Sayings, proverbs, and well-known quotations are a fruitful source of titles, as we have already intimated.  But sometimes the real significance and value of such a title are not apparent to a great many of the spectators until they have witnessed the climax of the picture.  This arises from their ignorance of literature and is, of course, their loss.  Many good and extremely appropriate titles of this character are taken from the Psalms, from Shakespeare, and other poets.  Frequently these quotations, used as titles, are so well known, and their meanings so apparent, that almost every one of the spectators will at once understand them, and catch at least the theme or general drift of the story from the title.  Sometimes, again, the real significance of a title is best brought out by repeating it, or even the complete quotation from which it is taken, in the form of a leader at the point in the action where its significance cannot fail to be impressed upon the spectators.  For example, a certain Selig release was entitled “Through Another Man’s Eyes.”  Before the next to the last scene, which showed the ne’er-do-well lover peering in at the window, while his former friend bends over to kiss his wife—­who might have been the wife of the wayward young man, had he been made of different stuff—­the leader was introduced: 

     “How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through
     another man’s eyes!”

     —­SHAKESPEARE, As You Like It.

5. The Time to Choose a Title

Notwithstanding that the title is the first in position on the writer’s script, as well as on the film as exhibited, it is frequently the last thing decided upon.  A writer may have his theme well in hand, know every motive of every character, have settled to almost the minutest detail just how his scenes are going to work out as they unfold his story, yet, when he begins his first draft of the script, he may not have the slightest idea of what title he will eventually give it.

On the other hand, he may create a story from the title.  Having hit upon an expression that suggests a story by starting a train of thought, he may find that it is directly responsible for the way in which he builds his plot; its very words suggest the nature of the story, and supply at least a suggestion of how it can be developed—­they hint at a possible plot, suggest the setting, and show, almost as one might guess the theme of a novel by glancing for a moment at one of the illustrations, what the probable outcome of the story will be.  Hence the expression becomes a natural title for the photoplay.

As an example of the foregoing, in “The Fiction Factory,” by “John Milton Edwards,” the author says that “the sun, sand and solitude of the country God forgot” did, or caused, or made something—­just what does not now matter.  The point is that those ten words supplied one of the present authors with not only titles for two of his photoplays, but with the plot-germ for the plays themselves.  Both are stories of Arizona:  “Sun, Sand and Solitude,” and “In the Country God Forgot.”