A Movie Is a Movie

Literary critics can help boom a book into the best-seller lists. Drama critics can make or break a Broadway play. But for all the dent they make on moviegoers, film critics might as well stop frittering away their time.

This long-suspected fact is now in the process of being proved, with good, round statistics, by the Gallup-poll organization called Audience Research, Inc. After buttonholing a cross section of box-office customers at one current big-budget movie (title not announced), the pollsters tentatively concluded:

P:About 85% of moviegoers do not know -- and presumably care less -- whether the film reviewers like the picture or not. P:Some of the 15% who have read (or been told about) harsh critical sneers, go to see the picture anyway.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.