Appendix 2.2: PG, KW, MPH; Annual assessments of UK box office
The term 'champions’ reveals an implicit analogy with sport which
recurs in the writing of the ubiquitous Josh Billings in
Kinematograph Weekly. The useful ’Top Grossers' category was
introduced in 1948 in respect of British made pictures: in all
subsequent years American productions were included in the list.
It is not clear whether the category initially excluded non-
British productions and was changed, or whether, as I think is
more likely, that in 1948 (the year of virtual exclusion of
American films from the British market as a result of the quota
legislation designed to protect and stimulate the home industry)
the top grossing pictures were all British productions, which
cannot be said for any subsequent years.
The categories of leading producers, directors and showmen,
introduced in 1946 and lasting only a few years, were determined
by an 'evaluation' (MPA 194 6 p942) carried out by the London
office of Quigley publications (the publisher of the Motion
Picture Almanac): the basis for the evaluation is not cited but
was probably the money making abilities of the individuals named.
The National Film Awards to best film, actress and actor, only
quoted for 1948 and 1950 were the result of a nationwide poll of
cinemagoers. It is unfortunate that this category only appeared
twice since it would have been a useful point of comparison for
the Picturegoer awards, also made to particular actors and
actresses, and also based on a poll of audiences - in this case
further qualified by being readers of Picturegoer.
The cinemascope awards for 1955 were quoted separately (without
any indication of method): their popularity clearly made them
financially noteworthy but they did not run on sufficient
circuits to allow them to show in the regular poll of all
exhibitors (MPA 1955 p784).
The most consistently used categories were the 'top ten money
making stars in British productions', the 'top ten western stars'
and the 'top ten international stars': all appearing in every
year (12/12) of the publication examined for this correlation.
Only the third of these is useful to my purposes since it takes
account of success at the British box office without further
qualification by production source or film genre. The only other
category appearing with any frequency is the 'top grossing
pictures at the British box office' which began in 1948 and
continued through to 1956 (apart from one absence in 1949) . This
is the most useful of the MPA categories since it recorded actual
UK box office success in respect of the British box office, thus
providing a check on the fuller but less statistically reliable
Kinematograph Weekly assessments. The concentration on
individual names which occurred in the shortlived categories
introduced in 1946 and 1948 may reflect the additional
uncertainties in the American industry caused by the British
quota legislation of the second half of the forties. Similarly
the category 'best short films' implies a certain confusion
about the state of the British market in that year (1949).
The listings in respect of box office figures given by this
source are probably the most reliable of all those I have used:
the 'top grossing' category certainly answers most closely my
original question, and the 'top ten international stars' category
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