Holidays, vacation days, and long winter nights: The Christmas season is the best time to snuggle up on the couch and watch a few classic movies for the second, third, or even tenth time. Unfortunately, there is one detail that frequently detracts a little from an otherwise cozy evening.
The title is our first exposure to a movie. It immediately triggers associations, which are sometimes deliberately misleading. Directors, studios, and distributors always carefully consider the titles they choose for their movies. However, translating these titles into German often misses the mark.
Many movies generate quite a buzz upon being released but only a few of them manage to remain compelling even after years or decades. In the end, only the best of the best become movie classics. The same applies to the translation of movie titles into German. Many have aged badly, especially when it comes to translating US titles.
They are also subject to trends. In the early days, German distributors established the practice of retaining the original foreign title but tagging on a German descriptor. This was apparently due to a lack of confidence in the German audience’s English skills in earlier decades.
We owe some of the worst German movie titles to these combinations, such as “Alien – Im Weltraum hört dich niemand schreien” (Alien – In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream), “Rashomon – Das Lustwäldchen” (Rashomon – The Pleasure Grove) or “The Dark – Angst ist deine einzige Hoffnung” (The Dark – Fear is Your Only Hope). The method of trying to make movie titles sensational by adding extras follows a long tradition.
German translations of movie titles reveal a lot about the time in which they were created. They often paint a fairly accurate picture of society at the time.
Zwei glorreiche Halunken | Two Glorious Scoundrels
(Il buono, il gross, il cattivo, Italy/Spain 1966)
Sergio Leone’s movie, the last part of his Dollars Trilogy, has Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee van Cleef competing to find the long-sought treasure. It’s a cynical movie that pits three equally brutal and disturbed characters against each other during the American Civil War. The original title, translated immaculately into English as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, is ironic: None of the three, not even the likeable character played by Eastwood, are good guys in this movie.
The German title is interesting for two reasons. For one, it arbitrarily reduces the plot to two characters despite the movie featuring three equally important leads. Moreover, the terms “glorious” and “scoundrel” don’t fit the plot. Both seem typical of a time when it was common to use trivializing, forced humor to create titles like Ich glaub’ mich knutscht ein Elch! (I think a moose is kissing me!). While the German title implies a comedy, the movie actually has a decidedly cynical plot, even if it avoids explicit depictions of violence.
Der weiße Hai | The Great White
(Jaws, USA 1975)
Jaws is a perfect title. The linguistic reduction to the apex predator’s terrifying teeth is not only extremely concise, but also immediately sparks the imagination. Clearly, the one-word title works perfectly, especially in combination with the iconic movie poster and the equally iconic soundtrack.
Der weiße Hai (The Great White Shark) is not a bad German title. It concisely and accurately defines the plot of Steven Spielberg’s horror classic, which remains as impactful as ever. However, it lacks the elegant sophistication of the original title.
…denn sie wissen nicht, was sie tun | …for they know not what they do
(Rebel Without a Cause, USA 1955)
Rebel Without a Cause? James Dean has plenty of reasons to be rebellious in the classic 1955 movie. In German, young people like his character Jim were referred to as “Halbstarke” (half-grown) at the time. Their frantic and often excessive anger was basically directed against the manifestations of their times – against the conservatism, bigotry, and speechlessness of their parents’ generation.
The translation ignores all that frustration and strikes back hard. The title reflects the utter contempt for the actions of young people as well as the refusal to consider their complicated reasons. This approach is morally elevated by the allusion to the Gospel of Luke, in which Christ on the cross asks God to forgive his torturers.
The decision to use this title may have been an attempt to follow up on the success of East of Eden with another biblical reference. Nevertheless, the responsible translators probably knew exactly what they were doing.
Hi-Hi-Hilfe! | He-He-Help!
(Help!, Great Britain 1965)
Help! was released in 1965 as the second Beatles feature film after Yeah Yeah Yeah. To be fair to the translators at the time, the title song, which was part of the soundtrack, only became a global hit after the movie was released. However, it remains unknown what drove them to mutilate the simple title in this manner.
