Do Different Movies With Same Titles Sometimes Annoy You?

[hamradio]

I was trying to get info on this film playing on the SyFy channel but the Churchill movie keeps popping up. 

Typing in 2011 fixed the search issue.

 

 

[TopBilled]

It gets more confusing when the same title is used in the same year.

1973's A DOLL HOUSE with Jane Fonda:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Doll's_House_(1973_Losey_film)

and 1973's A DOLL HOUSE with Claire Bloom:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Doll's_House_(1973_Garland_film)

[hamradio]

[TopBilled]

Certain titles are popular within certain genres and may have slight variations, like:

BLACKMAIL (1929)
BLACKMAIL (1939)
BLACKMAIL (1947)
BLACKMAIL (1973)
BLACKMAIL (2005)
BLACKMAIL (2018)

BLACKMAILER (1936)
BLACKMAILER (1937)
BLACKMAILED (1951)
 

You get the idea. TCM could do a 24-hour marathon on films with the word blackmail in the title.

[hamradio]

 

[hamradio]

3 minutes ago, TopBilled said:

Certain titles are popular within certain genres and may have slight variations, like:

BLACKMAIL (1929)
BLACKMAIL (1947)
BLACKMAIL (1973)
BLACKMAIL (2005)
BLACKMAIL (2018)

BLACKMAILER (1936)
BLACKMAILER (1937)
BLACKMAILED (1951)
 

You get the idea. TCM could do a 24-hour marathon on films with the word blackmail in the title.

 

My head hurts. 

Hate to think how chaotic and confusing the "I Just Watched" thread would become.

[TopBilled]

And don't forget TOPAZE (1933) or TOPAZ (1969). I guess that extra "E" makes a difference.

[hamradio]

6 minutes ago, TopBilled said:

And don't forget TOPAZE (1933) or TOPAZ (1969). I guess that extra "E" makes a difference.

2 different ways to spell the gemstone.

[Thenryb]

I was trying to find Decoy (1946) to watch online and had the same issue. Lots of movies so titled. The one I wanted does not seem to be available anyway.

[Movie Collector OH]

This is just the very tip of the iceberg.  If anyone should know about these types of title semantics and their challenges, it is me.

One word titles, like weak passwords, are the most likely to recur.  So they are the biggest offenders.  Take that into account, along with the consequences of International AKA titles and differing release dates for various countries, mix it all together into one big pot of steaming goo, and you have every reason to not want to attempt this.

 

I won't bother with examples, but rather give some likely scenarios - these are bound to occur in varying combinations for me in my project, but just not all at once:

TCM                      IMDB
title (year) <====> original title (year) [wrong movie]
                 <====> original title (year +/- 1) [correct movie, but one year different]
                 <====> original title (year) [short feature for correct movie, still wrong]
                 <====> AKA title (year) [correct movie, wrong year, a British movie for instance using US title but UK release year, no match]
                 <====> AKA title (year) [english AKA for same-year Pac-Rim movie, wrong movie]

TCM                      TCM
title (year) <====> AKA (year)  [this is a case where TCM or AFI changes from original to AKA, or vice versa over the years, and I detect and normalize prior entries to latest usage just to prevent multiple entries of the same movie, and incorrect tabulation of repetitions]

 

I have a number of different tests which I have developed and run each month, just after importing the fresh records and prior to generating my reports, which expose and report all these possibilities to me.  The fixes include a disambiguation mask which gets filled in by me on a per-case basis each month for the outliers.

In the end roughly about 2.5% of incoming records each month fail my automated tests and require attention.  In addition to above scenarios, this also includes all the cartoons, seriels, and TV episodes as well as some obscure or poorly titled shorts.

[jakeem]

What amazes me is when an actor stars in two different movies with the same title.

Clark Gable and Joan Crawford in "Possessed" (1931)

Crawford in "Possessed" (1947)

[TopBilled]

32 minutes ago, jakeem said:

What amazes me is when an actor stars in two different movies with the same title.

