795 thoughts on “Site Index”

1. Could you possible do a report on Demi Moore. She was easily one of the biggest and most stunning female film stars of the last 30 years.Thank you.

   Reply

   1. BRUCE

      1 Does Frank not know that mentioning the ex Mrs Willis’ on this site is like swearing in church?
      Actually I’d like to second Frank’s request as I think she has done enough to warrant a page here.

      2 Indeed I am surprised that you have not seemed to come up with the idea for yourself as I had presumed it would give you the opportunity to compare her stats with those of her former lord and master !!!

      Reply

      1. Hey Bob….I will add you to the request of Demi Moore…hey Bruce can remain friendly with Demi….I can certainly do so as well….their divorce might be one of the easiest of all-time.

         I am actually not a huge fan of Ms. Moore….but her career is worthy of an UMR page…..thanks for the second.

         Reply

   2. Hey Frank…I will add Demi Moore to the request list…just watched her in Wild Oats tonight…she had a supporting role in that one. Thanks for the suggestion.

      Reply

2. Cogerson

   Another technical question I would like to ask. I was wondering how the rentals worked exactly. For example–a small town theatre shows two movies on consecutive weekends for three days each. Now the theatre with several showings over the weekend could sell a total of 2000 tickets. It needs a sale of 1000 to break even. One movie sells 1200 tickets for a small profit. The second movie sells 1800 tickets for a much bigger profit.

   My question–is there any connection on the rental? Is it by flat fee or is it connected to the gross?

   Does the theatre owner do something like pay let’s say $100 to the distributer and then get to show it over a given number of days or showings and keeps all the profit? Or is the rental based on a percentage of the profit?

   The only movie I have ever seen all the facts on is the Tom Mix serial The Miracle Rider in 1935. At that time there were about 17,000 theatres in the USA. The serial was fifteen chapters, the first feature length at over 40 minutes. The rest slightly under 20 minutes. The charge was $15 for the first chapter, and $5 for each additional chapter (apparently for as many showings as the theatre wanted, but I am not certain about this point) for a total of $85.

   12,000 theatres showed the serial for a gross of $1,020,000. It cost $80,000 (half for Mix’s salary) so the profit was substantial.

   Reply

   1. BRUCE
      1 John raises some good detailed points. I read an article on the subject a long time ago and with the caveat that distribution patterns have changed over the years I can tell you that in the 1970s according to the article concerned-
      (1) Producers regularly agreed film by film deals with exhibitors regarding rental ratios.
      (2) The Producers obviously had a stronger hand to play when they had an anticipated hot commodity like Jaws or The Godfather to sell
      (3) The rate of the producer’s rental would taper down as the film ran into the succeeding weeks of its run at the same theatres – ie the producer’s take ratio was at its best when the film was making its most money at the cinemas concerned.
      (4) And of course the producers would normally have a better ratio in the big cities than elsewhere.
      2 You have already demonstrated that overall the rental ratio is not constant from year to year..
      3. The upshot of all those considerations was that the relative status of movies at the box office was often eschewed because unadjusted Variety DOMESTIC RENTALS were regarded as the measure of status so that for example if two films had the exact same gross in a year but one had the higher rentals ratio the latter would be wrongly regarded as the more successful. The Godfather had a better rental ratio than The Sting so for years was listed above the latter in Variety’s chart whereas in reality the Sting had a higher gross in both actual and inflationary terms but in those days we were never quoted the full gross and were being misled as to the box office rankings of films by being quoted just one part of what was a four part equation – (1) domestic Rental (2) Domestic Gross (3) Overseas earnings (4) inflationary considerations.

      Reply

      1. Hey Bob…..yep…John has a great question….and one that is really really complicated. Just mentioned your first two comments in my comment back to John…great minds thinking alike. The declining % number is still in effect today….which is why second run theaters have become so successful.

         Good points about Variety and the rentals….thanks for sharing this information….a very very good comment. I would make more comments…but running out of steam…and work is only 6 hours away. 🙂

         Reply

   2. Hey John…..there is no easy answer to your question. The number I use in my calculations was a rental to gross% calculated by many other people…..but it is an average of all the movies that got released in a single year….it changes every year.

      Now over the years…studios have done lots of stuff to get a bigger piece of the pie…rentals is what the studios get back from theaters….it is mainly by the agreed on % between the theater owner and the studio….now studio have used “hot movies” to get the theater owners to agree to a greater payout….in modern days…if studios are getting back 50% of the ticket sales…they will use a movie like Avatar 2 to bump up their %. Pretty much saying….if you want this movie in your theater chain…we want 75% of the ticket sales….if the theater says no….than Avatar 2 will be on screens opposite the theater that said no.

      Good information on the Tom Mix serial…lots of good information….but you can see that the studio would say….well….everybody did well…..but if you want Mix’s next serial….the first chapter is $25 and $10 for each additional chapter. It is a pretty unknown system…and not one the studios are eager to share……so it leaves lots of connecting the dots.

