[Jim Hayes]

I guess I'd be a bit more confident about Marion's piece and indeed yours and Sam's Bob, mine, for all it's undoubted inclusiveness, I don't think is a 'fit'.

[Roger Slater]

I do think that Marion's is a contender for using so many titles and actually making a coherent poem out of it about the movie Rebecca. But Jim, making any kind of sense (as you more than do) while packing in 40 title has to be worth at least an honorable mention, and possibly a win. It's awesome. Mine uses half the titles and doesn't make more sense than yours.

[Marion Shore]

Bill Greenwell, where are you in all this? I confess to a suspicion you're cooking up something rich and strange, to sabotage the rest of us.

Jim, how about one with ALL the titles? And the cameo.

Bob, though Jim's is a dazzling feat of virtuousity, I have to say, yours does make more sense. Sorry.

[Marion Shore]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

... Jim used 40 titles, and I think he may have thrown in six or eight Fellini titles and nine chess defenses just to make the rest of us feel like pishers, so don't go shopping yet with the prize money.

Shoot! I just made a down payment on a Prius!

[Roger Slater]

OK, for a personal best, here's 23:


23 BY HITCH

Last night I sat and drank champagne
with two dark strangers on a train,
"Mr. and Mrs. Smith," they said.
I had my suspicion, but nodded my head.

North by northwest, we rode the rail
speaking of sabotage, topaz, blackmail,
the notorious skin game, the farmer's wife,
the thirty nine steps to a rich and strange life,

the birds out the window (she said "I'm a birder"),
and what would it take to justify murder.
She said, "For myself, it would take maybe like, oh,
the slightest offense to render me psycho.

"I killed on the lifeboat, with rope. I confess."
And I was the man, then, who wished to know less,
the man who knew too much . . . without
the ring of easy virtue or the shadow of a doubt.

[John Whitworth]

Hell, we are GOOD, aren't we? Of course in another part of the wood Greenwell has already dispatched his exocet. But what of him? Here's one I ran by Sam and he says OK. As I told him, it doesn't make much sense, but that's true of the Master's films sometimes. The films look OK and this sounds OK. I got a pat on the back for my last acrostic, so... if you can do a thing once, you can do a thing twice.

Hitch’s Acrostic

Alfred, always the man who knew too much,
Loves Grace. So young and innocent she is,
Frenzy is what he feels. He has to touch.
Result? Alas, the lady vanishes.
Evidence? None. He is notorious.
Does that mean he’s a nutcase psycho? Nope.
He’s mad north by northwest like most of us.
Inspector Hound is fashioning a rope
To hang the wrong man. Maybe? Maybe not?
Clouds of suspicion drifting in and out
Have left him such a fusty, family plot,
Crying, ‘Murder, not a shadow of a doubt!’
Oh rich and strange! Oh heart and horror show!
Conclusion (with a sense of vertigo) –
Knowledge is power. Blackmail’s what we know.

16, if you want to know. One of them insinuated itself by mistake.

[R. S. Gwynn]

You people are so cruel! I was so pleased with mine when I finished it. Arrgh.

[Jim Hayes]

My objective was simple, to include as many titles as possible and make some sort of sense. OK it's not a great poem but that's not why it isn't a 'fit'
It's just too unwieldy on the page, the best I can hope for is a HM which would be real good going having seen the efforts here from you guys.

[John Whitworth]

I can't believe that even the Big Friendly Greenwell has got more than FORTY titles in, Jim.

[Marion Shore]

Greenwell probably used the bare minimum of six to create a masterpiece. No cheap pyrotechnics for him. Wait and see.