# Titles that don’t seem to belong to the work **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 1, 2011, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058 "2011-03-01T13:47:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/1 "2011-03-01T13:47:06Z")
I thought about this when I recently saw the movie Trainspotting and didn’t spot any trains. Another movie example would be Reservoir Dogs. The book version of A Clockwork Orange makes connection with the title, but I don’t think the movie does. Can you think of any books, movies, songs, etc. with a title that isn’t mentioned within the work and doesn’t describe it? Just so you know, I started out to name this thread “Toothpaste Dancers”. ---
**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:** [March 1, 2011, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/2 "2011-03-01T14:04:03Z")
As I’ve mentioned in another thread, there is a special class of film where they manufacture another reason for the title (or overemphasize one reason, excluding all others) because the movie doesn’t make it clear. The film version of Stephen King’s **Hearts in Atlantis** actually adds a card game to make the title plausible, but it’s not the reason the book has that title. **The Color Purple** has Whoopi Goldberg’s voice-over giving a reason near the end, but it’s a mere fraction of the reason the book has that title. I’m convinced the 1960’s Doris Day film **Please Don’t Eat the Daisies** threw in a song with “Don’t Eat the Daisies” in it so that people wouldn’t ask where the title came from. Lots of films have non-obvious titles. The winner, to me, is the film **Sorceror** , a remake of the French film _The Wages of Fear_. I didn’t understand that title for years (given the visuals seen in the trailer, and the time period, I would’ve guessed it was some Carlos Castaneda-type film, instead of a thriller about transporting nitroglycerine through jungles), until someone on this Board explained that it’s the name of one of the trucks. **The Last King of Scotland** has nothing to do with Scotland. Yes, I know where the title comes from. But it’s confusing as hell if you’re unfamiliar with the work. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/3 "2011-03-01T14:20:25Z")
_Blade Runner_. The title makes sense for William Burroughs’ _Blade Runner: A Film_, which was not a film, but a cut-up of Alan E. Nourse’s schlock novel, in which surgical tools have to be smuggled because the medical trade has been outlawed. At least they didn’t call it _Do Androids Dream of Origami Unicorns?_. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/4 "2011-03-01T14:22:09Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I’m convinced the 1960’s Doris Day film **Please Don’t Eat the Daisies** threw in a song with “Don’t Eat the Daisies” in it so that people wouldn’t ask where the title came from. Good one. In the book version, one of the kids (or was it the dog) does actually eat some daisies! I’m sure there are some Led Zeppelin songs that would fit this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Bag\_of\_Mostly\_Water](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bag_of_mostly_water/32/1029_2.png) [@Bag\_of\_Mostly\_Water](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bag_of_Mostly_Water)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/5 "2011-03-01T14:36:57Z")
I never understood how the movie _O Brother, Where Art Thou?_ was named. ---
**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:** [March 1, 2011, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/6 "2011-03-01T15:08:11Z")
> [@](#): > > I never understood how the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? was named. That was the title of the film the title character was working on in the film **Sullivan’s Travels** , although I don’t recall anything in O, Brother… that clues you in to that. As I’ve said in two previous threads, if you take out the “r” in “Brother” it sounds like a film about Winnie the Pooh playing Hide and Seek with Quakers. > [@](#): > > The title of the film is a reference to the 1941 Preston Sturges film Sullivan’s Travels, in which the protagonist (a director) wants to direct a film about the Great Depression called O Brother, Where Art Thou?[3] that will be a “commentary on modern conditions, stark realism, the problems that confront the average man.” Lacking any experience in this area, the director sets out on a journey to experience the human suffering of the average man but is sabotaged by his anxious studio. The film has some similarity in tone to Sturges’ film, including scenes with prison gangs and a black church choir. The prisoners at the picture show scene is also a direct homage to a nearly identical scene in Sturges’ film.[20] > **[O Brother, Where Art Thou?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Brother,_Where_Art_Thou%3F)** > > O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a 2000 satirical comedy-drama musical film written, produced, co-edited, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. It stars George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson, with Charles Durning, Michael Badalucco, John Goodman and Holly Hunter in supporting roles. > The film is set in rural Mississippi in 1937, and it follows three escaped convicts searching for hidden treasure while a sheriff relentlessly pursues them. Its story is a modern satire which, while incor... > [@](#): > > John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), a popular young Hollywood director fresh from a string of very profitable, but shallow comedies (e.g. Ants in Your Plants of 1939) , tells his studio boss, Mr. Lebrand (Robert Warwick), that he is dissatisfied and wants his next project to be a serious exploration of the plight of the downtrodden, to be based on the socially-conscious novel O Brother, Where Art Thou? by Sinclair Beckstein. Not surprisingly, Lebrand wants him to direct another, more lucrative comedy instead, but the idealistic Sullivan refuses to give in. He wants to “know trouble” first-hand as a tramp so he can return and make a film that truly depicts the sorrows of humanity. His butler (Robert Greig) and valet (Eric Blore) openly question the wisdom of his plan. > **[Sullivan's Travels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sullivan%27s_Travels)** > > Sullivan's Travels is a 1941 American comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges. A satire of the film industry, it follows a famous Hollywood comedy director (Joel McCrea) who, longing to make a socially relevant drama, sets out to live as a tramp to gain life experience for his forthcoming film. Along the way he unites with a poor aspiring actress (Veronica Lake) who accompanies him. The title is a reference to Gulliver's Travels, the 1726 novel by satirist Jonathan Swift about anot... ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/7 "2011-03-01T15:26:51Z")
