Movie titles I don't understand

[jali]

@WhyNot

Danny Boyle, director of the movie, says, “… through the late '80s in Britain, it (Trainspotting) began to mean anybody who was obsessive about something trivial, and part of that is drugs. It’s a very male thing. Women, they know better. It was a way in which men would conquer an area of life by just knowing everything about all the Sean Connery films.” But of course, it was named the same for the book, but I don’t think the author’s ever been specific. Some people claim it has to do with the “tracks” of the veins of the addicts, and that it’s sort of a double-entendre: Trainspotting being an obsession, drugs being an obsession causing tracks…

Thanks! Makes sense - didn’t even consider the drug tracks.

[cbawlmer]

@friedo

Shawshank was at least taken from the title of the original novella, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.

The Hudsucker Proxy is one of my favorite movies ever.

Oh, I knew what they were. I’d read Different Seasons and was aware of Hudsucker because I was a film geek with a crush on Tim Robbins, but I figure the general populace was a mite confused by those titles. Maybe if they’d had the same publicity machine behind them as Forrest Gump, they would’ve done better.

[jsc1953]

@Larry Mudd

I think it’s originally from the popular song of the same name, recorded by dozens of artist throughout the thirties and for decades afterwards.

“I Found a Million Dollar Baby in a Five & Ten Cent Store”, IIRC.

[Zebra]

@Gary T

That’s because they’re Australian.

It refers to a line in a poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow*, Paul Revere’s Ride. Revere was one of the riders who spread warning of a coming attack by the British during the American Revolution. Presumably a spotter was to signal him with light from a church tower - one lantern if they approached by land, two lanterns if they approached by sea.

It’s rather well known to Americans, but I imagine essentially unknown elsewhere.

---

Besides writing poetry, the inspiration for an addition to a little ditty. When someone unwittingly makes a rhyme while speaking, a listener might say “You’re a poet but didn’t know it!” Part two is “But your feet show it, because they’re long fellows!”

Actually Revere had a spy in the household of General (AHH I’m blanking on the name) Gates(?). When the last bit of crucial info was discovered, the signal went up in the Old North Church.

Revere never revealed who his spy was and the General knew he had a leak. Shortly after Lexington and Concord, the General sent his (American born) wife to England. Maybe he thought she was the spy, maybe he wanted to ensure her safety.