Opening Credits - History

History

Up until the 1970s, closing credits for films usually listed only a reprise of the cast members with their roles identified, or even simply just said "The End", requiring opening credits to normally contain the details. For instance, the title sequence of the 1968 film Oliver! runs for about three-and-a-half minutes, and while not listing the complete cast, does list nearly all of its technical credits at the beginning of the film, all set against a background of what appear to be, but in fact are not, authentic nineteenth-century engravings of typical London life. The only credit at film's end is a listing of most of the cast, including cast members not listed at the beginning. These are set against a replay of some of the "'Consider Yourself" sequence.

Some opening credits are presented over the opening sequences of a film, rather than in a separate title sequence. The opening credits for the 1993 film The Fugitive continued intermittently over several opening scenes, and did not finish until fifteen minutes into the film. The opening credits for the 1968 film Once Upon a Time in the West lasted for fourteen minutes.

The first sound film to begin without any opening credits was Walt Disney's Fantasia, released in 1940. In the film's general release, a title card and the credit "Color by Technicolor" were spliced onto the beginning of the film, but otherwise there were no credits, although closing credits were added to the 1990 re-release and are on the videocassette. This general release version has been the one most often seen by audiences. In the roadshow version of the film, unseen by most audiences until its DVD release, the title card is seen only at the halfway point of the film, as a cue that the intermission is about to begin. The intermission was omitted in the general release version.

Orson Welles' Citizen Kane begins with only a title credit. This practice was extremely uncommon during that era.

West Side Story (1961) begins with a shot of an ink sketch of the New York City skyline as it was when the film was made. As the background of the shot changes color several times, we hear an overture medley (not in the original show) of some of the film's songs. As the overture ends, the camera pulls back and we see the title of the film the rest of the credits are shown as graffiti at the end of the film.

Most Disney films between 1937 and 1981 had all the film-related information in the opening credits, while the closing just consisted of the credit "The End: A Walt Disney Production", nothing else. However, Mary Poppins was the first Disney film to have longer closing credits, in which all the principal cast members (and the characters that they played) were listed.

Most Soviet films presented all film-related information in the opening credits, rather than at the closing which consist of just a "THE END" (Russian: КОНЕЦ ФИЛЬМА, Konyets Fily-ma) title, nothing else. A typical Soviet opening credits sequence starts with a film company's logo (Mosfilm, Lenfilm, etc.), the film's title, followed by the scenarist (the Soviet Union considered the scriptwriter the principal "auteur" of its films), followed by the director, usually on separate screens, then continuing with screens showing other credits, of varying number, and finally, the film's chief administrator-in-charge, the production director (Russian: Директор картины, Direktor kartiny). Following this came the cast, usually in actor-and-role format for all principal and major featured players, and perhaps then a screen just naming, in an alphabetical cluster, some additional character players. The final credit screen identified the studio corresponding to the logo at the beginning, and the year of the film's production. It could also contain the frame with the technical information about the cinematographic film manufacturer (e.g., Svema).

This basic method was also followed in most American films from the 1930s through the late 1980s, though, obviously, in American films there was no censoring of the director's name, except in cases of blacklisting. American films also tended to list the names of the actors before the names of the directors, screenwriters, etc. Exceptions were made in the films of director Frank Capra, whose name was usually billed before the film's title. Director Victor Fleming's name was also billed before those of the actors in films such as The Wizard of Oz, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Joan of Arc. Capra, Fleming, and James Whale were three of the few directors who received the credit "A (insert director's name here) Production" even though they did not produce their films.

François Truffaut's 1966 film Fahrenheit 451 uses spoken opening credits instead of written ones, in keeping with the film's story of a world without reading matter.