Hitlerjunge Quex  opened in Berlin and then ran in one hundred and ten other Greater Berlin cinemas between  late September 1933 and early January 1934 – here's proof.

Some German film histories comment that after its premiere in Berlin's Ufa-Palast-am-Zoo cinema, Quex  ran for a further two weeks there. A reader could infer that the film was therefore unpopular or perhaps even a something of a flop. As if there were not many other Berlin cinemas to present the film in the enusing weeks and months.

We have acquired the 52 issues for 1933 of the weekly radio programming magazine WOCHENBILD UND FUNKPROGRAMM which ran one page on a new film of the week. The back cover also listed all of the films showing in Greater Berlin that week at every neighbourhood movie theatre.  We reproduce below the fifteen weeks of listings for Hitlerjunge Quex  from its premiere season at the Ufa-Palast-am-Zoo through to the end of its cinema run in early January 1934 in two movie theatres.  We count 111 movie houses which showed the film for at least a week in those months. Not quite a flop.

The film, in fact, ranked # 31 in box office receipts out of almost 1,100 Third Reich feature films produced and seen by audiences between 1933 and 1945.

 © 2024 The William Gillespie Collection.