It is also unclear whether the Beatles themselves were aware of the translation. According to the unanimous statements of the four musicians, the filming was accompanied by excessive marijuana consumption. So, it’s probably safe to assume that they would have found it funny.
Die zwölf Geschworenen | The Twelve Jurors
(12 Angry Men, USA 1957)
A starring role for Henry Fonda – and the magnum opus of burgeoning liberal Hollywood. Fonda and eleven other (white) jurors must decide the case of a dark-skinned teenager accused of murder. While all the jurors want to find him guilty without discussion, Fonda raises concerns. And he manages to convince them one by one that the defendant must be acquitted if there is any reasonable doubt.
The original title is interesting in two ways. It resolutely points out the motivation of the jurors without holding back: They are angry, driven by prejudices against everything they perceive as foreign, and therefore unable to properly fulfill their duty as unbiased jurors. At the same time, the title does not refer to eleven, but to all twelve jurors. This is an indication that Fonda must first overcome his own prejudices in order to act justly.
These are nuances that the tame German title misses. Perhaps this is also a sign of the times, when authorities in Germany and Austria were always treated with proper respect, even in movie titles.
And a quick side note: The excellent idea of leaving Henry Fonda’s protagonist nameless until the end was unnecessarily eliminated in the German dubbed version.
Onkel Paul, die große Pflaume | Uncle Paul, the Big Plum
(Hibernatus, France/Italy 1969)
Louis de Funès, the magnificent French comedian, clown, and unrivaled master of comedic frenzy, has a reputation as a superficial jester in German-speaking countries. This misperception has a lot to do with translation. The scion of a Spanish noble family had much more to offer than the German dubbing and titles of his movies would suggest.
The movies were made at a time when German dubbing studios had long since adopted the bad habit of translating intelligent humor into flat silliness. Hibernatus – or Der Winterschläfer (The Hibernator) – joins a long list of de Funès titles that nowadays sound more anguishing than humorous.
Fun fact: The movie was only released under the title Der Winterschläfer in the GDR (former East Germany).
Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod | Play Me the Song of Death
(Once Upon a Time in the West, USA 1968)
The German title is based on a quote from the movie. More precisely, the quote is from the German version, which, as in many other places, has added lines of dialogue for no apparent reason. The sentence appears in a scene that explains why Charles Bronson is out for bloody vengeance, which is indeed a key plot line.
But Sergio Leone’s epic, almost three-hour-long movie is much more than that. Leone paints a magnificent picture of the era when pioneers began to settle the southwestern United States. The storyline includes guilt and regret, loyalty and betrayal, as well as love and crushed hopes. But it also involves vengeance.
The German title of Once Upon a Time in the West (Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod | Play Me the Song of Death) is a typical example of movie titles that are intended to sound sensational, which is completely unnecessary for masterpieces like this one.
Der Stadtneurotiker | The Urban Neurotic
(Annie Hall, USA 1977)
With Annie Hall, Woody Allen finally established his reputation in Germany as a portrayer of extremely neurotic, highly educated characters who indulge in brilliant dialogues about depth psychology and philosophy, creativity and art—and, of course, sex. In this respect, the German title, “Der Stadtneurotiker” (The Urban Neurotic), is successful marketing.
However, the original title Annie Hall focuses on the female lead character played by Diane Keaton, not on the director and lead actor. She is at least as exciting and neurotic in the movie, but unfortunately the translated title specifically focuses on the male lead.
Hängt ihn höher | Hang Him Higher
(Hang ’em High, USA 1968)
The German title raises the suspicion that those involved were neither familiar with the movie nor particularly proficient in the English language. While the English title is Hang THEM High, the German translation is Hang HIM Higher.
Moreover, the title draws attention in the wrong direction. Clint Eastwood plays an innocent man who survives an attempted lynching and then returns as a marshal to gradually bring the perpetrators to justice. The original title perfectly describes the content of the movie: the hunt for the perpetrators. Its German counterpart describes what viewers already know after five minutes.
