109 thoughts on “Top Movie Stars of the 1940s”

1. Bob & Cogerson

   I think you raise too many points in this post to be dealt with in one post, so I’ll will have to split up my replies by subject or subjects. That said

   “Taking box office grosses/ticket sales solely at face value can as Phil has said often lead us in the wrong direction.”

   And who decides what the right direction is? This argument boils down to facts can lead us astray. But what about an opinion unsupported by facts? Or even worse, an opinion that contravenes the known facts?

   You seem to be standing for deductive reasoning. We accept the truth of the premise and go from there. I admit I believe in inductive reasoning. Study the facts and decide from the facts what the premise should be. You bring up opinions and that this opinion is equal to that opinion, but they aren’t. I went to my physician this week for a check-up. It would have been much quicker and cheaper to stop someone on the street and ask if I look like I am in good health, but I went to my physician as she would ascertain the facts and has the knowledge to evaluate them. Her opinion matters. The opinion of someone not properly trained would not. Cogerson is doing the difficult spade work to provide the facts to form an informed opinion. Certainly the wrong conclusion could be drawn from the facts, but my take is I ignore them at my peril.

   Cogerson’s stats are at “best gross estimates.”–but I think the best available right now.

   Bob on Betty Grable–“Grable was #1 in the 1940’s.”

   But for me the stats don’t back this up. You keep saying her movies are stand alone, but just you also avoid other factors such as Technicolor.

   In the 1940’s, according to the BFI, there were 4080 feature films released in the USA. 260 of those were in Technicolor. My calculator tells me that is about 6.4% of this total. But on Cogerson’s list of the top box office grossers of the 1940’s, these Technicolor films appear,

   Fantasia (1)
   This is the Army (2)
   Pinocchio (4)
   For Whom the Bell Tolls (5)
   Bambi (7)
   The Jolson Story (10)
   Duel in the Sun (12)
   Meet Me in St. Louis (13)

   So 4 of the top 5 (80%), 6 of the top 10 (60%), and 8 of the top 13 (62%), were in Technicolor. I didn’t try to go through Cogerson’s whole list, but I submit that Technicolor itself was a tremendous box-office draw. However, I wouldn’t devalue Grable’s box-office performance in any way on the basis of making Technicolor films. As with co-stars, this was part of being a movie star and there is no way of separating out the impact on any given star of such factors. Fox put her in Technicolor, and her movies made money. Facts. Bergman had big co-stars but worked more often in black and white. Her movies made money. Facts. No way I can know which factor had more impact or how much either had. What I can know are the box office figures thanks to Cogerson. I base my judgments on that..

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2. Bob

   I see you have been busy. But unfortunately right now I am busy. But I’ll be back after tomorrow to study and hopefully answer your posts, I expect beginning on Friday. Until then, all the best.

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3. JOHN
   1 You have listed the top 5 1940s female stars according to Bruce’s stats but I do not think that your table compares apples with apples because as you have conceded the majority of Grable’s 1940s flicks were largely stand-alone whereas the other 4 actress were surrounded in their movies by massive stars of the 1940s and well beyond

   2 In a post tomorrow to Bruce I will be attempting to demonstrate the impact on the box office records from making distinctions as far as possible between the grosses of stars of stand-alone films and those of performers in multi-star productions. Meanwhile the following is an examination within that context of the situation concerning the stars in the small Cogerson table you have reproduced:

   (1) PAULETTE GODDARD I’m not even going to go there because I would not envisage many film buffs arguing that she was bigger than Grable.

   (2) JUDY GARLAND Seven of her biggest hit movies were with Mickey Rooney and in the Andy Hardy ones she had supporting roles. Away from Rooney she was surrounded in many of her other large hits by great stars such as Robert Taylor, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Van Johnson, Lana Turner, James Stewart and Van Johnson. She was also in 2 of those many-star ensemble movies that account for half a billion of her overall 1940s gross.

