We figured it was time to have a place to talk about Steve’s latest video subjects that do not have an UMR page.
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We figured it was time to have a place to talk about Steve’s latest video subjects that do not have an UMR page.
Added Steve’s epic 30 minute movie….Top Comic Book Grossing Movies. Our thoughts found on his You Tube channel found below.
“Massive massive. Lots of work involved in this one. I think my only miss is #131 Bulletproof Monk. Granted there are way more I wish I had not seen. Superman IV, Batman And Robin, Supergirl and a couple of the X-Men ones. Seeing the massive amount of grosses shows why so many comic book movies have been made. That being said….a few of these I was unaware of were based on a comic book…Road To Perdition and From Hell to name a few. Favorites would include Endgame, Dark Knight, Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and Superman 2. Awesome video. Job well done. Voted up and shared.”
Hi Bruce, I’d always wanted to produce a video chart on comic book movies and this was my one chance to get it out of my system. It started off as a top 100 but there were about 60 more less successful films that were too interesting to leave out. So I ultimately made it a top 140. I didn’t want to go past 30mins.
I’ve seen all of these and I own most of them on DVD or Blu-ray. Just off the chart were two I hadn’t seen – Ghost World and American Splendor. If you want I can send you my master list of 160 films and you can create a comic book movie page at UMR, with your own stats and info of course.
Thanks for the comment, vote, share and sitting thru this extra long video, much appreciated. Next weeks video will be shorter I promise. 🙂
So you think you are good enough to beat The Work Horse at his own game, do you? You fairly sneaked that one in and just as HE was boasting about giving us material without stats.
Still it was a nice way to start off the New Year, a pictorial and statistical run down of the 100 most popular films of all time. I will in Parts 2 and 3 comment on just the merits as I perceive them of the posters and stills and will avoid any judgement as to whether I think any of the movies concerned deserved to be a big ticket seller.
I should add that box office statistical historians and indeed Box Office Mojo caution that whilst ticket sales are the best way of measuring a movie’s popularity, multiplying a movie’s ticket sales in past years by the average price of a ticket today is not in itself, for numerous reasons, a completely foolproff way of determining every film’s inflation adjusted gross, though that is the practice employed by many inflation adjusting sites and agencies. Here are a few of the drawbacks.
1/Many films can draw large children’s audiences for whom tickets are cheaper than they are for adult audiences and therefore below the average ticket price.
2/Some films are able to charge especially high prices on initial release – Godpop 1972 is one example – and therefore those tickets are priced above the average.
3/I note your figures reflect just domestic ticket sales; and indeed most if not all tables ranking the supposedly most popular films exclude foreign sales. The latter could make a great difference to the rankings. For example (1) domestic grosses for Bond films have traditionally been just one third of the worldwide earnings of those movies (2) Chuck’s 10 Commandments attracted 262 million worldwide ticket sales.
Happy New Year Bob! This new video was an experiment to see if my style of video can sustain a longer format. Bruce’s stats came in useful. Though like you say they are estimates, a rough impression of what the most watched movies looked like and where they stand.
My next video will also be lengthy and will be uploaded next monday. A mixture of sources this time including my calculations.
HI STEVE: Great to hear from you again and I hope the NY goes smoothly for you. I for one am quite happy with your ‘Extended Play’ video.
MY PICK OF THE 20 BEST ENTRIES:POSTERS
1/Foreign language one for Bridge on River Kawi
2/Poseidon Adventure
3/Lawrence
4/The Kid
5/6th Sense
6/Spiderman 2
7/2nd one for Batman 1989
8/Ben Hur 1925
9/Two for Samson and Delilah
10/foreign language one for Cleopatra
11/2nd one for Butch Cassidy
12/Big Parade
13/Birth of a Nation
14/Black Panther
15/foreign language one for Mary Poppins
16/This is the Army
17/entire set for Gone with the Wind
18/Two for Dark Knight 2008
19/Entire set for Star Wars 1977
20/Most of the other Star Wars movies.