Beim Sterben ist jeder der erste | When It Comes to Dying, Everyone Is First
(Deliverance, USA 1972)
John Boorman’s classic, Deliverance, is a wonderful example of ambiguous titling, because deliverance here is a question of how you define it. Four self-confessed city dwellers (played by John Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, and Ronny Cox) want to prove their masculinity to themselves and each other and set off on a canoe trip in the American wilderness. They get caught up in a vortex of violence that not all of them will survive. Even the traumatized survivors are plagued with guilt.
The lurid German title Beim Sterben ist jeder der erste (When It Comes to Dying, Everyone Is First) is not only a strange statement in itself. It also manages to eliminate any ambiguity. John Boorman and his movie deserved much better.
Cocktail für eine Leiche | Cocktail for a Corpse
(Rope, USA 1948)
Two arrogant young men clearly misinterpret Nietzsche. They commit a supposedly perfect murder to prove that intellectual superiority justifies it. Dostoyevsky also sends his regards.
To celebrate their crowning achievement, they stow the body of their rather randomly chosen victim in a chest on which they set up the buffet for a party. Among the invited guests is their former teacher (James Stewart), who eventually uncovers the murder.
Alfred Hitchcock gave the movie a fittingly cool title with Rope. In addition to the suspense one would expect from such a crime thriller, it also thrives on moral and philosophical dialogues. Unfortunately, the German title Cocktail für eine Leiche (Cocktail for a Corpse) is more reminiscent of a crime comedy, which Rope definitely is not.
Die durch die Hölle gehen | Going Through Hell
(The Deer Hunter, USA 1978)
The Deer Hunter is one of the few anti-war movies that truly deserves this label. Three young men (played by Robert de Niro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage) volunteer to serve in the Vietnam War. What they experience there will kill one of them and leave the other two severely traumatized.
As one of the few movies on the subject, The Deer Hunter is set predominantly in the USA, not in the jungles of Vietnam. The three men’s shared love of hunting is reflected in the original title, which deliberately does not focus on the battleground.
Besides being linguistically peculiar, the German title sadly shifts the focus precisely to where director Michael Cimino did not want it to be.
Der Dummschwätzer | The Blabbering Fool
(Liar Liar, USA 1997)
Opinions are divided when it comes to Jim Carrey. Some simply find him exhausting, while others see him as the worthy successor to the great Jerry Lewis, whom the actor cites as his role model. In Liar Liar, Carrey plays a lawyer who suddenly finds himself unable to lie. Carrey plays up the resulting embarrassments with his usual over-the-top humor and exaggerated facial expressions.
Whoever came up with the idea of translating the title to “Der Dummschwätzer” (The Blabbering Fool) not only revived one of the worst traditions of earlier translation practices but also failed to understand that this movie is about anything but silly chatter.
Augen der Angst | Eyes of Fear
(Peeping Tom, Großbritannien 1960)
Peeping Tom destroyed two careers. Director Michael Powell was shunned by the industry after the release, and lead actor Karlheinz Böhm didn’t get any offers for many years. The fact that boring Austrian Emperor Franzl from the Sissi movies was suddenly supposed to be a sexually motivated serial killer was apparently unacceptable. It took a long time after its creation for Peeping Tom to be accepted as a masterpiece.
The first German dubbed version made a sincere effort to tone down the movie’s worst offenses. Most importantly, Augen der Angst (Eyes of Fear) obviously avoids pointing out the voyeuristic essence of the movie, unlike the overtly simple and glaringly egregious Peeping Tom.
Vertigo – Aus dem Reich der Toten | Vertigo – From the Realm of the Dead
(Vertigo, USA 1958)
With Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock created a true classic of surrealist cinema. At the same time, the movie clearly shows traces of Hitchcock’s fascination with Sigmund Freud – perhaps too blatantly obvious from today’s perspective, because breaking down psychoanalysis into Hollywood format seems somewhat banal nowadays.
