The top-grossing movies of the pre-"blockbuster" (i.e. pre-Jaws) era

cool thread idea

haha although The Godfather is on the list I may vote for The Ten Commandments.

compare/contrast/bitch/moan:

01 Avatar
02 Titanic
03 Marvel's The Avengers
04 The Dark Knight
05 Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
06 Star Wars
07 Shrek 2
08 E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
09 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
10 The Lion King
11 Toy Story 3
12 The Hunger Games
13 Spider-Man
14 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
15 The Dark Knight Rises
16 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
17 Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
18 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
19 Spider-Man 2
20 The Passion of the Christ
21 Jurassic Park
22 Transformers: Dark of the Moon
23 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
24 Finding Nemo
25 Spider-Man 3
26 Alice in Wonderland (2010)
27 Forrest Gump
28 Shrek the Third
29 Transformers
30 Iron Man

This looks like an alternate reality - though I assume these are US grosses?

xxpost on a similar note, I'd almost want to vote for Passion of the Christ on the "today" list for sticking out like a pulverized thumb

Camilia Paglia had Ben-Hur on her Sight & Sound list...I'd always thought of the blockbuster demarcation line as a bit more fluid--that The Godfather and (especially) The Exorcist belong on the continuum--but when I look at the actual dollar figures, yeah, Jaws must have represented a huge leap forward. Anyway, in order: The Godfather, American Graffiti, The Graduate, The Exorcist, and 2001, with an attachment to The Ten Commandments that dates back to childhood. I even enjoy Airport and Love Story. Rosemary's Baby must have fallen just short to the Top 30.

For some reason not in BOM's database, but it made $33M, enough to chart between these two:

66 Tommy Col. $34,251,525 1975
67 Planet of the Apes Fox $32,589,624 1968

The two biggest surprises to me are What's Up, Doc? (had no idea it was that successful) and Papillon (think I always thought that was a bomb...it would probably be way down a list of cost/earnings ratio). Also never would have guessed Blazing Saddles for Top 10, though I knew it was popular. At least half the list makes me think of Mad magazine--these films were the core of their front-of-the-book parodies (Brooks excepted, obviously).

The two Mel Brooks films on the list are kind of freaking me out - would he have ruled the world if he hadn't started starring in his films?

193 million is a very round figure, but it's the same very round figure that Wikipedia has for The Godfather Part II, released 1974.

I remember reading in the Biskind book with surprise about the success of Paper Moon, Doc, and TLPS.

Boring answer, I guess but The Graduate.

The movie whose outsized success always perplexes me is The Sting (which is still in the top 20 all-time, adjusted for inflation). Bigger than The Godfather?!

Boy, Irwin Allen really did alright for himself, huh?

BOM says The Sting made over $700 million in adjusted 2012 numbers.

It looks like 17 of them made it into Mad:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_film_spoofs_in_Mad

Their My Fair Lady parody was in the June '74 issue...possible omen of impending irrelevancy.

rip Hamlisch

Star Bores Epic Load III: Retread of the Sh* t!

Somehow just not as charming as The Poopsidedown Adventure.

Or 201 Minutes of Space Idiocy.

Trying to make a case for those parodies--maybe even the magazine in general--in 2012 is hopeless. Pre-SNL, they were a thing!

Don't I know it:

http://madcoversite.com/mad166id.jpg

2001, followed by American Graffiti and maybe Snow White

You have to remember that Oscar winners star vehicles often stayed in theaters for a year or more. The Sting had maybe the two biggest male stars of its time.

Apparently that meant more back then. Pretty much every movie now pairs the two biggest male stars of our time.

Will probably end up voting one of the 4 disaster movies.

I always thought of Airport as the weakest of those 4, btw, but M1ke D'4ngel0's review makes me want to rewatch it.

