Box Office Poison (magazine article)

Box Office Poison is the title given in popular culture to a magazine advertisement taken out May 4, 1938 in The Hollywood Reporter and other Hollywood trade papers by Harry Brandt, president of the Independent Theatre Owners of America. The title of the red-bordered ad[1] is WAKE UP! Hollywood Producers. In the second paragraph as it appeared in the Hollywood Reporter, Brandt named 6 well-known actresses and 1 actor "whose box office draw is nil". The ad also mentions Marlene Dietrich, stating that "Dietrich, too, is poison at the box office" and that is the moniker that the article is popularly remembered by.

Not to be confused with the series of comic books Box Office Poison.

Content

Wake up! Hollywood Producers
Practically all of the major studios are burdened with stars—whose public appeal is negligible[2]—and receiving tremendous salaries necessitated by contractual obligations...Among those players whose dramatical ability is unquestioned, but whose box-office draw is nil, can be numbered Mae West, Edward Arnold, Garbo, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, and many, many others. Garbo, for instance, does not help theater owners in the United States ... Kay Francis, still receiving many-thousands a week, is now making B pictures ... Dietrich, too, is poison at the box office. ...[3]

Response

Articles appeared in many US newspapers chronicling the uproar in Hollywood after Brandt and his group had published the ad.[1] Time (magazine) later that May published responses from some of the stars:

But a few of the stars themselves had ready answers. Actress Hepburn last week terminated the RKO Radio contract that had brought her from $75,000 to $100,000 a picture and was considering five better offers "They say I'm a has-been," scoffed she. "If I weren't laughing so hard, I might cry. . . ." Joan Crawford had just signed a new five-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at a figure reported to be $1,500,000. "Boxoffice poison?" chirruped Actress Crawford.

In Boston, maligned Mae West was breakfasting in bed. "Why. the independent theatre owners call me the mortgage-lifter." she burbled. "When business is bad they just re-run one of my pictures. . . . The box-office business in the entire industry has dropped off 30%. . . . The only picture to make real money was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and that would have made twice as much if they'd had me play Snow White."[4]

Differing from The Hollywood Reporter ad, additional "poison" actors are mentioned in the Independent Film Journal Dead Cats article including Dolores del Rio, Fred Astaire, Norma Shearer, John Barrymore, and Luise Rainer. The Film Journal also listed some actors who "deserve their high salaries", among them Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Bette Davis, Myrna Loy, William Powell, Jean Arthur, Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant, and Carole Lombard among others. According to Brandt, studios were "safe" in placing these stars in films, knowing their "undeniable" popularity would generate substantial profit.

Subsequent impact

Louella Parsons included a mention of the Brandt ad in her 1938 New Year's Eve summation of the year in entertainment.[5] When Hepburn's The Philadelphia Story opened at Radio City Music Hall to large crowds in December 1940, Brandt sent a telegram to Katharine Hepburn that stated "Come on back, Katie. All is forgiven."[6] Over the years, several more "Box Office Poison" lists have been submitted in newspapers, in magazines, or more recently, online. In 1949, Mary Armitage's 'Film Close-Ups' newspaper labeled many stars as "poison" at the box office, among them Sylvia Sidney, James Cagney, Henry Fonda, Ingrid Bergman, Jennifer Jones, John Hodiak, and two actresses that in 1938 were said to have "deserved" their salaries, Bette Davis and Shirley Temple. Despite the original 1938 list and 1949 lists, Crawford, Davis, Hepburn, Dietrich, Francis, Barrymore, Astaire, Sidney, Cagney, Fonda, Bergman, Jones, and Hodiak all had comebacks. Del Río also made a comeback, although she had more success in Mexico than in the United States.[7] The term "box office poison" continues to be in use, with magazine articles and opinion pieces referring to the term.[8][9] A BBC article about Hepburn and The Philadelphia Story, written in 2021, still refers back to her being labeled in 1938 by Brandt as being "box office poison".[10]

References
  1. "Exhibitors Score Big Film Names". Newspapers.com. The San Francisco Examiner. May 5, 1938. Retrieved February 1, 2021. At a recent board meeting the association appropriated $300 to insert a red bordered advertisement in the Hollywood Reporter
  2. Box Office Poison
  3. "Poison At The Box Office". Viennas Classic Hollywood. June 1, 2020.
  4. Staff (May 16, 1938). "Cinema: Dead Cats". Time. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  6. Ed Sullivan (January 3, 1941). "The Reviewing Stand". Newspapers.com/California Digital Newspaper Collection. Hollywood Citizen-News. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  7. Nafus, Chale (2008). "Delores Del Rio in Hollywood". Archived from the original on December 24, 2013. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  8. Hasin, Sarvit (2020). "Box Office Poison". Somesuch Stories Issue 4. Retrieved January 31, 2021.
  9. Laman, Douglas (January 25, 2021). "The Biggest Denzel Washington Movies of All Time". Looper.com. Retrieved January 31, 2021. modern Westerns were looked at as box office poison
  10. Wakeman, Gregory. "The Philadelphia Story: How an 80-year-old comedy resonates". BBC.com. BBC Online. Retrieved January 31, 2021. By the end of 1938, Hepburn had been labelled 'box office poison'.
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