Film Tags

By Robert Cettl

The first ever anthology of movie taglines, Film Tags is a thoroughly researched compendium of movie marketing magic!

Covering all genres, from horror to romance, action to sci-fi and exploitation to erotica, Film Tags gives background information about, and context to, some of the most memorable, peculiar, witty, philosophical, romantic, wry and most unusual of taglines.

As movie taglines must both encapsulate the film's tone and grip the potential viewer's attention enough to interest them in seeing the movie, they have an enormously important role in film marketing. However, despite the prominence taglines can achieve in this popular cinemagoing experience - "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" for instance (Star Wars in case you needed reminding) - there has never been an anthology dedicated to this overlooked art of movie promotion: until now. Listing hundreds of movie taglines and the backstories of their creation, Film Tags is a unique experience for the genuine movie enthusiast and an ideal, info-taining companion to the home theatre experience. Only on ebook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Cettl
• Release date: Jan 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465870322

Robert Cettl

A freelance author and former Australian National Film & Sound Archive (NFSA) SAR Research Fellow, Robert Cettl (HBA, GCTESOL, GDIS, MTESOL) is an English lecturer at the University of Jinan, Shandong, China. Robert's non-fiction writing is published through McFarland & Co. Inc. and Bloomsbury Academic in the USA and collected by such as Yale University Library, the British Film Institute and the national libraries of Australia and China. He is also an experimental ethnographic filmmaker whose digital feature films are collected by the NFSA and soon to be released on Video-on-Demand and whose short videos about living and working in China can be found on his YouTube channel.

Book preview

Film Tags

(Smashwords Edition)

by Robert Cettl

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

© 2011 Robert Cettl

cover image (c) Denis Tevekov

Contents

Introduction

Drama

Action and Adventure

Westerns

Hollywood Classics

Romance and Relationships

Science Fiction and Fantasy

Horror and Thriller

War Movies

Comedy

Hollywood Flops

Erotica

Exploitation Cinema

Cult Movies

Introduction

The love of movies can be a strange experience. Yet it is undoubtedly joyous to be able to explore in detail. And the thing of it is, the more detailed one gets in admiration of the movies as an art form, the more hidden pleasures one discovers. Such pleasures can range from the experience of watching a new movie, to the thrill of learning some detail about the making of the movie or the people involved that others may dismiss as trivial but which can be just such a delight to know. Indeed, perhaps the thing about a love of the movies is that process of getting to know the movies, and it seems the more one knows and can appreciate the more one has in return.

One aspect of the movie-making process that gets lost in all the hype is the creation of the hype itself. Indeed, although there is certainly an enormous industry given over to just promoting the movies as they are released, so too may there just be an art to finding the right way to promote a movie. Since the early days of cinema, one device has emerged which serves exclusively to find that balance: to simultaneously promote the movie to a receptive audience and yet also somehow encapsulate in a few words, the essence of the film. It is quite a challenge to perfect this, but the results can be surprisingly memorable. This device is, of course, the movie tagline.

Film taglines are everywhere. They appear on posters, on promotion and are often marketed so that they become a part of the movie itself. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away is an example of a tagline that has both become so identified with a popular movie (Star Wars in case you actually needed a reminder) and yet be so catchily distinctive as to take on a life beyond the movie. Not many taglines have been so successful, but a few have emerged with similar force. However, there has yet been no guide to taglines, no collection dedicated to celebrating this peripheral art of the movies. Until now, collectors have been deprived a glimpse into this world.

Film Tags is just that – a celebration of the art of the movie tagline and a themed collection of those taglines which takes them playfully but seriously enough to provide the true film fan with just that little bit of extra enjoyment. But just as times and filmmaking styles change, so too the art of the tagline has undergone an evolution over the course of the last century. The taglines in this book are meant to reveal that sense of the evolution of the tagline, to give an indication of just what emerges when the film marketing team view a film and determine how to briefly encapsulate its experience in a way that will strike a chord with the receptive fans of the time.

Many taglines in this book may be recognizable and many will not, though those that are not recognized may be just as intriguing. Both well known and lesser known films have been chosen for inclusion here: a journey through the world of film from the perspective of the tagline. Just as the DVD and Blu-Ray home theatre revolution has made viewing film a whole re-discovery of the medium, so too it has enabled the re-discovery of the world surrounding the films. It is hoped that this book, like a home theatre special features package, will be an entertaining adjunct to home viewing: a companion piece to the home theatre experience and a true film lover’s trip through the often unappreciated art of the movie tagline.

(back to contents)

Drama

Although all films are technically Drama in that they are dramatic vehicles (even if they be comedies), what we know as drama usually connotes serious and solemn films about human relationship in all their complexity. Different from romances in that their focus is much more all-encompassing, drama plays upon human inter-connectedness in order to make contact with its audience. Thus, taglines for dramatic vehicles are often more thought-provoking and even profoundly terse than most other genres, hoping to encapsulate a brief but poignant philosophical slice of the movie.

Taglines from dramatic features thus have much to offer as they not only serve to promote the movie in question but seek to provide a quote-able and meaningful statement of their own accord. Of course some work better at this than others and some return to more tried and true means of tagline marketing but what can be rewarding about taglines in drama is precisely their quest for meaning. It can be a variation on cliché, or it can be an aphorism but it always tries to be brief and punchy. Drama taglines thus offer Hollywood at its most pithily humanist and as such, even at its most vulnerable.