http://enchantedmitten.blogspot.com/2012/07/viewing-journal-week-of-2-8-jul.html

Airport (1970, George Seaton): 65
Funny to read the contemporaneous reviews of this juggernaut (still one of the 50 highest-grossing films of all time, adjusted for inflation—about $550 million domestic in today's money), which almost uniformly treat it as beneath contempt. Wonder what they'd think if I could zip back there in a time machine and show them what today's equivalent looks like. For a big dumb event movie, it's almost surreally adult by current standards, albeit in a shallow, soapy kind of way; even the ostensible "villain" has an utterly banal, real-world motivation for his behavior, never coming across as anything more than a terrified, desperate loser. Nor would any mass audience today tolerate such a slow, patient, methodical buildup. I've never read Hailey, and assume his novels have no literary merit (though critics tarred Stephen King with that same brush...), but in broad conception they seem to be not unlike, say, Casino, employing narrative primarily as a hook in order to explore the working details of a given milieu; enough of that approach survives here to exert a certain behind-the-scenes fascination even in the film's dopier interludes. And let's be honest: It's often preposterously entertaining. When Helen Hayes sat down next to Van Heflin, I got downright giddy anticipating where that must be headed, and yet the abrupt, weirdly sadistic, ultimately forlorn way it played out still caught me off guard. Everything after that is arguably anticlimactic (and starts becoming recognizable as fodder for Airplane! gags), but even the so-called happy ending boasts elements that would be unthinkable now, e.g. Burt Lancaster's sister—an apparently perfectly nice woman we've been given no reason to dislike, and did I mention she's Burt Lancaster's sister? anyone remember Sweet Smell of Success?—arriving at the gate to greet hubby Dean Martin, only to watch him accompany Jacqueline Bisset to the hospital, ignoring her completely..hold on her deflated expression as she realizes her marriage is over...aaaand roll credits (after one last scene to confirm that Burt Lancaster's marriage is also over). Amazing.

Redford & Newman had only made one film prior (#12) and never reunited again. The law of scarcity.

Stapleton and Heflin are actually kind of touching--they're off in some other movie. He doesn't mention George Kennedy, who might invent some new kind of archetype here; at the very least, he invents Ed Harris. "A slow, patient, methodical buildup" is pretty accurate.

It definitely nails the Grand Hotel aspect of disaster movies better than the other 3.

It's the first disaster movie, right? (Even though a hijacking really doesn't belong with fires and earthquakes and tidal waves.) Is there anything related that predates it?

Disasters and movies go way back.

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

Some Soviet montage ish going on in that movie, btw.

2001

in a way Airport and The Towering Inferno seem to prefigure more modern blockbusters than Jaws

Unlike most Irwin Allen sagas, the earthquake and its aftermath are confined to the last 15 (?) minutes of San Francisco.

Unlike most Irwin Allen sagas, the bomb doesn't go off until 30 minutes from the end of Airport.

I find it hard to believe San Francisco broke B.O. records in its day because of the Jeanette MacDonald-Clark Gable pairing, but as I said, I find it sort of incomprehensible that Redford-Newman did beyond Lord of the Rings numbers.

(Incomprehensible in a sort of good way, I mean. Though I think The Sting is a pretty meh movie itself.)

Ha, until the post about disaster movies, I was really surprised that Leslie Nielsen comedy did so well.

Sometimes I even rate Papillon as my favorite film, so to see it here = automatic vote.

MacDonald was a huge star, Spencer Tracy was an emerging one, and Gable was Gable.

as for The Sting, the soundtrack was #1 in the US for FIVE weeks in the spring of '74 (it took 4 months to take off, or to be released?). 60-year-old Joplin rags were getting played on pop radio.

So nostalgia generation ground zero?

albums almost always took months to top the charts pre-SoundScan. but it is interesting how antiquated styles tend to get flashes of popularity through soundtracks -- shades of O Brother. (xpost)

yeah, nobody but my grandparents' generation could be nostalgic about ragtime.

So nostalgia generation ground zero?

That's gotta be American Graffiti. (You could possibly make an argument for The Last Picture Show, but then you're into the death-of-the-Western thing, and there a whole bunch of those.)

voting Godfather. Modern blockbusters certainly more franchisey and corporate but there's a lot of BS on that list.

A less boring BS, tho, arguably.

arguably

Well, maybe not in the case of Ben-Hur.

'member when Star Wars got re-released just in time for Titanic to blow it away?

I watched San Francisco thinking it was going to be a crackling yarn but instead I got Spencer Tracy as the Good Priest.

But Gable was all "Show me your tree stumps, sister!"

to hide some sequels and prequels,here's the blockbuster top 30 with the franchises tucked together and adjusted for inflation:

