#s 1-10 in the movies in each year from 1 January 1935 through 31 December 1943

[Naphtali]

This question began forming while watching my DVA of 1938's "The Adventures of Robin Hood." Among its commentary was that Errol Flynn became Warner Brothers' top star. But what does that mean?
- Flynn's movies were selling the most tickets of all the studio's star players?
- Flynn's movies were making the most dollars each? (I don't know whether "A" class movies priced tickets differently as I believe occurs today)

I am informed that Shirley Temple was the #1 star during several years in the 1930s, yet Clark Gable was referred to as the king of Hollywood.
***
So obviously I have no idea how leading players of "A" class motion pictures were to have been identified for rating. Nor am I able to discriminate factual data from public relations hyperbole.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The general public had very little access to or awareness of that kind of information at the time, because the "chart" mentality that became common from the fifties and sixties forward was nowhere near as developed then. Box-office grosses were an important metric to producers and exhibitors, but they meant nothing to Joe and Sally Seatwarmer, who tended to see whatever was playing at their neighborhood house whether it was an MGM super-deluxe masterpiece or a Poverty Row potboiler. They tended to be more interested in Dish Night or Screeno than in whether Errol Flynn was empirically more popular than Clark Gable.

Such titles as "King/Queen of Hollywood" were cooked up by press agents, based on who the studio wanted to push that month, and no real statistical substance. You'd find them in "Photoplay" or "Silver Screen," but they meant nothing to the industry professionals who read "Boxoffice" or "The Hollywood Reporter." Lists of top box office draws did appear in such publications, but minus the hype. Press agents did publicize the rise of some new star or other by quoting such lists, but the evidience is that these statistics meant nothing to filmgoers, who'd be more likely to call the big name of the moment a "big hunk of cheese" or a "baked ham" than "King of Hollywood."

A rather deep streak of cynicism developed early among moviegoers over what the Boys From Marketing were telling them. And exhibitors were even more caustic -- in 1938, they responded to press-agent hype by publishing their own list of performers they considered "Box Office Poison," a list which included some of the biggest stars in the business.

In short, you should take all sorts of movie rankings and lists with a barrel of salt. The phrase "Figures don't lie, but liars figure" was never more aptly applied than to the movie business in the Era: no matter what the statistic, the press agents could cook it to indicate whatever they wanted it to indicate. There were no Hooperratings for movieland.