My first blogathon, part 1

A couple of weeks back, one of the blogs in my blogroll had a post with her entry in the blogathon Favorite Movie Titles Blogathon. Normally, I end up not taking part in blogathons, not because of any antisocial tendencies, but because I find out about them too late, or don't have anything new to blog about that would fit the theme of the blogathon. I could revisit an old movie, but I get the impression that kind of misses the point of a blogathon. But this one was different. The theme is, for each of the 26 letters of the alphabet, come up with the best movie title you can think of beginning with that letter. Not the best movie, but the best title. That sounded like a lot of fun, but it was also kind of difficult. A couple of letters offered so many possibilities, while others stumped me. Due to the length of the post, I'm breaking it up into two parts, with letters A-M today, and letters N-Z tomorrow.

A: Aggie Appleby, Maker of Men. A fun little pre-Code, with a title that sounds part mysterious, and part racy.

B: Bop Girl Goes Calypso. Terrible, on oh so many levels. But it's the sort of terrible that's so terrible you'll wind up laughing at just how awful it it. A college professor uses a device that looks like an applause meter to determine that the latest music craze, bop, os on the way out, and that it will be replaced by the new craze, calypso. Yeah, calypso really was a thing back in the late 1950s for a year or so. Add bad musical numbers and some mildly creepy characters, and you've got yourself a disaster.

C: Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?. This is one that I'll admit I've never seen before. I don't remember when I first came across the title, but it's a title that's always stuck in my mind for being so bizarre. Another one of these will be coming up later. If I had to limit it to movies I've seen, I think The Creature With the Atom Brain might be my choice.

D: Die! Die! My Darling!. Perhaps I shouldn't have included this one, since the original title was, I believe, Fanatic, having been changed for US audiences. But the US title is great, and this is one of the movies that I really like. Tallulah Bankhead as a Jesus freak, punishing one-time daughter-in-law to be because.... Well, that part would give a key plot point away.

E: >Elevator to the Gallows. E was a letter I had some difficulty coming up with a good selection for. There are probably better choices, but Elevator to the Gallows is an intriguing title, and a pretty darn good movie to boot.

F: Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. Exclamation points seem to have something to do with good titles, although I think this is the last of the two that have multiple exclamation points. It's not the world's greatest movie, but boy is it a lot of fun.

G: The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing. There are probably a bunch of movies whose titles start with "The Girl...", making G another difficult letter. The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing probably isn't the best title by far, but it was the best I could think of offand, being intriguing like Elevator to the Gallows.

H: Hips, Hips, Hooray. Sounds like a racy title, doesn't it? But it'w a Wheeler and Woolsey comedy. That's not to say anything bad about Wheeler and Woolsey, although I know there are going to be people who don't always go for that brand of humor. It's just to say you're not getting anything as racy as the title.

I: I Married a Monster From Outer Space. I was an extremely difficult letter to pick a movie for, mostly because there are so many good choices from movies beginning with the pronoun I. One could probably go a month doing only posts on movies beginning with the pronoun I, and not run out of fun titles. If I had been forced to pick something beginning with a word other than I, I think I might have gone for It's Trad, Dad.

J: Joe and Ethel Turp Call on the President. This is another movie that I have to admit to not having seen before. I first came across the title when I was looking up the movies of Marsha Hunt (still alive at 96 according to IMDb) after seeing Kid Glove Killer. This title quite obviously stuck out, and I've been waiting for TCM to show this MGM B-movie ever since. I think that's coming up on eight or nine years now.

K: Knife in the Water. Another letter I had difficulty coming up with a title for. There's not much to say.

L: Ladies They Talk About. As with Hips, Hips, Hooray, this is a title that sounds vaguely scandalous or racy. Ladies They Talk About does turn out to be more interesting in that sense than Hips, Hips, Hooray.

M: Mississippi Mermaid. M was another letter I had trouble coming up with a good title for, and after quite a bit of thought settled on Mississippi Mermaid, since it sounds intriguing. There's no actual mermaid here, unlike Miranda, and "Mississippi" refers to a ship. The basic story of this François Truffaut movie is a man on Réunion, an island in the Indian Ocean that's an Overseas Department of France, gets a mail-order bride, only to find out she's not all he thought he was getting. In fact, she's quite the femme fatale.

Coming up tomorrow, letters N-Z.