   (3) DOROTHY LAMOUR. Of her Top 20 biggest hits 16 were in the 1940s and 10 of the 16 were with Hope and Crosby either in the Road pictures or singly and the two boys always had the larger roles and in the Road pictures she was regarded as a 3rd wheel. Like Judy she also had 2 all-star ensemble pictures accounting for nearly half a billion dollars of her overall 1940s gross.

   (4) INGRID BERGMAN 7 of her highest grossing movies were in the 1940s and in 6 of that 7 she was teamed with a clutch of males who were among the greatest all-time Big Beasts of Hollywood: Bogie, Cooper [twice] Crosby, Grant and Peck and of course she had Hitch as director of 2 of those movies. In terms of overall career Bruce lists exactly 32 movies each for Ingrid and Betty and the result is a virtual dead heat in box office terms with only approx. a negligible 65 million dollars separating all those billions in the two totals-
   INGRID Total $4.635 billion/Average $144.8
   BETTY Total $4.570 billion/Average $142.8

   (5) At first sight it is astonishing that a woman who had the involvement of all those male Box office Giants in her 1940s pictures could wind up statistically neck and neck with another actress who was teamed mostly with relatively lightweight co-stars in her heyday 1940s in “2nd tier” –its catching! – productions.

   (6) However In those days Ingrid didn’t have many stand- alone hits and a close inspection of her Cogerson table shows that her lowest 11 lowest grossing movies in that table were stand-alone. It was these movies that brought down her average gross from its high 40s level and nullified the advantage that having great male stars in her movies had once given her, The eleven concerned grosses just $200 million or a paltry average of $18 million.

   3 In short grandiose and meaningless sweeping statements like “Part of being a star is working with other big stars and great directors” don’t cut it for me.

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   1. Bob & Cogerson
      Hi Bob, you are too busy to keep up with, but here goes

      It might surprise you that I largely agree with you on Lamour and Goddard. I consider average box office the more important of the two measurements. So I would give the nod to Grable over them, but this is only a judgment. I can’t really dispute any one who argues they made more movies which made in the end more money. It just isn’t my most important factor.

      But with Bergman you are way off key. You list the beasts of Hollywood and conclude they propped up Bergman. But she ended up with a higher average box office than any of them for this decade so it is hard to see who was propping up whom. Off the stats Cogerson posted on his site index–Bogart? His top box office film of the 1940’s was the one film he made with Bergman. Same with Grant. Cooper? His top box office films was one of two he made with Bergman. Peck. He was early in his career and so hard to judge his box-office pull at the time but of his b/.w movies of the 1940’s, the top grosser was the one he made with Bergman. Hitchcock. His two top box-office movies of the 1940’s (and the 3rd and 4th of his entire career) were his two movies with Bergman. Again, who was propping up whom?

      Take Grant. His average according to Cogerson was $170 for this decade. Bergman’s was $254. That means she did 50% better per film in the 1940’s. Again, who is propping up whom?

      “INGRID total $4.635 billion/average $144.8
      BETTY total $4.570 billion/average $142.8”

      You profess astonishment that Ingrid didn’t do better with those big male co-stars. I am astonished that she wins anyway when you are dragging in movies from her entire career, including well after Betty was no longer even making movies. Even more impressive, the list from Cogerson contains several films which were not English language films and got very limited art house releases in America. Hard to compare such movies with mainstream Hollywood films. But still Ingrid does better! And Betty made a hell of a lot more movies than are listed, so these stats represent just her career peak compared to a lifetime for Ingrid. That should help Betty, but still Ingrid wins.