      Reply

3. 1 STEVE In the late sixties British chat show host Simon Dee was able to attract onto his programme Dee Time many important celebrities one of whom was Ray Milland who at one stage of his own career had been Paramount’s highest paid star. Simon immediately embarrassed Ray by presenting him with a bunch of flowers which Simon said came from his mother who as a young girl in the early thirties had admired Milland as a matinee idol. Ray visibly winched but oblivious to Milland’s discomfort Dee ploughed on asking Ray questions about the career of Mr Mumbles. At first Milland politely answered them but finally snapped and angrily told Dee that he had not come on the programme to talk about Mr M. Naturally Ray was there to talk about himself! Ultimately in his career Dee overreached himself with exorbitant salary demands and the Big Boys of TV crushed him and overnight he became a nonentity again. However in his heyday he had secured cameo roles in a couple of movies and one of those roles was as a shirt maker in Sir Maurice Micklewhite’s The Italian Job (1969)

   2 VIDEO (1) Ray’s heyday was in the thirties and forties faithfully represented in your presentation and Dial M for Murder your No 2 was effectively the end of Ray’s career as a big star. (2) It was good too that you included two reasonably interesting horror films that he made later in his career The Premature Burial and Man with the X Ray Eyes (3) my pick of the posters were those from Premature Burial, Next Time we love, So Evil My Love, and the raunchy one from The Lady Has Plans (4) excellent stills such as those of Milland, Goddard and the Duke from Reap the Wild Wind, Ray and Princess Grace from Dial M for Murder and the stunning coffin one from Premature Burial – really classy stuff (5) my one disappointment was that you didn’t include A Man Alone (1955) the western which was Ray’s directorial debut and which he wanted to talk about on Simon Dee’s show only to be side tracked and further exasperated by Dee raving on about Mr M’s directorial outing with One Eyed Jacks. I’m sure Ray who was Welsh was thinking “Oh those d****d English! IMDB gives A Man Alone 6.4. (6) your video is overall an entertaining 9.4/10 presentation in my opinion.

   Reply

   1. Thanks Bob, appreciate, the review, rating, comment and trivia, always appreciated. Sorry about leaving out A Man Alone, it was on my master list of 60 Ray Milland films, which I had to whittle down to about 30. The total score was 6.05, IMDB gave it 6.4 but others were less generous, i.e. rotten tomatoes gave it 5.8. If I had known it was a favorite of yours I would have placed it somewhere at the start of the video.

      I wanted to include Bulldog Drummond Escapes because I was interested in that character and some good actors have played that part. I might do a video on Drummond and Simon Templar movies some day.

      Ray Milland was a good actor. Bruce should do a stats page on him, certainly more well known than George Arliss. I’m a big fan of Roger Corman’s poe series of the 60s and was happy that Premature Burial made the list. The Man With X-Ray Eyes is interesting, I’m surprised it hasn’t been remade since, great possibilites for todays visual effects wizards.

      Reply

      1. A link to the Ray Milland video –

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlBr5Hz4dvE

         Reply

         1. Thanks for the link….it is appreciated.

            Reply

      2. STEVE

         1 I too am hoping that the Supremo will do a Ray Milland page because Ray had a very long career and it would be interesting to see Bruce’s stats for that career.

         2 I too liked all the Edgar Allan Poe based movies most of which starred Vincent Price – Masque of the Red Death, Pit and the Pendulum, Tales of Terror, The Raven, Tomb of Ligeia, and Fall of the House of Usher [aka House of Usher] Bruce has yet to update his Price page but his existing figures would suggest that overall the grosses for these films were not vertiginous. However they seem to have cost so little to make that they were undoubtedly profitable. For example on Jack Nicholson’s Bruce does give us an updated adjusted gross of $37.8 for The Raven and it cost only $200,000 dollars to make in 1963 which would be just $1.6 million in today’s money.

         Reply

         1. And there’s less chance of ‘Bruce the completist’ carelessly leaving out one of your favorites on his charts when he finally gets round to Ray Milland, unlike nonchalant Steve. 😉

            hmmm funny you should mention Vinnie…

            Reply

            1. Bruce the completist will get at least 90% of his movies….or not publish…until he does. My main obstacle with Milland is his long years with Paramount…..when I see that fact…I tend to stay away….until the very last possible time.

               Good video as always. 🙂

         2. Ray Milland won’t be next……but he is warming up for his plate appearance (baseball reference)…next up is Van Heflin….which is almost done…as well as updating all of my Oscar pages…as the Oscar nominations are right around the corner.

            Little Shop Of Horrors….like all the Roger Corman movies made some money…with his limited budgets it would be hard not to make money.

            Reply

         3. Hey Bob….the Price update is coming soon…..knocked out two of the bigger updates the last few days…Quinn (90 movies) and Lana Turner (50 movies)….when I get to Price his movie total should go up nicely….as I have found many more of his box office grosses for his missing movies.

            Reply

   2. Hey Bob….good information on Simon Dee….as I had never heard of him. I can see Milland getting upset if all the questions were about somebody else. I will have to keep an eye out for him the next time I watch The Italian Job.

      Good review on Steve’s Ray Milland video. I will be sure to include A Man Alone when I get around to a Ray Milland page…which is already on our Request list. I can’t believe Steve only listed a few of Milland’s movies….what a slacker…lol.

      Reply

4. Hey In The Shadows……you might have a point….as the site index is getting a little crowded….I will have to really look at the way Mojo does it. Thanks for the suggestion.

   Reply

5. Have you thought about putting your movie pages in a separate ABC sections like the way Box Office Mojo does it? Your index has become pretty massive and it is beginning to become a little hard to navigate. Just a suggestion.

   Reply

   1. Hey In The Shadows….well it took about 3 weeks….but your suggestion got me motivated to change up the index….at this point I do not think I have enough pages to have a separate page for each letter….but that time might be coming soon.

      Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.