SCREEN SUCCESSES

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 234, 15 September 1934, Page 10

SCREEN SUCCESSES

Cavalcade’s High Place

The “Motion Picture,” an American journal, has prepared records showing the “best selling” pictures of all time, as measured by box office receipts. At Ihe head of the list, alone and unchallenged, with £lOO,OOO more to its credit than any other film, stands “The Singing Fool.” The people who complain that public taste, as measured by the popularity of films of low artistic quality, is deplorable, might find fodder in this for another anti-cinema sermon. But the ease of “The Singing Fool” is exceptional, and its world-wide success, beyond the wildest dreams of Hollywood, was mainly due to the interest aroused by the introduction of talking pictures. The remainder of the list is a complete defence of the filmgoer’s taste, it includes such films as “The Four Horsemen” (second top), “The Big Parade,” “Cavalcade” leading talkie, “The Covered Wagon,” “The Gold Rush,” “The Kid,” “Cimarron,” “Min and Bill,” “State Fair,” “Anna Christie,” “Beau Geste,” and “Arrowsmith”—all pictures of distinction, acclaimed by critics and public. “Cavalcade” took £700,000 out of the pockets of the world’s einetna

patrons, a very large slice of that considerable sum being from British filmgoers. “The Covered Wagon,” one of the classics of the silent screen, took as much.

Practically every picture in the “best selling” list had enough artistic or emotional quality to justify its success.