As I compiled this list of movies, I discovered many western movies didn’t have taglines or the taglines were terrible. I’ll get these out of the way first.
WHAT is a tagline?
A tagline is a short, clever line or couple of lines found
on a movie’s poster or on a book cover,.
I’ll share 20-ish movies each month February through November. January and December will look like this:
JANUARY: 1) Great taglines from well-known non-western movies to show how a tagline can enhance our interest in the movie. 2) Many western movies that have awful taglines or no taglines at all.
DECEMBER: 1) I’ll list the movie taglines I think are outstanding, as in I'm saving the best for last. 2) I’ll offer my tagline suggestions for western movies I think deserved better taglines. 3) I will also have a spreadsheet with all the movies and taglines from this series available for downloading.
Good taglines of non-western movies to get us in the mindset:
Mr. Majestyk
He didn't want to be a hero...until the day they pushed him
too far.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
We are not alone.
The Sound of Music
The Happiest Sound in All the World.
Taxi Driver
On every street in every city in this country, there is a
nobody who dreams of being a somebody.
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
The nearer they get to the treasure the farther they get
from the law.
Ghostbusters
Who ya gonna call?
Dirty Harry
You don't assign him to murder cases. You just turn him
loose.
The 'Burbs
He's a man of peace in a savage land...Suburbia
Deliverance
This is the weekend they didn't play golf
Saturday Night Fever
Catch it
Monsters, Inc.
We scare, because we care
Forrest Gump
Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're
gonna get.
Hellboy
…from the other side to our side
Shindler's List
The list is life.
Highlander
There can be only one
O’ Brother Where Art Thou?
They have a plan, but not a clue…
Christmas Vacation
Yule crack up
12 Angry Men
Life is in their hands – Death is on their minds.
Platoon
The first casualty of war is innocence
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Have the adventure of your life keeping up with the Joness
Chicken Run
Escape or die frying
Star Wars
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away
Jaws
You’ll never go in the water again
JANUARY WESTERN MOVIE TAGLINES that are missing or are terrible:
24 Great Stars In The Mightiest Adventure Ever Filmed!
Rio Lobo (1970)
Give ‘em Hell, John (1970)
Westward the Women (1951) No tagline
Arrowhead (1953) No tagline
Bandolero! (1968)
There are “Westerns” and “Westerns”. Every now and then
comes a NEW kind of Western. This is “BANDOLERO!
The Big Sky (1952)
Theirs the great adventure… (sic)
Giants who carved America from wilderness! SURGING from the
pages of the best-seller that thrilled millions…the towering story of the men
who conquered the untamed Norwest!
Bite the Bullet (1975)
In the tradition of Shane and High Noon. A new Western
Classis is born!
Viva Zapata! (1952) No tagline
Broken Lance (1954 No tagline
Burning Hills (1956)
The shy guy from “Battle Cry’
The girl from ‘Rebel without a Cause’
Wild Times (1980) No tagline
Together for the first time—James Stewart – John Wayne—in the masterpiece of four-time Academy Award winner John Ford.
Fort Apache (1948) No tagline
Shalako (1968)
Sean Connery is SHALAKO!
SHALAKO MEANS Action! Action Means Bardot!
I Will Fight No More Forever (1975) No tagline
Lonesome Dove (1989)
The epic film as big as the West.
My Darling Clementine (1946) No tagline
Rio Grande (1950) John Ford’s greatest romantic triumph!
Quick and the Dead (1987) No tagline
River of No Return (1954)
Engulfs you in a flood of excitement! And she can sing, too!
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
John Ford’s New and Finest Picture of the Fighting Cavalry!
The Sacketts (1979) No tagline
Unforgiven (1960)
Stands Tall and Proud Among the Screen Giants!
Gone to Texas (1986) No tagline
The Lonely Man (1957) No tagline
The Virginian (1946) No tagline
The two on this list I’m most disappointed in are How the West was Won and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. I will remedy this most egregious Hollywood oversight in December.
See you in February with more western movies taglines,
Kaye Spencer
This is very entertaining and interesting Kaye - thanks for putting this together for us!
ReplyDeleteJ.E.S. - I've compiled 200-ish western movies. So many of the taglines are just awful or don't exist. I've noticed the older the movie, the less likely it is to have a tagline. It is entertaining, that's for sure. ;-)
DeleteKaye...when I think of the work you put in on this, it boggles my mind. I LOVE THIS! You know, I just thought every movie had a tagline, just like every book has a blurb. HOW WRONG I WAS! Can't believe some of these had NO taglines, and just how terrible so many of them were! I'm looking forward to this series you're blogging about. This is so interesting!
ReplyDeleteIt has taken a lot of time to gather the movies and taglines. As I enter the movies into the spreadsheet, I will make another attempt to locate taglines for the movies that I initially didn't find a tagline for. The way I've done this is to search for movie posters.
DeleteSome of those 'horrid' tag lines come from a time when they were either hoping to cash in on the success of similar fillms or they were counting on the director or star to pull the people in. (It looks like they didn't think they had a winner on their hands. At least it looks that way to me.) Doris
ReplyDeletePS. Love the idea for this series.
I absolutely agree with you. Hollywood depended on the big names - John Wayne, Howard Hawks, Jimmy Stewart, and so on - to carry the movie's success.
DeleteThanks for putting this together. It was a lot of fun reading the tag lines. Your blog encouraged me to go back through the books I have written and check them for the tag lines. Some were unintentionally written. Something I need to work on in the future. Thanks, again, for all your work.
ReplyDeleteBob Brunelle