Gary Cooper Movies

Want to know the best Gary Cooper movies?  How about the worst Gary Cooper movies?  Curious about Gary Cooper box office grosses or which Gary Cooper movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Gary Cooper 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.

Gary Cooper (1901–1961) was an American film actor who appeared in over 100 movies from 1923-1961. Unfortunately many of Cooper’s silent movies have been lost forever. So this page will only look at his movie career from his first “talkie” The Virginian (1929), to his last movie, The Naked Edge (1961) which was released a month after his death in 1961.  Just a few quick notes on Gary Cooper’s silent movie career. From 1923 to 1929, Cooper appeared in over 40 movies. Most of his roles, were either bit or uncredited parts. He did however appear in some very popular movies during this time period. He played a Roman guard in the original version of Ben-Hur (1925), he had one scene in the first movie to ever win the Oscar® for Best Picture….Wings (1927), and he was in the 1927 box office hit Children of Divorce.

In 1929, he became a major star with his first sound picture, The Virginian. He followed The Virginian with the blockbuster hit Morocco (1931), co-starring Marlene Dietrich in her first American film. Over the next thirty years, Cooper would appear in over 60 movies, earning 5 Oscar® nominations, two Oscar® wins (1941’s Sergeant York and 1952’s High Noon) and numerous blockbuster hits. Two of his movies, Sergeant York and 1943’s For Whom The Bell Tolls are still ranked in the Top 100 box office hits of all-time when you look at adjusted domestic box office numbers.

His IMDb page shows 118 acting credits from 1923-1961. This page will rank Gary Cooper movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos and many of his silent movies were not included in the page.

Gary Cooper in 1952's High Noon.
Gary Cooper in 1952’s High Noon.

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

Gary Cooper 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 Gary Cooper movies by his co-stats
  • Sort Gary Cooper movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost.
  • Sort Gary Cooper movies by co-stars of yearly box office rank or trivia if rank not available
  • Sort Gary Cooper 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 Gary Cooper movie received.
  • Sort Gary Cooper 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.
 
Gary Cooper as Longfellow Deeds in 1936's Mr. Deeds Goes To Town
Gary Cooper as Longfellow Deeds in 1936’s Mr. Deeds Goes To Town

Possibly Interesting Facts About Gary Cooper

#1 After failing as an editorial cartoonist and a salesman of electronic signs in his early 20s, Gary Cooper moved from Montana to Los Angeles with his parents. His thinking on the move…”would rather starve where it was warm, than to starve and freeze too.”

#2 The American Film Institute named Gary Cooper as the 11th best male actor of the Classic Hollywood cinema period.

#3 Gary Cooper married Veronica “Rocky” Balfe in 1933. Despite being separated from between 1951 and 1954, she was with Cooper when he passed away in 1961. They had one daughter together, Maria Cooper. Here you go mom….personal information about him.

#4 Gary Cooper made four movies with legendary director Cecil B. DeMille. Those movies were The Plainsman(1936), North West Mounted Police (1940), The Story of Doctor Wassell (1944) and Unconquered (1947).

#5 During the filming of The Plainsman, Cecil B. DeMille wanted to fire a very young Mexican actor who was playing an indian. Gary Cooper talked DeMille out of firing the actor. The actor? Anthony Quinn who would go on to win two Oscars®.

#6 Cooper was the first choice for the role of Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind. When Cooper turned down the role, he was passionately against it. He is quoted as saying, “Gone With The Wind is going to be the biggest flop in Hollywood history. I’m glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling flat on his nose, not me”

#7 Alfred Hitchcock wanted Gary Cooper to star in 1940’s Foreign Correspondent and 1942’s Sabotuer. Cooper later admitted he had made a “mistake” in turning down the director.

#8 Gary Cooper’s reputation as the “strong silent type” goes back to one of his first talking pictures, The Virginian, in which his character had little to say but definitely commanded the respect of those around him. The strong silent type/Gary Cooper was mentioned numerous times in the great HBO series The Sopranos.

#9 Cooper was given a Honorary Oscar® in April 1961, his close friend James Stewart, accepted the award on his behalf. Stewart’s emotional speech hinted that something was seriously wrong, and the next day newspapers ran the headline, “Gary Cooper has cancer.” One month later, on May 13, 1961, six days after his 60th birthday, Cooper died.

#10 Check out Gary Cooper‘s career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

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154 thoughts on “Gary Cooper Movies”

  1. “Once more into the breach Dear Friend.”
    1 I personally feel that Frank Sinatra was OVERALL a greater historical icon than Bing especially when I take into account that as Spencer Tracy said by 1960 Frankie had more power and influence in even Hollywood than “many of the old studio moguls.” However whilst I can understand your logic in relation to Crosby as he undeniably was one of the Greats of early recording, the sense of proportion in putting Cooper on a pedestal unfortunately escapes me

    2 For me Cooper was one of a group of important actors and actresses who were successful in making use of early sound techniques such as Gable, Crawford, Bogart, Cagney, Tracy and Grant; but the evidence suggests that if any of those stood out in the first flush of talkies it was Gable who who appeared in the Quigley popularity polls from their introduction in 1932 and stayed there for two decades whereas it was not until 1936 that Cooper was recognised as being popular.

