The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (and How They Got That Way) is a 1978 book by Harry Medved with Randy Dreyfuss. Despite its broad title, it presents the authors' choices for the 50 worst sound films made or distributed in the United States. Each film's entry includes a story synopsis, the authors' opinions of its quality, and a selection of contemporary reviews of the film.
Categories
In compiling their list, the authors divided films into several categories:
- "Popular Triumphs" such as The Omen, Valley of the Dolls
- "Overrated Art Films" such as Ivan the Terrible, Last Year at Marienbad
- "Implausible Oddities" such as The Terror of Tiny Town
- "Big Budget Flops" such as Lost Horizon, Zabriskie Point
- "Grade-Z Atrocities" such as Robot Monster, Eegah
- "Tarnished Stars" such as Yul Brynner in Solomon and Sheba
- "Oldies but Baddies" such as Jamaica Inn
Subcategories
The authors also used egregious examples to represent less reputable film genres, such as blaxploitation films (Trouble Man), Japanese monster movies (Godzilla vs. Hedorah), spaghetti Westerns (Return of Sabata) and Tarzanesque jungle movies (Daughter of the Jungle) alongside anime (Alakazam the Great), disaster movies (Airport 1975), sexploitation films (Myra Breckinridge), Elvis Presley vehicles (Spinout), and mainstream films such as At Long Last Love, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Hurry Sundown, King Richard and the Crusaders, and Say One for Me.
Criteria
The book intentionally excludes silent films because the authors consider them to be "a separate and unique art form and that judging them alongside talkies would be like weighing apples together with oranges." It limits the foreign films considered to only those distributed in the United States, judging it unfair to evaluate local obscurities denied an international release alongside mainstream Hollywood products while realizing that it would not only be difficult for the authors to view the films, but unlikely that any readers would ever come across them.
Reception
Despite the popularity of the book among some members of the general public, film scholars and historians largely denounce the book for its lack of understanding and perspective. Acclaimed film historian William K. Everson wrote a scathing review in Films in Review: "There are so many factual errors and sweepingly inaccurate generalizations that to list them all would take a volume of the same size.... The authors of the book are both teen-agers. This is hardly their fault. And some often remarkable writing has been done by teen-agers. But NOT in any field of historical research, where experience and the perspective that can ONLY come about by years in a chosen field, are absolute essentials.... If nothing else, The 50 Worst Movies Of All Time unquestionably qualifies as The Worst Movie Book Of All Time—and in view of the mediocrity being spewed forth these days, that in itself is a monumental achievement." Critic Hal Erickson wrote, "How easy it is to tear something down. A child of four can do it."
Legacy
The Medveds continued the theme of "celebrating" bad cinema with the publication The Golden Turkey Awards, instituted in 1980 which again showcased bad and obscure films, and The Hollywood Hall of Shame which examined in some detail several major Hollywood financial disasters, focusing on both the artistic treatments coupled with the technical and organizational ineptitude in the mounting of these films.
It has been said that The Fifty Worst Films of All Time marked the beginning of an explosion of "worst in cinema" prizes nearly resulting in "a state of redundancy almost approaching that of ordinary prizes."
The films
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders sticky-header"
|-
! scope="col"| Title
! scope="col"| Year
! scope="col"| Director
! scope="col"| Studio
|-
| Abraham Lincoln
| 1930
| D. W. Griffith
| United Artists
|-
| Parnell
| 1937
| John M. Stahl
| Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
|-
| The Goldwyn Follies
| 1938
| George Marshall
| Samuel Goldwyn Productions
|-
| Swing Your Lady
| 1938
| Ray Enright
| Warner Bros.
|-
| The Terror of Tiny Town
| 1938
| Sam Newfield
| Columbia Pictures
|-
| Jamaica Inn
| 1939
| Alfred Hitchcock
| Mayflower Pictures
|-
| New Moon
| 1940
| Robert Z. Leonard
| Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
|-
| North West Mounted Police
| 1940
| Cecil B. DeMille
| Paramount Pictures
|-
| The Big Noise
| 1944
| Mal St. Clair
| 20th Century Fox
|-
| Ivan the Terrible
| 1945
| Sergei Eisenstein
| Mosfilm
|-
| Dick Tracy vs. Cueball
| 1946
| Gordon M. Douglas
| RKO Radio Pictures
|-
| That Hagen Girl
| 1947
| Peter Godfrey
| Warner Bros.
