The story behind 300 top-grossing films, and what made them a success

By Jordan R. Young

HOLLYWOOD, CA (HollywoodToday)1/29/2010–We all know that money is what makes Hollywood go around, but what defines a blockbuster? The film industry’s present-day obsession with weekend grosses is shrewdly put in perspective by “George Lucas’s Blockbusting,” a hefty new paperback aptly subtitled ” A Decade-by- Decade Survey of Timeless Movies Including Untold Secrets of Their Financial and Cultural Success.”

It’s astonishing to realize, when figures are adjusted for inflation, that Cecil B. de Mille’s 1956 remake of “The Ten Commandments” is one of the top ten grossing films of all time; that D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” earned more than $500 million, right up there with “Grease” and “The Graduate;” and that “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” made more than films like “Back to the Future” and “Tootsie,” to earn a spot in the top 50. It’s also disheartening to realize that drek like “Shrek” made more money than “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Porky’s” outgrossed “Meet Me in St. Louis.”

Lucas himself selected 300 films, at least one per year from 1913 to 2005, for this 944-page study edited by Alex Ben Block and Lucy Autrey Wilson. The movies are explored decade by decade, from production and distribution to technology and marketing trends. Simply put, it’s an indispensible, must-have volume for anyone interested in motion pictures.

That said, there’s a lot of movie history that doesn’t appear in the book. Box office returns are Hollywood’s measure of excellence, so you’ll find almost nothing about comedy pioneer Hal Roach and important directors like John Cassavetes and Hal Ashby, whose films made a modest amount of greenbacks; Preston Sturges, one of the greatest directors of all time, isn’t mentioned at all.

Even so, “Blockbusting” is an essential read for wet-behind-the-ears studio execs with little or no perspective on the past; a speed-read of the overview sections on each decade will be time far better spent by newbies than browsing the Internet. Folks will have to go elsewhere, however, for a comprehensive history of the racy Pre-Code films of the early ‘30s that predated Hollywood’s efforts at censorship, or the ugly Blacklist that ripped the town apart in the ‘50s, both of which are glossed over.

Published by It Books, an imprint of Harper Collins; $29.95.

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