GONE WITH THE WIND vs. MELODY RANCH: The Unreliability of Box Office Polls
Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind
Sandra Bullock: Top Box Office Star
Gone with the Wind opened in late December 1939. Boom Town became one of the biggest hits of 1940. Both movies starred Clark Gable, who kept himself quite busy by also starring in Comrade X and Strange Cargo.
The biggest box-office star of 1940, according to Quigley’s exhibitors’ poll? Mickey Rooney.
Sure, Rooney’s vehicles were box-office, but they weren’t Gable-caliber box-office. But stuff like Strike Up the Band and Andy Hardy Meets Debutante did well in small towns, where owners of little movie houses were happy to book flicks showing Mickey dating Judy — or Gene Autry (right) hanging out with his horse.
Autry starred in six 1940 releases: Shooting High, Carolina Moon, Gaucho Serenade, Rancho Grande, Melody Ranch, and Ride Tenderfoot Ride. If none of those titles sound like major blockbusters, it’s, well, because they weren’t. But they kept 100-seat movies houses all filled up on Saturday afternoons. And that’s why Autry was #4 in the 1940 Quigley list, ahead of Tyrone Power (The Mark of Zorro and Johnny Apollo), Bette Davis (The Letter and All This and Heaven Too, two of her biggest hits), and even Judy Garland, Mickey’s partner in both Strike Up the Band and Andy Hardy Meets Debutante, and the star of her own Little Nellie Kelly.
Of course, regardless of what the Quigley exhibitors had to say in those days, the studios’ accounting ledgers showed that they made most of their money in the big-city palaces that charged top prices for admission (which is one reason why "average" ticket prices per year is a faulty way to calculate inflation-adjusted box-office figures, especially for decades-old movies).
For the record, below is the Quigley list of the top money-making stars of 2009. Denzel Washington, whose The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 was a flop, and Matt Damon, whose The Informant! and Invictus were box-office disappointments, were included. I’m not sure if George Clooney is on the list because of the flop The Men Who Stare at Goats, the box-office disappointment Fantastic Mr. Fox, or Up in the Air, which will be making most of its money in 2010.
And someone somewhere should introduce US movie exhibitors to Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.
- Sandra Bullock
- Johnny Depp
- Matt Damon
- George Clooney
- Robert Downey Jr.
- Tom Hanks
- Meryl Streep
- Brad Pitt
- Shia LaBeouf
- Denzel Washington
Stars of Tomorrow:
- Carey Mulligan
- Taylor Lautner
More information about: Bette Davis, box office, Clark Gable, classic movies, Gene Autry, George Clooney, Gone with the Wind, Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Robert Pattinson
2 Responses to “GONE WITH THE WIND vs. MELODY RANCH: The Unreliability of Box Office Polls”
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sorry but The men who stare at goats is not a flop. A $20 millions’ budget films who got more than $30 millions with very little promotion is very far from a flop. And Up in the air is already a big success even if it has only been released widly those past days!
It’s true that “The Men Who Stare at Goats” was not a total box-office disaster, but since it reportedly cost somewhere around $25m (http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=menwhostareatgoats.htm) and grossed $32m domestically, of which about only half will reach the producing companies, then if I shouldn’t call it a flop then perhaps “a costly disappointment’?
Either way, that movie provides no justification for Clooney to be listed among the top ten box-office stars of 2009.