795 thoughts on “Site Index”

1. 1 STEVE/BRUCE The numerous views and comments that you two guys get in relation to your classic era stars indicate that on your sites there is great interest in such people. However probably your work attracts so many film buffs that the viewers may not be totally representative of the more general public so for fun I decided to test the recognition capacity of the 40 somethings by quoting the random names below to my 44 year old son in law to see how many he knew. Whilst his revelations may not be definitive they should be respected for he too is called Steve! So here goes and Ladies first.

   2 NAMES THAT HE RECOGNISED: Bette Davis, the 2 Hepburns, Judy Garland, Monroe, Liz Taylor and my Doris [but not Rock]. The Duke, James Dean, Chuck, Sinatra, Hope/Crosby, Mumbles, Cagney, Bogie, Dino but not Jerry, Chaplin, Jimmy Stewart and Archibald Alexander Leach. DeMille, Hitchcock, John Ford and Barry Norman
   I asked my Steve what he thought was the impact of the stars he recognized on artistic culture and he replied “Massive!”

   3 NAMES THAT HE DIDN’T RECOGNISE: Lana Turner, Myrna Loy, Garbo, Irene Dunne, Claudette Colbert, Barbara Stanwyck, Mary Pickford and Deborah Kerr. Robert Taylor, William Powell, Montgomery Clift, John Barrymore, David Niven, John Garfield and Abbott & Costello. Billy Wilder, William Wyler, Elia Kazan, Michael Winner and Joel Hirschhorn.

   Regarding the last name my Steve ventured that he was one of the Batman super villains. I put Steve straight of course by explaining that the gentleman concerned was the basis for the lead character in the 1956 war film starring Clifton Webb, Gloria Graham and Northern Ireland’s own Stephen Boyd.

   4 NAMES THAT HE KNEW OF SIMPLY BECAUSE I HAD “RABBITED ON ABOUT THEM” OVER MANY YEARS: Durbin, Crawford, Rhonda Fleming, Widmark, Laddie, Dick Van Dyke, Jack Klugman.

   5 What surprised me was that he knew who Alex Leach was without my mentioning the star’s professional name, so I suppose my Stevie didn’t do too badly though as you can see I kept the lists in every category relatively short and maybe next time I’ll give him one of Dan’s lists and see how he makes out! My Steve didn’t know who Allan Stewart Konigsberg was though and when I mentioned Hedwig Kiesler Stevie guessed that might be some new Star Wars space lord!

   6 ADDITIONAL TRIVA. Apparently when the present Queen of England [Elizabeth 2] was a very young girl her nickname around Buckingham Palace was “Shirley Temple”. She didn’t like it.

   Reply

   1. Hi Bob, as long as your Steve knows who Hitchcock is he’s okay in my book. 😉

      Has he heard of Charlton ‘Behold His Mighty Hand’ Heston?

      How far back does his film knowledge go? I’m guessing Newman, McQueen, Bronson, Caine, Connery, Moore. If he’s 44 years old he must have caught some of their films on TV.

      I was and still am a big influence on my young nephew (30) he loves movies, but mostly modern movies though he is fascinated about the classics and he’s constantly asking me questions about them and borrowing my DVDs. I would say his interest in cinema dates back to at least the early 60s – he’s a fan of Psycho, The Birds, Barbarella, The Dirty Dozen etc

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      1. HI STEVE:

         1 Thanks for the feedback and interesting questions.

         2 My son-in-law is primarily interested in sport and the modern cinema and he IS familiar with those actors you have listed and indeed was surprised that Sir Maurice Micklewhite was at one time a classic era star who debuted uncredited in the 1956 British comedy Sailor Beware and then had a credited role in A Hill in Korea the same year which had as one of its stars Stanley Baker who later mentored Sir Maurice in Zulu. [There’s a Dan in all of us trying to get out!]

         3 My Steve does not watch classic era films on TV but his own father did and Stevie was aware of his father watching Shane but Steve remained blissfully unaware of Laddie himself until he heard me enthusing about the “little tough guy” or “the screen’s toughest tough guy” as Laddie’s publicists liked him to be known.

         4 Stevie and his wife my daughter often engage in discussions with me about, and have even read, some of our exchanges on this site and they are both more familiar with legends of the site such as the Work Horse, Mr Posters and Flora than they are with many of the AFI legends.

