dryness: there's nothing more assured to put a Bermudian bum on a cinema seat than a bloody action film, according to a quick survey of last year's box office hits and flops at the Little Theatre.

Mel Gibson's "Lethal Weapon 3'', Steven Seagal's "Under Siege'', and Wesley Snipes' "Passenger 57'' -- macho type affairs with lots of explosions, dead bodies everywhere and that sort of thing -- were, respectively, the second, third and fourth biggest money takers of 1992.

Even the movie which brought in the most money, "Batman Returns'', contained more than its fair share of violence, although it was a far more arty and less crude offering than the other three movies on the list and could by no means be described as an all-out action film.

As for the flops, it will no doubt surprise and depress many who saw it to discover that the hugely enjoyable, witty, well-thought-out and critically-acclaimed "Diggstown'', starring James Woods, is on a list of the three biggest box office losers for the Little Theatre.

"Diggstown'' is what the in-crowd in the Hollywood film industry refer to as a "spinach'' movie -- a motion picture which is good for you (in Diggstown's case because of its humour and lack of both sex and bad language) but one which people don't necessarily like.

The biggest flop of the year was "The Babe'', probably reflecting more on the general lack of interest in baseball in Bermuda rather than the quality of the production.

One film which arguably deserved its place on the list of failures was "The Mambo Kings'', a movie based on the introduction of Cuban music to the US, with a weak romantic plot thrown in.

As for "Malcolm X'' -- the movie was not the blockbuster locally that it might have been.

It was the most talked about and controversial motion picture of the year and was given much free publicity by the media. Yet, the movie did not do as well as expected at the box office.

"It did OK, no more'' said Mr. Lee White, co-owner of the Little Theatre. He said few people went to see it during its hold-over second week, possibly because by then the rival Liberty Theatre had announced it would be showing the movie at a later date.

But even at the Liberty movie theatre, "Malcolm X'' appears to have had only run-of-the-mill success.

Liberty manager Mrs. Nelda Simmons fought tooth and nail to be allowed to show the film, which ends its two week run this Thursday. But last week she said the movie was doing only "`quite well''.

Mr. White said that, in general, movies which were a hit in the United States proved to be successful when they were released in Bermuda.

Ideally, he liked to bring in movies between four and six weeks after they had started playing in the US to take advantage of word of mouth and publicity generated during this period.

As for 1993, the year has kicked off extremely strongly, said Mr. White.

"`The Bodyguard' has been very popular with local people, and so was `A Few Good Men','' he said. "To then follow up with `Dracula' has meant a great start to the year.'' * * * A NEW computerised arm-wrestling machine has broken the arms of at least five young men in Hong Kong video parlours in the past two weeks. Arm Champs II challenges players to wrestle a silver-plated mechanised arm at various strengths.

The machine does caution would-be strongmen to "Play at your own risk''.

Unfortunately for some, the signs are written not in Chinese but in English -- a language most video parlour patrons cannot speak.