Ginger Rogers Movies

The AFI listed Ginger Rogers as the 14th Greatest Screen Legend Actress
The AFI listed Ginger Rogers as the 14th Greatest Screen Legend Actress

Want to know the best Ginger Rogers movies?  How about the worst Ginger Rogers movies?  Curious about Ginger Rogers’s box office grosses or which Ginger Rogers movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Ginger Rogers movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which ones got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place…. because we have all of that information and much more.

Ginger Rogers (1911-1995) was an Oscar® winning American actress, singer and dancer.  On American Film Institute’s Top 50 Screen Legends list, Rogers was ranked as the 14th best actress.  Right behind #13 Grace Kelly and right before #15 Mae West.  She appeared in movies from 1929 to 1965.   Rogers appeared opposite Fred Astaire in 10 movies.  Those movies revolutionized the musical genre. She also achieved great success on her own in a variety of film roles and won a Best Actress Oscar® for 1940’s Kitty Foyle.

Her IMDb page shows 92 acting credits from 1929-1987. This page will rank Ginger Rogers movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.  Television appearances, shorts, documentaries and many of her B movies from 1929-1933 were not included in the rankings.

It is hard not to think of Fred Astaire when you hear the name Ginger Rogers. They made 10 movies together.
It is hard not to think of Fred Astaire when you hear the name Ginger Rogers. They made 10 movies together.

Ginger Rogers Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.

Ginger Rogers Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort Ginger Rogers movies by co-stars of her movies
  • Sort Ginger Rogers movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Ginger Rogers movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Ginger Rogers movies by how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Ginger Rogers movie received.
  • Sort Ginger Rogers movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score.  UMR puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
  • Use the sort and search buttons to make this table very interactive.  For example…if you type in “Fred Astaire” in the search box….the 10 Rogers/Astaire movies will pop right up.
  • * Sadly Worldwide box office is not available for all of the Ginger Rogers’ movies ranked but we have added the ones we do have at the bottom of the page
Ginger Rogers in 1940's Kitty Foyle.
Ginger Rogers in 1940’s Kitty Foyle.

Possibly Interesting Facts About Ginger Rogers

1. Ginger Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri.  She became “Ginger” when a relative had a hard time saying Virginia.  She became “Rogers” when her mother remarried and became a Rogers.

2. Ginger Rogers’ road to stardom Cliff Notes style….She entered and won a Charleston dance contest which allowed her to tour and dance for six months.  When the tour got to New York City, she stayed, getting radio singing jobs and then her Broadway theater debut in a musical called 1929’s Top Speed.  Rogers was then chosen to star George and Ira Gershwin’s Girl Crazy. Her appearance in Girl Crazy made her an overnight star at the age of 19.  This lead to a 7 year movie contract with Paramount.   She appeared with Fred Astaire in supporting roles in 1933’s Flying Down To Rio.  Their dance scenes were the highlight of the movie…and was beginning of one of the greatest screen teams in the history of movies.

3.  Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire starred in 10 movies together.  During those 10 movies they had 33 partnered dance sequences.  Some of their more famous dance sequences would be “I’ll Be Hard to Handle” from 1935’s Roberta, “I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket” from 1936’s Follow The Fleet,   and “Pick Yourself Up” from 1936’s Swing Time and “Cheek to Cheek” from Top Hat.

4. Ginger Rogers was nominated for one Oscar® (Kitty Foyle) and one Golden Globe® (Monkey Business).  She won the Best Actress Oscar® for Kitty Foyle.

5. According to the American Film Institute, Ginger Rogers is the 14th greatest female star of all-time.

6. Ginger Rogers was married five times in her life.  Sadly all five of her marriages ended in divorce.  She did not have any children.

7. Roles Ginger Rogers turned down or was seriously considered for:  It’s A Wonderful Life (Donna Reed role), His Girl Friday (Rosalind Russell role), Now, Voyager (Bette Davis role), and The Heiress and To Each His Own (Olivia de Havilland Oscar® winning roles) and Ball of Fire (Barbara Stanwyck role).

8. On our Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time page…Ginger Rogers’ 15 adjusted $100 million movies is tied in 4th place for most of all actresses that have a UMR page.

9.  Ginger Rogers did many paintings, sculptures and sketches in her free time but could never bring herself to sell any of them.  She was a near-champion tennis player, a topline shot and loved going fishing.

