The 1946 movie diner scene was almost word for word consistent with Hemingway's dialog. The only exception was using the n word to reference the cook. A movie called No way Out used the n word quite reluctantly by Richard Widmark. I wonder if thre was fear of censorship or some other reason?
What are you gonna do? Kill me? Every body Dies. John Garfield (Body and Soul)
That was not considered a "bad" word back then as we think of it. Personally I don't think they cared about being nice, but maybe the director wasn't racist? Censorship did take away most rude dialogue. I heard the word "crummy" was taken out of It's a Wonderful life for being too offensive.
shareIn this case, for once, I support the thinking of Standards and Practices.
"It's a Crummy Frigkin' Life" would have definitely changed the whole tone of the movie for me.
You Fill Me with Inertia.
I have a vhs tape, and saw the movie last night on TCM, and don't ever remember the "n" word being used. The diner counterman refers to Sam, the cook, as a "boy", which of course is racist, but part and parcel for its time.
sharesorry if my note wasn't clear enough, the use of the 'n' word isn't in either of the full-length American versions of THE KILLERS, but in the two-reel film adaptation Andrei Tarkovsky made in his days as a Soviet film student. The short, which is quite interesting, is included in the Criterion DVD edition that contains both the Siodmak & the Siegel versions of the Hemingway story. And the 'n' word is most definitely not in Russian! (It's in the subtitles, too, as I recall.) You can check out my write-ups on my DVD-blog MAKSQUIBS.blogspot.com
thanks for the note - MAK of MAKSQUIBS
Thank you for the further info, maksquibs. I did not know about the Andrei Tarkkovsky film. (Never heard of him, either, but that's not saying much!) That's great that Criterion includes that. I will check out your blog.
shareAll the comments above are indeed accurate which is why the word never appears in Gone With the Wind either. However, there is an uncomfortable moment of racism in The Killers which is obviously a result of the time. When the young Nick Adams and the cook -- who is an older black man -- are in the police station, they are BOTH referred to as boys. Just like Ingrid Bergman referred to Dooley Wilson's Sam as a boy in Casablanca. Products of their time, no doubt.
shareYes, I noticed the "boys" reference also. I guess because one of them was white, it didn't have quite as much impact. The "n" word would have been appropriate in this film because it was the tenor of the times (maybe it still is?), but I'm OK with not hearing it – just like I don't need to see the bullet piercing the skin in the gunfire scenes.
shareIf you haven't heard of Andrei Tarkovsky, I would highly reccomend to any fan of the cinema his "Stalker". An absolute gem of a film. You could pause, frame and hang on your wall any shot in it. A beautiful and intriguing film. A true blue masterpiece. Everybody should see it!
shareOkay, he is a Russian film maker who, while a student in Soviet film school (hmm) makes a short version of an American feature length film noir. He changes the dialogue to include a word with notorious connotations. In fact, he includes as a word in English in a film that is otherwise dubbed into Russian.
I think I'll skip his movies.
The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.
His short film is based upon Hemmingway's short story. The word in question is used in the original story. Skip his films just the same. You don't sound like you'd appreciate them anyways.
Will Hays is my shepherd, I shall not want. Wills prod and Will's gaff, they confound me.
The Russians are saying "Negro" (nyegr), not *beep* Not a huge improvement, but neither are the connotations quite as appalling as in English.
shareThe Russian "negr" is a neutral term for a person of the Negroid race. It IS hugely different from the derogatory "n-word", as it does not contain any sort of insult (has about the same level of meaning as any other neutral ethnicity term, such as Russian, European, Asian, American, African etc.).
The word "black" is considered the derogatory term in Russia, though not as strong as the "n-word" in America. More insulting derivatives exist, however.
In general, racism against people of African descent is virtually unknown in Russia, limited only to small extremist neo-nazi groups (and those appeared only after the dissolution of the USSR). The most famous Russian poet and the "father" of the modern Russian language, Alexander Pushkin, was a direct descendant of the African negroid Ibrahim Hannibal who was the secretary to Czar Peter I the Great, an accomplished military and civil engineer, a high-ranking courtier, and eventually a General in the Russian Imperial Army. This all happened in the 18th century, over 100 years before the abolition of slavery in the USA and nearly 200 years before the appearance of the first African-American General in the U.S. Army.
Yes, Tsar Peter was quite the progressive, along with the other Tsars and the Communists who followed them. In Russia there is no racism. Everyone gets to be a slave. Equality for all.
The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.
Actually both diner guys, black and white,
are referred to as "these boys", obviously in a generic, non-racial way.
The "n" word is still used today - but only by Black comedians to a Black audience during the Miss Black America pageant in Black history month aired on BET. So who's racist now?
shareI read the story long before I first saw the movie, so I was braced, waiting for one of the bad guys to let fly with "n." I was quite surprised when it never did. But outside of NO WAY OUT, "n" was rarely used in studio-era Hollywood films. Believe it or not, "darky" was considered more acceptable. The word was also used on old-time radio programs.
"We're fighting for this woman's honor, which is more than she ever did."
It was used in Kubrick's 'The Killing'
Being is the great explainer.
"So, Who's the Racist Now?", you ask?
Oh, it's still you, Guy, don't worry, it's Still You.
You Fill Me with Inertia.
What surprised me was the boss attending to the black guy before the customer.
shareIts been a few years but when I was in ninth grade I read Hemingway's "The Killers" and if I remember right one of the hired gunman demanded "the Negro who cooks" come out of the kitchen. Of course it could have been printed in a "cleaned up" anthology.
TAG LINE: True genius is a beautiful thing, but ignorance is ugly to the bone.
Methinks your anthology was cleaned up for school use.
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"
Yes, that surprised me, too. That the boss was attending to the cook first and then to the customer.
share[deleted]
*beep* is an ugly word and these are very ugly men doing a very ugly task. It shoulda stayed.
LL