The original title joins the list of Alfred Hitchcock’s one-word titles (see Marnie, Rebecca, Spellbound, Psycho, and others). More importantly, it reflects the psychological tone of the movie, since fear of heights is one of the most common phobias.
Once again, the translators inexplicably decided not to let the ambiguous title speak for itself. Instead, they invented an additional title that would be perfect for a movie by George A. Romero but certainly does not live up to the intention of the magnificent Vertigo.
Zombies im Kaufhaus | Zombies in the Department Store
(Dawn of the Dead, USA/Italien 1978)
Speaking of George A. Romero, when he finished Night of the Living Dead in 1968, he likely had no idea that he had just created an immortal cult classic of the splatter genre. Ten years later, Dawn of the Dead followed as the first of several sequels – just as rampantly brutal and equally funny as its predecessor. The movie is now part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
In Germany, the movie was given a title that was typical of its time. Apparently, the translators had little confidence in the audience’s capacity to understand figures of speech, allusions, or metaphors; in other words, anything that did not immediately explain what to expect. Instead, they picked movie titles that were straight to the point. Zombies im Kaufhaus (Zombies in the Department Store) is one of the worst examples of this genre.
Edipo Re – Bett der Gewalt | Edipo Re – Bed of Violence
(Edipo Re, Italien/Marokko 1967)
As a homosexual, Marxist, and atheist, Pier Paolo Pasolini epitomized the word scandal. As a director, his movies dealt with mythology, religion, and social injustice. That was all it took to cause constant uproar in Europe in the 1960s and 1970s.
In Edipo Re, Pasolini tackles the ancient myth of Oedipus, the story of a man who becomes guilty, through no fault of his own, of sleeping with his mother and killing his father. It is a complex work that projects the ancient material onto the (political) present of 1960s Italy on two parallel levels.
Since the translators couldn’t hide the scandalous nature of the title, they decided to reinforce it, giving Edipo Re an additional title that would be more suitable for a porn movie.
Eine Frage der Ehre | A Matter of Honor
(A Few Good Men, USA 1992)
A suspicious death at a US Marine base. The two investigators (played by Tom Cruise and Demi Moore) are faced with a wall of silence and a rigid code of honor.
Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, and the strikingly terrifying Jack Nicholson deliver a duel worth watching as they debate how far fulfillment of duty can go before it becomes immoral.
A Few Good Men is an unusually sarcastic title by Hollywood standards. After all, according to the code of honor, the perpetrators are indeed good men. By contrast, the German title, Eine Frage der Ehre (A Matter of Honor), is so arbitrary that it could be used for just about any other movie.
Hügel der blutigen Augen | The Hills of Bloody Eyes
(The Hills Have Eyes, USA 1977)
Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes is clearly an absurdly exaggerated splatter movie. However, it is also a masterful exploration of primal human fears and full of socio-political allusions.
In the solitude of the Californian desert, an average American family encounters attackers who have been horribly mutated and mutilated as a result of earlier nuclear tests. The original title does not focus on the excessive violence, but rather on the feeling of being watched that pervades the entire movie in an unsettling way. By contrast, the German title played it safe.
Fun fact: In one German dubbed version, the adversaries became aliens. It seems that the obvious criticism of nuclear armament was unwanted.
King Kong und die weiße Frau | King Kong and the White Woman
(King Kong, USA 1933)
For our final example, we go way back in time. When King Kong was released in theaters in 1933—the progenitor of what feels like an endless number of remakes and sequels—it quickly became a box office blockbuster. This was not only attributable to its special effects, which were outstanding for the time,
but also because the movie was a veritable scandal. Even almost a century ago, most viewers realized it was an allegory for taboo sexual desires. This was a factor that the German translators (it’s safe to assume they were men) emphasized with the title King Kong und die weiße Frau (King Kong and the White Woman). They also managed to add racist undertones.