10.  Ginger Rogers was one of the celebrities whose picture Anne Frank placed on the wall of her bedroom in the “Secret Annex” while in hiding during the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam, Holland.

Ginger Rogers Adjusted Worldwide Box Office Grosses

America Film Institutes’ Top 25 Screen Legend Actress and UMR’s Links That Rank All Of Their Movies.

1.  Katharine Hepburn  43 Movies Ranked..On Golden Pond (1981) to Grace Quigley (1985)
2.  Bette Davis 79 Movies Ranked…from All About Eve (1950) to Wicked Stepmother (1989)
3.  Audrey Hepburn 24 Movies Ranked…from My Fair Lady (1964) to The All Laughed (1981)
4.  Ingrid Bergman  32 Movies Ranked..Gaslight(1944) to Files of Mrs. Basil E.Frankweiler(1973)
5.  Greta Garbo 24 Movies Ranked.. from Ninotchka (1939) to Torrent (1928)
6.  Marilyn Monroe 23 Movies Ranked…from Some Like It Hot (1959) to Ladies of the Chorus (1948)
7.  Elizabeth Taylor 47 Movies Ranked..Who’s Afraid of Va.Woolf?(1966) to A Little Night Music(1977)
8.  Judy Garland 31 Movies Ranked…from A Star Is Born (1954) to I Could Go On Singing (1963)
9.  Marlene Dietrich 30 Movies Ranked…from Shanghai Express (1932) to Just A Gigolo (1978)
10. Joan Crawford 72 Movies Ranked…from Mildred Pierce (1945) to The Law of the Range (1928)
11. Barbara Stanwyck 72 Movies Ranked.. Double Indemnity (1944) to The Bride Walks Out (1936)
12. Claudette Colbert 48 Movies Ranked..It Happened One Night(1934) to Royal Affairs(1954)
13. Grace Kelly 11 Movies Ranked.. from The Country Girl (1954) to Green Fire (1954)
14. Ginger Rogers 54 Movies Ranked.. from Kitty Foyle (1940) to The Groom Wore Spurs (1951)
15. Mae West 12 Movies Ranked.. from She Done Him Wrong (1933) to Sextette (1978)
16. Vivien Leigh 15 Movies Ranked.. from Gone With The Wind (1939) to Dark Journey (1937)
17. Lillian Gish 31 Movies Ranked.. from Intolerance (1916) to Hambone and Hillie (1983)
18. Shirley Temple 37 Movies Ranked.. from Since You Went Away (1944) to Honeymoon (1947)
19. Rita Hayworth 35 Movies Ranked.. from Gilda (1946) to The Naked Zoo (1970)
20. Lauren Bacall 36 Movies Ranked.. from To Have and Have Not (1944) to Diamonds (1999)
21. Sophia Loren 29 Movies Ranked.. from El Cid (1961) to Firepower (1979)
22. Jean Harlow 22 Movies Ranked.. from The Public Enemy (1931) to Riffraff (1936)
23. Carole Lombard 39 Movies Ranked from My Man Godfrey (1936) to It Pays To Advertise(1931)
24. Mary Pickford 31 Movies Ranked.. from The Little Princess (1917) to Rosita (1923)
25. Ava Gardner 40 Movies Ranked.. from The Killers (1946) to City on Fire (1979)
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.  Golden Globes® are the registered trademark and service mark of the Hollywood Foreign Press.
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94 thoughts on “Ginger Rogers Movies”

  1. BRUCE/STEVE
    I’d be gratefil if Bruce would delete my earlier post today sent at 8.47am on this subject as I added in the some figures twice. I’m not as good as Bruce is in dealing with mass stats ! but the following figures are now the correct ones. Apologies for inconvenience and any confusion.

    The following is an overall breakdown of the stats in Box Office Mojo’s list of the 80 highest domestic grossing films of all time adjusted for ticket inflation.

    CLASSIC ERA – [Officially described as the period from 1917 until 1960]
    15 movies with a combined adjusted domestic gross of $10.8 billion

    MODERN ERA -[1961 until PRESENT]
    1961-1969 12 movies with a combined adjusted domestic gross of $8.8 billion
    1970-PRESENT 53 movies with a combined adjusted domestic gross of $34.8 billion
    MODERN AREA OVERALL 65 movies with a combined adjusted domestic gross of $43.6 billion

    Reply

    1. Hey Bob…I deleted the other comment per your request. I like the breakdown…..though once again Box Office Mojo pretty much ignores many massive hits of the “classic error” Only 43 Billion for the modern era…..that does not seem as much as I thought it would be. I wonder if I had a page that showed the Top 80 in my database…how many would be in the classic era…I bet way more than 15. Good stuff as always.

