Predictive Programming: 1924-1940

What do the #1 films of the last 25 elections tell us about the odds of Kamala v. Trump?

This is the first in a five-part series comparing election year winners to the #1 films of that year. Read: 1944–1960, 1964–1980, 1984–2000, 2004–2024.

Next Tuesday, Americans all over the country will cast their ballots for the next President of the United States. For many of us, the choice appears to be between the Demon God of Capitalism and a lesser evil concocted in the same lab where they made ED-209. Across the aisle, it’s a question of putting faith in the will of the people, or in the classist, racist, and patronizing Electoral College. Zoomed out, it’s between overcranking the system and seeing what happens, or choosing to put your faith, once again, back into that same system that got us here.

If it all feels a bit apocalyptic, you’re not alone. It was definitely top-of-mind when thinking about what to write this week, and the result is halfway between an earnest attempt to put things into context and a turbo-cope bordering on prophesy in order to give myself something else to think about.

Basically, I wanted to know if the consumer behavior behind the #1 films at the box office every election since 1924 (a hundred years feels like enough) could tell us anything about who Americans pick to be their Presidents.

The answer? It’s complicated. Join me as we take a look back at the most popular films of the last 25 election years and use that to predict what this year’s box office means for November 5.

1924 - The Sea Hawk

Calvin Coolidge (R): 382

John W. Davis (D): 136

Robert M. La Follette (Pro.): 13

Following the untimely death of original Regulator Harding, VP Coolidge took the reins in a largely uncontested Republican primary, not unlike VP Harris’s turn in the wake of Biden dying up there. One hundred years ago, captivated theatergoers watched full-sized ships and hundreds of extras do battle off the coast of California’s Catalina Islands. Not to be confused with the Errol Flynn swashbuckler of 1940, The Sea Hawk roils with Elizabethan betrayals and orientalist derring-do, seeing private pirate Sir Oliver (Milton Sills) betrayed by his own brother and sold into slavery only to return as the fearsome Barbary corsair from whom the film gets its name.

The silent spectacle, which you can watch above, enthralled audiences with the staggering expense Mutiny on the Bounty helmer Frank Lloyd put towards its visuals. If what historian Garland S. Tucker dubbed the “high tide of American conservatism” accounted at all for box office tastes that summer of 1924, “the Moslem scourge of Christendom” is an interesting role for its complex antihero to, for much of the film, inhabit: on one hand, his tale hinges on Arabs selling his fair maiden into a harem. On the other, his embrace of Islam’s laws regarding marriage allow him to save her.

Is it Democrat or Republican? As one should in the case of a choice between two conservatives, I’m voting third party.

1928: The Singing Fool

Herbert Hoover (R): 444

Al Smith (D): 87

A little over a month before the landslide victory of the President who would oversee our nation’s plunge into the Great Depression, the biggest movie at the box office was a life-affirming musical tragedy starring superstar Al Jolson as a vaudeville entertainer who becomes a Broadway hit, only to lose it all to fame, including his beloved child. Of course, it being vaudeville, the ending sees Jolson regaining his joie de vivre by mustering up the strength to *sniff* don the old shoe polish and *whimper* dedicate one last song to the kid, in full blackface, to wild applause.

Is it Democrat or Republican? At some point around this time, the D’s became the R’s, and the R’s became the D’s, kind of like Al—you know what, I’m not touching this one.

1932: The Sign of the Cross

FDR (D): 472

Hoover (R): 59

Arch-conservative producer Cecil B. DeMille’s Academy Award-winning pre-Code epic is an historical love story set amidst the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Nero. A heady blend of Bible history and debaucherous spectacle, protestations against the film’s content were instrumental to the establishment of perennial fun-suckers club, the Catholic Legion of Decency, who would summarily help remove the best parts of the film. Did Depression-addled audiences crowd the theaters to witness the plight of early Christians, or to watch them get fed to lions? One thing is for certain: following Hoover’s disastrous tenure, Americans were looking to the screen for an escape.

Is it Democrat or Republican? Democrat movie (there’s a “lesbian dance”) made by a Republican (neutered by self-censorship)

1936: The Great Ziegfeld

FDR (D): 523

Alf Landon (R): 8

FDR’s second landslide came amidst a bump in musicals, a long-established box office winner that was all but keeping studios aloft amidst the Great Depression. The Great Ziegfeld is no exception, firing on all cylinders to bring Broadway’s Ziegfeld Follies to life on the silver screen. Despite belt-tightenings at all levels across the country, MGM spared no expense on lavish set pieces and elaborate costumes. The result was the year’s Best Picture winner, and a lasting benchmark for the genre as a whole.

Is it Democrat or Republican? Musicals are permanently Dem-coded to me (sorry if you clicked that).

1940: Boom Town

FDR (D): 449

Wendell Willkie (R): 82

With the U.S. finally emerging from the Great Depression and their entry into World War 2 on the horizon, Americans looked to their man in Washington for continued stability, putting him head and shoulders over New York Republican Wendell Willkie while pushing this star-studded Western to the top of the charts. In hindsight, a bromance about the excitement of oil drilling seems fitting for a nation on the march: perhaps Americans saw themselves in the rags-to-riches story of two plucky oilmen who boom and bust and boom again through the power of friendship. Of particular note is a 3rd-act unraveling that features one character’s downfall at the hands of an antitrust lawsuit, a hallmark of FDR’s presidency.

Is it Democrat or Republican? Decidedly Democrat. Maybe the real friends were the regulations we established along the way.

Tomorrow: We continue to chart the connection between the box office and the ballot as we compare the winners of 1944–1960.