Donald Crisp Movies

crispWant to know the best Donald Crisp movies?  How about the worst Donald Crisp movies?  Curious about Donald Crisp box office grosses or which Donald Crisp movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Donald Crisp movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.

Donald Crisp (1882-1974) was an Oscar® winning actor and film director. His IMDb page shows 171 acting and 72 directing credits from 1908-1964. This page ranks Donald Crisp movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.  Many of his silent movie credits were not included in the rankings.

Drivel part:  A few years ago I decided to watch every major Oscar® winning (Picture, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress and Director) movie.  So far I have been able to track down and watch over 97% of those 500 plus movies.  It was during that Oscar® pilgrimage that I discovered Donald Crisp.  At one point it seemed like he was in every movie I was watching….and like all great character actors he made every movie he appeared in so much better.  Well finally we are giving Mr. Crisp his moment in the UMR sunlight.

Clark Gable and Donald Crisp in 1935's Mutiny on the Bounty
Clark Gable and Donald Crisp in 1935’s Mutiny on the Bounty

Donald Crisp Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.

Donald Crisp Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort Donald Crisp movies by co-stars of his movies
  • Sort Donald Crisp movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Donald Crisp movies by adjusted worldwide box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Donald Crisp movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Donald Crisp movie received.
  • Sort Donald Crisp movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Donald Crisp

1. George William Crisp was born in London, England in 1882.

2.  Donald Crisp was educated at Oxford University and fought in the British Army during the Boer War in South Africa.

3. Donald Crisp’s first big show business break occurred when he was traveling on a ship to America in 1906.  Crisp was singing and noticed by opera star John C. Fisher.  Fisher offered him a job on the boat.  Now that is a great way to get your new life started!

4. In New York, Donald Crisp became friends with D.W. Griffith.  When Griffith decided to try his fortunes in Hollywood….Crisp accompanied him.

5. From 1908 to 1930, Donald Crisp appeared in nearly 100 silent films.  His most famous role was playing General Grant in 1915’s Birth Of A Nation.

6. Donald Crisp won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar® for 1941’s How Green Was My Valley.

7. Donald Crisp was married three times…..he did not have any children.

8. Donald Crisp appeared in three Best Picture Academy Award® winners: 1935’s Mutiny on the Bounty, 1937’s The Life of Emile Zola and 1941’s How Green Was My Valley.

9.  Donald Crisp became a highly valued adviser whose clear-headed forward thinking proved invaluable to the Bank of America….this included being the chairman of the company.

10. Check out Donald Crisp’s career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

Some Donald Crisp Adjusted Worldwide Box Office Grosses

Check out Steve’s Donald Crisp YouTube Video

Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.

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25 thoughts on “Donald Crisp Movies”

  1. Hi Bruce,

    Mr. Crisp deserves his page. This is a great tribute to a great actor.

    He has played with everyone in Hollywood…and then some.

    Marcel

    Reply

    1. Hey Marcel….thanks for the kind words…I think when I did the Sydney Greenstreet page…you suggested it was time for people like Donald Crisp….well I agree….and here he is…thanks for stopping by and commenting.

      Reply

    1. Hey TCM Mike….lots of years of research….including ledger numbers for some of the big studios like Warners, RKO and MGM. The ledgers live in Hollywood….and are not the easiest to see. But there are 1000s of movies using those numbers on the website….hope you enjoy them.

      Reply

  3. Crispy Donald gets his page, nice. One of the most well known character actors of yore (now there’s a word that rarely gets used now ‘yore’).

    I watched Crisp recently in a couple of films – The Charge of the Light Brigade and The Uninvited, he played the same stern, humorless father-figure in each. I would like to see Crisp loosen up just once in a movie, let his hair down so to speak. Does such a film exist?

    I’ve seen 23 of the 81 films listed, a lot less than I expected. Favorites include – Mutiny of the Light Brigade, Charge on the Bounty, Jekyll and Hyde, Dawn Patrol and The Sea Hawk.

    Was he in Birth of a Nation? That’s going back a bit eh? we’ve gone beyond ‘yore’ here.

    I still have not seen How Green Was That Valley or Bobby Greyfriars.

    Red Dust tops the critics chart? Rated higher than the Bounty, Wuthering, Keatons Navigator, Birth of a Nation and the Green Valley? Say it isn’t so Bruce? Maybe the rating machine blew a gasket?

    A lovely tribute to a great character actor even if he is stern, humorless and hoity-toity – now there’s another word you[STOP IT STEVE!)

    Vote Up!

    Reply

    1. Hey Steve…actually you are correct about Red Dust……it has been fixed….I saw the error this morning…but I was frantically trying to finish this page before going to work…..but the error has been fixed.

      Well I be yore….your tally barely beats me 23 to 21. I just watched the Uninivited a couple of days ago…..and he for sure does not met his hair down in that one.

      Glad you visited our latest page….your comment is greatly appreciated…and you will see that Red Dust is now in 10th place….thanks for the catch.

      Reply

  4. Chairman of Bank of America, wow. Believe it or not Donald Crisp is not in my database even though Bess Flowers and Arthur Tovey are. Thomas Mitchell, Joseph Schildkraut, Gale Sondergaard, Hattie McDaniel and Lila Kedrova (all Oscar winners) aren’t either. The database people are all of the top 1000 Oracle of Bacon people or were in a leading actors book that had 2000 or so people in it. There are also a few hundred other character actors or people that worked with over 4000 other actors.

