To describe the golden cinema business of the war years, Hollywood had used a special phrase"boffo terrif." By last week Hollywood knew that it was time to use another phrase; things had changed. Movie attendance ("boffo") was down 25%-45% in extreme cases. In the nation's theaters, business had slipped until it was a mere "boffo sensational."
What scared Hollywood was that the cost of making movies was still soaring. Daily Variety estimated that 20th Century-Fox's Margie, filmed a year ago for $1,400,000 would cost $2,200,000 todayup 57%.
With rising costs and a box-office...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
