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Here’s the latest from the Classic Movie Hub Blog
by Lea Stans
Silents are Golden: What Were the Top Box Office Hits Of 1923?
Recently I attended the Kansas Silent Film Festival (and yes, that is my plug for that delightful–and free–event!) where the theme was the silent films of 1923. It got me pondering: what were the highest-grossing films from exactly one century ago? I could make an educated guess about the top two or three, but could I put together a top ten list?
It’s a trickier task than you might think. Silent film box office statistics are notoriously difficult to figure out in detail since the numerous movie theaters of the time didn’t have to report detailed bookkeeping numbers. Theaters normally paid a flat fee to rent a film (often around 10 cents per foot) and then played it as many times as they liked. Films tended to be distributed on a state’s rights basis, meaning there were various companies that simply doled out completed films to different regions. Plus, prestigious, big-budget films were sometimes given a roadshow presentation, where they had a limited release in the fancier theaters (with higher ticket prices to match) before being distributed more widely. Most box office statistics from the 1910s and 1920s depend a lot on educated guesswork–and the admission, “Well, we can’t know for sure.”
So let’s compare different figures and see if we can come up with a list that’s maybe pretty close to being on the right track. Just don’t take the figures as gospel–and did I mention that sometimes “worldwide grosses” get lumped in with “U.S. and Canadian grosses”?…
…Read the Full Article @ Classic Movie Hub Blog
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