One-word titles are good only when they are especially apt.  Such titles as “Jealousy,” “Retribution,” “Chains,” “Rivals” and “Memories” have been worn threadbare.

“Eschew titles that are gloomy, as ‘The Sorrow of an Old Convict,’ Loti; or old style, ‘Christian Gellert’s Last Christmas,’ Auerbach; or trite, ‘The Convict’s Return,’ Harben; or newspapery, ’Rescued by a Child;’ or highly fantastic, ‘The Egyptian Fire Eater,’ Baumbach; or anecdotal, ‘A Fishing Trip;’ or sentimental, ‘Hope,’ Bremer; or repellent, ‘A Memorable Murder,’ Thaxter."[10]

[Footnote 10:  J. Berg Esenwein, Writing the Short-Story.]

“The American editor, like the heiress, is willing, anxious, to pay big money for a genuine title; only she is on the lookout for an old one, he for a new,” says Mr. Harry Cowell, in The Magazine Maker.  And though he speaks of titles for fiction stories, what he says exactly fits when applied to photoplay writing.  Again, Mr. Cowell says that “the best of titles, once used, is bad”—­for re-use, of course.

Mr. Epes Winthrop Sargent remarks:  “There are dozens of instances of title-duplication to be noted in the past year, some of the titles being used more than twice.  A matter of greater moment is to avoid duplication of plot.”  It is of still greater moment to avoid both.  Because he discovered that the Essanay Company was about to release a picture called “Her Adopted Father,” a certain writer changed the title of one of his stories from “His Adopted Mother” to “The Bliss of Ignorance.”  This avoided, not a duplication, but a too great similarity in titles; at the same time the change was an improvement, when one considers the theme of the story.

As a photoplay author, you should subscribe for one of the trade-papers, if for no other reason than to keep posted on the titles of the various subjects released by the different manufacturers.  In this way you will have a much better chance of avoiding the repetition of titles.  It goes without saying that originality in a title is only less desirable than originality in a plot; yet every now and then some manufacturer will release a picture with a title similar to, or even quite the same as, one already produced by some other company.  For example, on July 15th, some years ago, Lubin released a picture called “Honor Thy Father.”  Four days later, on the 19th, Vitagraph put out a picture with the same title.  Yet this was the merest coincidence.  On August 17th of the same year Reliance released “A Man Among Men,” while Selig’s “A Man Among Men” was released November 18th.  The plots were totally different, and the Selig story was written and produced in the plant before any announcement of the Reliance picture was made.  Again, on January 8, of the next year, Selig released “The Man Who Might Have Been.”  Twelve days later, Edison put on the market “The Man He Might Have Been,” by James Oppenheim.

The exhibitor is the one who suffers as a result of these similarities in titles; many people see the poster and imagine they have seen the picture before, not noticing the difference in the make of film, and so go elsewhere to see some show that is entirely fresh to them.  Therefore keep posted, as fully as possible, as to what the manufacturers are putting out.