Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide

Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide

Cover of the 2010 edition
Author	Leonard Maltin
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	Film reviews, synopses

Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide was a book-format collection of movie capsule reviews that began in 1969, was updated biennially after 1978, and then annually after 1986. The final edition was published in September 2014.^[1] It was originally called TV Movies, which became Leonard Maltin's TV Movies and Video Guide, and then Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide, before arriving at its final title. Film critic Leonard Maltin edited it and contributed a large portion of its reviews.

Features

The book used a star rating system. The lowest rating was "BOMB", followed by one and a half stars, rising in half-star increments to a maximum of four stars, and frequently giving out two-and-a-half star ( **1/2 ) reviews. The sole exception to this was Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult, which was rated with two and one third stars out of four, referencing the film's title. Made-for-television films were also included in the guides for many years, though in the early 2000s, Maltin gradually began to phase them out to make room for current feature film releases. All had been removed by the early 2010s, and no TV movies made after 2004 were included in new editions. Maltin used a different system for rating TV movies: "Below average", "Average" or "Above average", with select variants for highly rated films, including "Way above average" for The Day After and Special Bulletin, and "Outstanding" for Minstrel Man. Certain theatrically-released films (usually low budget, obscure, foreign, concert, or serial films), as well as the majority of films based on Edgar Wallace novels, were also removed from the guide over time to allow the inclusion of new titles.

Another notable feature of the Guide was that each review included a reference to the source material for the film if it was based on previously published material. Films were listed alphabetically letter-by-letter, ignoring punctuation and spaces. Articles were also ignored and transposed to the end of the title.

The Guide was notable for containing what the Guinness Book of World Records calls the world's shortest movie review. His 2 out of 4 star review of the 1948 musical Isn't It Romantic? consisted of the word "No".^[2] Another very short review concerned the film Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed where Maltin wrote, "It is what it is." Yet another was of Are Husbands Necessary? in which he wrote "And what about this film?", and one more right behind these is Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol where, in comparing it to the previous installments, he commented, "More of the same, only worse."

Bombs

Along with typically listed worst pictures of all time, the hundreds of films Maltin designated as a "BOMB" in his guide also included 3000 Miles to Graceland, 88 Minutes, College, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, American Gigolo, the Woody Allen-directed Anything Else, The Benchwarmers, Bobby Deerfield, The Bonfire of the Vanities, Captain Ron, Celtic Pride, The Dukes of Hazzard, Endless Love, Every Which Way but Loose, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Four Rooms, 2010's Gulliver's Travels, Mame, The Missouri Breaks, Popeye, Prêt-à-Porter, 1998's remake of Psycho, 2007's remake of Sleuth, Valley of the Dolls and Your Highness.

History

High-school senior Leonard Maltin was a film fan and publisher of Fanzine Monthly. In spring 1968 a teacher introduced him to an editor at Signet Books, which wanted a competitor to Steven H. Scheuer's Movies on TV; impressed by Maltin's ideas for the book the editor hired him immediately, without telling others that he had hired a 17-year-old. The first edition of Maltin's book appeared in 1969; a second edition appeared five years later. After a third in 1978, new editions appeared every two years, and after 1986 every year.^[1] In 2005, logistical problems of a single book prompted him to launch a companion volume, Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide, restricted to films from 1960 and earlier, several of which no longer appear in the annual publication (some had been deleted over the years to make room for newer films, others removed at this point because the additional venue allowed it) and many others that never had. The latter category includes the "complete" (according to Maltin's introduction) Saturday matinee cowboy programmers of John Wayne, William "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.

The second edition of the Classic Movie Guide, published in 2010, moved the cut-off date to 1965.^[3] Besides Scheuer's Movies on TV, similar books include Halliwell's Film Guide, by Leslie Halliwell, and The Good Film and Video Guide, by David Shipman. Scheuer's guide was the first published, in 1958, preceding Maltin's by ten years, and the two were competing titles until the early 1990s. Scheuer's books had a similar format to Maltin's, except with more listings for made-for-television productions.

Maltin announced in August 2014 that the 2015 edition, to be published in September 2014, would be the last: "An entire generation has been raised to acquire all their information online from their mobile devices or computers. These are not the likely customers for a physical paperback reference book. Our sales have sharply declined in recent years."^[1]

App

The mobile application version of the guide was released, in 2009, to the App Store.^[4] However, the app was taken down in 2014 due to Penguin Publishing being unable to come to an agreement with Mobile Age, the creator of the app.^[5]

References