MovieChat Forums > Black Widow (1954) Discussion > Confusing Title?

Confusing Title?

posted 18 years ago by mojo2004
6 replies | jump to latest

This is a pretty good movie with a soap opera and whodunit combined.I'm only mad because Fox Movie Channel just showed it and had the wrong title up.They had the title and information from the Debra Winger picture of the same name.Plus since there is NO Black Widow IN this movie I had a hard time trying to find it since I couldn't remember the character names when I pulled up the actor profiles.Even someone on in their "comments" referred to Ginger Rogers as Iris the character that was played by Gene Tierney.Ginger was Lottie.

"Be kind to the people you meet on the way up.They're the same folks you meet on the way down!"

[–] tday-1 17 years ago

Hi,one can never be too rich or have too many friends. I think title referred to Giner's character. She had the personality of a black widow,the predatory female of the species destroying its mate for its own purposes.

[–] helitzur 16 years ago

For what it's worth, the old trailer for the movie, which is included on the DVD, explicitly describes the Peggy Ann Garner character as the "black widow."

[–] npaxton-3 11 years ago

Agreed. Nancy was the one who lived off and entrapped several men even though she came across as the innocent. Ginger Rogers appeared to be a controlling diva who dominated her husband in every way. In the end we find out that she needed him just as much as he needed her.

[–] Tjanssen411 10 years ago

the Cable channel screwing up the Title is fairly common actually...

I cannot tell you the number of times in the last 20 years I've seen a listing for 'Batman' citing Nicholson and Keaton from 1989, only to tune in to find the 1966 Adam West Film
-- another commonly mistaken Title is 'Catch me if you Can' most people are aware of the DiCaprio/Hanks movie from the 00s, but there was also a 1980s Indy which marked the Directorial debut of Steven Sommers (Mummy Franchise)... heck occasionally even 'The Mummy' gets confused with the classic versions as well

it's a side effect of recycling titles

as to this film's use of 'Black Widow', my guess is there is a degree of 'language creep' and that the term simply had a broader meaning in the 50s and over time it settled into the specific use we are most familiar with...

the Best examples of this I can think of are terms like 'Making Love' which used to mean courting, wooing, or even flirting... sometime since the 30's it evolved into a euphemism for Sex (which can be confusing when a Character cites their skill in 'making Love' and you know bragging about sexual prowess would NOT have made it past censors of the era)

-- another darker one is 'Rape'... the original meaning was simply 'Take by Force' it has since been fine tuned to specifically mean to take by force sexually... which technically means all those gamer who decry "I got raped.' when horribly beaten in a game are arguably correct under the original meaning... They're probably too stupid to know this, but they're accidentally correct

[–] franzkabuki 9 years ago

Well, the voiceover in the beginning announces that the black widow is the kind of spider that devours its mate... However, in the film no mates are devoured; even though Garner's character is quite predatory, she gets offed herself.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] MyMovieTVRomance 9 years ago

For the point you just made, I think that the title was a poor choice. But at the same time, the opening credits are so great, with the spider and everything, but I would hate for it to a not then what it is.

Perhaps the plot would've been better if it had included a widow aspect or something. Or if the girl was plotting to kill her guy instead of herself, maybe that would've been better. It would've been better had she been the murder suspect, instead of him.

But the way it turned out, I interpreted it like the girl was the black widow, because without even suspecting her, she was weaving her web of interference in everyone's lives, thus killing their marriages and relationships. So, she was killing – just another way. That's the way I have to look at it, to make sense of the title.

Please excuse typos/funny wording; I use speech-recognition that doesn't always recognize!