# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/41 "2007-10-16T04:17:03Z")
[QUOTE=Lakai] **Full Metal Jacket** and **A Clockwork Orange** are hard to understand from just watching the movie. I still don’t completely understand **Full Metal Jacket**. [/QUOTE] I seem to remember Oliver Stone giving an interview where he said it referred to the men becoming as hard as their ammunition, something about bullets (or other ordinance) having a full metal jacket. I could well be wrong, I never even watched the movie. I’d love to know the meaning behind A Clockwork Orange. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/42 "2007-10-16T04:28:07Z")
[QUOTE=maggenpye] I seem to remember Oliver Stone giving an interview where he said it referred to the men becoming as hard as their ammunition, something about bullets (or other ordinance) having a full metal jacket. [/QUOTE] Bah. [Full metal jacket](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_metal_jacket_bullet) just refers to the kind of ammo that Private Pyle uses to off himself. Like many titles, it was picked because it sounds cool. ETA: And FMJ is a Stanley Kubrick film, not Oliver Stone. ---
**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 16, 2007, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/43 "2007-10-16T04:38:17Z")
[QUOTE=JSexton] Dunno if that really counts. It’s a movie about a rat in France looking for better food. Not much mystery there. [/QUOTE] I understand the pun, but we don’t learn until the very end that that particular French peasant dish is crucial in winning over the restaurant’s harshest critic. I don’t think the word itself is mentioned until near the end. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/44 "2007-10-16T04:38:48Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] I think the paper they’re chasing is a law school diploma. [/QUOTE] Yes, and I thought so too. But it bears so little resemblance to the game commonly known as a “paper chase” that I wonder. And as one who has been through the first year of law school (which the film depicts), I continue to wonder. You aren’t guaranteed a degree just by getting through your first year of law school. You may be “chasing” your degree, but there’s no guarantee you’ll catch it. But, hell, maybe you’re right, **Nemo**. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/45 "2007-10-16T05:08:12Z")
Oh yeah…for a really great example of this, I present [If…Dog…Rabbit.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138511/) A truly undiscovered gem of a movie, I’d be surprised if anyone here has even heard of it, let alone seen it, but it’s without a doubt Matthew Modine’s best movie, and also features great performances by John Hurt and Bruce Dern. It’s a gritty heist-caper set in Mexico, with an unbelievably evocative and atmospheric setting and some really amazing acting. And yet, it’s completely obscure. I bought it for 2 dollars in the used section of a little record/movie store, simply because of the weird title. It sat on a shelf quite literally for three years before I actually watched it. When I finally saw it I was really surprised at how good it was. At the very end of the movie, there’s this voice-over that describes some kind of riddle or parable that the protagonist heard when he was a kid, which involves a dog chasing a rabbit. So like Glengarry Glen Ross, the individual elements of the title are there in the movie, albeit in a weird and tangential way. But it’s the way that they are arranged in the title - _If…Dog…Rabbit_ - with the ellipses, that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. We still joke about this movie whenever we see a rabbit. I always say, “if dog, then goto rabbit.” The movie was re-named _One Last Score_ for what I guess was its second distribution. As if that made a dime’s worth of difference. If anything, the weird title probably would have attracted more viewers out of sheer curiosity. ---
**Author:** ![Jaochai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2acd7d/32.png) [@Jaochai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaochai)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/46 "2007-10-16T05:37:23Z")
Finally, something I know about! The origin of the title ‘A Clockwork Orange’ is explained in the book, where the author character F. Alexander (who is very much a stand-in for the actual author, Anthony Burgess) rails against the process by which Alex is made compliant. If I remember correctly, his comparison is that man is an orange, and the juice is love, which God drinks because he is thirsty for it. NOT MAKING THAT UP. Anyway, by imposing behaviorist controls on Alex, the government had rendered him into something less organic and more mechanical - hence, if all men are oranges, Alex was now a clockwork one. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/47 "2007-10-16T05:53:26Z")
[QUOTE=maggenpye] I’d love to know the meaning behind A Clockwork Orange. [/QUOTE] The movie got the name from the book, of course. Accoring to the IMDb [trivia](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066921/trivia) entry, the book’s derivation is . . . complicated > [@](#): > > The writer of the novel, ‘Anthony Burgess’ , claimed that the term “clockwork orange” was a Cockney phrase, but most philologists agree that there has never been any such phrase until the appearance of his book. Burgess lived in Malaysia during the 1940s, and the Malay word for man is “orang”, from which “orangutan” (man of the jungle) is derived. There is, however, an English slang expression for a gambling device known as the “one-armed bandit” in the U.S.: a clockwork fruit (the gambling device typically is referred to as a “fruit machine” in the UK due to the depictions on its dials; clockwork in England is a word applied to a plethora of mechanical devices beyond just time-pieces). The anthropomorphic look of a “fruit machine” (thus, its name “one-armed bandit” in the U.S. for its roughly man-sized shape and “arm” giving it a humanoid appearance) may well have given rise to the term “clockwork orange” in Burgess’ fertile mind as Alex, through conditioning, is turned into a robot (which a fruit machine resembles). Gambling also is a game of chance, and Alex literally is gambling with his soul. This is made explicit, particularly in the film, when Dr. Brodsky tells Alex – who is upset over the use of Beethoven on the soundtrack to the atrocity films and claims he has been enlightened – to take his chance, as he will be free in a fortnight (roughly the time an annual vacation in an English resort such as Blackpool – the Las Vegas of Britain – with its scores of fruit machines, would take). ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/48 "2007-10-16T06:01:36Z")