    Reply

    1. I also think everybody from the AFI nominated legends list where they did the top 50 but had I think about 500 nominees is in the file.

      Reply

    2. Hey Dan. Surprised Mr. Donald did not make your database. His co-star list is pretty impressive….plus he worked at Warners, MGM, RKO (studios I love because I have so much ledger information)…,and later Disney…..surprised he was not on the very first Top 10000. I think the fact that he was the Chairman of Bsnk of America…is one of the best pieces of trivia I have included in this part of our pages…..thanks for the visit and the comment.

      Reply

      1. I have added Donald Crisp, Joseph Schildkraut, Hattie McDaniel, Gale Sondergaard and Thomas Mitchell to my database. While I did not have Hattie in, her brother Sam is in the database.

        I count Donald appearing with 45 Oscar winners;

        A Child’s Stratagem (1910) – Mary Pickford
        A Degree of Destiny (1911) – Mary Pickford
        A Passport to Hell (1932) – Paul Lukas
        A Woman Rebels (1936) – Katherine Hepburn, Van Heflin
        Beloved Enemy (1936) – David Niven
        Bright Leaf (1950) – Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal
        Broadway Bad (1933) – Ginger Rogers
        Brother Orchid (1940) – Humphrey Bogart
        Challenge to Lassie (1949) – Edmund Gwenn
        City for Conquest (1940) – Anthony Quinn, James Cagney
        Comet Over Broadway (1938) – Susan Hayward
        Conscience (1911) – Mary Pickford
        Don Q, Son of Zorro (1925) – Mary Astor
        Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) – Ingrid Bergman, Spencer Tracy
        Forever and a Day (1943) – Ray Milland, Charles Coburn, Charles Laughton, Edmund Gwenn, Victor McLaglen
        Hills of Home (1948) – Edmund Gwenn
        How Green was My Valley (1941) – Barry Fitzgerald
        Jezebel (1938) – Henry Fonda, Bette Davis
        Juarez (1939) – Bette Davis, Gale Sondergaard, Paul Muni
        Lassie Come Home (1943) – Elizabeth Taylor, Edmund Gwenn
        Mary of Scotland (1936) – Fredric March, Katherine Hepburn
        Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) – David Niven, Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, James Cagney
        National Velvet (1944) – Elizabeth Taylor
        Parnell (1937) – Clark Gable, Edmund Gwenn
        Pollyanna (1960) – Karl Malden, Jane Wyman
        Prince Valiant (1954) – Victor McLaglen
        Red Dust (1932) – Clark Gable, Mary Astor
        Screen Actors (1950) – Bing Crosby
        Shining Victory (1941) – Bette Davis
        Sons of Liberty (1939) – Gale Sondergaard
        Spencer’s Mountain (1963) – Henry Fonda
        That Certain Woman (1937) – Henry Fonda, Bette Davis
        The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944) – Fredric March
        The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) – Claire Trevor, Humphrey Bogart, Susan Hayward
        The Battle (1911) – Lionel Barrymore
        The Battle of Midway (1942) – Jane Darwell
        The Black Pirate (1926) – Mary Pickford
        The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) – David Niven, Olivia De Havilland
        The Dawn Patrol (1938) – David Niven, Barry Fitzgerald
        The Gay Sisters (1942) – Gig Young
        The Great O’Malley (1937) – Humphrey Bogart
        The Italian Barber (1911) – Mary Pickford
        The Last Hurrah (1958) – Jane Darwell, Spencer Tracy
        The Life of Emile Zola (1937) – Gale Sondergaard, Joseph Schildkraut, Paul Muni
        The Life of Vergie Winters (1934) – Walter Brennan
        The Little Minister (1934) – Katherine Hepburn
        The Man from Laramie (1955) – James Stewart
        The Miser’s Heart (1911) – Lionel Barrymore
        The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) – Lionel Barrymore
        The Oklahoma Kid (1939) – Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney
        The Old Maid (1939) – Bette Davis
        The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) – Bette Davis, Olivia De Havilland
        The Runaway Bride (1930) – Mary Astor
        The Sisters (1938) – Bette Davis, Susan Hayward
        The Uninvited (1944) – Ray Milland
        The Valley of Decision (1945) – Gregory Peck, Jessica Tandy, Greer Garson, Lionel Barrymore
        Valley of the Giants (1938) – Claire Trevor
        Vanessa: Her Love Story (1935) – Helen Hayes
        What Every Woman Knows (1934) – Helen Hayes
        Wuthering Heights (1939) – David Niven, Laurence Olivier

        Doesn’t seem like he worked much in the 20’s.

        Reply

        1. Hey Dan….glad to see those performers get included. 45 is pretty good especially considering many of his projects were made years before the Oscars were born.

          Crisp spent a lot of the 1920s as a director. Which is why he does not have many IMDb credit. Today I was reading a book….2017 Book of World Records….and it has a subject about the Kevin Bacon Oracle report…it lists Eric Roberts as the most connected actor working…I know you know….but I found it intesting to see. Plus I thought about your comments on the Oracle when I was reading it. Thanks for sharing this information.

          Reply

  5. Massive page. So his singing voice is what got him started. Not sure I remember him singing in many movies. Nice tribute to one of the best supporting actors ever.

    Reply

    1. Hey Stein…..congrats you were the first to comment. Yeah…I was surprised that it was his singing voice that got him started…..seems his movie persona was far removed from a singing and happy person….thanks for the visit.

      Reply

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