Circle of Confusion

This week in 1978, The Silent Flute opened on a test run in two theaters in Albuquerque with an ad concept based around the original title and designed by producer Sandy Howard.

One week earlier, U.S. distributor Avco Embassy had tested the film in El Paso with their own campaign and title, Death to the Fourth Degree.

Both approaches leaned heavily on the name Bruce Lee and the fact that the screenplay was based on his idea and story. Neither approach was successful, and now Avco Embassy was beginning to panic with the realization that they had to find a way to market a Bruce Lee movie that had even less Bruce Lee in it than Game of Death.

They reworked the campaign again and changed the title to Circle of Iron in time for the February 9th, 1979 opening in Los Angeles and the novelization from Warner Books to reach paperback racks.

“I never could figure out what the hell it means,” star David Carradine said of that title years later.