Keep telling yourself, it's only a tagline!

Message

Lowry_Sam · #1 Post by **Lowry_Sam** » Mon Apr 06, 2026 3:34 am

I was perusing some new acquisitions and came across a very interesting tagline & searched the forum but was surprised to see there wasn't any thread dedicated to taglines/ad copy. It also occurred to me that they could make a great guessing game, so here it goes:

RECKLESS with WOMEN...He pursued them ..."petted" them...promised them nothing and got away with everything!

Hint 1

Spoiler

It's a Warner Archive blu-ray.

Hint 2

Spoiler

from 1934

Answer

Spoiler

Manhattan Melodrama

#2 Post by **domino harvey** » Mon Apr 06, 2026 3:52 am

The greatest tagline of all time remains “It’s exactly what you think it is” for

Spoiler

Pieces

Runner up: the incredible efficiency of “Different.”

Spoiler

the Children’s Hour

nowhereisaplace · #3 Post by **nowhereisaplace** » Mon Apr 06, 2026 3:58 am

I was always a big fan of “There is no known cure for murder” from

Spoiler

Visiting Hours

Lowry_Sam · #4 Post by **Lowry_Sam** » Mon Apr 06, 2026 5:20 am

Multiple progressively more revealing ones for a single film:

#1
This time... they've really gone

#2

Spoiler

This is not a sequel. There has never been anything like it!

#3

Spoiler

Beyond bizarre. Beyond outrageous. Beyond any film you've ever seen.

Answer:

Spoiler

Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls

diamonds · #5 Post by **diamonds** » Mon Apr 06, 2026 1:36 pm

Coincidentally, Nancy Friedman wrote a short article just the other day about poor modern taglines.

I get a kick out of this translation used on Letterboxd of a supposed tagline:

A film disliked by women.

For:

Spoiler

Jean Eustache's A Dirty Story, from the alleged original:

Un film que les femmes n'aiment pas.

Was it ever actually used on a poster?

beamish14 · #6 Post by **beamish14** » Mon Apr 06, 2026 2:51 pm

“You have to be there to see it.”

-The Ice Pirates

bad future · #7 Post by **bad future** » Mon Apr 06, 2026 8:36 pm

The "unwittingly" has always been my favorite part of this amazing poster

Spoiler

Day of the Dolphin

Also, IMDB, Letterboxd etc list the tagline for

Spoiler

Faraway, So Close!, Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire sequel,

as "Your favorite Angels are back!" which I've always found amusingly generic and on-the-nose, but AFAIK I've never seen anything official with that on it and don't know what it's based on.

Edit: apologies, I initially neglected the guessing game precedent!

knives · #8 Post by **knives** » Mon Apr 06, 2026 10:27 pm

Lowry_Sam wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2026 5:20 am Multiple progressively more revealing ones for a single film:

#1
This time... they've really gone
#2
Spoiler
This is not a sequel. There has never been anything like it!
#3
Spoiler
Beyond bizarre. Beyond outrageous. Beyond any film you've ever seen.
Answer:
Spoiler
Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls

Spoiler

Technically it is a sequel to Valley of the Dolls

mizo · #9 Post by **mizo** » Tue Apr 07, 2026 6:53 pm

Many of the examples listed above are strong, but my favorite has to be:

"Times like these call for a Big Lebowski."

Believe it or not, it's the tagline for

Spoiler

the Coen brothers' 1998 film The Big Lebowski

MichaelB · #10 Post by **MichaelB** » Thu Apr 09, 2026 8:12 am

I bet you can't guess which film had the tagline Titans Will Clash.

Someone actually got paid money to come up with that, and most probably more than I've ever been paid for jobs that took considerably more effort.

And one of my favourite taglines began "From the executive producer of...". I forget the film and indeed the executive producer, but it wasn't anyone I'd heard of before.

Oh, and there's Herschell Gordon Lewis' admirably honest approach to taglines, with "Nothing so appalling in the annals of horror!" and "It will leave you AGHAST!". But I strongly suspect from his commentaries—he's the only filmmaker I've ever heard referring to one of his own films as being "excreted" rather than released—that he was fully and gleefully aware of the double meaning from the start.

reaky · #11 Post by **reaky** » Thu Apr 09, 2026 11:49 am

I recall seeing a trailer in a Paris cinema for the Jackie Chan film Police Story, which had sarcastic taglines intoned in a gravelly voice interleaved between a welter of explosions and roundhouse kicks. “C’est un film sophistiqué… Un film intellectuel…”

Never Cursed · #12 Post by **Never Cursed** » Sun Apr 12, 2026 4:34 pm

Spoiled for length:

Spoiler

JSC · #13 Post by **JSC** » Sun Apr 12, 2026 4:54 pm

Can you guess these films from the taglines?

"An event...."

Spoiler

Earthquake

"Why are they putting seat belts in theaters this summer?"

Spoiler

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

"It's terrific!"

Spoiler

Citizen Kane

"The only thing more terrifying than the last 12 minutes of this film are the first 92."

Spoiler

Suspiria (1977)

MichaelB · #14 Post by **MichaelB** » Sun Apr 12, 2026 6:05 pm

The last one has never made sense to me, because it's implying that it's mostly great but then becomes markedly less terrifying at just the point when you'd want things to ramp up.

JSC · #15 Post by **JSC** » Sun Apr 12, 2026 6:56 pm

I'm guessing someone had a brain freeze and meant to say:

The only thing scarier than the first 92 minutes are the last 12.

Either way it's a bit verbose for a tagline.

bad future · #16 Post by **bad future** » Sun Apr 12, 2026 7:17 pm

That sounds like the first draft before someone pointed out that 92 minutes of the scariest part is clearly a better value

Lowry_Sam · #17 Post by **Lowry_Sam** » Thu Apr 23, 2026 1:43 am

Looks like there's at least one person working today who still has the skill:

"Touching Fans Everywhere

Spoiler

June 5"

And
#2

Spoiler

There Are No Safe Spaces

Answer:

Spoiler

Scary Movie (6/Michael)

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