What are the highest grossing movies of all time? They may not be the ones you expect — if you adjust the ticket prices for inflation. Here’s the top 10 list using adjusted gross earnings, according to Box Office Mojo:

1. Gone with the Wind (1939)
   $1,293,085,600 (unadjusted: $198,676,459)
2. Star Wars (1977)
   $1,139,965,400 (unadjusted: $460,998,007)
3. The Sound of Music (1965)
   $911,458,400 (unadjusted: $158,671,368)
4. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
   $907,867,700 (unadjusted: $435,110,554)
5. The Ten Commandments (1956)
   $838,400,000 (unadjusted: $65,500,000)
6. Titanic (1997)
   $821,413,700 (unadjusted: $600,788,188)
7. Jaws (1975)
   $819,704,400 (unadjusted: $260,000,000)
8. Doctor Zhivago (1965)
   $794,466,900 (unadjusted: $111,721,910)
9. The Exorcist (1973)
   $707,639,500 (unadjusted: $232,671,011)
10. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
    $697,600,000 (unadjusted: $184,925,486)

My Man Godfrey (1936) was the first film to be nominated for all four acting Oscars: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. Coincidentally, it was the first year for the two supporting awards. My Man Godfrey was also nominated for the writing and directing Oscars.

To this day, it’s the only film to be nominated for all six awards and not be nominated for Best Picture. And to this day, it’s the only film to be nominated for all six awards and not win any of them.

John Ford loved to shoot his westerns in Monument Valley, Utah. Those films include Stagecoach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Wagon Master (1950), Rio Grande (1950), The Searchers (1956), Sergeant Rutledge (1960) and Cheyenne Autumn (1964).

So how did he discover this rugged and picturesque location? Here’s the story as explained by the Internet Movie Database:

“In 1939 there was no paved road through Monument Valley, hence the reason why it hadn’t been used as a movie location before (it wasn’t paved until the 1950s). Harry Goulding, who ran a trading post there, had heard that John Ford was planning a big-budget Western so he traveled to Hollywood, armed with over 100 photographs, and threatened to camp out on Ford’s doorstep until the director saw him. Ford saw him almost immediately and was instantly sold on the location, Particularly when he realized that its remoteness would free him of studio interference.”

Holiday (1938) is based on a play by the same writer (Philip Barry), has the same director (George Cukor), and features the same two stars (Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant) as The Philadelphia Story (1940). Yet the lesser known (and earlier) movie is actually the better of two.

Poster for Lucrezia Borgia (1922)

This silent German film featured Conrad Veidt as Cesare Borgia. In an odd coincidence, he had famously played a character named Cesare just two years earlier in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). His best part was probably the title role in The Man Who Laughs (1928), though he is best known for his portrayals of Jaffar in The Thief of Bagdad (1940) and Maj. Strasser in Casablanca (1942).

In his article “The Strange Case of Alfred Hitchcock, Part Three,” Raymond Durgnat writes that “Dr. Goebbels loved watching Foreign Correspondent.” Goebbels predicted it would make “an impression upon wide broad masses in the enemy countries.” Hitchcock later speculated that a print was probably brought in through Switzerland. Was this a case of an evil manipulator recognizing the skills of a more benign manipulator?

On November 28, 2000, a British radio program titled “The Birth of Screen Comedy” included something most people had never heard before — the voice of Harpo Marx. The program’s staff had found an old interview tape of Harpo explaining how he had once fallen off a piano stool and how that had prompted a doctor’s visit.

If you prefer to imagine Harpo as never having a voice, maybe you should skip this one. But if you’ve always wondered what Harpo might have sounded like, here is your chance. The link to stream or download the MP3 audio file is here.

The most beautiful movie star ever?

She also helped invent the communication system used today in cellular phones and modern weapons. You can read about this other side of Hedy Lamarr here and here.

“Studio publicity in 1941 claimed that Ronald Reagan and Ann Sheridan were scheduled to appear in this film, and Dennis Morgan is mentioned as the third lead. This was never the case, however, and the false story was planted, either by a studio publicist or a press agent for the three other actors, to keep their names in the press. Meanwhile George Raft was angling for the part with Jack L. Warner, but Hal B. Wallis had been assigned to search for what would be Humphrey Bogart’s next starring role. He wrote to Warner that he had found the next movie for Bogart, and the role was perfect for him. Nobody else was ever considered for the part.”

— Source: Internet Movie Database

One of the first Japanese films to be shot in anamorphic widescreen, The Mysterians (1957) is also the first of a long line of low-budget Toho Studio movies that feature alien invaders.