1. Star Wars (AND ALL THE LIL' SKYWALKERS)
2. ET
3. Titanic
4. Jaws (AND ALL THE LIL' SHARKS)
5. Avatar
6. The Lion King
7. Raiders Of The Lost Ark (AND ALL THE LIL' INDYS)
8. Jurassic Park (AND ALL THE LIL'DINOS)
9. Forrest Gump
10. Grease
11. The Avengers (AND ALL THE LIL' MARVELS)
12. The Dark Knight (AND ALL THE LIL' BATMANS)
13. Shrek 2 (AND ALL THE LIL' SHREKS)
14. Ghostbusters (AND ALL THE LIL' SLIMERS)
15. Spider-Man (AND ALL THE LIL' SPIDEYS)
16. Independence Day
17. Home Alone (AND ALL THE LIL' KEVINS)
18. Beverly Hills Cop (AND ALL THE LIL' EDDIES)
19. Pirates Of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest (AND ALL THE LIL' CAPTAINS)
20. Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King (AND ALL THE LIL' FRODOS)
21. National Lampoon's Animal House
22. The Passion Of The Christ
23. Back To The Future (AND ALL THE LIL' MCFLYS)
24. The Sixth Sense
25. Superman (AND ALL THE LIL' KRYPTONIANS)
26. Tootsie
27. Smokey And The Bandit (AND ALL THE LIL' SMOKEYS)
28. Finding Nemo
29. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone (AND ALL THE LIL' HARRYS)
30. Close Encounters Of The Third King

lol third Kind

give me Julie Andrews and Robert Redford in their prime over today's bankable pygmies any day.

oh plz! There's probably better acting in American movies than ever, even in supporting bits in crap comic book adaptations. Do you seriously wax nostalgic over Poppins and perhaps the least interesting major star of the last forty years?

his knee does, at least

poor Tootsie all alone with no sequels and prequels.

I did not need to know that Crystal Skull is the most successful Indy. I mean, it makes some sense, but dude.

― Andrew Farrell, Monday, August 13, 2012 12:24 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

adjusted for inflation Raiders is still the most successful (and them Temple, and then Crusade, and then Crystal Skull)

how did Robert Redford end up taking such a beating itt

Morbs will pay Capn Save a Red

yeah notably adjusted for inflation only 5 of the 30 are literal sequels - (The Avengers, The Dark Knight, Shrek 2, Dead Man's Chest, Return Of The King). And of the lot only Dead Man's Chest and maybe Shrek 2 aren't considered high points of the franchise.

those were released close enough to the originals that there was no cash inflation, just the inflation of "oh we liked the first one that we saw on DVD, gotta see this one in the theater"

30. Close Encounters Of The Third King

Starring Richard Dreyfuss as Aethelwulf of Wessex

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Athelwulf.jpg/210px-Athelwulf.jpg

films on the pre-"blockbuster" 30 that aren't based on a famous novel, a hit stage musical or an earlier movie: The Sting, Blazing Saddles, American Graffiti, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, Earthquake, What's Up Doc?, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner

of those 8, one is inspired by a non-fiction book about con men, one is a genre parody (i excluded young frankenstein for being more blatantly based on one work), one is a film about teenage nostalgia, one is a historical fantasy, one is a disaster film, one is a genre homage, one is a sci-fi film based on a short story and one is Guess Who's Coming To Dinner.

I am amazed no hack tried to film a Tootsie sequel tbh

i think a lot of amateur filmmakers made unreleased sequels

Turkish Tootsie was nuts

def The Exorcist

It's kinda funny - The Godfather and Jaws both started as lurid, trashy novels and were elevated above their source material by two directors in every different ways, one taking the near-camp high-opera route, one taking the tightly-plotted B-movie thriller route. The Exorcist started as what at least its author considered a very serious novel and was turned into lurid pulp. (The Poseidon Adventure and Airport I'll leave for others.)

oh plz! There's probably better acting in American movies than ever, even in supporting bits in crap comic book adaptations

I was talking about movie-star appeal specifically, but your theory at least explains why Clooney so effortlessly reproduced Cary Grant's gifts in Intolerable Cruelty.

amazing how much this reminds me of MAD MEN! they should totally do a remake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI90L2G46cQ

I haven't seen it since TV when I was a kid. They should wait til Susan Sarandon is old enough to play Helen Hayes (ie about 3 months).

"Jean Seberg is Tanya, his devoted assistant..."--there's one brilliant line after another in that trailer.

best line; "it has seven stories tied into one.. "

That made me laugh too! Someone actually counted? Obviously the inspiration for Nashville, which is 24/7 times as good.

Only ones of these that I've seen (and wasn't so young that I don't remember anything about them) are Sound of Music, Sting, Butch & Sundance, Poseidon Adventure, and Snow White (though that one's pretty hazy). SoM is great but flabby, Poseidon is good but pulpy, and Snow White... is I'm pretty sure a masterpiece, but I should watch it again. So it's Redford vs. Redford. The Sting charmed the hell out of me but I have no desire to watch it again, kind of too slow for a movie that's all about the unfolding of the plan - once you know the turns the plot takes it'd be boring to watch them march that way again. So...hell, Butch & Sundance it is.

you haven't seen The Godfather

I know, I know!

probably should have included it in I Have Never Seen Any Of These Movies; Please Advise but the others come up more often

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Well, I'd say that I now have my Netflix viewing cut out for me, but the only ones of these that Netflix actually has streaming are The Graduate (already in my queue) and Cleopatra (which I don't think I have the energy for). I guess they have The Sting 2, The Exorcist 2, More American Graffiti, and a miniseries remake of Doctor Zhivago.