NOTES 1/For Bridge on River Kwai Golden Holden got top billing on all posters and on screen. However the two Brits Hawkins and Guinness seem to have agreed to share the 2nd spot on the posters with Jack coming 2nd on some of them and Alec in 2nd place on others. Currently IMDB has a Guinness/Hawkins poster whereas Wikipedia has the Hawkins/Guinness version which is favoured by you.
2/Overall in your video many of the posters for even some of the most famous films are unique in my experience. Well done.
MY PICK OF THE 19 BEST ENTRIES: STILLS
1/Lawrence
2/Close Encounters
3/Dark Knight Rises
4/Lobby card for White Christmas
5/Lion King
6/Newman/McQueen/Dunaway relaxing on set
7/Lord of the Rings 03
8/Pirates of the Caribbean 2006
9/Samson & Delilah
10/Goldfinger
11/ET
12/Independence Day
13/Jurassic Park
14/Chuck in chariot
15/Empire Strikes Back
16/Avatar
17/Jaws
18/”Behold the power of the Lord!”
19/Cleopatra
BIGGEST SURPRISE: After all the fuss and ballyhoo Dire Hard didn’t make the cut. Christmas will never be the same again!
Hey Bob….good information on Steve’s video posters.
Thanks for letting us know about your next video.. I am about to check out your new video. I have a feeling my total will be under 50%
Hey Steve…job well done. How has the response been so far on the video? 24 minutes (or so) is about time of an episode of television. It will be curious to see how well it does in views. I suspect (though I am wrong all the time)….that the running time might be a negative. But…I liked it. Glad my stats helped out. Happy New Year.
HI STEVE: I think the Work Horse has High Society on the brain as the saying goes because it was a musical remake of Al Leach’s Philly Story. Although my Jimmy won the Oscar for Philly Story I actually always liked High Society better, Philly seeming to me to be just another one of those boring Leach “screwball” comedies of the 1930s and 1940s that I so detest. Also Archie and Jimmy didn’t get to sing in `1940’s Philly!!
Anyway I can’t let you get away for your Christmas break without giving you another Country Girl piece of useless trivia involving The Great Mumbler as Grace Kelly and Marlon Brando,both picked up Oscars in 1955 for Country Girl and On the Waterfront respectively and shared photo-shoots together so Mr Mumbles obviously had the opportunity of chatting her up.
Bing had developed a crush on Grace during the making of The Country Girl and allegedly went to her rooms after the Oscars ceremony looking for a romantic date only to find Brando there and both men apparently angrily locked horns and reportedly it may have all got a bit physical. Prince Rainier the 3rd of Monaco of course ultimately blew out both The Great Crooner and The Great Mumbler – a crown trumps even an Oscar – for everybody but probably WH!
Actually, in a way Brando reportedly had a ‘run-in’ at the Oscars with both ‘Road’ heroes: Hope and Marlon did a spoof sketch at the ceremony whereby they wrestled for possession of Brando’s Oscar. Pretending to covet that Oscar was one of Hope’s ‘party pieces’ until he and Brando fell out [over politics I think, Bob being a staunch Republican and Marlon a Democrat].
NB Leslie Towns dined out to a considerable extent on name-dropping. For example he had a half-hour 1950s radio show on the BBC over here and he would hold one-sided telephone conversations with mega stars like Golden Holden – ie Les would have Holden’s presence on his show without haven’t to pay Bill who obviously wasn’t really there.
Les got Bing’s name out very often too. For example in one episode he talked about how his own career was going and sang “I’m safe as long as Crosby doesn’t buy the BBC!” How the Brits back the lapped it all up; today he would have to crack smutty jokes to make you guys laugh!
Anyway I hope you have a pleasant Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Thanks Bob, and as Bruce Willis tells Hans Gruber in Die Hard – “Have yourself a merry little Christmas…” – oh wait that’s not what he says at all. Judy Judy Judy sings it in Meet Me in St. Louis. 😉
Can we at least agree that Die Hard is the best Xmas themed action film ever?
