In their increasing eagerness to capture a wider viewing audience for their annual awards ceremony, you would think the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences would create a few more categories that could generate some genuine interest with the average moviegoer. How about Best Title Credits? It’s an art form in its own right. Graphic designer Saul Bass certainly proved that years ago with his innovative opens for the films of Otto Preminger (Carmen Jones, The Man With the Golden Arm, Saint Joan, Bonjour Tristesse, Anatomy of a Murder, Advise and Consent, Exodus, The Cardinal and several more) and Alfred Hitchcock (Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho). Other title designers you might recognize are Stephen Frankfurt (To Kill a Mockingbird, Rosemary’s Baby), Pablo Ferro (Dr. Strangelove, Being There) and Maurice Binder (Dr. No, Charade). Even before them, opening title credits were a key component of the film, often setting the tone and even encapsulating the movie’s theme or storyline into a compact visual nugget.
Here are twelve striking examples that come to mind when I think back on favorite films or ones which couldn’t quite match the brilliance of their title credits.
- GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 (1933)
This is a typical but classic example of how Warner Brothers used a familiar template to open a motion picture. It would start with a simple but stylish title treatment – in this case, an Art Deco influenced illustration of dancers encircled by bands of gold over which the names of the main contributors appear. Then a gold coin labeled 1933 appears and within that framework the main cast members appear in order of importance, starting with Warren William and ending with Ginger Rogers, who breaks into the opening number “We’re in the Money.” In these Pre-Code, Prohibition era movies, the main character always had distinctive names that often reflected their characters’ such as boy-near-door romantic lead Dick Powell (billed here as Brad and usually playing peppy, upbeat heroes named Scotty, Jimmy or Dick) or street wise dancer Aline MacMahon with names like Trixie, Olga, Bertha or Lizzie.
- MAD LOVE (1935)
Karl Freund’s atmospheric rendering of the oft-filmed novel The Hands of Orlac stars Peter Lorre and the credits appear as ghostly writing on a windowpane.
- KISS ME DEADLY (1955)
After a mysterious open where Ralph Meeker (as private eye Mike Hammer) picks up a frantic hitchhiker (Cloris Leachman) on a deserted road at night, the credits roll down the car windshield at a sharp angle while the soundtrack broadcasts music from the radio.
- WALK ON THE WILD SIDE (1962)
Unlike most of Saul Bass’s credits which used graphic designs, lettering or a single image in an almost abstract presentation, this lurid melodrama directed by Edward Dmytyrk utilizes a real cat prowling through a variety of settings to the tune of Elmer Bernstein’s swaggering theme song.
- THE THREE LIVES OF THOMASINA (1963)
Numerous Walt Disney movies have dazzling opening credits but this one draws you immediately into its floor level view of the world starting with the title character’s face peering into a mouse hole accompanied by a lulling song for pre-schoolers.
- BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964)
Mario Bava’s highly influential giallo thriller is set in an elegant fashion salon and the hypnotic credit sequence featuring a sultry tango-like theme song by Carlo Rustichelli gives each key player in the movie their own individual showcase. Encompassing both suspects and victims (which are revealed as the film progresses), this opening presents each actor frozen in place like a mannequin amid a fantastical tableau of colored lights and shadows.
- THE HAWKS AND THE SPARROWS (1966)
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1966 philosophical comedy features a delightful title sequence which is sung in mock-opera style to Ennio Morricone’s playfully eccentric theme music.
- FAHRENHEIT 451 (1966)
Francois Truffaut’s first and only venture into an English language film was generally deemed a disappointment but the title credits were unique in that they were read over a montage of television antennas.
- THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977)
No list of great title credit sequences would be complete without a James Bond film represented but I love the way this one transitions from an opening action sequence – Roger Moore as 007 skiing off a cliff into thin air and drifting down, down, down – into the stylish graphics accompanied by Carly Simon’s hit single.
- MIMIC (1997)
Guillermo del Toro’s shamefully neglected urban horror thriller from 1997 has a mesmerizing open designed by Kyle Cooper, who also created the more famous title credits to Se7en.
- THE SAFETY OF OBJECTS (2001)
An offbeat independent film that followed in the wake of American Beauty and also explored dysfunctional families in suburbia. The movie had a despairing one-note tone despite a game cast (Glenn Close, Dermot Mulroney, Mary Kay Place, Timothy Olyphant, Patricia Clarkson, Kristen Stewart, etc.) but the opening credits in which the main characters are represented by figurines emerging from cuckoo clocks is inspired.
- CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (2002)
Steven Spielberg’s entertaining account of real-life con artist Frank W. Abagnale (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) was a return to the classic form of Saul Bass in its opening credits – a playfully shifting animated design that sets up the film’s deceptively lighthearted tone.
Other links of interest:
https://www.artofthetitle.com/
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/10-greatest-opening-title-sequences-cinema-history/
https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/biography_maurice_binder
https://variety.com/2012/scene/news/ad-man-stephen-frankfurt-dies-at-81-1118060072/
Cinema Sojourns 