Fun With Movie Title Translations

Posted Wednesday, February 16, 2011 12:25 PM | By Jeremy Stahl My expat sister recently sent me a photo of the French advertisement for Jesse Eisenberg's Holy Rollers, which is being released today in Paris. The American film is yet another in a long line of Eisenberg coming-of-age vehicles, with the hook this time being that the Social Network star plays an Orthodox Jew turned ecstasy peddler. What's notable about the French release, though, is the new English title that has been concocted:

To an American Jew, Jewish Connection conjures up images of an online dating alternative to JDate, or perhaps a twisted anti-Semitic conspiracy you might find on DavidDuke.com. But to a French audience that doesn't know the English expression "holy rollers," the new title sounds authentically American, while also telling them something about the film. ("Ah, Jewish means they wear funny hats, and Connection is like that Gene Hackman movie about drugs.")

French distributors specialize in crafting new titles for films when they don't think that their audience can handle fairly common English idiomatic expressions. But rather than translate these titles into French, they will often invent their own meaningless English expressions that they think will ring truer to the country's moviegoers (notice above how The Hangover has been made into Very Bad Trip). Unlike Jewish Connection, the new titles will more often than not involve some combination of the words crazy, sexy, and sex. Natalie Portman's recently released romantic comedy No Strings Attached, for example, was turned into Sex Friends, seemingly based on the film's American tagline.

When I was living in France myself, it felt like every month the Paris Metro would produce some new ridiculous poster for a crazy, sexy American film with an inexplicably altered English title like Sexy Movie (Date Movie) or Crazy Kung Fu (Kung Fu Hustle).

A quick search of IMDB.fr and call-out to my Slate colleagues produced these gems:

Mozart and the Whale —> Crazy in Love  

Step Up —> Sexy Dance  

Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj —> Sexy Party: Van Wilder 2  

Girl Fever —> American Sexy Girls

Coupling (the British TV series) —> Six Sexy

Date Night —> Crazy Night

And perhaps most perplexing of all, Crazy/Beautiful —> Sexy/Crazy

Sex and the City became Sex and the City: Le Film, though Crazy, Sexy Sex and the City: Le Film might have been more evocative.

Other countries, notably Germany, seem to make similar title changes on occasion, but we're not sure how prevalent the practice is around the globe. Please help us by sending in examples of these sorts of internationally massacred English titles, sexy, crazy, or otherwise (please send with IMDB link or some other independent confirmation). Post in the comments below or email browbeatslate@gmail.com. If we get enough, we'll post the best ones in a follow-up.

Photograph by Valerie Stahl.

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