Top boxoffice hits of Summer 2011 (new and revised!!)

[Olympic Fan]

Both Hopalong Cassidy and the Durango Kid.

Great find -- I count 64 Hopalong Cassidy movies -- ALL starring William Boyd. Maybe 65 -- Boyd appears as Hopalong in the Greatest Show on Earth, although that's not really a Hopalong Cassidy movie. Even that wasn't enough -- he also starred in a TV show.

Yes and no on the Durango Kid ... there were over 60 movies in the series starring Charles Starrett, but most of them were programmers -- from 50-55 minutes long. Not really full-length films.

Both Hopalong Cassidy and Charlie Chan were usually B productions and they ran a little shorter than we're used to 67-75 minutes ... I guess we could quibble about what defines a full-length feature film.

During that era, there were also the Republic "Three Mesquiteers" series -- for a time starring John Wayne as one of the three heroes (Wayne was in eight of the 51 films in the series). Those were programmers too, usually between 50-55 minutes each.

BTW, I may have missed it, but has anybody mentioned the Hope and Crosby Road pictures? Now those WERE 'A' productions.

[snowdenscold]

Yeah, it's kind of hard to compare serials from the 1920's, etc. to the TV era, since many series we now watch on TV used to be done on the big screen out of necessity.

But you raise an fair point.