OK it is a lot easier now, even I can work out what MMIII is. But why did almost all movies last century use roman numerals in the credits for their date. I can only presume this was so you couldn’t work out the year when it flashed by MDCCCCLIX or whatever and work out that the movie was several years old by the time it hit your cinema?
Your guess that it was to slow down the recognition of how old the movie was, is what I have always thought it was.
It could be a follow-on to the practice of dating books that way from an earlier period. Then that could also be the reason for the book thing.
I’m going with habit, and intentional obfuscation, until a more informed reason is posted.
I’ve noticed that since YMM (or is that YKK or Y2K?) that I don’t notice Roman numbers in movies. Well, American movies made after 2000 that is.
I don’t recall the precise year it happened, but within the past 20 or so years, the Roman numerals have given way to Arabic. Now you can tell straightaway when the movie was released without having to convert the date. It would take searching through older movies to locate the year the change was made, unless some helpful website has the info. If I had to guess, I’d say the changeover was no later than the 80’s.
[nitpick]
Shouldn’t “1959” be written MCMLIX?
[/nitpick]
quite right, just [ahemm] testing [/ahemm] 