The "Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone" phenomenon: other books/films with two names?

I always assumed that Murder on the Calais Coach was the original British title. Why the hell did they change as wonderful and mysterious-sounding a title as ** Murder on the Orient Express** to the bland “Murder on the Calais Coach” for the American edition? Obviously the first title was the better one, because they used it for the Albert Finney film.

The Madness of King George III was changed to The Madness of King George because it was thought that the sequel happy Americans would want to know what happened to TMOKG I and II!! :smiley:

No it wasn’t so, and as always: check with Snopes!

You do know that it is possible to say this without sounded quite so smarmy and full of yourself?

John Dickson Carr’s English mystery novel THE HOLLOW MAN was changed to THE THREE COFFINS in the US.

As others have noted above, there are numerous examples of title changes for movies. What has not been mentioned is that, in some cases, the change takes place only in the advertising campaign – when you actually see the film, sometimes the original title is still on the print (presumably because the distributor was too lazy to change it). Sorry I can’t think of specific examples, but I have encountered this from time to time.

steve biodrowski
http://www.thescriptanalyst.com

Ooooo! Metahumor!

Just thought of another good example: WITCHFINDER GENERAL in Britain became THE CONQUEROR WORM in the US.

The film starred Vincent Price as Matthew Hopkins a real-life “witchfinder,” whose name might have been known to Brit audiences. In American, however, Price at that time (late '60s) was synonymous with cinematic adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe, so the US distrubtor had him read a few lines of the poem “Conqueror Worm” over the credits and changed the title to match.

Too bad, because it’s a good film, and the new title gives a grossly misleading impression of the film.

steve biodrowski
http://www.thescriptanalyst.com

This is probably because a lot of non-americans do not know where Enceno is but they do know where California is.

Another example of this is Beverly Hills Cop which got the name “Snuten i Hollywood” (That´s Hollywood Cop for the linguistically challenged) in Sweden. The reason for this was that Hollywood was considered a more well known place than Beverly Hills. This was of course before 90210 made Beverly Hills a well known place all over the world. :smiley:

/Coil

My video copy of “The Admirable Crichton” uses that more well known title all over the box and the tape. But the title card at the beginning of the film uses the US theater title “Paradise Lagoon.”

I’ve also seen this with many spaghetti westerns. The version of “Long Live Your Death” (translation of the original Italian title) that I saw had an alternate title “Don’t Turn The Other Cheek” worked in one word at a time during the opening credits.

The titles were changed because the Quatermass movies were all remakes of BBC serials. Since the serials were never seen in the US (at least until the first VHS release of 1958’s Quatermass and the Pit) the name Quatermass wouldn’t mean anything to the American public, while the English would recognize it from the TV serials.

**

This isn’t a misspelling, but was a deliberate marketing gimmick. The film recieved an ‘X’ rating in England (no, that doesn’t mean it’s porn) so they changed it from ‘Experiment’ to emphasize this.