The Hollywood Hall of Shame
The Hollywood Hall of Shame is a 1984 book by Harry Medved and Michael Medved. The authors, brothers Harry and Michael Medved, had previously written or been involved in the creation of similar books exploring "bad movies" or "cinematic mistakes": The Fifty Worst Films of All Time, and The Golden Turkey Awards.
While those books listed those films judged by the authors as bad and ridiculous and featured many film oddities, exploitation films and low-budget obscurities, The Hollywood Hall of Shame examined expensive financial disasters; big budget mainstream films that failed miserably at the box office, or had other disastrous consequences. The Hollywood Hall of Shame examines in great detail a small selection of celebrated failures, describing the financial and production problems that led to the big budget and in many cases cost overruns, while contemplating why the film failed to gain public acceptance. A basement compendium aims to give a comprehensive overview of other big money losers not examined in the main section of the book.
List of main contents
Silent But Deadly
Intolerance (1916)
Quo Vadis? (1925)
Noah's Ark (1929)
The Titans and Their Toys
Cain and Mabel (1936)
Underwater! (1955)
The Conqueror (1956)
Fascist Follies
Scipio Africanus (1937)
Kolberg (1945)
Disastrous Debuts
Hello Everybody! (1933)
Sincerely Yours (1955)
Star-crossed Lovers
Hotel Imperial (1936-39)
Darling Lili (1970)
The Elizabeth Taylor Wing
Cleopatra (1963)
Boom! (1969)
The Only Game in Town (1970)
Child Abuse
Doctor Dolittle (1967)
The Blue Bird (1976)
Prophets and Losses
The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
Mohammad: Messenger of God (1977)
Musical Extravaganzas
Paint Your Wagon (1969)
Can't Stop the Music (1981)
Delusions of Grandeur
Heaven's Gate (1980-81)
Inchon! (1982)
The Basement Collection
While the main section of the book examines in detail those films with interesting production histories and circumstances, The Basement Collection is a move objective catalogue covering Hollywood's most expensive failures. The book was published in 1984 and with the hugely inflated film budgets since that time it provides a glimpse of an era when expensive failures were considered notable and unusual.