Film’s out of this world
QUESTION Adjusted for inflation, what is the highest-grossing film of all time?
IN PURE monetary terms, Avatar tops the list with $2.84billion — boosted by its re-release in China last year — followed by Avengers: endgame ($2.78billion) and Titanic ($2.47 billion). Inflation is a factor, with Titanic appearing 21 years before the most successful Avengers film.
Making allowances for cost of living, the top six grossing films worldwide are Gone With The Wind ($3.71 billion), Avatar ($3.26billion), Titanic ($3.09billion), Star Wars ($3.05 billion), Avengers: endgame ($2.80billion) and The Sound Of Music ($2.55 billion).
Yet does that make them the mostwatched movies? The biggest market is China, where it costs less to see a film.
According to attendance figures, the top two films were Chinese-made: Legend Of The White Snake with 700 million viewers and In-Laws (Full House Of Joy) with 650 million.
In China, Titanic is 14th (386million), Avengers-endgame 16th (351 million), Star Wars 17th (338million), Avatar 19th (324million), Gone With The Wind 21st (289million) and The Sound Of Music 22nd (283 million).
For the u.S. and Canada, first is Gone With The Wind with 202 million viewers followed by Star Wars (178 million), The Sound Of Music (142 million), ET (141 million) and Titanic (135 million). Avatar languishes in 28th place with 77 million.
Tim Mickleburgh, Grimsby, Lincs.
QUESTION Did the word monster once mean bad omen?
THE word monster entered the english language some time between the 11th and 13th centuries. It was derived from the French monstre, which has a Latin root monstrum meaning evil omen.
Long before anyone understood genetic mutation or prenatal development, the appearance of animals or children with birth defects was considered a warning that something bad was about to happen.
Monstrum was derived from the Latin word monere, which meant to warn, remind or instruct. The words admonish, premonition, demonstrate and monitor have the same root.
Linking monsters with bad omens has long been a feature of popular culture: Godzilla was a warning about the danger of atomic power; Mary Shelley used Frankenstein as a lesson about scientific hubris; and George A. romero’s zombie films, such as night Of The Living Dead and Day Of The Dead, were a commentary on social ills such as racism, commercialism and inequality.
Alexandra Barnett, Colchester, Essex.
QUESTION Why did military maverick Orde Wingate refuse to bathe?
NOT bathing was just one example of the bizarre behaviour of one of the most successful and unorthodox tacticians in the British Army.
Throughout his career, Orde delighted in flouting authority. His individuality expressed itself in his brilliant guerrilla campaigns in palestine, ethiopia and Burma and his contemptuous refusal to abide by social convention.
His odd behaviour, such as scoffing raw onions and conducting meetings in the nude, was punctuated by episodes of depression. There were deep psychological motives behind the behaviour of this strange, but brilliant, man.
His father, George, was a colonel in the British Army, serving in India. The family were plymouth Brethren and the children received an intense religious education, which included memorising chapters of the Old Testament. In 1936, Orde Wingate was an intelligence officer in the British Mandate of palestine. He became a staunch supporter of the Zionist cause and saw the creation of a Jewish state in palestine as his religious duty.
He formulated the idea of raising small assault units of British-led Jewish commandos armed with grenades and small arms to combat the Arab revolt.
In 1941, he was in ethiopia where he led a group of specially trained Angloethiopian guerrillas he dubbed the Gideon Force, after his biblical hero.
The Old Testament judge destroyed a much larger enemy with only a few hundred men. Wingate’s men infiltrated Italian lines, provided intelligence to the British High Command and sowed panic with swift, brutal night raids.
He became deeply unhappy when he was ordered not to return to palestine and this was expressed by increasingly eccentric behaviour.
Among many affectations, he took to wearing an alarm clock strapped to his wrist during interviews with officials, ushering them from his quarters when he deemed the time was up.
He was often offensively rude to superiors and subordinates alike.
On July 4, 1941, during a malariainduced delirium, he attempted suicide in his hotel room in Cairo. It was the thud made by his fall that attracted attention and saved his life.
He recovered and in 1943 formed a longrange penetration unit to operate against the Japanese in Burma. He dubbed them Chindits from the Burmese word for lion and they were trained in commando methods, jungle fighting and sabotage.
They were able to infiltrate deep behind Japanese lines, each carrying five stone of equipment on their back. It was the success of this operation that made his unorthodox approach famous.
On March 24, 1944, Wingate died in an air crash in India along with nine Americans.
prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote to his widow: ‘I have already in public expressed my sense of the grievous loss which our country suffered in your husband’s sudden and untimely death.
‘I had recognised him as a man of genius, and I hoped he might become a man of destiny. All that is ended now, and I can only offer you my most profound sympathy in your grief.’
Brett Mackie, Malvern, Worcs.
■ IS THERE a question to which you want to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question here? Write to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT; or email charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection is published, but we’re unable to enter into individual correspondence.