         5 I have told them of course about our being force fed with classic era critiques of Joel and Stevie’s attitude was similar to that of the “dirty rat” when Jimmy was asked about the films of Mr Mumbles “Have never seen one. Don’t intend to!”

         6 I have to especially keep my daughter sweet and on board because she is my W o C when it comes to resolving any of my computer problems and setting up my data bases etc.

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         1. Hey Bob….thanks for the behind the scenes look at the world of Bob…..interesting stuff….good see Joel mentioned among your love ones…..lol.

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      2. 🙂

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   2. Hey Bob….sounds like a pretty fun test. Shocked he was not aware of Joel….lol. I like Joel’s book….but it should be noted …that it took me almost 6 years before I even knew he had passed away.

      As for your son-in-law….I know two websites……that can help him with these deficiencies….lol.

      Wiping my eyes…when I read he was not aware of the Greastest Box Office Actress of All-Time……it is just not fair.

      Good feedback as always.

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      1. HI BRUCE
         There’s a old saying if you want life to be fair go to one.

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         1. Hey Bob Roy…..good point.

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2. CORRECTIONS REQUIRED

   1. Abbott & Costello’s The Noose Hangs High is incorrectly listed in their stats table as The Noose Hangs Loose.

   2 Anne Baxter is listed on Ty Power’s page as his leading lady in Blood and Sand whereas that honour fell to Hayworth and Darnell and Baxter was not in the film at all though she was his co-star in Crash Dive, The Razor’s Edge and Luck of the Irish. Cogerson does not credit her for Crash Dive but does credit her for Luck of the Irish and Razor’s Edge. However she was just the 2nd leading lady in the latter movie, Gene Tierney being the main one.

   3 Is it being suggested that my Greg like my Glenn was a reincarnation? The table suggests that Greg was making films like The Paradine Case was back in the year 1800 and then reprised it in 1947. Are both films reflected in the ready reckoner?

   4 I have mentioned several times previously that in the summary below his stats table Brando is being wrongly credited with 17 one hundred million + grossers but there seems to be an unwillingness to alter that for some reason so I’ll not mention it again.

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3. BRUCE:
   1 At least we agree that Gloria was not one the Legends but it seems that we have to agree to disagree about most of the rest because it was not just the Legends who were being billed above her but even at the height of her career people like William Bendix, Thomas Gomez and Vittorio Gassman.

   2 In my view to argue that there is no significance in that billing in relation to stardom is to set the stardom bar very low and to permit everything but the kitchen sink to go into the definition of what makes a star.

   3 Both Joan and Bette were at loggerheads about many things but they both agreed that to be classed as a star a performer had to demonstrate that he/she could pull weight at the box office and all the evidence points to Gloria not being able to carry a film on her own. How can there be a convincing argument to the contrary when every film that she made where she had the leading lady role was a commercial flop despite provocative poses by her in the posters.

   4 I therefore adhere to my own view that she was in the main a supporting actress who was very sexy, a fine artistic performer and overall moderately successful. To rate her among really successful box office stars of any level is I think to be unfair to those stars and I would steal from Mr McEnroe by saying “C’mon man! You CANNOT be serious!”

   5 However I propose to leave it there for now but if and when we get a Cogerson page I will review the matter in the light of any new evidence that is presented – but some sweeping hyperbole passed own by Joel won’t cut it! I think that as an excellent statistical site this one should be prepared to produce box office stats to make a case and not rely on sentimental generalisations about what audiences were SUPPOSED to be feeling 60 years ago

   Reply

   1. Hey Bob
      1. I think billing is important……but I feel if somebody was used to push/promote a movie….then some studio person thought that thespian brought something to the table…with regards to box office pull….and in that case Gloria had something of value.
      2. At no point do I think she needed to be on the AFI list of legends….but she has a place in film history.
      3. I would imagine if and when I do a page on Graham….by average box office….she would rate pretty low….maybe I will do a page on her soon.
      4. You make good points….but we will never see eye to eye on all the subjects we discuss here….but that is perfectly ok.
      Good stuff.

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4. Hey Bobby…..sure….we can communicate over e-mail….my e-mail address is CogersonMovieScore@gmail.com. Look forward to hearing from you.

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5. This site has definitely continued to become better and better as time goes on. Love the dynamic update!

   Would you be willing to chat over email? I’d like to talk about using your site as a major source for some research I’m doing with top box office movies over the decades.

   Reply

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