[Baba O’Riley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_O%27Riley) by The Who ---
**Author:** ![FordTaurusSHO94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f07891/32.png) [@FordTaurusSHO94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordTaurusSHO94)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/8 "2011-03-01T18:44:33Z")
Almost any song title from Nirvana or Pearl Jam. ---
**Author:** ![EristicKallistic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/85e7bf/32.png) [@EristicKallistic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EristicKallistic)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/9 "2011-03-01T19:01:31Z")
> [@FordTaurusSHO94](#): > > Almost any song title from Nirvana or Pearl Jam. Or early Smashing Pumpkins ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/10 "2011-03-01T19:07:29Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > I thought about this when I recently saw the movie Trainspotting and didn’t spot any trains. Another movie example would be Reservoir Dogs. The book version of A Clockwork Orange makes connection with the title, but I don’t think the movie does. For the viewers at home: “Trainspotting” is the hobby of watching trains go by. This is a stupid and boring hobby, as is heroin. “Reservoir Dogs” is unexplained, and Tarantino usually says that it’s up to the viewer to decide what it means. “A Clockwork Orange”, in the book, someone is described as “queer as a clockwork orange”. Alex, like clockwork, has been programmed for ultraviolence by his upbringing, and then gets reprogrammed to be repulsed by violence. ---
**Author:** ![JCorre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3da27b/32.png) [@JCorre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JCorre)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/11 "2011-03-01T19:55:00Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > … > “Reservoir Dogs” is unexplained, and Tarantino usually says that it’s up to the viewer to decide what it means. > > … He explained it once but it still has nothing to do with the plot. From the [IMDB page](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105236/trivia): "The title for the film came to Quentin Tarantino via a patron at the now-famous Video Archives. While working there, Tarantino would often recommend little-known titles to customers, and when he suggested Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987), the patron mockingly replied, “I don’t want to see no reservoir dogs!” The title is never spoken in the film, however. " ---
**Author:** ![Carl\_Corey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Carl\_Corey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carl_Corey)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/12 "2011-03-01T20:08:38Z")
Cave Dwellers. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/13 "2011-03-01T20:32:05Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > “A Clockwork Orange”, in the book, someone is described as “queer as a clockwork orange”. Alex, like clockwork, has been programmed for ultraviolence by his upbringing, and then gets reprogrammed to be repulsed by violence. Burgess wrote (in the afterword to the old addition I read, I think) that the phrase appealed to him as suggestive of something that had the appearance of idealized nature, but was actually an unnatural artifact. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/14 "2011-03-01T23:05:01Z")
Eco’s _The Name of the Rose_ is a strong contender here. The copy I read had an afterword by the author suggesting a few possible explanations, but I don’t think even he was clear on why he chose that title. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/15 "2011-03-01T23:30:30Z")
“Vision Quest”, the Matthew Modine wrestling movie. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/16 "2011-03-01T23:50:48Z")
Grateful Dead have several songs that fit, including Wharf Rat, The Other One and Greatest Story Ever Told… ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/17 "2011-03-02T00:18:43Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > [Baba O’Riley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_O%27Riley) by The Who It’s explained right in the first paragraph of the link. ---
**Author:** ![Invisible\_Chimp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f05b48/32.png) [@Invisible\_Chimp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Invisible_Chimp)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/18 "2011-03-02T00:27:10Z")
“It Happened One Night,” the Clark Gable/Claudette Colbert movie is great, but I have no idea what it is and which night it happened on. The movie takes place over a week or so, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/19 "2011-03-02T00:44:25Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > “Trainspotting” is the hobby of watching trains go by. This is a stupid and boring hobby, as is heroin. Worse: It’s a reference to trainspotting at a station where no trains have run in decades. [From the Wikipedia entry for the novel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trainspotting_%28novel%29): > [@](#): > > The title is a reference to an episode where Begbie and Renton meet “an auld drunkard” in the disused Leith Central railway station, which they are visiting to use as a toilet. He asks them if they are “trainspottin”, as Renton is urinating onto the stonework. **Trains have not run to Leith since 1952.** (Emphasis mine.) Definitely plays up the theme of pointlessness. I don’t know if the scene is in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058/20 "2011-03-02T01:13:39Z")
The 2007 version of “I am Legend” never delves into the Doctor’s status among the mutants. The movie is totally unrelated to the title. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-that-don-t-seem-to-belong-to-the-work/573058.md?page=2)