Roll Credits!

 Roll Credits!

     Titles are extremely important. Whether it's a short story, poem, novel, or film, the creators of those pieces of art put a lot of thought into the title of their work. Sometimes the titles make total sense. Yesterday I watched a sci-fi film from 1953 titled, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and, guess what? It was about beast that came from ocean depths of 20,000 fathoms. That's a no brainer. (fyi - no such depth, way deeper than any part of any ocean on the planet)

     That same day I watched a 2016 film titled, Captain Fantastic, and although I thought the film was fantastic, there was no captain to be found. I understand why it was called that, but it wasn't used in the literal sense. 

     But that's not what this is about. This is about hearing the title of the film spoken aloud as dialogue during the movie. This doesn't happen as often as you may think. But when it does, it's pure fun. It's like finding a treasure. 

     For this reason, you do one of two things when this occurs. You either yell the title very loudly (which is extremely annoying to those watching with you) OR, you just say, "Roll Credits!" (slightly less annoying to those watching with you). That's the one that I prefer. 

     "Roll Credits!" basically means that the movie is now over, we can all go home. 

     This does NOT apply to movies that have people's names in them. That would happen quite a lot and if you did what I'm suggesting, no one would ever watch a movie with you again. The "Roll Credits" game applies to movies with no names in the title. 

     It also doesn't apply to movies like Jaws which is about a shark that has actual jaws and, therefore, the word jaws may be used throughout. There are thousands of movies that would fit into this category. "Roll Credits!" is no fun with those movies or "name" movies. 

     I mentioned that this phenomenon doesn't happen that often. I looked back in my film archives and looked at the last 20 films I've watched. I only got to say "Roll Credits!" three times. 

     Bad Boys for Life, which, if you haven't seen, keep it that way, mentions the title at least three times. Getting to play "Roll Credits!" more than once during the same film is pretty rare. It really was the only thing that kept me watching. I wanted to see if they'd say it again. They did...it didn't raise my enjoyment level that much.  

     Today, the all-time record was set. I don't even have to do much research because it happened so many times that I can't imagine a non-name movie title being mentioned more in one film. It got to be pretty funny because the title isn't a short title. The title has SIX WORDS IN IT! Better yet, the movie was only 76 MINUTES LONG! And, in that short time span, the cast managed to say the title of the film SEVEN TIMES during the movie. Once every 10 minutes. Fantastic. I give you the 1934 comedy starring Miriam Hopkins...

     That's right! They managed to say the entire phrase, "The richest girl in the world" seven different times in 76 minutes. If that's not the record, I need to see the movie that does it more!

     If you're a movie fan, keep track of this, let me know about movies that fit in this category, and...

"ROLL CREDITS!"