795 thoughts on “Site Index”

1. 1 This time a proper English Rose and potentially another field day for Dan as Jean like Deborah worked with a phenomenal number of the greatest male stars of her day. From 1948 until 1967 she co-starred with at least 17 of them starting with Sir Larry in Hamlet and ending with Dino in Rough Night in Jericho. In-between in 1960 alone she starred opposite Lancaster, Douglas, Curtis. Larry again and in The Grass is Greener with Grant and Mitchum with the rose from Scotland thrown in for good measure. In the latter film Big Bob must have felt he was fighting the War of Independence all over again surrounded by all those Brits !

   2 By happy coincidence I recently watched a repeat of a TV interview with Jean Simmons in which she said that the two films that she most enjoyed making in her entire career were Guys and Dolls and Desiree because although she was in awe of him Brando was such fun to work
   with and made her laugh so much that she didn’t want to leave the set and go home each day !
   Can this be the mumbling dry bread that you keep telling us about ?

   3 COMMENTS (1) although Jean will probably be remembered more for her Hollywood blockbusters between 1953 and 1960 I was pleased to see that you included a few of her earlier classics such as Great Expectations and The Blue Lagoon and of course Larry’s Hamlet (2) I was also delighted that you recognised the lesser known Home Before Dark and Footsteps in the Fog. The former along with Big Country and Guys and Dolls are my Top 3 Simmons favourites, and I think that the latter gave the then husband and wife team of Granger/Simmons their greatest solid joint acting outing and I see the IMDB also gave that film a respectable 7.0 (3) exceptionally classy opening and closing solo stills of Jean and superb colour one of her/Marlon (4) to be honest the poster reproduction was so high [9/10] that i found it difficult to be selective so I closed my eyes, stuck in a pin and came up with This Earth is Mine and the Egyptian. (5) Again of course no Cogerson Top 5 but it’s hard to quarrel with your own selection even though it seems dominated by Brits! and there will be some input from Bruce in my next post. Anyway am away for a 3 day mini break so have a good weekend yourself. BOB

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   1. Hi Bob, as always thanks for the comments, much appreciated. Lean’s Great Expectations is so highly regarded, I wonder if it’s the top rated Charles Dickens adaptation? Maybe Bruce can some day do a Dickens page? And a Shakespeare page? Getting the box office info won’t be easy though, especially British films.

      The Stewie Granger video is nearly finished and his fellow Brits are out in force next week too, lots of rare old posters to sort through.

      Have a nice weekend Bob.

      Steve.

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      1. Hey Steve….mmmmm…..in my best or worst Jar Jar Binks voice….Mes a thinkin’ you gots a Jeans Simmons video. I will have to check that one out as well as the rest of your hard work these last few days.

         A Dickens page would be much easier than a Shakespeare page…..both are good ideas thought. You are hitting lots of classic stars that I have not pages on yet…..that will give you bragging rights…when I get a page on them….as you can say your rankings were here first so they must be better…lol.

         Thanks for the visit and comment. You should post links to the video…when you respond…..it can only help get you some more views….plus the Google search engines love outgoing and incoming links.

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         1. Bruce, thanks for the video visit and confusing Jean Simmons with Jennifer Jones. All is forgiven, at least you weren’t confusing her with Gene Simmons.

            You’ve been so busy this year I eventually had to produce videos that weren’t on your site index, but there are many more listed here for me to get thru. And I always scan your charts for ideas on which films should be included and than rearrange them on my video in a more accurate manner. [cue Bruce snarling] I’m kidding mon ami.

            Oh and a belated congrats on the new arrival to the ‘Cogerson’ clan. 🙂

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            1. Here’s a link to the Jean Simmons video –

               https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTPtlX__e3I

            2. Hey Steve….when I was watching your Simmons video…I kept waiting for Jennifer Jones movies to pop up…..and the whole time I thought for sure Song of Bernadette was coming to be number…..I even had a way to include one of your favorites, Vincent Price in the comment….but for some unknown reason….the Jones movie was not Simmons number one movie…so confusing….lol.

               Thanks for the congrats….we are going to visit him in 16 days.

               Thanks for sharing your link…it is greatly appreciated.

   2. Hey Bob….thanks for the thoughts on Jean Simmons and Steve’s You Tube video. Good stuff as usual….maybe Guys and Dolls will crack the UMR Top 5 when I follow Steve’s footsteps and get a page done on her.

      Hope your three day getaway is fun. We will be in Alaska in just three short weeks. Boy does time fly. After a few false starts…getting an update on Randolph Scott will be done…Cogerson guarantee…or your money back….by the time you get back.

