[sStevenRitziI]

The doorways into movies. They set the tone, backstory, character development, and transition; not to be confused with opening title credits, with which they share only one function - contractually required screen credit.

The opening credit was the layout of a movie until the 1950s. In the early years, most movies listed all the credits at the start. with a simple "The End" at the finish. Gradually, some credits were transferred to the end, but the opening remained a static listing of title, actors, director, etc., usually accompanied by an overture from the score.

Some early creativity from the 1949 The Third Man, in which Zither music was prominent.

The birth of the modern title sequence was in 1955, and its father was Saul Bass, a graphic designer who created the opening for Otto Preminger's Man With the Golden Arm, a story about a musician's heroin addiction. Regarding his work, Bass had said that his goal was “to create a climate for the story that’s about to unfold.” The title shouldn't upstage the movie, and therefore, can't be judged as a stand-alone art form, but how well it compliments what follows.

Bass created the titles for three notable Alfred Hitchcock films, along with a master of the music score, Bernard Herrmann

Vertigo (1958)

North By Northwest (1959)
Modernist building as grid for kinetic typography. One of Hitchcock's best cameos.

Psycho (1960)
Some similarities in style with their previous work.

Herrmann's edgy all-string score. After the hectic pace of the title sequence, the movie opens with a subdued shot of a Phoenix afternoon. Hitchcock said, "I played the audience like a violin."

Typical 1960s graphics:

The Pink Panther (1964)

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
The figures flying off the spinning globe at the end relates to the movie. A tweak at actors' egos (there were many in the film) with the switching of billing.

The time-frame of Catch Me if You Can (2002) is established in the opening graphics.

Other notable title sequences:

Sweeney Todd (2007)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)
The only sex in the movie.

Se7en (1995)

Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Love this one.

Halloween (1978)

Thank You For Smoking (2006)
Clever.


The title sequence that I think is still a benchmark after 4 decades was created by an ad agency graphic designer and art director. In the early 1950s, Stephen Frankfurt graduated Pratt Institute and headed for Hollywood. None of the studios were interested, so he headed back east, and developed notable ad campaigns, such as Wings Of Man for Eastern Airlines, not the crass We Earn Our Wings Every Day theme it degenerated into. He eventually became the youngest president of Young & Rubicam

In 1962, producer who knew Frankfurt from his Hollywood days, asked him to create the title sequence for his movie.

YouTube and other links are dead, had to find a hi-res clip. Just as well:

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
A few notes of the Bernstein score play at the studio logo, then fade to a child's voice. A cigar box of memories. Inside the box, Gregory Peck. The window on the marbles. The wavy line that echoes the ball-chain. The music credit is displayed by bringing a whistle into focus.

Another notable:

Raging Bull (1980)

The ring appears huge, yet the boxer is confined to one edge, a self-made cage in which he paces like an animal. The slow-motion shadow-boxing and melancholy intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana prologue the tragedy that will unfold. This isn't Rocky.


There had been movement in the film industry over the last decade or so away from title sequences, to get right into the movie. Put everything into impossibly long closing credits, which can be sped up for TV rebroadcasts, and still satisfy the lawyers. Also, the expense; separate artists must be hired.

I think it would be a mistake if the art-form disappeared.