      (By the way, and I don’t expect this to be common knowledge outside the USA, but those poor stats for her early fifties films, besides from them being art house films, reflect that Bergman was under fierce attack in the USA. She was even condemned on the floor of the Senate by Senator Edwin Johnson. Her sin? Getting pregnant by a man not her husband. Just a point which has nothing directly to do with Ingrid or Betty. Gary Cooper paid for an abortion for Patricia Neal, whom he had an affair with while married, at about the same time. He was voted in the top ten box-office stars 7 times in the 1950’s. Ingrid was more or less blacklisted. A very stark double-standard. Politics might have played a role. Ingrid’s lover Roberto Rossellini was viewed, possibly inaccurately, as a leftist and communist by American anti-communists. Cooper was safely conservative and had testified before HUAC. Hard to say what was what, but the double standard is certainly provocative)

      With Ingrid Bergman, it is very important to remember she was an international star, not just a Hollywood star. She turned her back on Hollywood somewhat like Deanna Durbin did, only Ingrid did not turn her back on acting, whether in films, on stage, or on TV. Her early fifties box-office “flops” with European directors such as Rossellini and Renoir were going in a very different direction from Hollywood at the time. And any 1950’s films are irrelevant anyway to a 1940’s box-office discussion.

      As for Judy Garland, what was true for Bergman is true for her. Her box average is higher than any of the co-stars you list. Who was propping up whom? And your list is odd. Did Judy make a movie with Robert Taylor in the 1940’s? Gene Kelly made his debut with Garland in For Me and My Gal. Was the unknown beginner the box office pull? And the budget was budget, $841,000. Still it was a massive hit. Is this movie a “stand alone” by your judgment, and if not, why not?

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4. JOHN – Your points B and C
   (1) Fox called a press conference to announce that the profits from Grable movies were so immense that they were financing other projects.

   (2) It would in my view have been impossible for a company, even if it had all the performers concerned in its own employment, to have made that statement on behalf of the likes of Bergman, Goddard, Garland or Lamour because many of their big hits involved numerous other stars who shared in the glory.

   (3) It might though have been possible to isolate groups of some of their films for the sort of accolade that Fox gave to the Grable movies – for example the Rooney/Garland films or the Hope/Crosby/Lamour Road movies but there again credit would have been shared.

   (4) Betty was the highest salaried female in America in 1946/47 financial year and as one economist said about employers who have the kind of cash that enables them to pay small fortunes to movie stars “They tend not to give their money away.”

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   1. Bob

      You are back to your straw man argument. No one is denying Grable was massive at the box office. This just doesn’t prove she was more massive than Bergman or Garland, or perhaps others.

      “Rooney/Garland films”—it apparently was the judgment at the time than Rooney was the bigger box-office pull, but once they broke up it was Garland who did better.

      I don’t find any logic to the “her co-stars did it for her” for actresses who ended up, as did Bergman and Garland, with higher box-office averages than these co-stars. It just doesn’t make sense.

      You take studio publicity at face value. It might be true, but then again, I tend to be skeptical.
      But being the highest paid doesn’t make you the top box-office performer. Here are some of the highest paid per WikiLeaks, with claims I have heard from other sources.

      “In 1944, Barbara Stanwyck was the highest paid woman in the USA.”

      “Claudette Colbert was the highest paid star in 1938 and 1942.”

      “Carole Lombard was the highest paid star in Hollywood in the late 1930’s.”

      Okay, so what is the evidence that Stanwyck was the top female box-office attraction in 1944?

      Was Colbert actually the top box-office attraction in 1942 over Greer Garson?

      What about Lombard at the box-office?

      Being the “highest paid” according to your press agent proves one is a major star I suppose, but hardly proves you are at the top of the box-office.

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5. JOHN – YOUR POINT D

   1 But you ARE contradicting yourself. Individual contributions are what make up a studio’s overall profits and A & C and Durbin were among those who greatly enhanced Universal’s profits in the 1940s and in your “forgotten” star post you seemed to compare Deanna unfavourably with Judy because among other things Judy made supposedly higher grade products and yet elsewhere you argued that low budget pictures that engendered the best profit to cost ratios were [especially those at Universal] the Holy Grail

   2 You have now referred to “1st tier box office performances” and “2nd tier performances ” Now since you emphasised box office in just the first part of the statement it is not clear whether the second part refers to such performances or artistic performances in top budget productions If you were referring to the latter then you are not comparing apples with apples and if you are in effect saying 1st tier AND 2nd tier box office then I think it is ludicrous to make such distinctions. Judy’s 1st tier $100 million is superior to Deanna’s 2nd tier million – really?

