Box Office Poison (magazine article)

"Box Office Poison" is the title of a magazine article submitted by Harry Brandt on behalf of the Independent Theatre Owners of America in the Independent Film Journal on May 3, 1938. The list labeled several well-known contemporary films stars whose "box office draw is nil".

The article in its entirety was called "Dead Cats" and was published by Manhattan's Independent Theatre Owners Association, Inc. The majority of the article read as follows:

Wake up! Practically all of the major studios are burdened with stars—whose public appeal is negligible—and receiving tremendous salaries necessitated by contractual obligations...Among those players whose dramatical ability is unquestioned, but whose box-office draw is nil, can be numbered Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Mae West, Joan Crawford, Kay Francis, Norma Shearer, Luise Rainer, John Barrymore, Dolores del Río, Katharine Hepburn, Edward Arnold, and Fred Astaire...Garbo, for instance, does not help theater owners in the United States ... Kay Francis, still receiving many-thousands a week, is now making B pictures ... Dietrich, too, is poison at the box office. ...

The article continued, stating the "ready answers" many of the stars had to their labeling:

But a few of the stars themselves had ready answers. Actress Katharine Hepburn last week terminated the RKO contract that had brought her from $75,000 to $100,000 a picture and was considering five better offers. "They say I'm a has-been," scoffed she. "If I weren't laughing so hard, I might cry..." Joan Crawford had just signed a new five-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at a figure reported to be $1,500,000. "Box Office Poison?" chirruped actress Crawford. In Boston, maligned Mae West was breakfasting in bed. "Why, the independent theatre owners call me the mortgage-lifter." she burbled. "When business is bad they just re-run one of my pictures... The box office business in the entire industry has dropped off thirty percent. . . . The only picture to make real money was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and that would have made twice as much if they'd had me play Snow White."

...
Wikipedia