Mr. Epes Winthrop Sargent remarks: "There are dozens of instances of title-duplication to be noted in the past year, some of the titles being used more than twice. A matter of greater moment is to avoid duplication of plot." It is of still greater moment to avoid both. Because he discovered that the Essanay Company was about to release a picture called "Her Adopted Father," a certain writer changed the title of one of his stories from "His Adopted Mother" to "The Bliss of Ignorance." This avoided, not a duplication, but a too great similarity in titles; at the same time the change was an improvement, when one considers the theme of the story.
As a photoplay author, you should subscribe for one of the trade-papers, if for no other reason than to keep posted on the titles of the various subjects released by the different manufacturers. In this way you will have a much better chance of avoiding the repetition of titles. It goes without saying that originality in a title is only less desirable than originality in a plot; yet every now and then some manufacturer will release a picture with a title similar to, or even quite the same as, one already produced by some other company. For example, on July 15th, some years ago, Lubin released a picture called "Honor Thy Father." Four days later, on the 19th, Vitagraph put out a picture with the same title. Yet this was the merest coincidence. On August 17th of the same year Reliance released "A Man Among Men," while Selig's "A Man Among Men" was released November 18th. The plots were totally different, and the Selig story was written and produced in the plant before any announcement of the Reliance picture was made. Again, on January 8, of the next year, Selig released "The Man Who Might Have Been." Twelve days later, Edison put on the market "The Man He Might Have Been," by James Oppenheim.
The exhibitor is the one who suffers as a result of these similarities in titles; many people see the poster and imagine they have seen the picture before, not noticing the difference in the make of film, and so go elsewhere to see some show that is entirely fresh to them. Therefore keep posted, as fully as possible, as to what the manufacturers are putting out.
Of course this matter of title-duplication has a bearing, though a remote one, on titles that are similar yet not identical, as when Artcraft releases "Wolves of the Rail" (with William S. Hart) and Triangle puts out "Wolves of the Border" (with Roy Stewart). Perhaps there is no valid objection to such similarity, which can be called imitation only when the themes are more or less alike, but it actually seems to have been the policy of many companies to follow the line of least resistance when selecting titles for their pictures, using a title, provided it is good in itself, and appropriate to the picture under consideration, regardless of whether or not it is already familiar to the public as the title of another photoplay, fiction story, or legitimate drama. Needless to say, this has led to a great deal of confusion—and, in one or two cases, to law suits.
Bear in mind that the titles of already published fiction and already produced stage plays are not the lawful prey of the photoplaywright merely because he is working in a different literary field. More than one librarian has told us of the confusion caused by reason of Anna Katharine Green's title, "The Woman in the Alcove," having been used later by another popular woman novelist. Again, such a unique and thoroughly distinctive title as Gouverneur Morris's "It" has been used for a very different type of short-story by another writer. Occasionally, we will admit, this happens by the merest chance—although not when a certain motion picture concern puts out a picture showing life in an American factory town and bearing Kipling's well-known title "The Light That Failed." Your literary conscience must dictate what you should do—willing as we are to admit that there is, very frequently, a great temptation to use the title already employed by another writer because of its extreme appropriateness to your own story.
It may be said that most photoplay producing companies are led to use unoriginal titles because of the poor and inappropriate titles given the stories sent in to them by the authors themselves. Your duty, then, is to help to keep the producing company from "going wrong" in this respect by supplying them with the very best and most original title you can devise for every story of yours which you are fortunate enough to sell.
4. Where to Look for Titles
Good titles are everywhere—if you know how to find them. The Bible, Shakespeare, all the poets, books and plays that you read, newspapers, even advertisements on billboards and in street cars, all contain either suggestions for titles or complete titles, waiting only to be picked out and used. But be sure that someone else has not forestalled you!
Sayings, proverbs, and well-known quotations are a fruitful source of titles, as we have already intimated. But sometimes the real significance and value of such a title are not apparent to a great many of the spectators until they have witnessed the climax of the picture. This arises from their ignorance of literature and is, of course, their loss. Many good and extremely appropriate titles of this character are taken from the Psalms, from Shakespeare, and other poets. Frequently these quotations, used as titles, are so well known, and their meanings so apparent, that almost every one of the spectators will at once understand them, and catch at least the theme or general drift of the story from the title. Sometimes, again, the real significance of a title is best brought out by repeating it, or even the complete quotation from which it is taken, in the form of a leader at the point in the action where its significance cannot fail to be impressed upon the spectators. For example, a certain Selig release was entitled "Through Another Man's Eyes." Before the next to the last scene, which showed the ne'er-do-well lover peering in at the window, while his former friend bends over to kiss his wife—who might have been the wife of the wayward young man, had he been made of different stuff—the leader was introduced:
"How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!"