The Buckets by Greg Cravens for November 29, 2014

Very close: substitute ’we’ve got’ for ‘have’, but thank you for leaving out “…a failure…” Still funny.

The tagline from Cool Hand Luke (1967) has often been modified from its original. In its most famous utterance, the Captain (Strother Martin) said to recalcitrant chain gang prisoner Luke (Paul Newman): “What we’ve got here is (pause) failure to communicate”, NOT “What we have here is a failure to communicate” (although the line with the word ‘a’ was later sarcastically repeated by character Luke to the prison warden before he was shot — as “What we got here is a failure to communicate”).

Just enjoy the heck out of the reference. Great movie, great line. Perhaps it can’t be quoted exactly for copyright reasons.Strother Martin was one of the great all-time character actors, a true scenery-chewer if ever there was one.

I don’t think there were copyright issues at stake. I think the writer was pleased enough that he remembered there was no ‘a’ in the sentence, he didn’t bother to look it up otherwise. I have this on good authority. Better than Snopes and all. Anyhow, that’s how I’ve been saying it for years, and everyone gets it, so. Y’know. Lazy.

Merely pointing out what is taken for ‘common knowledge’, like the “we use only 10% of the brain” or “Play it again, Sam”. I did say it was still funny in the whole context.

I only know the saying from the Guns N’ Roses song. I don’t think I ever saw the movie.

Agreed Eddie.

:-) I hauled Kid Sister’s Great Dane to the Vet, to help out, & wound up in Eddie’s situation. The Vet’s back door was flanked by potted plants and I ended up in one. Scout was puzzled, a clear, “What are you doing?” look on his face.

Actions speak louder than words.

xxx

Would help if Eddie could speak dog. … or should that be .. understand dog speak? ;)

Strother Martin, age 8