|-
| Twilight on the Rio Grande
| 1947
| Frank McDonald
| Republic Pictures
|-
| Daughter of the Jungle
| 1949
| George Blair
| Republic Pictures
|-
| Robot Monster
| 1953
| Phil Tucker
| Astor Pictures
|-
| King Richard and the Crusaders
| 1954
| David Butler
| Warner Bros.
|-
| Swamp Women
| 1955
| Roger Corman
| Woolner Brothers Pictures Inc.
|-
| The Conqueror
| 1956
| Dick Powell
| RKO Radio Pictures
|-
| The Story of Mankind
| 1957
| Irwin Allen
| Warner Bros.
|-
| Jet Attack
| 1958
| Edward L. Cahn
| American International Pictures
|-
| Say One for Me
| 1959
| Frank Tashlin
| 20th Century Fox
|-
| Solomon and Sheba
| 1959
| King Vidor
| United Artists
|-
| Alakazam the Great
| 1960
| Taiji Yabushita<br />Daisaku Shirakawa
| Toei Company
|-
| Dondi
| 1961
| Albert Zugsmith
| Allied Artists
|-
| Last Year at Marienbad
| 1961
| Alain Resnais
| Cocinor
|-
| Eegah
| 1962
| Arch Hall Sr.<br />(credited as Nicholas Merriweather)
| Fairway International Pictures
|-
| The Horror of Party Beach
| 1964
| Del Tenney
| 20th Century Fox
|-
| Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
| 1964
| Nicholas Webster
| Embassy Pictures
|-
| Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!
| 1966
| George Marshall
| United Artists
|-
| Spinout
| 1966
| Norman Taurog
| Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
|-
| Three on a Couch
| 1966
| Jerry Lewis
| Columbia Pictures
|-
| The Ambushers
| 1967
| Henry Levin
| Columbia Pictures
|-
| Hurry Sundown
| 1967
| Otto Preminger
| Paramount Pictures
|-
| Valley of the Dolls
| 1967
| Mark Robson
| 20th Century Fox
|-
| A Place for Lovers
| 1968
| Vittorio De Sica
| Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
|-
| Che!
| 1969
| Richard Fleischer
| 20th Century Fox
|-
| Myra Breckinridge
| 1970
| Michael Sarne
| 20th Century Fox
|-
| Zabriskie Point
| 1970
| Michelangelo Antonioni
| Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
|-
| Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster
| 1971
| Yoshimitsu Banno
| Toho
|-
| The Last Movie
| 1971
| Dennis Hopper
| Universal Pictures
|-
| Return of Sabata
| 1971
| Gianfranco Parolini
| United Artists
|-
| The Assassination of Trotsky
| 1972
| Joseph Losey
| Cinerama Releasing Corporation
|-
| Trouble Man
| 1972
| Ivan Dixon
| 20th Century Fox
|-
| Jonathan Livingston Seagull
| 1973
| Hall Bartlett
| Paramount Pictures
|-
| Lost Horizon
| 1973
| Charles Jarrott
| Columbia Pictures
|-
| Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
| 1974
| Sam Peckinpah
| United Artists
|-
| The Trial of Billy Jack
| 1974
| Tom Laughlin
| Warner Bros.
|-
| Airport 1975
| 1974
| Jack Smight
| Universal Pictures
|-
| At Long Last Love
| 1975
| Peter Bogdanovich
| 20th Century Fox
|-
| The Omen
| 1976
| Richard Donner
| 20th Century Fox
|}
See also
- List of films considered the worst
- Cult film
- B movie
- Mystery Science Theater 3000
- Golden Raspberry Awards
References
Further reading
- Medved, Harry, and Randy Dreyfuss. The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (and How They Got That Way). 1978, Warner Books. .
- Medved, Harry, and Randy Dreyfuss. The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (and How They Got That Way). 1978 (1980 Reprint), Australia: Angus & Robertson Publishers, (cased edition), 0 207 95892 0 (limp edition).
- Medved, Michael. The Fifty Worst Films of All Time. 1980. .
External links
- The list of films on Letterboxd