Kind of amazing what they suggest as alternatives though. Ben-Hurt -> Never Been Kissed? Papillon -> The Garbage Pail Kids Movie? Love Story does prompt an intriguing, time-travel themed Bollywood feature called "Love Story 2050"...

er, Ben-Hur

18 Earthquake (1974) -- $79,666,653 1
16 The Poseidon Adventure (1972) -- $84,563,118 1
07 The Towering Inferno (1974) -- $116,000,000 1

If we work together ...

I already forget what I voted for but there's a 98% chance it was 2001 so I'm gonna say "yay!"

I've seen and enjoyed probably half of this list. The ones I haven't seen have largely been goofy disaster things like "The Towering Inferno" or "Poseidon Adventure" or infamously bloated/dull epics like "Cleopatra," "Papillon" and "Doctor Zhivago." Which leads me to my question: is "Ben-Hur" worth it? I've never seen that one, either, and while there is a new 4k restoration available I have my doubts the movie is worth more than the chariot race.

Ben-Hur is worth it, but I don't necessarily think it's better than Poseidon Adventure or Cleopatra or Papillon or The Towering Inferno, all of which are entertaining (see Cleopatra on a big screen, please). Doctor Zhivago is boring.

Aw, I have a soft spot for Doctor Zhivago. I saw it in a high school social studies class, which was screened by our derelict and unenthusiastic instructor as a means to fulfill some baseline of contractually necessary teaching duties alongside his main gig as the football coach. Also watched Ghandi in that class, and Ben-Hur too. DZ was interesting to me, but on reflection maybe only because it was a lot better than having to do whatever we would've normally been doing in terms of classwork -- but also because around age 14 I was starting to become hungry for these types of "important" cultural documents that seemed to offer a window into a world outside my suburban hinterland culture

I love Doctor Zhivago

I don't know why Eric H. left this site but I miss him

Eric H and I would agree on Cleopatra as good camp.

Ben hur is camp but good. Poseidon is camp and bad, but good

Cleopatra is good camp, but as far as seeing it in a theater i'd recommend leaving after Rex Harrison gets killed, enjoying a nice dinner somewhere near the theater, some dessert and a leisurely drink, and come back for the last 30 minutes

There should be an entr'acte in any screening of Cleopatra. Go and take a piss and come back. You've committed to a four-hour film, so just settle in and go with it.

In all seriousness it would have made much more sense as two separate films as originally intended (one featuring Harrison and the other Burton). I wonder if someone might release it that way someday.

there was a pretty decent TCM podcast last year about the making of making of Cleopatra that drew heavily on Mankiewicz's diaries from that time, it was the first i'd ever heard of the two-films idea, it definitely makes sense based on the structure.

Ben Hur is pretty entertaining considering its age and length, but not as entertaining as Gone With the Wind (Vivian Leigh & Clark Gable > Charlton Heston)

See, I *have* seen Gone with the Wind but can't imagine sitting through it again. I watched the trailer for the Ben-Hur restoration, and part of me wanted to see it, literally, because the restoration work they did looks incredible, but at the same time, another part of me was not particularly enticed by the cast/movie/story itself.

I've heard good things about the silent version.

It looks like the silent version is only available on a previous blu-ray set, bundled with the remake. Supposedly lots of horses died during the production, and rumor has it possibly a few people as well. Apparently many locals were hired as extras for the sea-battle sequence, in which they actually lit the boats on fire, the fire spread, and some extras (clad in heavy costumes) jumped ship and drowned.

This looks nuts for sure:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltg44EjWS1A

Supposedly lots of horses died during the production, and rumor has it possibly a few people as well.

Film makers routinely used tripwires to make horses fall on camera, until public outrage over Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) forced them to reform.

Francis X. Bushman stated that a stuntman was killed during the filming of the chariot race and director Fred Niblo spent many a sleepless night trying to track down Italian extras who went missing during the pirate ship attack scene.

(https://moviessilently.com/2016/08/13/lets-talk-about-the-real-ben-hur-and-answer-some-burning-questions)

Hollywood took a similarly cavalier attitude towards stuntmen and extras, until reports of injuries and deaths on the set of Noah's Ark (1928) brought PR nightmares.

(https://variety.com/gallery/catastrophic-on-set-accidents-timeline/)