The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (and How They Got That Way) is a 1978 book by Harry Medved with Randy Dreyfuss.Google Books 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.WorldCat.org
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."Everson, William K., Films in Review, January, 1979 Critic Hal Erickson wrote, "How easy it is to tear something down. A child of four can do it."Erickson, Hal, Everson v. Medved, Narkive Newsgroup Archive, retrieved September 2, 2022
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."English, James F. (2008) The Economy of Prestige: Prizes, Awards, and the Circulation of Cultural Value, Harvard University Press p. 98
The films
Title Year Director 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 YabushitaDaisaku Shirakawa Toei Company Dondi 1961 Albert Zugsmith Allied Artists Last Year at Marienbad 1961 Alain Resnais Cocinor Eegah 1962 Arch Hall Sr.(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