Theater marquees are not what they used to be. Cineplexes don’t use traditional marquees, instead opting for an electronic marquee above the heads of the ticket sellers. The mini-marquees list all of movies playing and their showtimes, with any long titles shortened to the first few words. When I worked at Facets Multi-Media in Chicago, there was still an old-fashioned marquee in front of the building. Each week, the projectionist used a long-armed grabber to place the letters side by side one at a time until the entire title was spelled out. Unusual titles, which used a lot of the same vowels, or long titles were always a conundrum. I am sure that throughout the history of film exhibition, extra long titles also proved to be nightmares for press agents and publicists, who had to persuade newspapers to run the titles in ads, not to mention poster illustrators, who had to squeeze these titles into attention-grabbing designs.
CORMAN BRAGGED ABOUT HIS LONG TITLE, BUT TOOK THE EASY PATH FOR THE POSTER BY SHORTENING IT.
During the summer, while working on a personal project in which I perused hundreds of movie posters, I ran across several very long titles. I made a note of them, knowing I would share them in a future post. A few of the films are famous; some are familiar; many are obscure. In some cases, I am sure the title is the most entertaining part of the film!
The first 17-word title in the annals of American movies came from the mind of the great Roger Corman in 1957. He declared it to be the “longest title in the history of motion pictures,” at least to date. He decided on The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent, because he claimed he couldn’t think of a shorter title to adequately describe the storyline. I am not sure what the excuse was for the 1964 horror musical The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies. If you can’t remember that long title, it also goes by The Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary, which is so much easier!
Corman’s record for the longest title was beaten in 1967 by theater director Peter Brook’s filmic adaptation of Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade. I will save the time and trouble of counting. It’s 24 words.
Dr. Strangelove; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb set a trend for alternate titles in the mid-1960s. Kubrick’s classic was followed by Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers; or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck. In some markets it was called Dance of the Vampires, which drains the humor (pun intended) from the title. I saw Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines years ago, but I had forgotten the rest of the title included Or, How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours and 11 Minutes. In 1970, Roger Corman offered his version of the alternate title construction with Gas-s-s-s. . . Or, It May Be Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It.
As evidenced above, long titles are not limited to b-movies or exploitation films. Believe it or not, Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling so Sad (1967) is based on a Broadway play. Other respectable features include the musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), Woody Allen’s Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972), the experimental The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the Moon Marigolds (1976), and Robert Altman’s film adaptation of Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982). Made-for-tv movies are not exempt: In 1987, producers wanted to attract the fans of two television shows with The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman.
Some titles are inevitably shortened, as with Dr. Strangelove. When I show the film in my classes, I am as guilty as theater owners for not using the full title on my syllabus, because it is not convenient. Lina Wertmuller’s 1975 romance Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August has become just Swept Away. Wertmuller exhibited a preference for long titles throughout her career as evidenced by Summer Night with Greek Profile, Almond Eyes and Scent of Basil (1986) and The Blue Collar Worker and the Hairdresser in a Whirl of Sex and Politics (1996). Her predilection made sense once I discovered that her full name is Arcangela Felice Assunta Job Wertmuller von Elgg Espanol von Braueich.
Wertmuller also penned my favorite long title, the very poetic A Joke of Destiny in Wait Around the Corner Like a Bandit, which sums up my life story in 12 words.