Pleasing Titles

[Rowdon]

There's a famous story (that you all know) about how long it took Galton and Simpson to finally get the right pleasing rhythm to Hancock's line about giving an armful of blood. The rhythm of a line is so important, and it applies as much, or more so, to titles.

While Genevieve or The Odd Couple or The Colditz Story or Avatar are fine titles as labels, there are some titles that simply have a very pleasing rhythm ... or is it just me?

I thought of this thread when looking at another about:

30 is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia

which is a lovely, rhythmic and enigmatic title.

Others I like (regardless of the film) are:

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (book titles, I know, but ...)
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
Went the day Well?
The Young Ones

perhaps even Blue Murder at St Trinian's.

Does anybody here know what I mean?

[Mr Sloane]

Went The Day Well ? is my favourite others I like ( even though some are quotes or from other sources)

When We Were Kings
Seance On A Wet Afternoon
They Shoot Horses Don't They ?
Kind Hearts And Coronets
The League of Gentlemen
Long Days Journey Into Night
Twice Round the Daffodils
Touch of Evil
The Glass Menagerie
Ill Met by Moonlight
Hallelujah I'm a Bum

[Edward G]

30 Days Of Night
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Way Out West
The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant
Judge Dee and The Monastery Murders

[Rowdon]

30 Days Of Night

Known in Spain as "30 days of darkness" - but Spain's inability to deal with anything but literal titles is a subject for a different thread.

[RogerThornhill]

I Love You, Alice B. Toklas

The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers

The Incredible Lightness of Being

[CaptainWaggett]

I Love You, Alice B. Toklas

The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers

The Incredible Lightness of Being

Surely it's The Unbearable Lightness of Being? The Incredible Lightness of Being makes no sense at all

How about the following?

The Lady Vanishes ('cos The Gentleman Vanishes would sound rubbish)

Passport to Pimlico

Whisky Galore

The Next of Kin

Chance of a Lifetime

And one that doesn't have Baz - The Man who Knew Too Much.

[RogerThornhill]

I was mixing it up with The Unbearable Shrinking Man

[cornershop15]

I already love this thread! Does this only apply to films we've watched, Rowdon? Every day I find intriguing - and pleasing - titles we may never see come to life.

Of those I have viewed, these spring to mind:

Love with the Proper Stranger

Days of Wine and Roses

Whistle Down the Wind

The List of Adrian Messenger

(all black-and-white so far)

Ah!

Far From the Madding Crowd

Up the Down Staircase

Among those mentioned, I'd also go with Seance on a Wet Afternoon and The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. The sort of titles that stand out and you feel you simply must see. A few nights ago, I fulfilled one 'dream' with a long-awaited first viewing of Madonna and the Seven Moons, played by Phyllis Calvert. I expected more melodrama but it was okay. Another Gainsborough picture with a title I like is Saraband for Dead Lovers, which I haven't seen yet.

Indeed, a wonderful idea for a thread, Rowdon. But I have a feeling 'Pleasing Titles' doesn't apply to many of my favourite films: City Lights? Citizen Kane? Get Carter? Two words don't do it, do they (rhythmically)? And I have an aversion to one word titles ... which mostly rules out my hero Alfred Hitchcock!

[Rowdon]

Thanks for the kind words, Cornershop. If I'm setting the rules, then no, you don't have to have seen the films.
As for one or two words not 'doing' it, I'm not really sure. I agree that while Get Carter is a great title, it's not 'pleasing' on its own, it's just a good tag for the film. But having said that, "Poor Cow" has a simple poetry, and "Wuthering Heights" is a spectacularly beautiful title, whereas longer ones such as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold or Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? are good for the films, but don't read well. Too much clutter.

Two I always liked as a younger man were:

A Patch of Blue (not a great film, and definitely not a great book) and
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Another book title.

[cornershop15]

Wuthering Heights - of course! Still don't think there are that many. I haven't seen A Patch of Blue (or Shades of Greene, for that matter) so hope to have a different view of it. Poor Elizabeth Hartman was in that. She was one of The Group, another less-inspiring (but still wonderful) film with a two word title. Back on track!

The same thought occured to me about The Spy Who Came in from the Cold when I was browsing my DVD colection for the previous post. We're definitely on the same wavelength with this pleasing thread! Who Is Harry Kellerman ... is one of my favourite 'cult' films (i.e. one most people won't 'get', or enjoy). In fact, I watched it seven times in one year ... but haven't seen it since. You're right about the clumsy title. The BBC2 announcer fluffed it in his introduction - " ... and Why is He Seeing, Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?" - before 'collapsing' with laughter. It's a Mad World (x4) is another obvious one.