    3 Moreover Gable, Bogart, Tracy, Grant and later Brando and Clift all performed on both stage and screen which requires the mastering of two different sets of acting techniques and it would not be unreasonable for those who excelled in both mediums to feel that they should be regarded as highly, technically at least, as a performer with skills in just one discipline.

    4 So whilst I can appreciate others admiring Coop early on as I did later it’s difficult for me to see how he can be singled out as almost the leading pioneer of sound movies like a kind of Chaplin of the Talkies and placed above contemporaries whose skills were more diverse and/or.
    who were more popular. I personally see him as being in reality one of a stable of prominent actors who had great careers that coincided with the coming of sound and who it could be contrarily argued enjoyed advantages that were denied their predecessors.

    5 Perhaps what should be most admired is not the immediate chronology of the contribution of stars but the actual long-term historical INFLUENCE of a performer. Institutions who have the responsibility for teaching the deaf how to cope with communication difficulties reportedly use as training aids the films of Marlon Brando as they consider that more than any other actor his meanings and intentions can be understood by just his looks, facial expressions and mannerisms.

    6.
    (a) Jack Nicholson writing in Rolling Stone in August 2004:
    “Brando burned through Hollywood like no actor before or since and his impact on the movies was bigger than anyone else’s ever. In the 1950s I watched him change the rules and he gave us our freedom as actors. Nobody was ever more special as an artist than Brando and in that respect I equate him with Picasso. Either Brando’s alone on the list of acting greats or it’s a short list.”
    (b) Nicholson again at a later date: “When Brando died we all move up one.”
    (c) “I took the role of Lex Luthor in Superman [1978] because I thought it might be the only chance that I would ever have of appearing in a film with Brando” -.Gene Hackman.
    (d) When I|’m in a quandary about how to approach a screen role I always take a leaf from Marlon Brando’s book.” – Frank Sinatra
    (e) ” When they said Brando and Clift would be in The Young Lions I told them I’d do the film for nothing” – Dean Martin

    7 The most current lists that I have seen that rank actors are two on the International Movie Database (1) The “Ultimate” List of the 100 greatest actors of all time. It claims to have been updated last month and it has Nicholson as No 1, Brando as No 2 and Cooper as No 34 with Bogie,Peck, Stewart, Tracy, Gable all ranked above Coop (2) The 50 Greatest “Global” actors which says it was updated last year and has Chaplin as No 1, Brando as No 2 and Nicholson as No 3. In short the Top 3 represent each of the main eras of the development of movies. Cooper is not in the equation

    8 However in the end it all comes down to personal opinion and you may recall what Eastwood said about opinions “They’re like a- – – – – – – s everybody has one.” Within that context I note what you say about the opinions of Barrymore and Bergman about Cooper..
    Best wishes BOB

    Reply

    1. Hey Bob…..Good comment …fun to read with some quotes as usual….with the Nicholson one (When Brando died we all moved up one”. Thanks for sharing these movie thoughts.

      Reply

    2. Bob

      You make a strong case against Cooper’s impact in the early thirties. I must admit a better case than I can make for him. (but I don’t rate Cooper above Brando, so that part is beside my point)

      I agree that it was Gable who exploded in the thirties. I think it beyond much dispute that he was the top male star at the box office in the 1930’s, and arguably also had the most enduring classics from that decade.

      I have seen the 1930 & 1931 Quigley polls, as well as the oft reprinted 1932 polls. Wm Haines at #3 is the top male star in 1930. Charles Farrell at #2 the top male star of 1931. Farrell at #4 is the top male star of 1932 also. Gable was 8th that year.

      Farrell is interesting to me as he seems to have fallen almost completely through the cracks, even more so than his frequent co-star, Janet Gaynor. I have only seen one of his movies over sixty plus years of watching movies–Moonlight Sonata. I know him almost entirely as the harried father of Gale Storm in the early 1930’s TV show, My Little Margie. He was still a handsome middle-aged guy.

      Reply

      1. 1 Just to add to the fun Orson Welles in an interview before his death said that the greatest actor of all time was Joseph Cotton ! You were never sure whether Welles was kidding though as he liked to pull the interviewers’ legs.

        2 You take me back talking about Gale Storm. The last time I saw her was in Al Jennings of Oklahoma along with Dan Durea in 1951. It was one of the very few movies in which Dan had the lead.

        3 However with your drawing attention to Monty’s predominately black and whit e career started my mental domino process working and it occurred to me that I never saw John Garfield in a coloured movie but as I saw only about a third of his movies Bruce can maybe tell us whether he EVER made a coloured film unless you know the answer?

        4 Didn’t realise that Quigley went back as far as 1930 so thanks for the info.

        BOB

        Reply

        1. Bob

          I don’t believe Garfield ever did a color movie.

