Backstory: When two films aren't better than one

Hollywood has once again been rummaging through old film vaults for recyclable scripts – from "Cape Fear" to "The Poseidon Adventure" to "King Kong."

Now producers are considering revisiting another genre from the past in their enduring quest for box-office gold – the movie meld. Combining two films to make a new one (sort of) is a technique that has led to such high-art classics as: "The Three Stooges Meet Hercules," "Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy," "King Kong vs. Godzilla," and "Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet Frankenstein."

Sources in Hollywood say producers are scrambling to secure options for new film fusions that include:

Alexander the Great Santini

Analyze That Darn Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

The Naked and the Dead Poets Society

Shall We Dance With Wolves?

Night of the Living Dead Man Walking

There's Something About Mary Poppins

All the President's Men in Black

Air Force One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Children of a Lesser Godzilla

The Man Who Knew Too Much Ado About Nothing

Bridges of Madison County Over the River Kwai

In the Heat of the Nightmare on Elm Street

Singing in the Rainman

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold Mountain

An Officer and a Gentleman Prefer Blondes

Dirty Harry Potter

My Best Friend's Four Weddings and a Funeral

• Dale Roberts, a college career counselor, lives in Asheville, N.C.