      Reply

      1. 1 Thank you for your further interest in my post of and for your courtesy in deleting the earlier travesty. I do not have your expertise in these matters so when you said you were puzzled about some of the figures I again very carefully checked the Mojo Top 80 grosses and found that I had the modern era one entirely accurate at $43.6 million and that I was just marginally out on the classic era amount which should have been $10.9 billion instead of $10.8 billion.

        2 That is though just a reflection of Mojo’s take on things and I am of course acutely aware that many of your classic era stats, and indeed of those up until 1982, are higher than the ones on Mojo’s list and in fact your figures are the ones that I select for my own database and out of interest I compared ALL Mojo’s figures with yours as I went along and I was not able to find stats from you for just 4 movies and I was wondering if it would be convenient for you to now let me have them:

        National Lampoon’s Animal House
        Finding Dory
        Finding Nemo
        Love Story

        3 Also there were conflicting figures in UPDATED pages –

        (1) Rear Window – 442 Jimmy and Grace & AFI / 514 Hitch
        (2) White Christmas – 519 Bing & Danny/629 Musical /550 UMR
        (3) The Sting – 1,128 Newman & Redford/777 UMR
        (4) Greatest Show on Earth- 513 Lamour, Hutton & Chuck/597 Jimmy
        (5) Butch Cassidy Redford & Newman 781/UMR & AFI 614
        (6) Going my Way Bing 500/UMR 553

        Reply

        1. Hey Bob…thanks for the clarification…your list has me thinking of doing the top grossers in our database…if anything…just to see how many classic movies bump out these newer movies. As for your request….two of the them are on the Pixar page (my most popular page)
          Finding Dory….$486.29 million
          Finding Nimo….$474.90 million

          As for Love Story it has rentals of $48,700,000 and Animal House has rentals of $70,826,000 in rentals…..I will put them in my database to see what my formula comes up with after dinner and yet again more Christmas shopping.

          Reply

          1. Actually….Animal House is on the Donald Sutherland page…with $432.60 million…though I noticed I am using box office totals and not my calculation.

          2. Ok….using my multiplier….the gross for Animal House would be $157.39 million or $567.00 million in adjusted gross….which would move Animal House from 61st to 46th….as for Love Story…..that translates to $802.60 million using my calculation….which is much more that Box Office Mojo’s $600.00 million. I sometimes think my multiplier does not work as well with movies that were massive box office hits…. I think at some point the studio starts getting more money back by % as the success rises. It makes me think…either way Love Story is a Top 40 hit of all-time.

          3. HI BRUCE

            1 Thanks for your further feedback. I look forward to your Love Story calculation.

            2 One movie still beats me though and it is a 1952 gimmick called Cinerama Holiday which was listed as a big hit at the time, but I have not since heard about it or seen it on any list of box office grossers so I checked with Wikipedia which confirms that it was cited by Variety as accumulating US rentals of 12.5 million in 1952 which if accurate would put it just ahead of The Greatest Show on Earth and indeed in one of its lists Wikipedia ranks it above Greatest Show. Do you have anything on Cinerama Holiday?

            3 I should add that I have nearly completed a Top 80 Highest Grossing Films of all Time list using all of YOUR figures. My initial impression is that as you say it gives more credit to classic era films than Mojo does but at the same time there could be an element of swings and roundabouts for you have also given better figures than Mojo for a number of movies in the modern era between 1961 and 1982. However I will be more definitive once I’ve done my totals over the next few days. It’s all great fun though, isn’t it?

    2. HI BRUCE
      1 I have now completed a list of the 80 Highest Grossing Movies of all time on the basis of your updated stats and the division between the classic and modern totals in the exercise is as follows:

      CLASSIC ERA
      19 grosses totalling an adjusted $11.7 billion
      MODERN ERA
      62 grosses totalling an adjusted $43.3 billion

      2 However whilst I think your figures are adjusted to actual ticket prices in 2015/16 Mojo’s grosses are based on estimated ticket prices for 2016/17. Therefore to compare your figures with Mojo’s I had to slightly increase yours which gives us the following marginally increased figures with Mojo’s current totals for its Top 80 in brackets.

