Working Titles

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

I was looking through my Netflix queue the other day, and I was trying to decide what movie to see next. There were so many titles on that long list, and all of them were saying, pick me, pick me, pick me, which made me wonder, Grant, if you’re only using words, how do you make a movie title stand out?

And that got me to thinking about working titles, and how is it that sometimes Hollywood decides to change the title of a movie that they’ve been working on? And, you know, you can have a lot of fun with this at the Internet Movie Database, imdb.com. You know, because they have tons and tons of information, including the working title of the film before it was released.

And, of course, there’s that famous example of Woody Allen’s movie Annie Hall. Do you know what that was called originally?

I don’t know.

It was called Anhedonia.

Oh, yes. The inability to experience pleasure. So that was probably a good call.

And what about the movie that was originally titled $3,000? Do you know what that was? Or can you guess?

I don’t know.

Desperado by Robert Rodriguez.

I don’t know.

No.

What?

$3,000 became Pretty Woman. That’s, you know, a much better call, right?

Much better.

Fast improvement, sure.

And here’s one more. You’ll guess this one. Originally, this movie was called Harry. This is Sally.

When Harry Met Sally, sure.

Yeah. Now, why is it that When Harry Met Sally is a better title?

I don’t know. Are we looking at it only in retrospect? Is it only because we know that the movie was a great movie and that it was highly successful? And now it seems like, of course, it must be called When Harry Met Sally.

Yeah, I know. It does seem like that. I think that a lot of these create a sense of expectation.

Yeah, I do.

Okay, well, what happened When Harry Met Sally? It’s like half of an asked question. It’s not even a whole question.

Yeah. I mean, they could have titled it I’ll Have What She’s Having. That probably would have been good, too.

That is the line from the movie, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. It’s sort of like they say something. It’s like going bump, bada-dum, bump, bump. And you just want to know, you know, what the next thing is. Where’s the bits? Where’s the bits?

Right.

Where’s the bits? But there’s got to be an art and a science to that.

IMDb, by the way, the Internet Movie Database, has this weird thing that when you look up a film, like, for some reason, the top film will be like the Italian title or something. Or, known in Germany as. I’m like, why do I care? Why are you including that in your results? I don’t care. I don’t care. Just show me the film.

Well, we’ll talk more about that later in the show. But in the meantime, you can call us about any aspect of language. The number is 877-929-9673. Or you can email us. That address is words@waywordradio.org.