Would you go see a movie called The Incredible Journey In A Crazy Airplane? How about Floppy Coppers Don’t Bite?
These are just two examples of bizarre title translations offered up by the folks over at Madmind in an article about some of the truly odd titles German marketers have given to American movies. Click over to see how the above titles became attached to the comedy classic Airplane and to the Dan Aykroyd-Tom Hanks vehicle Dragnet. Wait until you see what they did to Soylent Green and Animal House!
Personally, I’d be interested in seeing an entire article devoted to the translation of Airplane itself. So much of the comedy depends on word play (“Surely you don’t mean it.” “I do. And don’t call me Shirley.”) that I can’t see a literal translation making any kind of sense to German speaking audiences.
Via CinemaRetro.
Thank you very much for linking to my post in my blog.
Regarding this dialogue (“Surely you don’t mean it.” “I do. And don’t call me Shirley.”) I immediately can give you the original German translation:
“Das meinen sie doch nicht ernst?”
“Doch. Und bitte nennen sie mich nicht Ernst.”
At least this sentence and the funny wordplay is kept rather well in the German version as “ernst” can be used as “serious” and as a name. In this case you even don’t have to change the spelling.
So you can say, that besides the title, the translators did their job.
Greetings,
madmind