      CLASSIC ERA
      19 Cogerson grosses = $11.9 billion [$10.8 billion corresponding figure Mojo]
      MODERN ERA
      62 Cogerson grosses = $44.2 billion [43.6 billion corresponding figure in Mojo]

      3 The Disney run off movies have been excluded as they are spread across all decades and whilst there are only 80 movies in my list there are 81 figures in the stats as GWTW has been included in the figures for both modern and classic eras with its income split in accordance with your very helpful table on Olivia DeHavilland’s page.

      Reply

  2. 1 My previous post about Variety/Box office Mojo stats was meant for both of you.

    2 STEVE – Please let me have a blue link for your Flynn video as I can’t seem to pick it up

    3 BRUCE – Thanks for including the Cat and Canary figure for me in the Hope post.

    Reply

    1. Interesting post Bob, you should have posted that at the top of the page to make it easier to find, took me ages, okay minutes. 🙂

      For some reason my browser is misdirecting the links to the very first page of comments on each actor, so when I click on a new comment link I get sent to the oldest page of comments for that actor, if you get my drift. In other words I have to dig around to find the latest comments. I hope it’s a temporary bug.

      Yep movies make a lot of profit these days from an expanded world market, DVD sales, Cable, Streaming etc I wonder if big flops like the recent Ben-Hur and Gods of Egypt, ever see a profit? Cleopatra (1963) had to wait until the early 70s when it was sold to TV before it turned a profit and I think that was the most popular film of it’s year!

      Good to see from the example you posted that Apocalypto did make it’s money back and more. I wonder if Mel Gibson’s newest film will be as lucky, it’s had great reviews but are audiences interested?

      So whats the average cost to profit ratio for todays films, I think it’s 2.5 times it’s cost? And don’t forget the cost of advertising. It must have been a lot different 70 years ago when movies were much cheaper to make – and practically on the assembly line, movie after movie…

      Reply

          1. Thanks Bruce, so it isn’t my browser, that’s good to know. Come to think of it I could have tried another browser to see if it did the same thing, never mine I hope you can fix the widget thing. I will do what you said and find the actor on the index page, or just delete the comment part of the URL in the address bar. It’s not so easy finding Bob’s posts he likes to reply to old comments. 🙂

          2. Hey Steve…granted it is still hard to find some of the older comments and the ones that have 10 or more reply comments….but by using the site index…it seems to make it much easier to find the comment. Tonight was another night of no progress in fixing this issue.

      2. Hey Steve….it is not your browser that is causing the issue….my comment widget had an update….and this is supposedly “better” than the older way. Needless to say they were not right. I am currently in talks with them to fix their “better” widget…if they do not fix it…I will be looking at a “better” widget for the comments. My trick to find the comment? Instead of clicking the link in the comment box ….use the site index to bring up that actor….and then the latest comments are the first ones you see.

        Good points on the profits…I think Hacksaw Ridge is interesting to audiences….it has been the Top 10 for over a month now….the many Golden Globe nominations will help….and now it is gaining steam for some Oscar love. Some of the advertising budgets are insane….I read that the latest Cruise movie Jack Reacher 2 spent almost on advertising that it earned at the box office.

        Thanks for the comment and the return visit.

        Reply

      3. HI STEVE

        1 Thanks for Flynn link – I’ll get back to you on that one asap.

        2 Variety’s reported rule of thumb in the late 1970s was that a film had to gross 2.5 times it’s production cost in the worldwide CINEMA markets.just to break even. Whether that ratio still holds true I don’t know because production costs and promotional expenditure are said to be greater today but on the other hand DVD/Video sales now also enter the equation which might more than offset increased production/promotional costs. On yet the other hand big stars like Cruise have been apparently getting enormous salaries and profit shares that never used to be the case so that about a year ago Cruise and the others involved were openly accused of eating up so much of the profits that there is little left for the film companies on some occasions.

        3 If though the 2.5 rule still is valid then clearly Apocalypto made a profit and it would look as if the foreign markets even on their own are going to save Mel’s Hacksaw Ridge as it cost $40 million to make and has now grossed $100 million worldwide without DVD/video sales the foreign markets at least are even on their own going to save the day.

        4 For the past week or more I too have been having this same trouble with my links browser that you have now mentioned and it’s taking me ages to find new posts and I thought maybe Bruce was making things more difficult for us because we were arguing with him too much !. However the browser problem dates from the time that the entire site went down for 12 hours and it could be a general fault requiring the attention of the Oracle himself or even W o C.

