Unintentionally funny intertitles

silent-partner · Post by **silent-partner** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 10:31 pm

I was watching Houdini's 'The Man from Beyond' last night and I don't know if it was the lack of sleep or the Absinthe but I found the following intertitle very funny.
"I looked for you at the Asylum but you were not there."

Any others??

ps, if a mod could change the word 'Unitentionally' in the subject line of this thread to Unintentionally I would apprieciate it. I unintentionally spelled the word unintentionally wrong. (yeah, go ahead and laugh chowderheads.)

DShepFilm · Post by **DShepFilm** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:01 am

"Let's go over and sit on the sewer." (GREED)

"Chinky, why are you so good to me?" (BROKEN BLOSSOMS)

Each one loses the audience for a minute or two!

Penfold · Post by **Penfold** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 5:24 am

Never sure if it was intentionally funny or not....in Tol'able David, when Our Hero is showing concern to his sweetheart regarding the machinations of Uncle Ernest Torrence and his gang of troll-like sons....'Let me know if things turn ugly....'

Arndt · Post by **Arndt** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 8:36 am

Here's one from the rich mine that are the films of Cecil B., MALE AND FEMALE in this case:

"That wonderful look of fear in your eyes, makes me almost forget - England."

Penfold · Post by **Penfold** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 1:23 pm

And I have long wanted to have a T-Shirt made, with the following title from the silent version of The Skin Game emblazoned thereupon;

"By George, You're A Handsome Woman When You're Roused !"

I have yet to use this as a chat-up line....

Frederica · Post by **Frederica** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 2:51 pm

Penfold wrote:And I have long wanted to have a T-Shirt made, with the following title from the silent version of The Skin Game emblazoned thereupon;

"By George, You're A Handsome Woman When You're Roused !"

I have yet to use this as a chat-up line....

I wouldn't advise it.

Fred

Penfold · Post by **Penfold** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 5:40 am

Frederica wrote:
Penfold wrote:And I have long wanted to have a T-Shirt made, with the following title from the silent version of The Skin Game emblazoned thereupon;

"By George, You're A Handsome Woman When You're Roused !"

I have yet to use this as a chat-up line....
I wouldn't advise it.

Fred

Funnily enough, someone else said precisely that....

misspickford9 · Post by **misspickford9** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 7:23 am

Penfold wrote:
Frederica wrote:
Penfold wrote:And I have long wanted to have a T-Shirt made, with the following title from the silent version of The Skin Game emblazoned thereupon;

"By George, You're A Handsome Woman When You're Roused !"

I have yet to use this as a chat-up line....
I wouldn't advise it.

Fred
Funnily enough, someone else said precisely that....

LOL the fun part would be seeing how many women were intelligent enough to tell the difference between 'roused' and 'aroused'. That being said I'd still probably throw beer in a man's face if he said it to me :p :p :p.

The Male and Female one...AH that whole thing made me crazy! Im doing a double review since I watched it with Sadie Thompson. There are so many things wrong with that movie (Male and Female) its gonna be a long one :p.

boblipton · Post by **boblipton** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 7:32 am

I should think she'd go after George for tattling.

Bob

Post by **Mike Gebert** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:36 am

"Robespierre, the original pussy-footer." --Orphans of the Storm

T0m M · Post by **T0m M** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 7:20 am

Frederica wrote:
Penfold wrote:And I have long wanted to have a T-Shirt made, with the following title from the silent version of The Skin Game emblazoned thereupon;

"By George, You're A Handsome Woman When You're Roused !"

I have yet to use this as a chat-up line....
I wouldn't advise it.

Fred

I been led to believe, on good authority, that he would probably be safe.

Bruce Long · Post by **Bruce Long** » Thu Feb 05, 2009 8:54 pm

This is not from a silent film, but this is my favorite unintentionally funny subtitle. In the Chinese-language film "Girl with a Gun" (1982, Taiwan), the heroine walks past a room where people are singing in English, the song "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands". When they sing the line, "He's got the little bitty baby, in His hands", this is the subtitle that appears:

It's easy to imagine how this mistake probably came about. I suppose the person in charge of writing the English subtitles was someone who had a few years of English in school, and had a dictionary for reference, but had never encountered the slang word "bitty" before, which was not in that dictionary. Then "bits of" sounded like the only possibility.

Anyway, it leads to some strange mental imagery. (Why is the baby in bits?)

Penfold · Post by **Penfold** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 3:29 am

Thanks for sharing, Bruce, that's made my day.....

35MM · Post by **35MM** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 3:46 pm

Arndt wrote:Here's one from the rich mine that are the films of Cecil B., MALE AND FEMALE in this case:

"That wonderful look of fear in your eyes, makes me almost forget - England."

Another from Cecil B. Demille, "The Affairs of Anatol":
Anatol Spencer (Wallace Reid) to Satan Synne (Bebe Daniels):
"If this is the gay life-I'm going back to my wife".
Out of context of course as it meant something different back then, but it got a chuckle or two.

FrankFay · Post by **FrankFay** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 6:58 pm

35MM wrote: Another from Cecil B. Demille, "The Affairs of Anatol":
Anatol Spencer (Wallace Reid) to Satan Synne (Bebe Daniels):
"If this is the gay life-I'm going back to my wife".
Out of context of course as it meant something different back then, but it got a chuckle or two.

