Two-ton, blockbuster bomb being loaded onto a de Havilland Mosquito bomber during WWII
28 May 2020
To most of us today, a blockbuster is anything that is gigantic or enormously successful. It’s often used in relation to movies, television, and bestselling books. But the word originally referred to a World War II bomb, one big enough to destroy an entire city block.
The earliest instance of its use that I have found is in an Associated Press article from 25 July 1942:
The western air front meanwhile produced news of two-way attack, comparatively heavy German raids on Britain which cost the Nazis seven out of 40 bombers, and an assault by the RAF on Ruhr and Rhineland by forces several times as large as the German attacking unit. Again, the RAF dropped its two-ton “block buster” bombs, especially on Duisburg.
After this date, uses of blockbuster in reference to literal bombs are common during the war years. But metaphorical use of the term to refer to anything big quickly followed. A story in the Ladies’ Home Journal of November 1943 about the return home of Sgt. Harold Loch, gunner on the B-17 Memphis Belle, which had just completed 25 bombing missions over occupied Europe, uses the term in a crossover from bombing to figurative use when Loch does not arrive on the train as expected:
Only then did mom break down and sob on pop’s shoulder. Sadly they trooped home. The day was an emotional block buster for them all.
The bombing metaphor is also “dropped” in this Time magazine article from 12 June 1944, which describes U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt’s announcement of plans for a post-war United Nations:
Blockbuster. The President then quietly dropped his blockbuster. The U.S., he said, has an objective today to join other nations for the general world peace—but without taking away the integrity of the U.S. in any shape, manner or form.
And about a week after this Time magazine piece, we see a use of blockbuster without any obvious connection to bombs, but which crosses over into the world of entertainment. A 17 June 1944 letter to Billboard magazine quotes a circus side-show performer using the word to denote something that is literally large, to wit, herself:
Radio broadcasts were to the liking of our actors. They believed that they had reached their goal. Every freak, dancer, singer, musician and talker vied for the honor of going on the air. They created their own songs and patter. Cracked-voice front talkers became announcers and emcees. Remember it all started two years ago and the same broadcasts are still going on. The fat gal still yells: “I’m Baby Blockbuster. I weigh 700 pounds; am single and looking for a husband. How would you like to hold me on your knee?”
Shortly after the war, boxing takes up the word, using it refer to fists or punches which pack destructive power. There are many such uses in the late 1940s. Here is one of the early ones from 5 January 1946 by sportswriter Sid Feder:
Midway through that heat, Morris fired a left hook that practically sank out of sight in Jack’s midsection, and for half a minute the Georgia Negro slowed to a walk. Before the round was over, however, he was back in there with his blockbusters again, and it was obvious the party was just about over.
By the mid-1950s, Hollywood discovered the blockbuster film. There is this from Variety of 12 September 1956:
Aim is to convert the theatre eventually to a single picture policy. Initially the theatre will run on a solo pic basis whenever it books one of the so-called block buster films, such as “The Duchin Story” and “The King and I.” For entries it doesn’t regard as strong enough to stand alone, it will revert to the tandem setup, the hope being, however, to establish the house as a single feature situation.
And the next month, this piece titled “Hollywood’s Blockbusters” by Hollis Alpert appeared in the October 1956 issue of Women’s Day:
This is the season of the blockbuster movie. For the past year or more word has been seeping through about the preparation of four movies, each of which is to be the biggest, greatest, most awe-inspiring ever made. They are ready for release, and toeing the mark to challenge the box-office records set by Gone With the Wind, the most popular movie of all time. Two of these new movies, War and Peace and The Ten Commandments, will be at least as long as Gone With the Wind and should challenge the endurance of movie audiences, anyway. The other two, Giant and Around the World in 80 Days, are not quite so lengthy, running about three hours each, but nevertheless rank among the costliest and most lavish films ever made.
Also in the 1950s, another sense of blockbuster developed in the United States. This time it once again referred to literal city or suburban blocks, but what is destroyed are racially segregated neighborhoods. Blockbusting became the term used when a Black family moved into what had previously been an all-white neighborhood. Here is an example, a United Press story from 2 October 1955:
They deny that any responsible Negro groups organize or promote such movement. The movement into white neighborhoods is the result of the Negro’s desire for better housing and his increasing ability to pay for it, they say.
There are many areas where “block-busting” has taken place without difficulties. In other cities, disturbances have resulted.
While the first literal blockbusters were British bombs, the early metaphorical and slang uses that we have seen are American. But there is one early British metaphorical use cited by the OED. In this case, the metaphor underlying the use is a mystery to me. Perhaps someone with knowledge of the politics of Northern Ireland in the 1940s can enlighten me. W.R. Rodgers writing in the New Statesman and Nation of 20 November 1946:
Nor is the Labour Party in Northern Ireland likely to ignore a loyalty which faces it with one of its greatest problems, namely, how to hinge the interests of Protestant and Catholic, Loyalist and Nationalist, not merely on the economic, but also on the emotional plane. That task is not made easier by those English Labour M.P.s who in their speeches show only a blockbusting contempt for Ulster.
Sources:
Alpert, Hollis. “Hollywood’s Blockbusters.” Women’s Day, October 1956, 80.
Associated Press. “Furious Rostov Battle Continues.” Albuquerque Journal, 25 July 1942, 2.
Feder, Sid. “Beau Jack KO’s Reif in Fourth.” Daily Press (Newport News, Virginia), 5 January 1946, 5.
“The Great Blueprint.” Time, 43.24, 12 June 1944.
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2020, s.v. blockbuster n.1, blockbuster n.2, and blockbust, v.
“A Hero Comes Home.” Ladies’ Home Journal, 60.11, November 1943, 116.
Major Privilege. Letter, 17 June 1944. In “Ballyhoo Bros.’ Circulating Expo.” Billboard, 56.26, 24 June 1944, 34.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. block, n.
RKO Hatching Single Pic Artie Plot for N.Y. Nabe in “Gold Coast” Experiment.” Variety, 204.2, 12 September 1956, 5.
Rodgers, W.R. “Black North.” New Statesman and Nation, 26.665, 20 November 1946, 332.
United Press. “’Blocks Busted.’ Minority Housing Barriers Falling.” Detroit Free Press, 2 October 1955, 26.
Photo credit: Imperial War Museum.