Bad Movies of 1943

People seem to love lists. They also seem to love bad movies. What happens when you put them together?

You get an easy way to fill newspaper column space at the end of the year when there’s nothing to talk about.

Here’s a United Press piece published starting at the end of 1943. I’m not really a feature film person; the last time I went to see a first-run picture in a theatre was almost 40 years ago. I maybe caught five minutes of the Jack Benny feature referred to once on TV. The only movie I’ve seen in whole that’s on the list is The Big Broadcast of 1938 because W.C. Fields was in it. I can’t say it made a lasting impression. I imagine if it weren’t for the Robin/Rainger song that Bob Hope adopted, no one would remember it today.

Hollywood Has Fewer Big Flops; 1943 Didn't Have '10 Worst' Movies
By FREDERICK C. OTHMAN
United Press Hollywood Writer
HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 31. (U.P.) — During the last several years, on the final day of each, we have lost friends and alienated people by listing in cold type the 10 worst movies of the preceding 12 months. The day has come again. And friends, we must report, to our own amazement, that there weren't that many superdooper floperoos this year.
There was a picture called "The Youngest Profession," which would make anybody squirm. Including an autograph collector, which was what the film was about. There was a movie called "The Meanest Man in the World" and Jack Benny still is blushing for not stealing the negative and burning it before it burned him.
There were other pictures, too, which were disappointing, but they all had something in them that somebody liked. It was not always so. Maybe the boys are learning how to make movies, maybe. Because we remember some pictures that were enough to make the cash customers grovel in their loges.
BLOSSOMS SMELL

Worst of all, probably, was a film called "Blossoms on Broadway." This was produced by B. P. Schulberg, who would have known better. Shirley Ross was the star of same and it nearly ended her as an actress. John Trent made his motion picture debut in the same picture. Simultaneously he said adieu to the films. Edward Arnold was in it long enough to be labeled “box office poison” and it took him years to live it down.
Another motion picture we'd like to forget, but can't, was an epic of the jungle, called "Green Hell." This was produced by Harry Eddington for Universal studios and it concerned some sweaty white men who found themselves a beautiful girl. Then they stood around looking at her, licking their chops. Chief chop licker was Doug Fairbanks, Jr. The girl was Joan Bennett and the feature of the film was a couple of thousand lightning bugs, which blinked their headlights when the electricians pulled the switches.
There also was an epic titled "The Big Broadcast of 1938." This was the film in which Bob Hope sang "Thanks For the Memory." It also was the picture in which Kirsten Flagstad, the grand opera star, climbed a pasteboard mountain inside an ocean liner—honest—and warbled Wagner, while W. C. Fields steered the boat through icebergs with his feet. It gives us the heebies even today, thinking about it.
Well do we remember, too well, the world premiere of a mighty musical of the oil fields, titled “High, Wide and Handsome.” This was a multi-million-dollar project featuring Irene Dunne. The spotlights and the bleachers and the red carpets were on the job at the Carthay Circle Theater. Othman had on his tuxedo and the management announced that the picture was of such quality and length that there would be a brief intermission in the middle.
Came the intermission and practically everybody, including Othman in his hard-boiled shirt, walked out and never returned. We never did learn what happened to Miss Dunne. We didn’t care.
B’s UP TO TRICKS

With no trouble except a quick look at our files, we could name 50 more movies of the last few years which were so bad they constituted a crime against the patrons. Came 1943 and suddenly the level of movie productions was on a higher plane; slightly higher, anyhow.
A few of the picture producers were up to their old tricks, deliberately making deadly ones. R-K-O's series about that man, the Falcon, for instance, did not improve. Some of the big musicals, notably "Thank Your Lucky Stars" and "Wintertime," were not as good as they should have been." “China Girl” did nothing to enhance the reputation of Gene Tierney. Olivia DeHavilland and Sonny Tufts won no prizes in “Government Girl.”
Some of the war films, including “Bombers’ Moon” and “Thunder Birds,” brought no cheers. And a picture originally titled “If the Shroud Fits” was released as “Dangerous Blondes.” None of these films was a “Green Hell” or a "Blossoms on Broadway." And if 1944 is as good a year as 1943, the annual Othman compendium of the year's worst movies will go into eclipse. We hope. We honestly do.