   3 Indeed I think that probably in the hope of covering all angles you mix too many things together so that you leave me at least confused.I see you as being at it again in point D with your references to total grosses, average grosses, Dorothy Lamour and prolific output V Grable and a smaller output. How can anyone make sense of all that stew at least in the way you present it. I would give you the advice that sponsors in AA give to alcoholics who are trying to find way of staying off the booze and building a new life – “Keep it simple.”

   4 I personally cannot put it simpler than this REVENUES FROM BETTY’s GROSSES WERE SO IMPORTANT TO FOX THAT IT USED THEM FOR PRESTIGE PRODUCTIONS AND MADE GRABLE ITS HIGHEST PAID STAR AND SO THE HIGHEST PAID WOMAN IN AMERICA. You might possibly express it that Betty’s “2nd tier” stuff paid for the “1st tier” fare of Fox. That in conjunction with other evidence I have presented and will be continuing to present suggests to me that it was not unreasonable to express the opinion that Betty is in contention for the accolade of Top Box office Star of the 1940s.

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   1. Bob
      Well concerning Judy Garland and Deanna Durbin, these are the 1940’s figures according to Cogerson’s stats:

      Garland–17 movies, total box office $3,529.20, average $207.6
      Durbin–15 movies, total box office $1392.00 average $92.8

      I feel these stats speak for themselves, really. If I remember where your Durbin response came from, it was when I referred to an article by a Durbin fan who maintained that Universal did better by Durbin than MGM did by Garland in the 1930’s, and made Durbin for a while the bigger star, but Universal was not able to take the next step in the 1940’s and Garland had the better career. I think her right. Had Durbin left Universal for MGM in the early forties, she might well have gotten better showcases than Universal was capable of providing.

      I am certain Universal considered Durbin (as well as A & C) great assets, but they just were not capable of competing with MGM (or Fox or Paramount or WB for that matter).

      You seem confused about “artistic” which is not part of this debate. Again, I am referring to THE BOX OFFICE AND ONLY THE BOX OFFICE AND NOTHING BUT THE BOX OFFICE.

      As for Betty Grable and Fox. Of course she was their most important star, but Fox was not Hollywood. Doesn’t make her more important than all the stars at the other studios or a star who I think was never under exclusive contract to any studio, Bergman.

      A good analogy would be TV networks. In the USA there were four in the 1950’s. CBS, NBC, ABC, and Mutual. Here is a sample rating from the 1956-1957 season–

      1—I Love Lucy (CBS)
      2—The Ed Sullivan Show (CBS)
      3—The General Electric Theatre (CBS) (hosted by Ronald Reagan, I wonder what happened to him)
      4—The $64,000 Question (CBS)
      5—December Bride (CBS)
      6—Alfred Hitchcock Presents (CBS)
      7—I’ve Got a Secret (CBS)
      8—Gunsmoke (CBS)
      9—The Perry Como Show (NBC)*
      10–The Jack Benny Show (CBS)
      11–Dragnet (NBC)*
      12–Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts (CBS)
      13–The Millionaire (CBS)
      14–Disneyland (ABC)**
      15–The Red Skelton Show (CBS)

      Was Perry Como valuable to NBC? Of course. He was their number one star. But his show was only 9th, and there were 8 CBS shows which did better. He was not Lucille Ball as a TV star. ABC was happy and proud to have Disneyland I am sure, but it was only #14. As I said before, there is a difference between being good and being the best.

      Well, that is it Bob. I will now to turn to Steve’s videos and comment on them. I at least enjoyed the discussion.

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