Ben-Hur (1959 film) the box office), generating approximately $74.7 million in box office sales. Outside of North America, it earned $32.5 million in rentals (about $72.2 million at the box office) for a worldwide total of $66.1 million in rental earnings, roughly equivalent to $146.9 million in box office receipts. It was the fastest-grossing film as well as the highest-grossing film of 1959, in the process becoming the second-highest-grossing film of all-time (at that time) behind "Gone with the Wind". "Ben-Hur" saved MGM from financial disaster, making a profit of $20,409,000 on its initial release, and another $10.1 million in profits when re-released
The Cat and the Fiddle (film) US and Canada and $644,000 elsewhere resulting in a loss of $142,000. The film was a box office disappointment for MGM. The Cat and the Fiddle (film) The Cat and the Fiddle is a 1934 American pre-Code romantic musical film directed by William K. Howard based on the hit 1931 Broadway musical of the same name by Jerome Kern and Otto A. Harbach, about a romance between a struggling composer and an American singer. The film stars Ramon Novarro and Jeanette MacDonald in her MGM debut. The final reel was filmed in the then newly perfected three-strip Technicolor process, previously