        MAESTRO – over to you to consider our concerns

        Reply

        1. Hey Bob….from another comment…”it is not your browser that is causing the issue….my comment widget had an update….and this is supposedly “better” than the older way. Needless to say they were not right. I am currently in talks with them to fix their “better” widget…if they do not fix it…I will be looking at a “better” widget for the comments. My trick to find the comment? Instead of clicking the link in the comment box ….use the site index to bring up that actor….and then the latest comments are the first ones you see.”

          I am efforting to get this fixed….it is not Word Press but one of the many people/companies that provide apps to Word Press….this was one update that made the site worse and certainly not better. WoC has already taken a look….and says we can not fix the issue on our end.

          Damn you Tom Greedy…share the wealth….lol. I think Hacksaw will be profitable. It’s 8.6 IMDb is pretty stout….and this is after 6 weeks of release…..I think the Oscar voters are going to help it too….as they will get it back in theaters….so I think it will end up with close to $75 million in USA box office

          Good stuff…as usual.

          Reply

          1. 1 Thanks for the help with the link problem. I have done what you suggested and I am happy with the result.

            2 Heartening domestic projection for Hacksaw Ridge [which I initially keep typing in as Hertbreak Ridge after the Clint movie!]. The ‘Ridge’ overseas figure was stuck at around the $14 million for weeks but within the last week has mushroomed to around $38 million..Maybe it has had a more phased release abroad. Fingers crossed!

          2. Hey Bob….still signs of getting that issue fixed…so using the site index is the best way for awhile…though even that did not help much in finding this comment….lol I think Hacksaw Ridge still has some life in it. It is doing much better than Inferno which opened about the same time….that one will be in RedBox next week….lol. I know exactly what you mean about getting Hacksaw and Heartbreak Ridge mixed up…as I have done the same thing myself.

  3. I looove ‘stats’, he said with a smirk on his face. No seriously those worldwide grosses have piqued my interest, no no I mean it, my interest has been well and truly piqued.

    Top Hat really was a mega hit… 80 years ago! Way back in the Jurassic Age of Hollywood. Unless I’m mistaken that was Astaire’s biggest hit… until Easter Parade in the late 40s mayhap? But even more eyebrow-raising was Busby Berkeley’s naughty Golddiggers of 1933 which, according to your latest stats, has grossed over a half billion dollars in adjusted currency, amazing. A bigger hit than the higher rated 42nd Street which came out earlier that same year.

    American went bonkers mad on musicals and that mania lasted at least 30 years, after The Sound of Music broke all records moviegoers started to lose interest in good old fashioned song and dance, preferring sex and violence instead.

    Nice work Bruce. You won’t find those stats and facts anywhere else on the net. Vote Up!

    Reply

    1. HI Steve

      Where do you get the billion for Gold Diggers from?. According to Bruce’s table above that movie grosses $231 mil in US and $569 worldwide. Unless Bruce has given you extra figures we haven’t got !

      Top Hat with $321 million worldwide was the biggest ASTAIRE/ROGERS Hit but Fred’s biggest overall was $548 mil with Bing in Blue Skies -see sepaprate column of worldwide hits on Fred’s page.

      Reply

      1. Oh sorry I meant to say ‘over half a billion’ maybe Bruce can correct that bit, just add the word ‘half’ after ‘over’. I wish we could edit our own posts, maybe Bruce can look into that.

        Thanks for the added info Bob, forgot about Blue Skies… “smilin’ at me
        Nothin’ but blue skies do I see” , that was huge too, maybe too big, I might be wrong but wasn’t Meet Me in St. Louis the biggest hit of the 40s? until Samson and Delilah was released late 1949. Hit me with the stats boys, I can take it. 🙂

        Reply

        1. STEVE

          1 On the figures available Meet Me in St Louis was Judy’s highest grosser worldwide and has an adjusted worldwide gross of $559 million but for openers Gold Diggers with $569 million and Casablanca with $632 million beat Judy’s movie assuming all of those incomes were generated within the 1940s.

          2 Also I suspect that GWTW with a massive adjusted worldwide gross of over $3 billion would maybe top everything but I don’t know how much of that figure was generated within the 40s. Bruce gives a fine breakdown on Olivia DeHavilland’s page but that chart relates to only domestic grosses and doesn’t give a split of the 1939/40 domestic figure so Bruce could perhaps give you a more comprehensive overview in the matter.

