#1 Film in 1955: Cinerama Holiday

 

Cinerama Holiday was an unusual number one film. Hardly anyone has heard of it today, but it was a roadshow film specially designed to illustrate the benefits of the Cinerama format. The film depicted two couples on vacation- a Swiss couple touring the United States and an American couple touring Europe. While the format never really took off commercially, this film became 1955's number one film.

#1 Film in 1954: Rear Window

 

Alfred Hitchcock's second #1 film was Rear Window. The film's salacious content straddled the border of what 1950's propriety would allow, but it still found itself at the top of the box office heap.

#1 Film in 1953: The Robe

 

The Robe would further push the studios into the television era, making use of CinemaScope as a gimmick to show the sort of grandeur a television screen couldn't display. That the film showed a bible story was icing on the anti-Communist cake.

#1 Film in 1952: The Greatest Show on Earth

 

1952 brought one of the most polarizing Best Picture winners ever- The Greatest Show on Earth. Widely believed to be the worst best picture winner ever, the schmaltzy film owed its success more to the anti-communism paranoia of the time than to its actual merit. Cecil B. DeMille was an outspoken proponent of the blacklist and made sure everyone knew it.

#1 Film in 1951: Quo Vadis

 

MGM further set foot into the world of the epic with Quo Vadis, a Roman historical epic based on a fiction novel. Originally starring Elizabeth Taylor and Gregory Peck, the film was recast with Deborah Kerr and Robert Taylor after the film found a new home at MGM. Quo Vadis would further cement MGM's newfound success in lavish epics.

Movie Weekend Randomness

 

Movie Weekend Randomness