''Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'' was a book-format collection of movie
capsule review
A capsule review or mini reviewThe Word, 1976, issue 12, page 1Google Books/ref> is a form of appraisal, usually associated with journalism, that offers a relatively short critique of a specified creative work (movie, music album, restaurant, pain ...
s that began in 1969, was updated biannually after 1978, and then annually after 1986. The final edition was published in September 2014.
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
Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic, film historian, and author. He is known for his book of film capsule reviews, '' Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'', published from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film criti ...
edited it and contributed a large portion of its reviews.
Features
The book used a
star rating
Star ratings are a type of rating scale using a star glyph or similar typographical symbol. It is used by reviewers for ranking things such as films, TV shows, restaurants, and hotels. For example, a system of one to five stars is commonly use ...
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 : The Final Insult'', which was rated with two and one third stars out of four, referencing the film's title.
Maltin did not cover
direct-to-video
Direct-to-video or straight-to-video refers to the release of a film, television series, short or special to the public immediately on home video formats rather than an initial theatrical release or television premiere. This distribution strat ...
films because of their great number (six released each week by 1994).
Made-for-television films were included in the guides for many years, though in the late 1990s, 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 the
Emmy Award
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...
-winning ''
Special Bulletin'' (each from 1983), and "Outstanding" for ''Minstrel Man'' (1977). Certain theatrically-released films (usually low budget, obscure, foreign, concert, or
serial film
A serial film, film serial (or just serial), movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, gene ...
s), as well as the majority of films based on
Edgar Wallace
Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932) was a British writer of crime and adventure fiction.
Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, Wallace left school at the age of 12. He joined the army at age 21 and was ...
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
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, listi ...
'' calls the world's shortest movie review. His 2 out of 4 star review of the 1948 musical ''
Isn't It Romantic?
"Isn't It Romantic?" is a popular music, popular song and part of the Great American Songbook. The music was composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Lorenz Hart. It has a 32-bar chorus in A–B–A–C form. Alec Wilder, in his book ''America ...
'' consisted of the word "No". 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?'' which asked the
rhetorical question, "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 the following: ''
American Gigolo'', the
Woody Allen
Heywood Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American filmmaker, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades. Allen has received many List of awards and nominations received by Woody Allen, accolade ...
-directed ''
Anything Else'', ''
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever'', ''
Battlefield Earth'', ''
The Benchwarmers'', ''
Best of the Best'', ''
Bobby Deerfield'', ''
The Bonfire of the Vanities'', ''
The Cannonball Run'', ''
Cannonball Run II'', ''
Captain Ron'', ''
Celtic Pride
''Celtic Pride'' is a 1996 American sports comedy film written by Judd Apatow and Colin Quinn, and directed by Tom DeCerchio. It stars Daniel Stern and Dan Aykroyd as Mike O'Hara and Jimmy Flaherty, two passionate Boston Celtics fans, and Damo ...
'', ''
College
A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...
'', ''
Cop and a Half'', ''
Delgo'', ''
Driven'', ''
The Dukes of Hazzard'', ''
88 Minutes'', ''
Endless Love'', ''
Every Which Way but Loose'', ''
Fatal Beauty'', ''
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'', ''
Four Rooms'', ''
Freddy Got Fingered'', ''
The Garbage Pail Kids Movie'', ''
Grease 2
''Grease 2'' is a 1982 American Musical film, musical romantic comedy film, and a standalone sequel to the Grease (film), 1978 film ''Grease'', adapted from the 1971 Grease (musical), musical of the same name by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. Orig ...
'', 2010's ''
Gulliver's Travels
''Gulliver's Travels'', originally titled ''Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships'', is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clerg ...
'', ''
Howard the Duck
Howard the Duck is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer Steve Gerber, based very loosely on his college friend Howard Tockman, and artist Val Mayerik. Howard the Duck firs ...
'', 1980's ''
Jazz Singer'', ''
The Karate Kid Part III'', ''
Little Man'', ''
Mame
MAME (formerly an acronym of Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is a free and open-source emulator designed to emulate the hardware of arcade games, video game consoles, old computers and other systems in software on modern personal computers and ...
'', ''
Mannequin
A mannequin (sometimes spelled as manikin and also called a dummy, lay figure, or dress form) is a doll, often articulated, used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, window dressers and others, especially to display or fit clothing and show off dif ...
