# Silence of the Lambs type movie titles? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 15, 2007, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814 "2007-10-15T18:12:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/1 "2007-10-15T18:12:10Z")
By that, I mean a movie whose title seems to having nothing to do with the film- that is, until one of the character delivers a little soliloquy that explains the relationship for the viewer. Is this common? The only other one I could think of was the little seen Matt Dillion/Gary Sinise/William Fichtner film Albino Alligator, in which I think Fichtner, an imbecile in the film, is somehow able to go into this pretty deep monologue about how their current predicament is similar to that faced by an albino alligator in the wild, or something like that. Or if the relationship to the title is depicted in some other fashion, that would be good as well. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/2 "2007-10-15T18:16:20Z")
_Chasing Amy_ was exactly that type of title. There is no character in the movie named Amy. But late in the movie one of the characters delivers a monologue about an old girlfriend named Amy and how his relationship with her compares to the main character’s current relationship. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/3 "2007-10-15T18:21:18Z")
I nominate [The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds](http://imdb.com/title/tt0068528/) and [The Squid and the Whale](http://imdb.com/title/tt0367089/). Both titles refer to scientific studies which are metaphors for complicated, destructive family relationships. ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/4 "2007-10-15T18:23:31Z")
[QUOTE=pinkfreud] I nominate [The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds](http://imdb.com/title/tt0068528/)… [/QUOTE] This is one my all time favs, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/5 "2007-10-15T18:24:18Z")
**The Stand** does not have an intuitively obvious title for either the book or miniseries. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/6 "2007-10-15T18:26:46Z")
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/7 "2007-10-15T18:27:48Z")
You have no idea why _The Postman Always Rings Twice_ until the end of the movie, when it figures into a monologue by the main character. For the record, my postman never rings at all, but that’s beside the point. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/8 "2007-10-15T18:29:15Z")
_To Kill A Mockingbird_, both book and movie. ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/9 "2007-10-15T18:30:42Z")
Oh, and please explain the correlation if you wish. For those interested, Effect of Gamma Rays… is about a smart girl growing up in a dysfunctional environment, and she does a science project where she shows that gamma rays most often produce weird mutations in marigold, but on rare occasion produce a really beautiful marigolds, like her. Another girls project involves skinning and boiling a cat and then reconstructing its bones, whose process she gleefully reports to the audience- a really weird moment in film, but enough of that hijack. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/10 "2007-10-15T19:28:54Z")
Sling Blade ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/11 "2007-10-15T19:29:34Z")
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn] Or if the relationship to the title is depicted in some other fashion, that would be good as well. [/QUOTE] _North By Northwest_. The title is a misquote from _Hamlet_: ‘I am but mad north-northwest; when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.’ The Cary Grant character pretends madness in the movie thus supplying a (tenuous) link with the title. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/12 "2007-10-15T19:35:27Z")
[QUOTE=Chez Guevara] _North By Northwest_. The title is a misquote from _Hamlet_: ‘I am but mad north-northwest; when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.’ The Cary Grant character pretends madness in the movie thus supplying a (tenuous) link with the title. [/QUOTE] I thought the “Northwest” referenced in the title was the airline. ---
**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:** [October 15, 2007, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/13 "2007-10-15T19:37:56Z")
**Don’t Eat the Daisies Elephant The Color Purple** Nero Wolfe novels frequently have titles like this, and any Nero Wolfe movies or TV movies can be equally obtuse. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/14 "2007-10-15T19:42:15Z")
[QUOTE=Shoeless] I thought the “Northwest” referenced in the title was the airline. [/QUOTE] Fair point but the plane travels west. ---
**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:** [October 15, 2007, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/15 "2007-10-15T19:47:17Z")
**The Right Stuff** Toward the end, Gordo Cooper (Dennis Quaid) is waxing heroic about other pilots he has known, and is just about to say the title phrase when he’s interrupted. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/16 "2007-10-15T19:49:26Z")
The lead character’s name in _Breaker Morant_ isn’t explained until quite a ways into the film (it’s a nickname, for a horse-breaker). The meaning of _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_ was explained on some of the movie posters, but not for awhile in the film, either - if ever, IIRC. We watch _The Matrix_ for a long time before the meaning of the phrase is explained; ditto _Ratatouille_. The word “insurrection” is never actually used in _Star Trek: Insurrection_, and I remember from an article at the time that Paramount was concerned no one would know what it meant. ---
**Author:** ![Judith\_Prietht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b19c9b/32.png) [@Judith\_Prietht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Judith_Prietht)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/17 "2007-10-15T19:55:03Z")
For the 80s movie aficionados in our midst, there’s **St. Elmo’s Fire**. OK, the bar they go to is called St. Elmo’s, but it’s not until Billy climbs the fire escape at Jules’ place after she freaks out and gives his whole little speech punctuated by blasting fireballs of AquaNet at the ceiling that we get the connection between movie title and theme: > [@](#): > > Jules, y’know, honey… this isn’t real. You know what it is? It’s St. Elmo’s Fire. Electric flashes of light that appear in dark skies out of nowhere. Sailors would guide entire journeys by it, but the joke was on them… there was no fire. There wasn’t even a St. Elmo. They made it up. They made it up because they thought they needed it to keep them going when times got tough, just like you’re making up all of this. We’re all going through this. It’s our time at the edge. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/18 "2007-10-15T20:08:36Z")
One that’s still in theaters: **In The Valley Of Elah**. The movie’s about how many soldiers fighting in Iraq come back psychologically unable to re-adapt to civilian life, with occasional dire consequences. The title comes from a story that Tommy Lee Jones, the father of a murdered serviceman, tells to the young son of a police officer at bedtime. The kid’s name is David, and Jones tells the kid the story of King David and his battle with Goliath in the valley of Elah. ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/19 "2007-10-15T20:14:59Z")
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir] ditto _Ratatouille_. [/QUOTE] Dunno if that really counts. It’s a movie about a rat in France looking for better food. Not much mystery there. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/20 "2007-10-15T20:19:19Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] **Elephant** [/QUOTE] This is a weird one. According to something I heard on the radio, the US movie is an homage to an earlier BBC TV drama of the same name, which is about violence in Northern Ireland - which in turn is named after the phrase “the elephant in the living room”, which based on an adage about a huge phenomenon (or problem) that is routinely ignored. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814.md?page=2)