Movie Titles: The Good, The Bad, and The Greatest Story Ever Told

[beamish14]

Anthony Newley's Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (1969), could actually be simultaneously good, bad and the "greatest" title ever, depending on how you define the last. As far as I can tell, it has never legally been on video.

One of the greatest ego trips to ever be financed by a major studio. It also shamelessly steals from multiple Fellini films

[JSC]

I've always been curious about the title of Robert Hossein's film Toi, le venin, which has the tawdry English
title of Nude in a White Car (presumably to cash in on the...

Spoiler

three seconds of nudity in the film.

I was wondering if the French title is perhaps a turn of phrase. I know that venin can alternatively mean poison
or spite so I wasn't sure.

[domino harvey]

It’s poison, a line from the source novel

Je suis peut-etre la vipere, en tout cas c'est toi le venin...

(I may be the viper, but you are the venom…)

[LastMinit]

I dislike short, extremely basic and bland movie titles like Father, or Mother, or Boy, House, Air, Life, Moon, Water, It, Good, Old, Michael, Patrick, The Woman, The Hand, The Accountant, The Room, The Monster, The Car, The Box, The Paper, The Road, etc. They feel like placeholder titles that were meant to exist only until the filmmakers could come up with something better, but because nobody had any good ideas the placeholder title stayed as the final title. They tell of a severe lack of imagination and make me think that the film's screenplay is probably equally empty and uninspired.

I feel the same. Especially with 'The ....' titles, where the subject is an everyday thing (unlike The Shining for example). Once a film earns its place the perception of those title changes completely, Sidney Lumet has a string of examples - The Verdict, The Offence, The Hill - all powerhouses, where mention of them vividly evokes for me the settings and the characters, but as a starting point, as a marketing hook, those titles are piss weak.
Paul Greengrass has a film coming out about the 14th century peasant revolt in England, which is a rare opportunity, and a very rarified and evocative setting, not to mention drama-scape, and yet they settled on 'The Uprising'?! A title that carries not one iota of the character of the era.

[reaky]

Jason Statham is the king of the mononym film, making me suspect that it’s a stratagem to convey to his audience, “ There’s no messing about with The Stath! No characterisation or theme bollocks!” So far he’s appeared in Snatch, Cellular, Revolver, London, Chaos, Crank, War, 13, Blitz, Safe, Parker, Homefront, Spy, Shelter and Mutiny (from the makers of Plane).

[Aunt Peg]

I hate films using titles that have already been used with the exception of remakes and adaptations of book and plays, etc and when a film has already used the title of a play or book that it was not based on and than the later is adapted - that doesn't bother me.

[domino harvey]

The thread just under this in active topics, Obsession, being a great example of that. The MPAA has rules about titles being too similar or the same via their title regulation bureau, but if you’re not a participating member (say, an independent release or foreign import) then there’s nothing stopping you from using the title assuming it’s not trademarked. But more likely, to use my example, Obsession’s distributor presumably cleared the title with the De Palma film’s holders (especially since Barker’s movie was not a high profile film at the outset, they probably just asked for a nominal fee, if even that). Still, this is why we have Lee Daniel’s the Butler instead of just the Butler

[beamish14]

I’m fascinated by Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, which is indeed the official title.

Films like Idiocracy and the 2016 Ghostbusters were essentially released WITHOUT official titles. The former went out as Untitled Mike Judge Comedy and the latter has been called Ghostbusters: Answer the Call and just Ghostbusters

[Mr Sausage]

The thread just under this in active topics, Obsession, being a great example of that. The MPAA has rules about titles being too similar or the same via their title regulation bureau, but if you’re not a participating member (say, an independent release or foreign import) then there’s nothing stopping you from using the title assuming it’s not trademarked. But more likely, to use my example, Obsession’s distributor presumably cleared the title with the De Palma film’s holders (especially since Barker’s movie was not a high profile film at the outset, they probably just asked for a nominal fee, if even that). Still, this is why we have Lee Daniel’s the Butler instead of just the Butler

Ah, that probably explains the recent Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. On release, I thought it was a wild bit of vanity for him to think he’d become a household auteur from directing one fairly successful Evil Dead sequel. What you’re saying makes a bit more sense.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

MPA title registration is also limited to 100 per company, so it's possible "Obsession" wasn't one of the titles Columbia chose to register (but I'd think it would be given how simple and generic it is). Universal has naturally opted to register the titles of their classic horror franchises, which not only explains Lee Cronin's The Mummy but also Bram Stoker's Dracula—though the recent Besson film was released in the U.S. as just plain Dracula, so either Universal was surprisingly willing to permit use of the title or (more likely IMO) its U.S. distributor Vertical has never signed on with the Title Registration Bureau.

[Lowry_Sam]

I’m fascinated by Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, which is indeed the official title.

I have always hated the full title and like many others always drop everything after the colon when referring to it. Though it does differentiate it from others of the same name, I can’t recall what they may have been. An IMDB search has turned up nothing with just the single word Precious, so it’s not like it was taken already. Maybe they wanted an excuse to name drop the author.