I think there are two options here. 1. We add a German title that is "Blackthorn - Butch Cassidys letzter Ritt". Or 2, we keep it as it is with Blackthorn - Butch Cassidys letzter Ritt added as an alternative title.

What I need to know is whether the movie was ever screened or released as only Blackthorn in Germany.

Hi,

Blackthorn was not shown in the movies, it was a straight DVD / BluRay release. For the DVD /BluRay release the official title is just Blackthorn and we shouldn't change it. Since the title was for the German Television not melodramatic enough they had to made something up.

FSK

Wikipedia

Both sources validate the title Blackthorn. My opinion is, just to leave it as it is and the TV title as the alternative title.

Yes, I think the german title is just "Blackthorn" but with the german tagline "Butch Cassidys letzter Ritt" (edit: you can see it on the german poster), for german TV its common to append the tagline to the title. My question is: how should I enter this information when I can only set the german tagline, but not the german title.

Should I set a german tagline without a german title? That feels just wrong. But then there is this rule to not duplicate the original title in the translated title if its the same. That rule makes it hard to distinguish between implicit local title (aka local is the same as original) and missing data (aka local is not the same as original).

The whole title concept could take an overhaul to better support multiple alternate titles without a primary title per locale. Also supporting an "international title" where a movie has an original title and a common international title that its marketed under.

for german TV its common to append the tagline to the title.

That is true, but German TV is doing it anyway a bit their own way. It might be they change the title for TV completely in a few years. The reason why the German translated title is empty and locked is because the German title is equal to the English original title. Actually there is no official German title, just the English original one. To place then the TV title there wouldn't make any sense either, since it would overwrite the official title with the German TV Title.

I know I did in the past use the same title again for the German translated field, but we had a discussion about it internally and ever since we deal with it like that if there is no translation of a title available.

Should I set a german tagline without a German title?

Actually yes. The German Title is the fall-back to the (English) original title. I placed in this case "Butch Cassidys letzter Ritt" as tagline and the German title stays empty. In the backend the empty field looks wrong - I know - but if you on the movie page you just get to see the fall-back title anyway, so I don't see a problem here. Even the movie scraper which is using the API is dealing with the fall-back title on the same way.

But then there is this rule to not duplicate the original title in the translated title if its the same. That rule makes it hard to distinguish between implicit local title (aka local is the same as original) and missing data (aka local is not the same as original).

Officially there is no German title. In this specific case the title was not translated to German or just used with the extension of the tagline. If you check the FSK link above you see that there is just the Original title even for the FSK records.

The whole title concept could take an overhaul to better support multiple alternate titles without a primary title per locale. Also supporting an "international title" where a movie has an original title and a common international title that its marketed under

I agree, it is not just as simple as with this example. Maybe Travis has something up his sleeve for the future.