Clark Gable and Joan Crawford in "Possessed" (1931)

Crawford in "Possessed" (1947)

What's even more remarkable is that it wasn't a remake, and those films were made by two different studios.

[Sepiatone]

There's 1998's THE AVENGERS based on the '60's British TV show (w/Patrick McNee and Diana Rigg) which starred RALPH FIENNES and UMA THURMAN

and 2012's THE AVENGERS  based on the comic book heroes (w/ a bunch of actors and actresses I never heard of    )

Sepiatone

[Feego]

2009 saw the releases of both Nine and 9, plus District 9 just to complicate things.  No wonder one of the most frequently played clips from Inglourious Basterds, released that same year, featured Hitler yelling, "Nein, nein, nein, nein!"

[TopBilled]

16 hours ago, Feego said:

2009 saw the releases of both Nine and 9, plus District 9 just to complicate things.  No wonder one of the most frequently played clips from Inglourious Basterds, released that same year, featured Hitler yelling, "Nein, nein, nein, nein!"

Wonder if there's any connection between Hitler and PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.  

Both were equally bad.

[hamradio]

12 minutes ago, TopBilled said:

Wonder if there's any connection between Hitler and PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.  

Both were equally bad.

"Inglourious Basterds" was an odd alternative universe movie.  What was the purpose of making it, wishful thinking of Hitlers demise? 

 

[TopBilled]

21 minutes ago, hamradio said:

"Inglourious Basterds" was an odd alternative universe movie.  What was the purpose of making it, wishful thinking of Hitlers demise? 

No idea. Only Tarantino knows. 

[CaveGirl]

On 9/18/2018 at 2:23 AM, TopBilled said:

It gets more confusing when the same title is used in the same year.

1973's A DOLL HOUSE with Jane Fonda:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Doll's_House_(1973_Losey_film)

and 1973's A DOLL HOUSE with Claire Bloom:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Doll's_House_(1973_Garland_film)

That door slamming was the same in both versions, heard all around the world as it once was when it was a play!

[CaveGirl]

On 9/18/2018 at 2:44 AM, TopBilled said:

And don't forget TOPAZE (1933) or TOPAZ (1969). I guess that extra "E" makes a difference.

An extra "e" can make the difference between rap and rape too, TB.

[TopBilled]

2 minutes ago, CaveGirl said:

An extra "e" can make the difference between rap and rape too, TB.

Yes, that is true. 

[CaveGirl]

Or cap and cape! Imagine if you put your hat on your body and your cape on your head.

This is like the book called "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for His Hate" by Oliver Sacks.

Okay, I'll stop now, TB...I can sense your disdain.

[Feego]

7 hours ago, hamradio said:

"Inglourious Basterds" was an odd alternative universe movie.  What was the purpose of making it, wishful thinking of Hitlers demise? 

And now that I think about it, that's another movie that fits into this thread, as Tarantino took (and deliberately misspelled) the title of the 1978 movie The Inglorious Bastards, starring Bo Svenson and Fred Williamson.

[Emily Emerac]

There isn't much to be done about multiple movies with the same title, since titles are not protected by copyright law.  (The reasoning is that if a creative work has the title "The House," then every other book, movie, or any other thing submitted to the copyright office would not be able to use the word "House" in its title.)

The thing that really bothers me about movies with the same title is that my cable company often lists the wrong description - "Movie X" from 1974 described as "Movie X" from 1938.  Gets my hopes up and then dashes them down.

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, Emily Emerac said:

There isn't much to be done about multiple movies with the same title, since titles are not protected by copyright law.  (The reasoning is that if a creative work has the title "The House," then every other book, movie, or any other thing submitted to the copyright office would not be able to use the word "House" in its title.)

Which reminds me of my grumble about the scary-but-funny underrated guilty-pleasure House (1985), with William Katt and George Wendt,

always being confused with the "Feature length Wacky-Japanese-Commercial" horror House (1977)

(Although that still comes in second to sharing Sepia's gripe about "Avengers" discussions turning out to be about Marvel superheroes, and not Mr. Steed & Mrs. Peel.)

[Dargo]

And how could we forget...

...and...

?