'', ''
The Missouri Breaks'', the 1980 adaptation of ''
Popeye
Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by E. C. Segar, Elzie Crisler Segar.[Prêt-à-Porter
Ready-to-wear (RTW)also called ''prêt-à-porter'', or off-the-rack or off-the-peg in casual useis the term for garments sold in finished condition in standardized sizes, as distinct from made-to-measure or bespoke clothing tailored to a parti ...](_blank)
'', 1998's remake of ''
Psycho'', ''
Silent Night, Deadly Night'', 2007's remake of ''
Sleuth'', ''
Street Fighter
is a Media mix, Japanese media franchise centered on a series of fighting games developed and published by Capcom. Street Fighter 1, The first game in the series was released in 1987, followed by List of Street Fighter video games, six other ma ...
'', ''
3000 Miles to Graceland'', ''
Valley of the Dolls'', ''
Van Helsing'', 1985's ''
Water
Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...
'', ''
Year One'', and ''
Your Highness''.
History
High-school senior
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic, film historian, and author. He is known for his book of film capsule reviews, '' Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'', published from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film criti ...
was publisher of ''Film Fan 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, originally called ''TV Movies'', appeared in September 1969 featuring 8,000 of the 14,000 films available for television at the time and contained 535 pages, including 32 pages of photos. Unlike Scheuer's book at the time, ''TV Movies'' included the movie's director, running time and larger cast lists.
A second edition appeared five years later. After a third in 1978, new editions appeared every two years, and after 1986 every year. Maltin's regular appearance on ''
Entertainment Tonight
''Entertainment Tonight'' (or simply ''ET'') is an American Broadcast syndication, first-run syndicated news broadcasting news magazine, newsmagazine program that is distributed by CBS Media Ventures throughout the United States and owned by Par ...
'' from 1982 and the rise of home video and cable television saw an increase in sales of the book.
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 title permitted 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
Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne, was an American actor. Nicknamed "Duke", he became a Pop icon, popular icon through his starring roles in films which were produced during Hollywood' ...
,
William "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd,
Gene Autry
Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998), nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American actor, musician, singer, composer, rodeo performer, and baseball team owner, who largely gained fame by singing in a Crooner ...
and
Roy Rogers
Roy Rogers (born Leonard Franklin Slye; November 5, 1911 – July 6, 1998), nicknamed the King of the Cowboys, was an American singer, actor, television host, and Rodeo, rodeo performer.
Following early work under his given name, first as a c ...
. The second edition of the ''Classic Movie Guide'', published in 2010, moved the cut-off date to 1965. Since the 2013 edition, the Movie Guide was subtitled ''The Modern Era''.
Maltin announced in August 2014 that the 2015 edition, to be published in September 2014, would be the last:
Editors
In addition to Maltin, the final edition listed the following contributing editors:
*Darwyn Carson - Managing editor
*Luke Sader - Associated editor
*
Mike Clark
*Rob Edelman
*Spencer Green
*Pete Hammond
*
Joe Leydon
*Michael Scheinfeld
*
Bill Warren
*Casey St Charnez - video editor
Earlier contributing editors included John Cocchi, Alvin H Marill and Maltin's wife, Alice.
Electronic versions
In 1992, the movie guide was released on
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...
as part of
Microsoft Cinemania. In 1994 it was released separately on CD-ROM.
[ Cinemania was discontinued in 1997.
A mobile application version of the guide was released, in 2009, to the App Store. However, the app was taken down in 2014 due to ]Penguin Group
Penguin Group is a British trade book publisher and part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by the German media company, media Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Bertelsmann. The new company was created by a Mergers and acquisitions, mer ...
being unable to come to an agreement with Mobile Age, the creator of the app.
Other similar guides
Besides Scheuer's ''Movies on TV'', similar books include ''Halliwell's Film Guide
Robert James Leslie Halliwell (23 February 1929 – 21 January 1989) was a British film critic, encyclopaedist and television rights buyer for ITV, the British commercial network, and Channel 4. He is best known for his reference guides, '' Fi ...
'', by Leslie Halliwell
Robert James Leslie Halliwell (23 February 1929 – 21 January 1989) was a British film critic, encyclopaedist and television rights buyer for ITV, the British commercial network, and Channel 4. He is best known for his reference guides, '' Fi ...
, 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.
See also
*Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie channel, movie-oriented pay television, pay-TV television network, network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcas ...
*''Entertainment Tonight
''Entertainment Tonight'' (or simply ''ET'') is an American Broadcast syndication, first-run syndicated news broadcasting news magazine, newsmagazine program that is distributed by CBS Media Ventures throughout the United States and owned by Par ...
''
*''Mystery Science Theater 3000
''Mystery Science Theater 3000'' (abbreviated as ''MST3K'') is an American science fiction comedy television series created by Joel Hodgson. The show premiered on WUCW, KTMA-TV (now WUCW) in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on November 24, 1988. It then ...
''
References
{{Reflist
Film guides
Book series introduced in 1969