SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF.............. . Has Some Odd Closed Captioning

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Yes cc and subtitling are different animals.

CC is in a black box, whereas subtitling is not in a box and can be seen through.

Yes, closed captioning and subtitling are absolutely "different animals".

However, the presense of a black box around the text (or lack thereof) is not the defining difference between the two.

Closed captioning is designed for hearing impaired viewers. Hence the inclusion of such things as indications of sounds coming from off screen and musical notes next to lines that are sung rather than spoken. More often than not, they are in the same language as the movie's soundtrack.

Subtitles are designed for the more typical hearing audience, and therefore don't include any of the indications about sound effects. Since they are created with the assumption that they are for someone who can hear the dialog, subtitles are almost always in a language other than what is being spoken on screen ....... although occasionally you will see English subtitles for someone who is speaking English with a heavy enough accent that the producers are afraid some audience members may not understand them.


Because closed captions are so much more likely to be in the same language as was being spoken, they are also much more likely to show exactly what was being said. They don't have to worry about things such as idiomatic expressions that don't translate directly at all. However, in both cases, the faster dialog is being chattered out, the more likely it is that some of it will be condensed or omitted. His Girl Friday is a movie that seems like it could be a nightmare from that point of view.

However, in this case I don't remember there being much dialog that goes by so fast that they ought to need to shorten it.

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I noticed this same thing as I was watching this movie with my parents yesterday, the captions aren't even close in some places. My DVD version doesn't have subtitles.

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I just watched it and whole sentences are re-phrased

I noticed that too, but the CC people are just trying to condense the dialogue so they can keep the caption box as small and unobtrusive as possible. If the CC printed out every word verbatim as it was uttered on screen, it would often make for really big and clumsy closed caption blurbs. The condensed versions take up less space and are quicker to read, but they still convey the essential meaning of the spoken dialogue.

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You don't mention where you were watching the movie. Closed captioning and subtitles are rarely prepared by the movie's production company, especially for a movie as old (=long before CC) as this one. In most cases, there will be an end credit given to the company that provided the service.

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