This evening I watched an old British film. “The man who never was” the 1956 film all about Operation Mincemeat.

Operation Mincemeat was a highly successful Allied deception during World War II, aimed at misleading the Germans about the true target of the Allied invasion of Sicily. The operation involved creating a false identity for a deceased vagrant, dressing him in a Royal Marine uniform, and planting his body in the sea off the coast of Spain. The Germans, believing the body was a real Royal Marine officer carrying secret documents, fell for the deception, believing the Allies intended to invade Greece instead of Sicily.

The film was very enjoyable and I would recommend it to anyone. The details that went into Operation Mincemeat is amazing, and really shows the ingenuity of the human mind. Also. Do not trust anything!

So there I was watching the film, and it get’s to the part when the body washes up on Spanish coast. Eventually it showed the body being collected, and moved, and eventually buried. It was at the part where the Priest was conducting the funeral that I remembered the film had subtitles, so I turned them on, rewound and started watching the foreign parts with Subtitles on.

Priest is doing the ceremony and the subtitles are :-

[LATIN]

Well, it was the 60s and maybe they wanted to keep the religious stuff to a minimum. After all to write the subtitles for the prayors may have been a bit much.

So we see some Spanish people talking about the body, and the subtitles are :-

[SPANISH SPEAKING]

OK. That was pointless. An officer starts shouting at the people talking, and the subtitles are :-

[SPANISH OFFICER SHOUTING IN SPANISH]

Is there anything more 60s British than just subtitling “Johnny Foreigner” with just the name of the language being spoken?