtitles for that. I recall seeing the original version of A Bridge Too Far on HBO way back when. In it, Elliot Gould was sent up ahead to make sure a bridge was still intact during WWII. It was. But suddenly, right before him, it was blown up real good by the Nazis. He was hopping mad: “Fuck! Shit! Motherfucker! Bastard,” etc, he exclaimed.
At about the same time, one of the major US networks also ran it, and suddenly Elliot Gould was saying: “Gosh! Darn! Golly!” etc in some sort of weird voiceover. That went on for the whole film.
How about when something about cooking becomes “THE THANK YOU THANK GOD HATES MUSLIMS KNOW WHO YOU ARE.”?
The Russian DVD of In Harm’s Way (John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal) was titled In the Manner of Mr Harm. DUH! :smack:
I fell in love with Guy Ritchie’s “Snatch” film 20 years ago. Still love it today but I still recall a flub like what we are talking about. In the film, Brad Pitt plays a “pikey” who are similar to gypsies here in the US. They live in RV camps as family groups and will pick up and go as they please. Being that the film takes place in England, the twist on Pitts character is that you don’t really know where the Pikeys are from…Pitt has a seriously thick Irish/English brogue that is questioned several times in the film. As in “what did he say?”. At one point, 2 guys come to buy a caravan from the pikeys, things go bad and they want their money back. Pitt tells one of them that he will fight one of them for the money. His opponent is a huge man who’s about to box in an unlicensed boxing match in a couple of days. When the fight starts, he hits Pitt several times before he’s ready. Pitt goes down a couple of times but gets right up. One time he’s down and the boxer yells “you should STAY down or you will NOT be coming back up”. At this point, Pitt gets up, takes off his shirt with his back to the boxer and says…something. So to be sure I caught it I turned on both the film subtitles and the closed captioning.
Subtitle: “You’re not going anywhere, you tick worm”
Closed Captioning: “You’re not going anywhere, you thick lump”
I hear it both ways. I just find it amusing that Pitt was hired because of his unintelligible accent and even those associated with the film are guessing.
PS. If you haven’t seen “Snatch”, do yourself a favor and watch it. GREAT film. Excellent writing, acting and dialogue. Just well executed all around.
My personal favorite is from some anime where the the original dialogue has the guy saying one word and in the English version he gives a whole long speech.
There’s an English dub of a hentai where I think they decided to literally translate all the honorifics as a weird joke. So you have characters who are having sex with each other who are calling each other “sister” and “mother”.:eek:
A recent CC error of a British Parliamentary debate had Michael Gove saying there was “no way this country can ever allow Batman to be our Prime Minister”. He actually said “that man” (referring to Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn) but the country was rather disappointed that Batman isn’t in the running either.
My favorite CC blip: in the end credits of Anchorman we get clips of Steve Carell’s Brick spouting various nonsense. What he said was “I pooped a Cornish game hen.” What the caption said was “I pooped a Cornish gay man”. Which is a very different prospect.
That’s nuthin’. In China, the theatrical release* of The Sixth Sense is He’s a Ghost!:smack:
*and the DVD for all I know