MOVIES

For men shall be lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.

—II Timothy 3:2, 4

3728 Richest Movie Year

The year 1975 was the richest year in film history. Americans spent $9 million a week for movies, and ticket sales for that year totalled $2.1 billion.

Its top two movies were: Jaws which took in $34 million for just that year, and Exorcist $32 million. The original champion had been Godfather.

3729 Biggest Films

The biggest money-making film of all times is Jaws, released in June of 1975, which grossed $124 million in its first 78 days in North America alone. It cost $8 million to produce.

War and Peace was the most expensive film ever made. The cost was officially stated to be $96 million. The film runs for 6 hours. It was produced by the U.S.S.R. government.

3730 Going To Movies

The Soviet Union has the most movie theatres in the world, with about 150,000 movie houses. However, the people of Taiwan go to the movies more often, averaging about 66 times a year for every person.

The champion movie-goer on earth is a 92-year-old retired man called Paul Morgan. Since 1949, he has attended a movie house in Florida every day of the week—although the program in the house is not varied over three times a week.

3731 Half Of All Films U. S. Made

The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that 1 out of every 2 films shown in the world’s movie houses is U.S. made. Americanization via the movie reaches such remote areas as Burma, Nepal and Kuwait.

3732 Religious Movies

Variety, the entertaintment weekly, reported in its sixty-fourth anniversary issue that three of the five top all-time money-making movies dealt entirely or in large part with religious material.

The three were The Sound of Music, The Ten Commandments, and Ben Hur. They have produced together $151 million in theater rentals paid to distributors.

Variety also cited several other “religious-oriented” movies that had been top money-makers. The Robe earned $17.5 million; The Bible $15 million, Quo Vadis $12.5 million.

Astute movie makers have recognized man’s innate interest in religious drama.

3733 Religious Man For “Mary Poppins”

Disney looked around for a worthy male star to play in “Mary Poppins.” He settled on Dick Van Dyke—“my only choice”—when he heard that Van Dyke taught Sunday school and prayed with his children at bedtime. Disney also learned that Van Dyke had said, “I won’t appear in a movie that I can’t take my children to see.”

Van Dyke gave a great performance. The picture got thirteen Academy Award nominations.

3734 An Elvis Fan

Efforts of Carol Frazer, 17, to have a street named after singer Elvis Presley who died in 1977 were realized. The city fathers of suburban Whitehaven have assigned the name of a subdivision lane as “Elvis Place.” Miss Frazer said she was so excited she didn’t know what to do. Probably go to an Elvis movie. But she has seen them all:

Love Me Tender, 107 times; Loving You, 110 times; King Creole, 91 times; and Jailhouse Rock, 79 times.

Carol who moved from New Orleans to be near Elvis, lives in a tiny Memphis flat with her mother, plus twelve scrapbooks about Elvis, 40,000 pictures of him, and a man-size cardboard replica of him overlooking her bed.

3735 Cameraman Directed Real War

The only real warfare directed by a movie cameraman was Villa’s revolution in Mexico in 1914. A Hollywood picture company bought the rights from Villa for $25,000 with the understanding that he was to fight his battles as directed by the man who was to film them.

Requiring full daylight, the cameraman therefore started the war every morning at nine and stopped it every afternoon at four. At times, he would even interrupt a battle to set up his camera in a new position. Incidentally, when projected in Hollywood, the picture was considered so untrue to life that most of it was remade on a nearby lot.

—Selected

3736 Most Psychiatrists In Hollywood

Beverly Hills, California (the home of Hollywood stars), has more psychiatrists per square mile than any other community in the world. It has 193 psychiatrists—one for every 171 residents.

Jackie Gleason admits he doesn’t sleep well. Marlon Brando muses that his rise to fame and riches has increased the bank accounts of his psychiatrists. A biographer comments that Rita Hayworth has cried almost every day of her life.

Elizabeth Taylor and Brigitte Bardot have bared their minds and bodies, revealing a life of turmoil and frustration. And perhaps the most poignant of all, Marilyn Monroe, ended her mixed-up life with an overdose of sleeping pills.

See also: Leisure ; Pleasure ; Ezk. 16:49.