Tops

Since 1932 the Motion Picture Herald, Domesday Book of the cinema industry, has made annual surveys to find out which cinema stars make most money for the box office. Heading the list for the first two years was the late, leather-lunged Marie Dressler. In 1934 the late Will Rogers succeeded her. In 1935 pampered Cinemoppet Shirley Temple, then 6 years old, took first place. In 1936, for the first time, the Herald polled not only the U. S. but the box offices of Ireland and the United Kingdom. Again Shirley Temple topped the list. Last month the Herald's 1937 international survey found Shirley still top favorite. Other leaders, in order: Clark Gable, William Powell and Robert Taylor, Gary Cooper, Gracie Fields, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers and George Formby (English comedian), Jane Withers, Jeanette MacDonald, Sonja Henie, Myrna Loy and Laurel & Hardy.

P:Artistic excellence and box-office success are not always the same thing, even to Hollywood. The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures has a committee on exceptional photoplays that annually picks ten U. S. pictures for their artistic merit. Top choice for 1937 was creepy, melodramatic Night Must Fall. Others, in order: The Life of Emile Zola, Black Legion, Camille, Make Way for Tomorrow, The Good Earth, They Won't Forget, Captains Courageous, A Star Is Born, Stage Door.

P:The committee also picked a baker's dozen of "outstanding performances," this time ducking behind an alphabetical redan: Harry Baur in The Golem, Humphrey Bogart in Black Legion, Charles Boyer in Conquest, Nikolai Cherkassov in Baltic Deputy, Jackie Cooper in Boy of the Streets, Danielle Darrieux in Mayerling, Greta Garbo in Camille, Robert Montgomery in Night Must Full, Maria Ouspenskaya in Conquest, Luise Rainer in The Good Earth, Joseph Schildkraut in The Life of Emile Zola, Mathias Wieman in The Eternal Mask, Dame May Whitty in Night Must Fall. Unmentioned was Hollywood's 1937 pride, Paul Muni (Zola), recently accorded a niche in Hollywood's Hall of Fame in the Carthay Circle Theatre.

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