# Movie titles I don't understand **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 17, 2006, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074 "2006-05-17T04:21:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Alias](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e4f/32.png) [@Alias](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alias)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/41 "2006-05-17T16:55:38Z")
> [@vetbridge](#): > > I came to this thread with just that in mind. From the IMDB: > [@](#): > > The title for the film comes from a combination of two other movies. Tarantino, not very good at speaking French, always referred to _Au revoir les enfants (1987)_ simply as “that Reservoir movie”. He also is a big Sam Peckinpah fan, and likes his film Straw Dogs (1971). So he combined the two titles to get “Reservoir Dogs”. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/42 "2006-05-17T16:59:55Z")
> [@Robot Arm](#): > > **Gone With the Wind** , anyone? If I recall correctly, the phrase is used in the words that appear onscreen right at the beginning of the movie. The antebellum South of plantations, magnolias, cotton, chivalry, and, um, horrible oppressive slavery… is a time that’s truly _gone with the wind_. I’m pretty sure it was originally titled “A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away…” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/43 "2006-05-17T17:10:39Z")
[There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind…](http://www.filmsite.org/gone.html) ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/44 "2006-05-17T17:14:10Z")
> [@bup](#): > > I’m pretty sure it was originally titled “A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away…” 😉 Gen. Sherman as Darth Vader, eh? ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/45 "2006-05-17T17:15:17Z")
> [@vetbridge](#): > > The extreme opposite of thread titles that are not easily understood: > > **Coffee and Cigarettes** > [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379217/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379217/) Snakes on a Plane! ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/46 "2006-05-17T17:40:48Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Gen. Sherman as Darth Vader, eh? “I find your lack of Federalism disturbing.” ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/47 "2006-05-17T17:46:55Z")
> [@Alias](#): > > From the IMDB: Gracias **Alias**! ---
**Author:** ![H3Knuckles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ba8739/32.png) [@H3Knuckles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/H3Knuckles)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/48 "2006-05-17T18:10:44Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > I’m still trying to figure out WTF a “phantom menace” is. > > Man, those movies blew chunks. C’mon, _Really_? You don’t get it? :dubious: The Phantom Menace is Senator Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious. He’s orchestrated the entire conflict, and he’s doing it to advance his own political career. No one knows his double-identity, nor does anyone but the top-ranked Trade-Federation guys realize that he’s directing their side. He’s a menace, and because no one knows it, he is a **Phantom** Menace. Whether the Trade Federation wins, and owes him one, or the Jedi win, and the Chancellor gets unseated, his career advances. By the end of the film he’s the new Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, and no one suspects a thing. It’s actually pretty clever. For that matter, the Attack of the Clones, like Revenge of the Sith, is kinda neat in that they are trying to establish a parity with the old trilogy titles. Also because AotC acts as a kind of misdirection. We already knew there was a “Clone Wars,” and that they were a bad thing in the eyes of most people. The title reinforces our expectation of clones being evil, when in fact they’re not. They’re just soldiers devoted to serving their master. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/49 "2006-05-17T18:33:15Z")
Shortly after **The Phantom Menace** came out, The now sadly-defunct Boston Comics News (aka Editorial Humor) ran a cover picture of people at a screening, looking at Hank Ketcham’s Dennis the Menace wearing a Phantom of the Opera half-mask. ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/50 "2006-05-17T19:18:59Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Spoiler alert, **lissener**. 😉 > > The title of _Oleanna_ - you inspired me to do some googling, since I watched this play once and also didn’t have a clue about the name - appears to be a reference to a Scandinavian folk song and/or story. According to the Tennessee Repertory Theatre Company, > > How does that relate to the play? Beats me. [One online reviewer](http://www.sover.net/~ozus/oleanna.htm) suggests that the worthless land is academia, which probably makes as much sense as any other explanation. [Here are the lyrics](http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=4455) to the folk song. Oleanna is the land where you kick back and everything takes care of itself. Tenure, perhaps. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/51 "2006-05-17T19:50:08Z")
> [@](#): > > A Civilization gone with the wind… Okay, it’s part of the elaborate, flowery, scene-setting description at the beginning of the movie, but it’s still a metaphor that doesn’t carry any intrinsic meaning. You only think you know what it means after having seen it. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, I guess. If a movie is good enough; if its characters, setting and situations are truly definitive, then the movie completes the title and not the other way around. It becomes the name for something that didn’t have a name before. My favorite movie could probably be accused of that, too. ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/52 "2006-05-17T23:16:26Z")
> [@Katriona](#): > > Yeah, “The Clone Wars” would have made more sense, since it was supposed to have come from a throw-away line in Ep. IV where Obi-Wan said something about, “During the Clone Wars…” But I think “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” would’ve sounded redundant. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/53 "2006-05-18T00:51:43Z")