          3 You would think that Samson and Delilah with an adjusted domestic gross of $578 million would indeed be a strong contender but we have no worldwide figure and you never can be sure. For example Fonda/Cagney’s Mr Roberts has an adjusted domestic gross of $394 million but earned just an adjusted $43 million abroad bringing its total to only $437 million. Worse as well as an adjusted domestic gross Bruce has given us an actual US gross of $10.0 million for Laddie’s Tiger in the Sky aka The McConnell Story (1955) making it a sizeable hit in the States for those days but the raw material from Warners ledgers provided by Bruce shows that the abysmal foreign gross raised that actual figure to just under $10.2 million worldwide. Poor Laddie! – my son quips that he has come up ‘short’ again.

          BRUCE – Over to you !

          Reply

          1. CORRECTION
            Apologies for any confusion as Gold Diggers was of course a 30s film but Casablanca still beats Judy IF its $631 million was generated within the 40s but as said Bruce can maybe bring more precision to matters. Even if GWTW did earn more money in the 40s than any other film you could argue I suppose that it too was a 30’s RELEASE.

          2. Thanks Bob, does that mean Casablanca was the highest grossing movie worldwide ‘during’ the 1940s and that was first released in the 40s? If you get my gist. So discounting GWTW and Samson which did most of it’s business in 1950. That would cheer me up a bit, I’m a huge fan of Casablanca.

            How much did Best Years of Our Lives gross? that was a big moneymaker too. Hopefully not bigger than Rick’s Cafe Americain. For Whom the Bell Tolls I suspect had them queueing up too during that decade.

        2. Hey Steve….you asked….and here is what I have for Top Films of the 1940s decade. Variety February 24th 1992. Three Disney films are listed first but they do not count due to so many re-releases.
          1st Sampson and Delihah
          2nd Best Years of Our Lives
          3rd Duel in the Sun
          4th This is the Army
          5th Bells of St. Mary’s
          6th Jolson Story
          7th For Whom The Bell Tolls
          8th Going My Way
          9th Sgt. York
          10th Welcome Stranger
          11th Blue Skies
          12th King Soloman’s Mines
          13th The Yearling
          14th Leave Her To Heaven
          15th Bachelor and Bobby Soxer
          16th Egg and I
          17th Mrs. Miniver
          18th Unconquered
          19th Saratoga Trunk
          20th Meet Me in St. Louis
          21st The Outlaw

          Wow Bing with 4 of the top 11 movies for decade….and this was the greatest movie decade of all-time,

          Reply

          1. HI BRUCE

            1 Revealing list. Who would have thought that the daftly-titled The Egg and I or Cooper’s awful Saratoga Trunk would have done better that Meet Me in St Louis?

            2 Our exchanges about the wide variations in the ratios of domestic to overseas grosses remind me of a book that I was bought for Christmas 1979 that dealt with what were claimed to be the 100 highest grossing films of all time. A couple of pages were devoted to each one of the 100 and at the front of the book was a list of the variety rentals for those films adjusted for inflation at 1979 ticket prices. The authors blandly told us to in each case multiply the rental figure by 2.12 and then double the resulting figure to get the worldwide gross for every film. In short it was glibly assumed that the rental multiple was static throughout the ages and that on average films earned abroad the same income that they did in the US.

            3 Young Robert of course swallowed all of that up and for years it was his Bible and he simply kept adjusting t for added inflation as the years went on. You can imagine how askew those results must have been and the situation proves the old adage that “a LITTLE knowledge is a dangerous thing” Accordingly it struck me that readers of this site should appreciate the painstaking research that goes into giving them as accurate as possible a picture of ALL aspects a movie’s earning equation so that where for example a worldwide gross is not known only the domestic figure is quoted so that nobody is misled.

            4 I am not going to say what the 100 films in that book were in case John starts up a belated argument about them, but I will end on a positive note by saying that it’s great that Steve is now on a Classic era stats learning curve – what a Christmas present for you and me!

          2. Thanks for the list Bruce, strange that Casablanca is not on there especially after Bob mentioned that huge worldwide gross in his post.

            I don’t think there was a King Solomons Mines in the 40s, there was one in the 50s, was there one in the 30s? Can’t remember.

            Bing was a top draw in the 40s. Meet Me in St. Louis is lower than expected.

          3. Hey Bob…..All of the Top 100 on that Variety list…were monster hits….more tickets to movies sold in that decade than any other decade….and that does not even include Gone With The Wind that earned most of it’s money in 1940, 1941 and 1942.