This is from a sound film so it's way out of place, but I can't resist.

In Alias French Gertie Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon play a team of crooks- she's works as a maid to get Ben inside as a safecracker. She wants to go straight but he won't.

"I don't need a partner, as long as I have my Good Right Hand"

Post by **Mike Gebert** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 11:35 am

I thought there was a debate here somewhere about where the title in Orphans of the Storm referring to "Robespierre— the original pussyfooter" comes from. But I can't find it; maybe it was back in AMS days.

Anyway, I always assumed it implied some sort of doubledealing, or Tartuffian hypocrisy, or something. But I ran across this Wikipedia item on a leading figure of Prohibition and it seems very likely to me that this is where it comes from, implying that Robespierre is stealthy but implacable at catching his enemies or the enemies of the state— but perhaps also suggesting that he did so in an underhanded way:

William Eugene "Pussyfoot" Johnson (25 March 1862[1] – 2 February 1945) was an American Prohibition advocate and law enforcement officer. In pursuit of his campaign to outlaw intoxicating beverages, he openly admitted to drinking liquor, bribery, and lying. He gained the nickname "Pussyfoot" due to his cat-like stealth in the pursuit of suspects in the Oklahoma Territory.[1]

Harold Aherne · Post by **Harold Aherne** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 11:54 am

As long as this topic is being revived, here are a couple of gems from West Point:

"You've got a nice joint here....I like it!"

"My boy-friend is scared of army officers." (said by Mr. Haines about Mr. Bakewell)

And A Lady of Chance:

"I can only handle two plugs at once -- I'm not an octopus."

"I never realized how uninteresting cement was until I met you."

-Harold

Hal Erickson · Post by **Hal Erickson** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:33 pm

I don't know the film, but it was referenced in the 1968 NYT review of "The Parade's Gone By":

After a shot of a raft on the rapids, navigated by the heroine, the title reads.

"DOWN THE VIRGIN FALLS".

Post by **Danny Burk** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:20 pm

Hal Erickson wrote:I don't know the film, but it was referenced in the 1968 NYT review of "The Parade's Gone By":

After a shot of a raft on the rapids, navigated by the heroine, the title reads.

"DOWN THE VIRGIN FALLS".

That was from Ingram's lost WHERE THE PAVEMENT ENDS.

silentmovies74 · Post by **silentmovies74** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:14 pm

There is one in Different from the Others which reads "if he's normal, then I'm a virgin!".

From a subtitling point of view, the Asian edition of a Dutch film called For A Lost Soldier has some real howlers - including references at one point to a "glow job"!!!!!!!

Post by **Danny Burk** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:53 pm

Afterglow?

Wm. Charles Morrow · Post by **Wm. Charles Morrow** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:58 pm

Two of my favorite explanatory titles, the first from D.W. Griffith's bizarre Biograph short, For His Son, where it comes as a bolt from the blue:

Tempted to gain wealth for his son by concocting a soft drink containing cocaine.

And from Our Hospitality, a mysterious, cryptic line spoken by one engineer to another:

"It's a shame to blow up this dam, but we must irrigate."

The humor in that second one probably wasn't unintentional, but I think Keaton mainly wanted to set up the next gag as economically as possible, and the result was a little masterpiece of terse exposition.

Harlett O'Dowd · Post by **Harlett O'Dowd** » Wed Feb 24, 2016 9:53 am

the beginning of the 3rd part of MISS MEND has multiple candidates, including

"Who's next for an enema?"

and

"I traveled the ocean only to be stopped by an enema."

I'm *still* laughing.

Javier · Post by **Javier** » Wed Feb 24, 2016 6:56 pm

[quote="DShepFilm"]"Let's go over and sit on the sewer." (GREED)

That is one quote I will never forget for as long as I live.

On page #141 of the book script for Greed is listed, but on the bottom of the page there is a disclaimer that originally
it was not on Stroheim's original script. But hey sewer plus Hearts and Flowers tune sets the romantic mood no?

On (The Shiek) the expression on Agnes Ayres when Valentino takes her to his tent always makes me laugh. The title card reads something to this effect, "Why have you brought me here?" then Valentino replies, "Aren't you woman enough to know?"

IA · Post by IA » Wed Feb 24, 2016 7:52 pm

The final title of every Swedish silent: "Slut."

oldposterho · Post by **oldposterho** » Wed Feb 24, 2016 11:17 pm

Some of the Homo the Wonder Dog intertitles in The Man Who Laughs are most unfortunate.

Wm. Charles Morrow · Post by **Wm. Charles Morrow** » Thu Feb 25, 2016 4:09 am

oldposterho wrote:Some of the Homo the Wonder Dog intertitles in The Man Who Laughs are most unfortunate.

Perhaps you're thinking of the line addressed to the dog: "Where are you taking me, Homo?"

I saw this film at a public screening in the '80s, and the dog's name provoked some chuckles. So did the title card quoted above. But the biggest laugh came towards the end, when the dog attacks the villain and sinks his teeth into the man's neck. Someone in the audience called out: "GET 'IM, HOMO!"