I haven’t seen The Country Girl, I wasn’t happy finding out Grace Kelly won Best Actress over the legendary Judy in A Star is Born. As Groucho Marx said at the time “”Dear Judy, this is the biggest robbery since Brinks.”
Merry Christmas!!!
HI STEVE
Thanks for reply
I agree that compared with Judy, the Princess was overrated. I think there was a snob element associated with Grace that appealed to guys like WH and Hirsch because for example
(1) Grace came from the Philadelphia smart set in real life.
(2) she became a Princess albeit after her Oscar win
(3) the fact that she had Al Leach as a guest her Royal wedding to Prince Rainier would have excited The Work Horse.
I have pointed out before that Grace carried only one of her 11 films on her own -The Swan – and according to Wikipedia it was a flop losing MGM 8 million in today’s dollars despite the support of Sir Alec Guinness before Kwai made him an international star.
BRUCE:
As a big Perlberg-Seaton fan I got a scare when you mentioned High Society because I thought I had missed something as I have never considered that one a Seaton movie.
Are you sure you are not making a wrong Seaton connection with High Society in one or both of two ways-
1/Sol C Siegel produced High Society and Siegel and Seaton sound slightly alike. Charles Walters directed High Society and John Patrick wrote the screenplay. The production companies involved were Sol C Siegel Productions and Bing Crosby Productions;
2/George Seaton co-produced, wrote and directed The Country Girl and it had Bing and Grace as the leads same as High Society. In the latter Sinatra was the 3rd wheel whereas that honour fell to Golden Holden in Country Girl. The Production company for Country Girl was Perlberg-Seaton Productions.
I hope all that makes sense!
Yes, I think Bruce meant The Country Girl.
Hey Flora….with the power of the edit button…..I am able to fix that problem. Thanks for the catch.
Hey Bob…..sorry for the confusion on High Society versus Country Girl…..the negative of trying to do a mini-review while watching Steve’s video. I saw the black and white photo with Crosby and Kelly….and immediately assumed it was High Society……but as we now know…the third person in the photo was William Holden and not Frank Sinatra…..but….with my edit button….my error is gone forever. Good info on High Society…..thanks for sharing it…and sorry again for the confusion.
HI BRUCE:
Your job is to look after the big stuff – regulars like Flora and me will always do what we can to keep you right on the small stuff !!!
Thanks Bob….hope your Christmas was awesome.
Steve’s George Seaton You Tube video has been added to this page. Out thoughts found on Steve’s channel.
George Seaton? And I thought I knew something about movies. My first watch is #6 Teacher’s Pet….one of Gable’s latter in his career movies. Love Gig Young in that one. #5 Airport….monster hit….fun movie. #4 36 Hours….one of James Garner’s better movies. #3 The Country Girl…often mixed up with The Philadelphia Story…..The Country Girl has three solid performances by Holden, Kelly and Crosby…Kelly got the Oscar….but Bing’s performance always impressed me the most. #2 Song of Bernadette…one of the biggest hits of the 1940s. #1 Miracle of 34th Street…Christmas classic. So only 6 seen…but his Top 6…so I think I have watched the right six. Lots of stars in the other 24 movies. Thanks for opening my eyes to the career of George Seaton. Voted up and shared
High Society was directed by Charles Walters. I think you meant to say The Country Girl.
Hi Bruce, we’ve both seen 6 of Seaton’s film, Flora’s tally 12. I knew Seaton mostly from Airport and Miracle on 34th Street, wasn’t very familiar with his other output.
Yep you’ve mixed up High Society with The Country Girl in your comment. Who directed High Society? You have 5 seconds to answer. tick tock tick tock… nope not Vincente Minnelli… it was Charles Walters. Yes it’s true, I had to look it up. 🙂 Hmm Charles Walters eh… an interesting subject for a future video.
Thanks for the comment, vote and share, always appreciated. This will be my last video of the year I’m having my Xmas break and be back some time in the new year. Adios amigos!