Back in 1963, the president of Crown International Pictures, Newton P. “Red” Jacobs, speaking about the importance of a film’s title, said “A title is the handle. You can’t lift a picture very high if the handle is weak.” For the head of a movie studio, enticing movie-goers with lurid or flashy titles probably seems like a perfectly reasonable business strategy. What they don’t have to deal with, however, are the feelings of betrayal that viewers experience when they realize that the handle wasn’t carrying anything. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched a movie because of a title that promised sleaze and destruction, but ended up being less offensive than a random episode of Alias (WARNING: The previous link exists for no other reason than to show Jennifer Garner in lingerie). As much as I’d like to, I simply can’t save everyone from being duped by deceptive titles. What I can do is warn others as I encounter them.

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