      Have a great time.

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      1. 1 Thanks for feedback Bruce. Please note that I’ve done another “homage” to you by quoting all the Simmons grosses you’ve given us so far which should be most of her big Hollywood ones. I didn’t want Steve to appear to be outflanking you too much with his recent run of ‘new faces’ !!!

         2 If you ever get round to Stewart Granger and Jean I’ll be interested to see how you get on with their bucketload of pre-Hollywood films as I’ve been abe to get nothing on ones other than those you have so far quoted including Caesar and Cleo on Claude Rains’ page and Demetrius and Gladiators on Susan Hayward’s page but I didn’t list those two as Jean was uncredited in them. Anyway am eagerly lookin forward to Randy’s update.
         BOB

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         1. Hey Bob….I appreciate the homage. Steve’s new faces are providing great ideas for new pages. It is too bad I am spending so much time updating the pages…or I would be giving Steve a better challenge….lol.

            My most recent update was almost like doing an entire new page. But I think you will like that upgrade subject.

            I can see doing a Stewart Granger page soon……thanks for all of the feedback.

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2. Spartacus – 387.5
   Operation Petticoat – 374.2
   Some Like it Hot – 326.3
   Trapeze – 318.3
   The Great Race 254.6
   The Vikings – 252.2
   The Boston Strangler – 147.1
   The Rat Race 118.7
   Winchester 73 – 112.9 ***
   Kings Go Forth – 112.4
   The Defiant Ones – 110.4
   Taras Bulba – 109.2
   Sex and the Single Girl – 108.9
   Who was that Lady – 108.2
   Sweet Smell of Success – 96.8
   Goodbye Charlie – 91.0
   Boeing Boeing – 67.0
   The List of Adrian Messenger – 44.8
   Captain Newman MD – 81.7
   City Across the River – 81.7
   Kansas Raiders – 60.2
   The Lady Gambles – 59.9
   The Square Jungle – 43.8
   Sierra – 42.3
   The Mirror Crack’d – 41.5
   Little Miss Marker – 21.5
   The Last Tycoon – 13.9
   OVERALL GROSS $3.606 Billion Average per Movie $133.55 million
   ***I would not normally include this but if Young Bull gets credit for it so should Trooper Doan

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   1. Hey Bob….wow….I already have 27 of his movies completely done and ready to go…..that really gets me motivated to finish up his page…..thanks sharing these numbers….and I have no issue including Winchester 73…..lol.

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3. 1 With Curtis, Leigh, Lake and Russell you have been new blazing trails so far foreign to this site. In the 1950s Universal International’s three biggest male CONTRACT stars were probably Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson and Jeff Chandler and they were nicknamed “The Beefcake Trio” [the likes of Monroe, Kim Novak, Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doreen being called “The Cheesecake Girls”]

   2 You have given us excellent videos on two of The Beefcake Boys and Bruce has so far profiled just one of them. I don’t know what he’s got against those dashing young matinee idols of the 1950s who made the ladies shriek and scream even before Elvis came on the scene but as usual Bruce has been very busy elsewhere so that I was able of draw up from a range of his other pages a list of 27 movies with completely updated grosses that Cary Grant’s SECOND greatest idolater starred in. I think that the list contains ALL of the highest grossing films in which son of Cary starred but many of his great B movies are of course missing and I hope that one day we will get a comprehensive list from Bruce that will include those B movies.

   3 To avoid convolution of any one post I will reproduce the list in a post to immediately follow.
   Please note though that Bruce has already done all the hard work and I am merely pirating his stats to tide us over with provisional info that augments your excellent recent video. If though Bruce is tempted to take offence at my stealing his clothes I would refer him to The Dead Pool in which Eastwood’s Dirty Harry accuses Liam Neeson’s producer of trash horror films of ripping off the work of other great film makers to which Neeson replies “They’re not rip-offs, they’re homage!”

   Best wishes BOB

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   1. Thanks Bob, always enjoy reading your posts. Bruce has been very busy this year, we don’t see much of him at this site, he’s become a guest star in his own movie and the inmates are taking over the asylum… 😉

      Excellent work collecting all the box office info on Curtis movies, maybe that can help Bruce fast track a Bernie Schwartz page. I had 52 films ranked and rated before starting the video, so 22 had to be swept aside [cue Bob wincing].

      Sextette and The Manitou were bottom of the list and I assume that’s where they’ll be on Bruce’s chart. I saw The Manitou at the cinema, I would watch anything horror related back then.