But it's Pleasing Titles that's the theme. I don't like the garment but how about the often-mentioned All Neat in Black Stockings? Still with colours, I also like The Moon Is Blue, The Grass Is Greener and Bad Day at Black Rock, a favourite film that does make it here The only example I can think of with one word is Limelight.

Nice chatting, as Barbara would say.

[dremble wedge]

Always liked The Earth Dies Screaming (as did UB40 and Tom Waits who borrowed the title for songs) and The Lamp in Assassin Mews

[theuofc]

......Nice chatting, as Barbara would say.

Casablanca would be my all-time favourite title which conjures up exotic intrigue.

All the President's Men
Bad Day at Black Rock
The Year of Living Dangerously
Anatomy of a Murder
Wild Strawberries
My Fair Lady

Nice chatting with you, Cornershop,

Barbara

[torinfan]

Love in the Afternoon
When the Bough Breaks

[cassidy]

Titles that spring to mind are "Knock on any Door" and it's follow up "Let No Man Write My Epitaph". But the title that really made me want to see the film was "Where No Vultures Fly". One of the few times that "please mister can you take me in" didn't work. I think I eventually saw it on TV. As I remember, the trailer made it look like an epic.

[icetorch]

The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover.

Clumsy titles: "In like Flint". (WHAT?) "I am curious yellow" - crap film, too.

[ShirlGirl]

The Flipside of Dominick Hide (love that movie)

Dark Side of the Light

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds

Splendor in the Grass

Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean

The Picasso Summer

[Maurice]

All Quiet on the Western Front
The Grapes of Wrath
Cider with Rosie
Pelle the Conqueror
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Once upon a Time in the West

Fortune and Men's Eyes
(evokes Shakespeare's sonnet "When in disgrace with...")

Daphne du Maurier titles including:
Don't Look Now
My Cousin Rachel
Rebecca

RF Delderfield's novel - dramatised for TV -
based on his time, as a pupil, at West Buckland School:
To Serve Them All My Days

Among books not filmed:
Carl Sandburg's autobiography
Always the Young Strangers (1953)

[Rowdon]

I'd just like to echo Cornershop's choice of Love with the Proper Stranger, which is also a wonderful film; or the wonderful combination of at least two films. And Shirlgirl's list: you'd think that Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean would be too deliberately, self-consciously poetic as a title to actually work, but somehow it does. Also an enjoyable film. Also, Cassidy's Let No Man Write My Epitaph reminded me of the English title of Andre Maurois' autobiography Call No Man Happy, which haunted me as a book spine when I was an adolescent.

No Woody Allens yet. He always seems to take a bit of time over the titles: they're not all pleasingly rhythmic, but I have always liked the (2 worder) Stardust Memories.

[Hugo]

Tennessee Williams was the master of intriguing and pleasing titles:-

The Glass Menagerie
A Streetcar Named Desire
The Night of the Iguana
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
The Rose Tattoo
The Roman spring of Mrs Stone
Sweet Bird of Youth
The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore
and many more.

[cornershop15]

Sweet Bird of Youth is a favourite film - and title - of mine too. More the title with The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, remade with Helen Mirren. I'd like to see both again but £17 each seems a bit steep. And I thought Four in the Morning (another Pleasing Title) was expensive ...

A bit confused by one or two of Maurice and ShirGirl's choices, particularly the Ivan Denisovich and Gamma Rays films. Were they meant for the "clumsy" category? That might need a separate thread - with a better title - and so would 'Dis-pleasing Titles', a companion for this one. I rarely pay attention to anything post-1980 but have noticed some modern day American films are even more off-putting with titles like Cuffs and especially Sneakers, recently identified at 'Can You Name This Film?'.

Pleasing Silent Titles

I came across these when browsing the filmographies of some of those mentioned at http://www.britmovie.co.uk/forums/ac...ent-stars.html:

Eleanor Boardman - Vanity Fair, Memory Lane and The Three-Cornered Hat

Betty Balfour was in three films with pleasing ONE word titles - Champagne (which I've seen), Paradise and Evergreen.
(I am less enamoured of Squibs, the first in a series of films in which she had the unenviable title role (e.g. Squibs, M.P.)

Bessie Love, who I am more familiar with in her (much) later roles, appeared in Over the Garden Wall, Forget Me Not and Chasing Rainbows

Mixed feelings about two of Colleen Moore's: The Man in the Moonlight (anything with Moonlight is bound to please) & The Egg Crate Wallop.

She also made a few films with what might be called 'Intriguing Titles' - Painted People, The Desert Flower, Synthetic Sin. This could also apply to movies featuring two other forgotten stars from that era: The Cup Final Mystery and Two Little Wooden Shoes (Joan Morgan), and The Man Who Reclaimed His Head and The League of Frightened Men, with Jameson Thomas, an actor I remember in an early Hitchcock film, The Farmer Takes a Wife.