            As for the clunkers…..there are bad blockbusters in every decade….currently everybody seems to dislike the Transformers movies….yet if you look at the top hits….the Transformer movies are right there at the top.

            Interesting about you 1979 book and their 2.12 multiplier….when we were going down that path we came up with 2.20……so our thinking was pretty close. Though we have never thought about “just doubling” to get worldwide grosses….but I can see that logic.

            I agree it is nice to see Steve getting slightly more interested in the box office numbers…..maybe the Ghost Of Box Office Past visited him…lol.

          4. Hey Steve…..Variety lists their decades from 01 to 00….so for that list is started with 1941 and end in 1950..which is how King Soloman made the list.

            Casablanca is listed in 58th place..right behind one of your favorites….Easter Parade and right before A Guy Named Joe.

            In the 1940s average attendance per week was over 90 million….compared to the 18 million that go today……so being ranked 20th like St. Louis is impressive….and was a monster hit.

            Thanks for the return visit.

          5. 1 A few months ago I attended a lecture by a specialist on the development of the cinema and he made the same point as you about the fourfold drop in cinema audiences since their 1940’s peak.

            2 However he stressed that it was not gloom as there had not been a
            completely corresponding drop in the watching of movies and the latter was being now being done via a number of other mediums that had not existed in the 1940s such as multiple TV channels that show movies, DVD/Videos sales, internet downloads and direct online viewing. He also emphasised additional relief factors for producers like spin-offs such as video games, toys etc especially for the big Sci-fi/superhero franchises and greater than ever worldwide markets

            EXAMPLE: MEL GIBSON’S APOCALYPTO (2006) – ADJUSTED STATS
            Budget/ 45,000,000
            Domestic Gross/ 66,000,000
            Foreign Gross/ 92,000,000
            Domestic DVD/Video sales/ 57,000,000
            Foreign DVD/Video sales/ N/K
            TOTAL GROSS/215,000,000 Plus foreign DVDs/Videos

            3 It was further emphasised that those movies which do make profits today are making far greater ones than ever before. Evidence is in the Box Office Mojo’s domestic list of the 45 highest grossing movies of all time adjusted for inflation. According to your own adjusted figures the two highest grossing movies in the Variety 1941-1950 list you gave Steve were Best Years of our Lives and Samson and Delilah and in Box Office Mojo’s top 45 highest grossers 28 films from 1970 onward exceed the grosses for those two movies and many considerably so. Also as cinema ticket prices were very cheap in real terms back in the 1940s the gross of a movie today with an attendance of say 20 million people would have up to twice the purchasing power of the gross of a movie attended by 20 million people back in the thirties/forties.

      2. Hey Bob….I can fix his error when I get home. Fred and Bing had some monster hits together….I wonder why they did not make more.

        Reply

    2. Hey Steve…..proud day…..tears in my eyes…..Steve is talking about box office numbers…I am so glad I lived long enough to see that happen…..lol.

      I have found some worldwide box office numbers on King Kong. Now I just need a place to list it. Yep Gold Diggers was huge especially overseas. The power of the musical. Sound of Music is easily the bigges musical ever. Somehow it did not get played at our house this Thanksgiving….probably because we were in Alaska.

      Thanks for the kind words.

      Reply

      1. HI Steve

        1 Casablanca earned more than Meet Me in St Louis overall but we need Bruce to tell us the phasing of Casablanca’s and Meet Me in St Louis’ income to see which earned more within the forties. Best Years of our Lives DOMESTIC income of an adjusted $570 mil alone would beat Judy if it was all earned within the forties and its worldwide gross should take it beyond Casablanca’s but as I’ve said you just don’t know because some foreign revenues for even big US hits are pathetic. Another example is How the West Was Won which according to both Wikipedia and The Numbers earned an actual massive $46.5 in the States and a miserly $3.5 million overseas. And according to IMDB and The Numbers The Longest Day’s income was split approx 80% USA and just 20% abroad.

        2 To know what multiples to use in his calculations Bruce is bound to know the phasing of all the grosses HE has given us but even then you must remember that he has not been able so far to get WW grosses for a large number of films including some of the very biggest US hits..

        Reply

    3. Hey Bruce, sorry to bother you again but can you fix an error in my “Lens Steveman” post? I left out the word “half” in the sentence “has grossed over a billion dollars” it should read “has grossed over half a billion dollars”. Cheers!