      Spartacus, Operation Petticoat, Some Like it Hot and Trapeze were sizable hits, I’m assuming those are just domestic grosses adjusted?

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      1. 1 All the stats I quoted were domestic as unfortunately so far Bruce has been unable to give us WW grosses for few if any of the films listed for Curtis though other sources have suggested that overseas Spartacus equalled its domestic gross.

         2 I read somewhere that Curtis made about 100 films and Bruce is good at tracking down figures for the the lesser grossers/more obscure films. Bernie even had an uncredited part in Lancastr’s Criss Cross (1949). I have rental stats for many of the Curtis B movies excluded from my list but Bruce usually has more comprehensive sources for even those figures so I’ll leave it to him to give us grosses for the rest of the movies if he gets around to it and if he can. Of course whilst they will increase Bernie’s OVERALL grosses figure they will drag down his average per movie as they will be few if any big grossers among them.

         3 As always nice chatting with u.

         BOB

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         1. Hey Bob…..I have an IMDb Tony Curtis page in my work bag….and when I get spare time I see which movies I can track down….that generally means his page is coming in the near future.

            Spartacus was huge overseas for sure…..it will cool if I can track down that number. Thanks for the comment and the feedback.

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      2. Hey….I am still here….for the record….besides all the updates…I still produced 12 new pages in October….compared to only 9 in 2015…so I could argue that I have been 33% more productive this year. But I have lost all of my daytime hours for commenting….that is very very true.

         Sextette is so bad it is interesting to watch…..especially with all the young famous stars acting how they are in lust with the 80 year old Mae West….that might be Timothy Dalton’s best acting role ever.

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4. Hi Bob, nowadays no one cares how busty an actress is, flat-chested Keira Knightley for instance is still a popular pin-up and dreamgirl for young men but back in Hollywood’s ‘heyday’ ample mammaries were almost a requisite for aspiring starlets. And for a while voluptuous Jane Russell was the ‘biggest’ girl in town. By the late 50s her star had faded and she was eclipsed by shapely blonde beauties straight out of a Tex Avery cartoon.

   Loved the tagline for Jane Russell’s 3D movie The French Line “It’ll knock both your eyes out!” 🙂

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   1. Always good to get backchat from u Steve and I don’t know whether Keira would consider this as a plus or minus but The Donald considers her the sexiest female in the entertainment business today !! Anyway where’s Stewart Granger?

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      1. I’ve got some more ladies lined up and hopefully Stewie Granger by the end of the week, if all goes well.

         I’m about to upload a new video now… and your favorite Alan Ladd makes a few appearances too… who could it be? [bites fist]

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         1. Saw Veronica and viewed the video even before I read your post and have ‘review’ typed out for posting tomorrow !!

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      2. 🙂

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   2. Hey Steve…..funny and enjoyable comment. Thanks for responding to Mr. Bob.

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      1. I will have to check out your latest videos tomorrow…getting late and I work early in the morning….thanks for the visits and the feedback.

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5. 1 Howard Hughes signed Jane in 1940 to make “The Outlaw” but it was not released until 1943 and even then because of censorship problems had to wait until 1946 for wide distribution with Jane in the meantime appearing in no other films. Her top stardom was relatively short ranging from 1946 until 1957 but within that period she was one of the biggest stars around in stand-alone female leads with her name on occasion billed by itself above the title. In later years she was famous for advertising women’s bras on television.

   2 VIDEO COMMENTS (1) your posters and still from The Outlaw show why it had censorship problems (2) I specially liked the artwork for Foxfire, Gents Prefer Blondes and Macao and the still of Jane/King Gable from Tall Men (3)yours scores were mostly very low starting a 4.7 and not reaching 6 until No 7 in your chart (4) there is of course again no Top 5 from Bruce (5) Johnny Reno and Waco particularly deserve the low ratings that you gave them as the were made by Cagney’s close pal A C Lyles whose business speciality was to assemble entire casts of ‘has beens’ at cut price salaries and put them in crap westerns with similar themes with Howard Keel in particular being one of Lyles’ over-the-hill catches. Other titles in the Lyles B rubbish series were for example Town Tamer, Black Spurs Arizona Bushwackers and Red Tomahawk with one journalist acidly enquiring “What’s next – Pow Wow at Big Bull’s Wigwam.”

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   1. Hey Bob….good information on Jane Russell….maybe I should get a UMR page on her. Her time at the top was short but very memorable. For years….the stories of her and Hughes’ The Outlaw were a huge part of cult culture….sadly it rarely gets mentioned these days. Thanks for the visit and the comment.

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