Remember when you couldn't wait for your life to begin... and then, one day, it did?

(distilling the idea of the coming of age story for The Man in the Moon)

You can't prepare for where the truth will take you.

(and so a detective story takes a turn for the horrible truth in 8MM)

The hit film Boogie Nights was an enthralling look at the heyday of the American porno movie industry. Though controversial for its explicitness, there was an air of nostalgia for the enterprise, nicely captured in the tagline (i)n 1977, sex was safe. Pleasure was a business. And business was booming. But the film was also the story of a young man who follows his dream of becoming a porn star, abetted in this pursuit by the enormous size of his penis: thus, both the American Dream and a large penile endowment were alluded to in the film’s second tagline, (e)veryone has one special thing.

Oceans rise. Cities fall. Hope survives.

(facing a disaster that could wipe out humanity in Deep Impact)

Some people can never believe in themselves, until someone believes in them.

(people who need people in Good Will Hunting)

Director Ang Lee’s film of The Ice Storm was a noted depiction of changing social and sexual mores as America went from the free love generation of the 1960s into the sexual abandon of the 1970s. Playing on the title coldness and the notion of evolving moralities, the tagline neatly read: (i)t was 1973, and the climate was changing. This was expanded even further with an alternative tagline which suggested the film more about the fallout of changing morals rather than their continued evolution – the alternate tagline thus read: (t)he American Dream was over. But the hangover was just beginning.

Lose your heart and come to your senses.

(just a little bit of Sense and Sensibility)

He road the fast lane on the road to nowhere.

(the desperation and hopeless thrills of the dropout in Five Easy Pieces)

The recent emotional drama of Babel seemed to face quite a predicament as it could not apparently settle on a single tagline. Thus, it has many. Some are to the point, stressing the multi-nation settings of the film in (a) Global Disaster and (t)ragedy is Universal which segued into (p)ain is universal – but so is hope in case the latter was too depressing in its connotations. As the premise rested on a gunshot, other taglines read (a) single gunshot heard around the world and (o)ne shot, many kills. But perhaps the most effective was the deceptively plain (i)f you want to be understood… listen.

Meg just left one. Lenny never had one. Babe just shot one. The McGrath sisters sure have a way with men!

(three women and three famous actresses play out Crimes from the Heart)

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.

(the wisdom of an alcoholic writer in Barfly)

Every dream has a price.

(yes it does, even – or especially – on Wall Street)

Some people take your heart, others take your shoes, and still others take you home.

(the fate of gay hustlers in My Own Private Idaho)

Swedish director Ingmar Bergman was one of the most famous of filmmakers since the 1950s and such works as The Seventh Seal. His reputation steadily grew in the English-speaking world until in the 1970s he directed his first English-language film, The Serpent’s Egg. It was also the director’s first horror film and thus it was perhaps inevitable that a tagline play up the genre and the director, reading (t)he kind of terror that could never be, until now, until Bergman. However, for audiences not familiar with Bergman, on offer was also: Berlin 1923! A dangerous time to be alive and stay that way.

The story of a woman fighting for her children, for her land, for the greatest dream there is... the future.

(a story with a message in Places in the Heart)

The last neighborhood in America.

(such is the talkback appeal of Talk Radio)

Sometimes, a tagline can be a source of amusement. This was certainly the case for the film Cockfighter. An amoral exploitation movie drama about the illegal sport, the film itself was thought to be unmarketable since cockfighting was at the time banned in most US states. Thus, the marketers had difficulty coming up with a proposal, until one executive posited the following tagline as a joke: (h)e came into town with his cock in hand, and what he did with it was illegal in 49 states. Despite the wryly cynical humour here, it was decided the proposed tagline was also unsuitable and so the film went without an official tagline.

A modern day tale about the search for love, sanity, Ethel Merman and the Holy Grail.

(going for everything but the kitchen sink for The Fisher King)

The story of a man who had everything, but found something more.

(wealth is no substitute for humanity in Regarding Henry)

The Jack Nicholson film The Last Detail worried many in the studio due to its liberal use of profanity. Indeed, the film was one of the first to make a point of using (gratuitous?) foul language. However, as the characters were rough sailors, the swearing was felt at the very least to be in character. Thus, when they went to make a tagline for the film, they sought to summarize the plot, but also to comically and provocatively capture the profanity, hence the tagline read: (n)o *#@!!* Navy's going to give some poor **!!@* kid eight years in the #@!* brig without me taking him out for the time of his *#@!!* life.

She made him become what he always wanted to be – a lover, a hero, a rich man... and a killer!

(is the city of dreams really to be found in Atlantic City)

It's not what he knows. It's what he understands.

(what a mother thinks of her extremely gifted son in Little Man Tate)

Getting there is half the fun; being there is all of it!

(you know it when you’re there: such is the magic of Being There)

Death comes to all except those who deserve it most.

(but it comes with a vengeance in 8 Million Ways to Die)

Inspiring confidence in hospital staff may not be the most enviable of tasks and in the case of The Hospital, the advertising team took to the task with due irony, creating the tagline Madness, Murder and Malpractice. However, they also optioned for a