The box office check-up of 1935 (1936)

MUSIC IN PICTURES and Those Who Wrote It Appraising the part music played in 1934-35 features and listing those who produced it by JAMES P. CUNNINGHAM EMERGING from the painful and costly speculation attendant upon its production in cycles, the musical motion picture and music in motion pictures has finally settled down to an even tempo as an integral part of normal and successful motion picture entertainment and expression, to the extent that today songs and other forms of music play an important part, having a dominant position or one of only slightly less importance in an average of one-fourth of all pictures produced. It is even more important in the short subject. That the musical motion picture, with songs or dances or both, is now usually highly successful as a box office attraction, is established by the fact that out of the 97 features of all types that were selected during the year as Box Office Champions in Motion Picture Herald, some 38 pictures, or 40 per cent of the whole, were musicals or had considerable music in them. The Champions are determined each month solely on the basis of their earnings. The impressive total of I I 8 features out of an estimated 450 produced by the large companies during the season just passed, contained music or songs to varying extents. Some 34 had a similar song and feature title; three pictures were definitely suggested by a song previously written; 29 were musical-comedy romances, and three were all-musical Westerns— a new departure that is growing in box office popularity. Too, there were I I operettas produced during the season, while incidental music was played throughout 25 feature comedies and 19 dramas. Some 354 song and musical numbers, an even average of three numbers per picture, were sung or played in the season's I 18 musical releases, the majority of them having been written expressly for the production. They contributed largely to the popular music portfolio of radio, vaudeville, dancing and other forms of public entertaining and entertainment off the screen. Thirteen of America's largest music pub • THE BOX OFFICE CHECK-UP lishers printed and sold the 354 filmmusical numbers, 181 of the pieces bearing the trade mark of the biggest companies, as follows: HARMS 53 ROBBINS 43 WITMARK 43 FAMOUS MUSIC 42 MOVIETONE 37 REMICK 31 BERLIN 30 CRAWFORD 22 MARKS 9 DE SYLVIA, BROWN AND HENDERSON 6 CHAPPELLHARMS .... 4 MILLS 3 COLE 2 DITSON I FOX, SAM I HARRIS I MELROSE I SANTLEY I SHAPIRO-BERNSTEIN .... I There were, of course, many productions containing but one song or musical number, but frequently the number extended to eight, as in the case of Paramount's "Big Broadcast of 1936," and Warner's "Sweet Adeline." Other musicals that were numerically prominent included "Broadway Gondolier," seven numbers; "Roberta," seven; "Every Night At Eight," six; "George White's 1935 Scandals," six; "Go Into Your Dance," six; "Music in the Air," six; "Old Man Rhythm," six; "Sweet Music," six; "All the King’s Horses," five; "Broadway Melody of 1936," five; "Curly Top," five; "Dames," five; "Evergreen," five; "Folies Bergere," five; "Gay Divorcee," five; "Kid Millions," five; "Love in Bloom," five; "My Heart Is Calling," five; "My Song for You," five; "Naughty Marietta," five; "Romance Scandals," five; "Top Hat," five; "Transatlantic Merry-GoRound," five; and, "Belle of the Nineties," four; "Broadway Through a Keyhole," four; "College Rhythm," four; "Girl o' My Dreams," four; "Happiness Ahead," four; "Harold Teen," four; "Here Is My Heart," four; "Hooray for Love," four; "In Caliente," four; "Merry Widow," four; "Palooka," four; "Student Tour," four. Warner leads all producers in musical and song-film production, releasing 22 of such features last season. Other companies contributed pictures with musical elements as follows: WARNERS 22 20TH CENTURY-FOX .... 19 UNITED ARTISTS 14 PARAMOUNT 13 METRO GOLDWYN .... 12 UNIVERSAL 12 GAUMONT BRITISH .... 8 REPUBLIC 7 RKO RADIO 7 COLUMBIA 4 Prominent ■ among the composers and lyricists, insofar as their activity in creating music for motion pictures is concerned, were such well known song and music writers as Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, Harry Warren, Al Dubin, Harry Revel and Mack Gordon, Johnston and Coslow, Ray Noble, Douglas Furber, Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar, Gus Kahn, Frederic Norton, Ray Henderson, Allie Wrubel and Sammy Fain, Harry Woods, Mort Dixon, Jack Stern and Jack Meskill, Con Conrad, Jack Yellen, Joseph Meyer, George Waggner, Irving Kahal, Herb Magidson, Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh, Irving Berlin, Bernie Grossman, Jay Gorney, Don Hartman, Roy Turk and Harry Akst, Bernie Grossman, Dan Silverman and Eddie Ward, Lorenz Hart and Dick Rodgers, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, Rita Johnson Young, Lewis Gensler and Johnny Mercer, Ferde Grofe and Irving Caesar, Richard Whiting. Surveying the entire field, the compilation which follows lists the titles of all motion pictures with song or music in the past season, with a description of its type of story, distributor's name, song title or musical number, publisher, composer and lyricist. [Listings begin on opposite page] 90 OF 19 3 5