Appendix 2.2: PGz KWz MPH; Annual assessments of UK box office
studio’, 'most successful British independent renter', 'best
British double bill', and 'best British director'; finally
categories concerned with sales methods are 'best double
bill'/'best British double bill'/'best re-issue double bill',
'super-special', 'hard ticket giants' and 'best non-circuit
releases,.
2: Categories which attempt to classify films themselves. In a
sense this can be understood as an imperative of the market to
define the commodity as closely as possible - in any case it was
a set of categories which attended to the content of the
individual film. Such categories can be grouped as genre,
including 'cartoon', 'musical', 'documentary', 'interest',
'artistic', 'comedy', 'western', 'outdoors', 'horror', and
•series'; nationality of origin - these categories were simply
'British', 'American', or 'continental'; and technology - '3-D'
and 'cinemascope' both appeared briefly as categories in the mid
fifties. In addition to these three main types there were various
other short lived categories which are chiefly concerned with
the definition of product and which appeared mainly at the end
of the fifties. These were 'series', 'straight X-Certificate',
'off beat', 'gimmick' and at the beginning of the period, in
1946-1947, categories for one and two reelers.
3 : Categories purporting to record the popularity of individual
stars : three such categories are consistent throughout the
period, these are 'best individual performance', 'most popular
and consistent star', and 'most promising newcomer'; 'most
successful comedy team' was consistently used during the middle
of the period (51-56); and three other categories made brief
appearances, these were 'most popular and consistent young star'
which referred to child actors 'most popular British star', and
'most popular comedian'. Judging by Billings' methods these
categories may have been included to ensure the presence of a
name he felt should appear but did not come up in any other
category.
The breakdown of the categories by years gives a fascinating
picture of the industry's view of itself. Some categories from
all three groups survived into the late forties but clearly had
little relevance later and so disappeared ('best British
independent renter', 'best documentary' , 'best interest series' ) .
After some uncertainty in the late forties ('most artistic film'
1947-8, 'most promising new team' 1947,) other new and more
satisfactory categories were introduced in the early fifties.
Chief amongst these was the 'best western' which continued every
year thereafter except for 1954; 'best double bill' and 'most
successful continental film' were other new categories which
appeared at this point. Both of these relate to the concerns of
sales departments with the never ending search for new ways to
draw audiences into cinemas. The introduction of many new
categories in the late fifties looks like a rather frantic
attempt to come to terms, again, with changing patterns in the
industry. By this time broadcast television was a fact of life,
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