This post is a part of TMP’s Historical Context series, in which I share excerpts from my collection of vintage publications.
When I read any of the books or magazines from my collection of vintage publications, I often think of the many people who must have enjoyed reading them in the past.
Sometimes my interaction with these readers of the past goes beyond my simple wondering about who they were and which articles they enjoyed best. Sometimes they leave little notes behind in the magazines that give me insight into who they were.
My November 1954 issue of Photoplay includes two little clues into the life of one of the former owners. One missing review has been clipped out of the page filled with brief reviews. Not much discovery can be done here since I haven’t been able to track down another copy of the magazine and see which film was important enough to the reader to be clipped out.
Quite a few pages later, there is a list of the biggest stars and films of the year. Photoplay urged readers to send in their favorite female star, male star and film of the year from those lists. Rather than follow Photoplay’s wishes, one of the previous orders of my copy marked which films they had seen from the list in pencil, scribbling “31 I seen” in the margin of the page.
The delivery sticker is still attached to the front of the magazine, giving me some idea as to who the scribbler of this message could be, but I’ll never know for certain — at least one other person (the antiques dealer that I bought the magazine from) has been in possession of it, so anyone could have written it. But I thought, regardless of the identity of the previous reader, it would be fun to compare our movie-watching experiences! (Yep, I’m a creepy film nerd. And I want to be a History Detective.)
Below is the “Top films of 1954” list, with each film I’ve seen marked with an asterisk. I’ve marked The Scribbler’s watched films with a hyphen.
About Mr. Leslie-
Act of Love-
Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
The Americans
Apache
The Barefoot Contessa*
Beat the Devil
Beau Brummel
Bengal Brigade
The Big Rainbow
The Black Shield of Falworth
Brigadoon*
Broken Lance-
The Caine Mutiny*
Carnival Story-
Casanova’s Big Night*
The Command
Country Girl*
Creature from the Black Lagoon*
Dangerous Mission
Deep in My Heart
Demetrius and the Gladiators
Desiree
Dial “M” for Murder*-
Dragnet
Drum Beat
Easy to Love-
The Eddie Cantor Story
The Egyptian
Elephant Walk-
Executive Suite*-
Flame and the Flesh-
Forever Female*
Francis Joins the WACS
The French Line
Garden of Evil-
The Glenn Miller Story-
Green Fire*
Hell and High Water
Hell Below Zero
The High and the Mighty-
His Majesty O’Keefe
Hobson’s Choice
Hondo
Indiscretion of an American Wife-
It Should Happen to You-
Johnny Dark
Johnny Guitar-
Jupiter’s Darling
King Richard and the Crusaders
Knights of the Round Table
Knock on Wood
The Little Kidnappers
Living it Up-
The Long, Long Trailer*-
Lucky Me
Ma and Pa Kettle at Home
Magnificent Obsession*-
Man with a Million
Men of the Fighting Lady-
Money from Home
Miss Sadie Thompson*-
Naked Alibi
The Naked Jungle-
Night People-
On the Waterfront*
Paratrooper
Passion
Phffft
Prince Valiant-
The Purple Plain
Pushover-
Rear Window*
Red Garters
Rhapsody-
River of No Return*
Rob Roy
Rose Marie-
Sabrina*
Saskatchewan-
Secret of the Incas-
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers*
She Couldn’t Say No
Son of Sinbad
A Star is Born*
The Student Prince
Suddenly*
Susan Slept Here*
Them*
This is My Love
Three Coins in the Fountain*
Track of the Cat
The Vanishing Prairie
Vera Cruz
Walking My Baby Back Home-
White Christmas*
The Wild One-
Woman’s World
Yankee Pasha-
Young at Heart
My watches total up to 24, which means I’ve got some viewing to do if I want to catch up with The Scribbler. I recognize a few of these titles from my Mill Creek sets, though, so I’ll catch up eventually!
Feel free to count up your total and let me know how many of these films you’ve seen in the comments (or follow Photoplay’s instructions by sharing your two favorite stars and your favorite film of the year).
The Motion Pictures 
Hobson’s Choice is wonderful…. Probably the one I recommend from the list that you haven’t seen yet. Criterion picked it up a while back.
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I’ll add it to my list! Thanks for the recommendation. :)
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I’ve seen seven of these. My personal favorite would have to be On the Waterfront (which is in my top ten of all time), though I think Rear Window is probably the better film.
It’s always interesting to see what people enjoyed at the time. In this case it seems pretty similar to what I at least liked from that year.
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On the Waterfront is one of my favorite films, too!
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I’m surprised to see that I’ve seen a number of these. I’m also surprised that there isn’t much overlap between the films you’ve seen and the ones “The Scribbler” has marked.
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I was surprised by that, too! The Scribbler and I must just have different tastes.
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I’ve seen eleven of the above films, and it’s interesting to me that The Scribbler’s choice in film seemed quite varied, as far as genres went. And what I think is cool to consider is this: of the 31 films he/she saw that year, imagine which old-time single-screen theaters they went to see them in. I was going to do a little detective work myself, to see which theaters they MIGHT have visited, but you’ve blacked out the address label! Curses!
And my Photoplay vote for favorite movie would be ‘Rear Window’.
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I will do that detective work when I get back to MI. :) I decided to block out the address on the odd chance that the person listed may still be living at that address, or that the same family may still own the home. It would be rude of me to share their address with the world!
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Yes, it would be rude, but oh so interesting…
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