Confusing Movie Titles

August 30, 6:52 PMClassic TV ExaminerDoug Krentzlin

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                         (Paramount Pictures)

In 1936, Alfred Hitchcock made two movies. The first one was based on Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden stories and was titled Secret Agent. The second one was based on Joseph Conrad’s novel The Secret Agent. Since it would be ludicrous to have two Hitchcock films back-to-back with the same title, the film version of The Secret Agent was titled Sabotage. When a more faithful version of the Conrad novel was made in 1996, they used the title The Secret Agent. Incidentally, the 1943 Superman cartoon Secret Agent has nothing to do with either Maugham or Conrad’s stories.

In 1941, Columbia Pictures made a film version of Harry Segal’s play Heaven Can Wait and titled it Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Two years later, Ernst Lubitch made a film based on an obscure Hungarian play called Birthday and gave it the title Heaven Can Wait. Four years later, Columbia made a sequel to Here Comes Mr. Jordan called Down to Earth. In 1978, Warren Beatty made a remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan for Paramount Pictures, but used the original title Heaven Can Wait. In 2001, Chris Rock made a third film version of Heaven Can Wait called Down to Earth.

Also in 1941, 20th Century Fox made an installment of the Michael Shayne, Private Eye series called Dressed to Kill. Five years later, Universal Pictures made a Sherlock Holmes mystery called Dressed to Kill which had nothing to do with the Michael Shayne film. Brian DePalma’s 1980 movie Dressed to Kill was not related to the earlier two films, but instead was a shameless rip-off of Hitchcock’s Psycho.

In 1944, Howard Hawks made a film for Warner Brothers that was ostensibly based on Ernest Hemingway’s novel To Have and Have Not starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Because he disliked the novel, Hawks retained only the main character and the title To Have and Have Not and made a semi-remake of Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca. Six years later, Warners needed a vehicle for John Garfield. They remembered that they owned the rights to a Hemingway novel they never filmed, so they had Michael Curtiz make a faithful film version of To Have and Have Not starring Garfield. Since the title had already been used, the new film was called The Breaking Point.

To sum it all up: Secret Agent (1936) and Secret Agent (1943) are not based on The Secret Agent, but The Secret Agent (1996) is. Heaven Can Wait (1943) is not based on Heaven Can Wait, but Heaven Can Wait (1978) is. Down to Earth (1947) is a sequel to Here Comes Mr. Jordan, but Down to Earth (2001) is a remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan. To Have and Have Not (1944) is not based on To Have or Have Not, but The Breaking Point (1950) is. Dressed to Kill (1941) has nothing to do with Dressed to Kill (1946) and neither does Dressed to Kill (1980).

Got all that?