There’s one that should make this list, but can’t because the director wasn’t too bright: **The Deep End Of The Ocean**. The book’s eventual explaination of the title is utterly chilling, but the director didn’t bother to include it, so people who haven’t read the book are left having no idea why it’s called that. ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/49 "2007-10-16T06:02:48Z")
[QUOTE=Argent Towers] _Glengarry Glen Ross._ The significance of the title is obvious - Glengarry Acres is one plot of land being sold by the firm in the movie, and Glen Ross Farms is another. However, the two names being smushed together in a seemingly incoherent way for the title is what gets me. [/QUOTE] The title, IMO, refers to the fact that there are certain key words that developers use for new neighborhoods that are meant to evoke a certain idyllic image: Farms, Acres, Glen, etc. If one rattles them off quickly, as one might when selling real estate and examining one’s options, then through the Ionescan principle of repetition leading to loss of meaning and absurdity, none of the names evoke anything, because they don’t mean anything anymore. Of course, the real estate con men in Glengarry Glen Ross already know the names have no meaning. They are already lost in the absurdity. And they don’t care, as long as they can turn a buck from it. It’s almost like, “Glen Ross, Schmen Ross, as long as I’m rich.” ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/50 "2007-10-16T06:06:21Z")
[QUOTE=elfkin477] There’s one that should make this list, but can’t because the director wasn’t too bright: **The Deep End Of The Ocean**. The book’s eventual explaination of the title is utterly chilling, but the director didn’t bother to include it, so people who haven’t read the book are left having no idea why it’s called that. [/QUOTE] Ugh. I tried to get a job at a studio by doing script coverage of a draft of the screenplay of Deep End about two years before it was released. I recommended to pass on it and look for something else. Worst piece of crap I ever read. Never did the the resulting film. ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/51 "2007-10-16T06:25:25Z")
[QUOTE=friedo] Bah. [Full metal jacket](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_metal_jacket_bullet) just refers to the kind of ammo that Private Pyle uses to off himself. Like many titles, it was picked because it sounds cool. ETA: And FMJ is a Stanley Kubrick film, not Oliver Stone. [/QUOTE] I knew that Pyle offed himself with a full metal jacket, I just thought there was more to it than that. Kubrick doesn’t strike me as the type of guy that would leave thoughtless details in his movies. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/52 "2007-10-16T07:11:23Z")
[QUOTE=elfkin477] There’s one that should make this list, but can’t because the director wasn’t too bright: **The Deep End Of The Ocean**. The book’s eventual explaination of the title is utterly chilling, but the director didn’t bother to include it, so people who haven’t read the book are left having no idea why it’s called that. [/QUOTE] I saw most of this on HBO a while ago. Why IS it called that? ETA: Thought of another one. The Shining. ---
**Author:** ![cornflakes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@cornflakes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornflakes)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/53 "2007-10-16T07:55:23Z")
The words, _A River Runs Through It_ are saved for the next to last paragraph of the story and for the last five minutes of the movie. ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/54 "2007-10-16T11:52:41Z")
[QUOTE=pinkfreud] Until I saw _The Prestige_, I assumed that the title was probably the name of a theater. I knew that the movie was about stage magicians, but the term “prestige” for a part of a magic trick was unknown to me. [/QUOTE] It’s unknown to magicians as well. I have no idea why the script suggests this word is used by magicians to refer to any aspect of a trick or anything to do with performing magic. I have never heard it used in this way by anyone in the world of magic, or in any magic book. I’m happy to be corrected on this if anyone knows different or has a source. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/55 "2007-10-16T12:26:48Z")
\*How Green Was My Valley \* ends with the lines, “Men like my father cannot die. They are with me still, real in memory as they were in flesh, loving and beloved forever. How green was my valley then.” _Morning Glory_ ends with this speech from Eva after being warned about being a morning glory, "Nellie, I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid of being just a morning glory. I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. Why should I be afraid? I’m not afraid.” At the end of _Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf_ we get :“Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?” “I am George, I am.” Right at the end of _Soylent Green_: “You can tell everybody. Listen to me, Hatcher. You’ve got to tell them soylent green is people. We’ve got to stop them somehow.” And famously _The Naked City_, “There are 8 million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.” ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/56 "2007-10-16T16:29:12Z")
[QUOTE=ianzin] It’s unknown to magicians as well. I have no idea why the script suggests this word is used by magicians to refer to any aspect of a trick or anything to do with performing magic. I have never heard it used in this way by anyone in the world of magic, or in any magic book. I’m happy to be corrected on this if anyone knows different or has a source. [/QUOTE] From what I read, the terms (pledge, turn, prestige) were made up for the book. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/57 "2007-10-16T16:42:03Z")
[QUOTE=Zoggie] From what I read, the terms (pledge, turn, prestige) were made up for the book. [/QUOTE] :eek: That kind of makes the movie even better, for some reason. -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/58 "2007-10-16T16:48:16Z")
Here’s one I just watched last night on DVD: **The Last King of Scotland**. Not only is the title phrase not mentioned until the last quarter of the movie, it also turns out that the titular “king” isn’t even the Scot - it’s the African. ---
**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:** [October 16, 2007, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/59 "2007-10-16T18:00:14Z")
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. I still don’t understand what the title means. It’s hardly a description of the characters is it? TMWNN isn’t particularly good, nor is Tuco especially ugly. Though I must agree that Angel Eyes is very bad indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814/60 "2007-10-16T21:58:13Z")
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn] Spartan is another one- I’m sure many people rented it thinking it was a gladiator type movie. [/QUOTE] …those people would be idiots. Seriously. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silence-of-the-lambs-type-movie-titles/422814.md?page=4)