[A fight for Justice](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118846/) is the UK title, it had a different title in the US. It’s an almost totally forgettable movie, notable only because Bill Clinton has a part in it. It’s about a teenage girl dying of cancer. At no time in the movie is there any kind of legal dispute or grave injustice that needs to be righted. ---
**Author:** ![blueserge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@blueserge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blueserge)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/54 "2006-05-18T01:32:02Z")
**The Postman Always Rings Twice.** Legend has it that James M. Cain’s manuscript was rejected 13 times, and when he submitted it to a 14th publisher in 1934 he suggested this title for the hell of it, even though the story has nothing to do with mail delivery. But it’s enigmatic, and the story sold. There was a time when residential customers did get mail twice a day, and the postman would ring the doorbell to let you know he’d made his delivery. If you missed getting something in the mail in the morning, you had another chance in the afternoon. There have been two Hollywood versions of the story, one made in 1946 with John Garfield and Lana Turner, the other in 1981 with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange. (There is an earlier, Italian version of the story made in 1943 by Visconti called _Ossessione_.) Only the 1946 version attempts to explain the title; John Garfield’s character uses the postman’s ringing twice as an analogy to justice. You can miss the postman once and he’ll catch up to you. You might be able to get away with one crime, but the system will catch up to you the second time around. Great (albeit meaningless) title. Ridiculously overblown explanation. As you were. ---
**Author:** ![kath94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/67e7ee/32.png) [@kath94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kath94)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/55 "2006-05-18T04:42:05Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] Not to mention **The Spanish Prisoner** , which has neither a prisoner nor anyone from Spain… Ooh! Ooh! I know this one! Apparently, it’s a well known con game or scam. “The Spanish Prisoner” is similar the well-known Nigerian e-mail scam, where someone claims to have money trapped in a foreign country and needs YOUR help to get it out. It goes something like, “my (friend/husband/brother/cousin) is unjustly imprisoned in Spain, and with them their fortune. If you help me get them out (presumably by investing YOUR money) then we’ll reward you with riches.” Or something like that. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/56 "2006-05-18T05:45:56Z")
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. I’ve always wondered about that. I wouldn’t describe Blondie as particularly good. Tuco is no oil painting, but he isn’t especially ugly. Angel eyes is certainly bad, though. What I have always suspected is that the title is a phrase taken from literature, perhaps Spanish, and obscure to English speaking audiences. Wouldn’t _A grave full of dollars_ be a better title? ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/57 "2006-05-18T07:11:30Z")
yeah I’m still waiting for someone to explain what “Reindeer Games” are. ---
**Author:** ![some\_white\_dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b487fb/32.png) [@some\_white\_dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/some_white_dude)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/58 "2006-05-18T11:18:12Z")
Re: Reindeer Games My guess is that the producers knew they had made a steaming pile of crap, so they just attached a title that vaguely corresponded to the events in the movie. “Uhhhhh, let’s see, it’s Christmas, Ben Affleck, some casino. Uhhhh…REINDEER GAMES!” “I like it!” ---
**Author:** ![some\_white\_dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b487fb/32.png) [@some\_white\_dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/some_white_dude)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/59 "2006-05-18T11:29:58Z")
Here’s a couple: **His Girl Friday** and **Sideways**. I have an inkling that the phrase “his girl Friday” is a colloquial term from before my time. I interpreted Sideways as a description of the way Miles was moving through life. He couldn’t get over his previous marriage, couldn’t get his book published, etc. He wasn’t moving forward. Can anyone back me up with this, or am I way off? Perhaps it’s a reference to something from the book that didn’t appear in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074/60 "2006-05-18T12:02:47Z")
> [@Team of Scientists](#): > > Here’s a couple: > > **His Girl Friday** and **Sideways**. > > I have an inkling that the phrase “his girl Friday” is a colloquial term from before my time. > > I interpreted Sideways as a description of the way Miles was moving through life. He couldn’t get over his previous marriage, couldn’t get his book published, etc. He wasn’t moving forward. Can anyone back me up with this, or am I way off? Perhaps it’s a reference to something from the book that didn’t appear in the movie. From [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com) > [@](#): > > girl Friday > > Also, gal Friday. An efficient and faithful female assistant, as in I’ll have my girl Friday get the papers together. The expression plays on man Friday, a name for a devoted male servant or assistant. The name Friday comes from Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, whose shipwrecked hero named the young native who became his faithful companion for the day of the week when he found him. In the mid-1900s Friday was applied to a male servant and then a women secretary or clerk who works for a man. The expression girl Friday gained currency through a motion picture starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, His Girl Friday (1940). Today it tends to be considered condescending and, applied to a woman, sexist. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-titles-i-dont-understand/357074.md?page=4)