      Reply

  4. 1 Hi Bruce thanks for your 11.28 am post yesterday. As I have noticed that you’ve been following exchanges between Steve and me about his videos you will be aware that he usually keeps a “26th” place up his sleeve for disgruntled fans!

    2 In your current Ginger update the comprehensive worldwide grosses table which I now have had the chance to study is super with the 34 entries comprising almost 62% of the movies in Ginger’s domestic grosses table, though I see you’ve done your old trick in reverse by advertising 36 WW grosses but giving us 34!

    The breakdown is:
    10 Astaire/Rogers movies 60.6% domestic/39.4% foreign
    24 Other Ginger movies 67% domestic/33% foreign.
    All 34 movies 64.6% domestic/35.4% foreign

    3 The foreign grosses % for the Astaire/Rogers flicks is among the best we’ve seen for the Classic era but of course still nowhere near the overall 50/50 or better split that many of today’s movies attract. However that target is considerably more than achieved by Gold Diggers of 1933’s INDIVIDUAL ratio of around 40% domestic/60% foreign based on a worldwide gross of nearly $579 million which is stupendous for those days. Take note of this one Steve – maybe we’ll yet convert you to the glory of stats. Good overall catch here Bruce.

    Reply

    1. Hey Bob…..not sure how I keep making that mistake….either I am getting forgetful or I am looking at the wrong list of movies. I am pretty happy with 62% of her movies with worldwide box office.

      I think the percentage breakdown you show is pretty cool information….looks Fred and Ginger did pretty well overseas. I was looking at the pages that still need updates and I am down to 24 classic pages…and 48 current pages….so that is only 24 that will see drastic changes….I see the light….I see the light….lol.

      Reply

  5. 1 In an interview before her death Ginger complained about historians retrospectively treating her as an unequal partner in the Astaire/Rogers legend. For example the AFI list of all time Classic era Greats ranks Ginger 14th among females and Fred 5th among males though in my opinion that ranking slightly flatters him when it places him above the likes of Gable, Wayne and Chaplin.

    2 The Astaire/Rogers heyday was for the most part in the 1930s but in the forties and fifties Fred made other classic musicals such as Holiday Inn, Blue Skies, both with Bing, Easter Parade and The Band Wagon and was partnered in the genre by other great female co-stars such Judy Garland and Audrey Hepburn as well as wonderful dancers like Cyd Charisse and Rita Hayworth. Also Fred and Gene Kelly have tended to be regarded as THE hoofers of the Hollywood Classic era.

    3 If others are considering such factors in making to Ginger’s disadvantage comparisons between the careers of Fred and her it is academic to me as I will always regard her as a great legend of yesteryear whether joint 5th or 14th and I value this page and have been looking forward to its update.

    Reply

    1. Hey Bob
      1. I agree….whether she is 5th or 14th she is an all-time legend for sure.
      2. It is hard to separate Rogers and Astaire but they both had great success away from each other….with Rogers getting an Oscar.
      3. I think the fact that Rogers had so many non dancing movies that she slipped into the group of great actresses…..while Astaire got to be one of the two best dancers….his acting was never really appreciated.
      Good thoughts on Ms. Rogers.

      Reply

      1. HI BRUCE

        1 Some observant points there. Indeed it could be that because Ginger made so many non dancing movies whereas Fred stuck largely to their original script that as time wore on she came a bit disassociated in some people’s minds from the genre that made them legends to begin with so that her comparison with Fred suffered slightly.

        2 As you say Fred was not regarded as a serious actor, the Marx Bros were associated with (albeit intelligent) farce and Judy Garland’s heyday career was built around frothy musical comedies and the Joe Yule Jr Partnership so why do you think they were all regarded as legends and Bing and Bob two of the greatest ticket sellers ever and all round entertainers were excluded from the AFI Legends list? I mean in your mind are those last two really lesser legends than the others I’ve mentioned? We will probably never 2nd guess AFI but I’m just interested in your casual thoughts.

        Reply

        1. Hey Bob….maybe they canceled each other out….in sports if two people are really good…one rarely wins a MVP award….because voters can’t separate the two on the same team…so they look elsewhere…..maybe that is what happened with Crosby and Hope….and in the end they left both off the list. Crosby has the best guess…..as his Oscar win had to count for something.

          The finalists for the AFI list would be some pretty good reading….especially if they include the reasoning of the ones that got left off….who was 26th…Crosby, Flynn, Heston…I think we will never know.

          Reply

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