The Big Picture

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

     I was looking for other things today when I found "the big picture"--just in time for the Oscars.  Unfortunately, I will not be winning an Oscar this year as my starring big picture (FOOTLONG, a documentary about hot dogs) has not yet been released.

OED:
_big picture_ colloq., the main film in a cinema programme
1927 _Melody Maker_ Sept. 933/3 A score specially composed for each '*big picture.'

DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN SLANG, 3rd ed., by Robert Chapman:
_the big picture_, n. phr. by 1970s, The large strategic situation as distinct from little details; inclusive of the surrounding circumstances.

   We'll beat both cites.  The term is not in the RHHDAS.

27 May 1922, EXHIBITORS HERALD, pg. 55:
_Only Big Pictures Can Make Money_
by Adolph Zukor
   The season now closing has pretty well established two things in this industry.  These are (1) that the big picture, and only the big picture, can make money at the box-office, and (2) that, in view of the sharp curtailment in production, exhibitors must be sure, as far in advance as possible, that their screens will receive a consistently meritorious product...

27 May 1922, EXHIBITORS HERALD, pg. 61, col. 2--Foreign Exhibitors Want Big Pictures.

November 1961, PLAYBOY, pg. 54:
_AGORAPHOBIA IS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN_
_how jonathan became the most reluctant dragon in the jungle of hollywood_
fiction BY BERNARD WOLFE
(...)
     Arrogant he was, plain and simple arrogant.
     "Mr. Silk," I said, "let's get on the big picture.  The boys upstairs briefed me about you; I know you came out to Hollywood to write a movie and now the movie's finished and you can't get another one."