MovieChat Forums > Jaws (1975) Discussion > Garbled and unintelligible lines

Garbled and unintelligible lines

posted 5 years ago by Martoto (4078)
34 replies | jump to latest

Loved Jaws my whole life. One of the distinguishing features that's always tickled me, that I'm certain was a stylistic choice, is the amount of garbled or unintelligible lines of dialogue there are.

Sometimes they are caused by overlapping dialogue, walkie-talkies, the mannerisms or emotion in the delivery, the intentional sound design and mixing, or just the accents.

Obviously the opening scene sets the trend. You could just assume that Chrissie is not really verbalising but if you listen closely (and spend forty odd years leaning in to the speaker and spending lots of money on ever improving home video releases) you can just about tell that she's saying actual lines like "Oh God it hurts."

Other notable instances are :

Hooper's pretzel stuff mouth during the night-time discover of Ben Gardner's boat. "You don't say. Wanna pretzel?"

Another favourite of mine is the one right after Quint and Hooper try to snag the first barrel and tie it on, but the shark leaps out causing them to lose it. Quint says "Haul in the line or it'll foul us." It took me decades to pin that one down.

[–] Martoto (4078) 5 years ago

I still can't figure out what Mrs Taft is saying in the shot of her swimming with another lady in the 4 July scene.

[–] g-bone (531) 5 years ago

When Ellen asks her "when do I become an islander?"
And Mrs Taft's response ('Never! You're not born here, you're not an islander.')

[–] Martoto (4078) 5 years ago

No. When she's in the water on 4th July.

[–] Galactus03 (4287) 5 years ago

It's took decades??? Not me...it took one night watching a Blu Ray with sub titles on....😂😂

[–] Martoto (4078) 5 years ago

Been enjoying Jaws for decades before DVD came along.

[–] Galactus03 (4287) 5 years ago

Well so have I but I never put any study into the lines until I turned on my closed captioning....lol

[–] Martoto (4078) 5 years ago

Study? Whatever.

[–] Galactus03 (4287) 5 years ago

It took you decades man.....that's research....

[–] Martoto (4078) 5 years ago

Nope. Just watching the movie for decades, like you have, and wondering what the dialogue is that I'm hearing.

What you're claiming the is that you didn't wonder or care what the dialogue was for decades until you took the time to "study" the closed captions.

[–] McQualude (4231) 5 years ago

One of the touches I enjoy most about movies of that era, characters tended to be doing their own thing or interacting realistically rather than standing around waiting for their turn to talk.

[–] Martoto (4078) 5 years ago

Yep. It's probably at its peak in CE3K.

[–] Moonglum9 (10699) 5 years ago

I always had a little trouble deciphering some of the things that were said in this scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n106G5_xlk

[–] Mrmojo4700 (20409) 5 years ago

The ice cream man took the rest.

[–] Moonglum9 (10699) 5 years ago

Farewell and adieu my wee Spanish lady.

[–] Mrmojo4700 (20409) 5 years ago

Something about putting Hooper through the little round window on the side!

[–] atd8vii (592) 3 years ago

“You ain’t got one thing on here I ordered, not a beach umbrella, not a sun lounger”

I understood the second part, but it wasn’t until I turned on the subtitles that I understood what that guy was saying there. Someone already mentioned the “you’re certifiable Quint” line, that was another one I had to turn on the subtitles for aswell. So thank god for DVD and Blu Rays having that option.