Cinema: Facts of Life, 1944

Some facts about 1944 movie tastes, as registered at the nation’s box-offices: ¶A popular star does not insure a popular picture. For all its lofty theme and fancy publicity buildup, Madame Curie (starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon) was the worst flop of the year. Runners-up: The Purple Heart, Lifeboat, Flesh and Fantasy, Jane Eyre. ¶Going My Way, an unpretentious story of two Catholic priests produced on a low budget and given relatively little publicity, is one of the greatest box-office smashes in a decade. Runners-up this year: The Song of Bernadette, A Guy Named Joe, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, Lassie Come Home, The Story of Dr. Wassell, Destination Tokyo, Lady in the Dark, Guadalcanal Diary, See Here Private Hargrove, The White Cliffs of Dover. ¶Men stars draw better than women. Gary Cooper, Gary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Walter Pidgeon still pack them in, provided the picture is palatable. Tops among women are Greer Garson, Betty Grable, Bette Davis, Jean Arthur. Clark Gable may be the biggest draw of all, if & when he makes the picture currently scheduled for him at MGM.

In short, wartime U.S. movie audiences, larger than ever before, know, better than ever before, precisely what they want. And except for an occasional hit, they have begun to show a marked distaste for war pictures. They are fed up on tragedy and brutality. Serious ideas are usually repugnant, and beauty is a synonym for Betty Grable. Movie-goers of 1944 do not want to be uplifted, edified, harrowed or sermonized. They just want to be entertained.