          Bogart didn’t do a color movie until The African Queen in 1951. I think Edward G. Robinson’s first color movie was The Violent Men in 1955. Cagney did one prior to 1952. Raft one prior to 1954 (the freaky out of the ordinary Nob Hill in 1945–with Raft cast probably because so many leading men were in the service)

          The tough guy actors weren’t the sort they put in color, although Yankee Doodle Dandy should have been done in color.

          Reply

          1. Hey John….I think you are correct….Garfield and color never got together….all of his later classics were black and white..Postman, Body and Soul and Humoresque.

            Lots of good trivia on Cagney, Robinson and Raft…..I take color for granted that it never occurred how nice a marketing point it would have been to say….seeing Bogart in color for the first time. This of course has me thinking….were a star’s first color movies bigger grossers on average than their other movies….food for thought.

            Good stuff…as always. 🙂

          2. JOHN & BRUCE

            1 Thanks fellas for feedback about Garfield and for the additional info. Colour wouldn’t have suited many of Garfield’s movies anyway which tended to be rather morbid with film historians opining that the closing scene of his 1948 Force of Evil was one of the bleakest ever seen in a mainstream film.

            2 The other actors that John mentions were of course part of the great gangster stable of the 30s and 40s and again the atmosphere of most crime/film noir movies would probably have been ruined by colour, and anyway colour would have added to production costs and budgets were tight back then and the whole approach seemed to be a ‘production line’ one of churning out as many as possible reasonable quality movies per year within strict financial controls

            3 In the early 50s it was academic to me that a 30s/40s movie had been shot in black and white because I watched the reruns on TV and we didn’t have coloured TV in those early days, so I saw for example in black and white print of Raft’s Nob Hill that John mentions – and still loved it ! [Maybe if George had made more coloured films he would have had a Cogerson page by now instead of being this site’s “forgotten man” of the gangster era !!!]

            4 The Violent Men that John refers to [and which was called Rough Company over here] was one of my fave 50s westerns and I watched it many times over the years without realising its visual significance within Edward G’s career. Eddie certainly made up for lost time the following year by appearing in 10C which according to IMDB treated us to 3hrs and 40 mins of colour and certainly iconic scenes like the parting of the Red Sea would have lost a lot of their impact in black and white.

            5. According to Wikipedia the budget for 10C was nearly 115 million dollars in today’s money whereas the black and white Streetcar Named Desire of 1951 was just 17 million in 2016 dollars though of course colour was just a small part of the enormous cost of the DeMille epic Best Wishes BOB

          3. Hey Bob.
            1. Wow….I am staying ahead of the comments today…working a half day today….and then I will be full days from tomorrow until next June….when school lets out.
            2. You are right many of Garfield’s movies are perfect in black and white…..The Postman Always Rings Twice, Force of Evil (based on your comment), Body and Soul and Humoresque to name a few of his classics.
            3. Garfield strongly disliked that “production line”…Cagney, Bogart and Garfield were constantly fighting Warner Brothers….earning lots of suspensions. My favorite story on Cagney….was that he was the first actor to refuse to film a scene where an gun expert would fire live ammunition near him during an action scene…..today…. that seems crazy that they used to film those scenes…imagine if that gunmen had a hard night….and was not at work….half asleep…..and aiming at a target 3 feet from Cagney’s head!
            4. As for George Raft….I have done some preliminary research on him….my biggest issue is that Raft was a Paramount man…..and Paramount is probably the hardest studio to research classic movie box office…even my massive Paramount book offers very little information….but one day Raft will have his day in the UMR sunshine.
            5. Streetcar Named Desire? wasn’t that a Garfield stage play? seems they filmed it as a movie too…..but they could not get Garfield to make the movie…not sure who got the role….but I think it could have been huge if they had gotten Garfield…..lol.
            4.

      2. Gary Cooper was one of the top stars in the 1930s. I think his main thing holding him back was his studio. He was at Paramount….while Gable had the full power of MGM behind him (with the exception of Columbia’s It Happened One Night).

        A cool thing to do on these pages….if you type in “193” it will bring up all of Cooper’s movies made from 1930 to 1939….it is a fun way to sort all of these movies….if you do that you will see Coop had 28 movies during the decade….12 of which crossed the $100 million mark. If you do the same thing on the Gable page….you will see Gable had 30 movies $100 million hits in the decade…..exactly two and half times Cooper’s total.

        Gotta admit…..I have never heard of Charles Farrell…but his 2nd spot is surprising and impressive. I have heard of Haines though. Thanks for sharing your movie thoughts and reminding me that there is much to still learn (Farrell section) about the history of the movies.

        Reply

        1. Cogerson

          “Gable had the full power of MGM behind him.”

          I don’ t agree with this implication. Cooper had Paramount behind him. Paramount had the largest theatre chain (1200) compared to the other big five (Fox-650, WB-500, RKO-150, MGM-150). Paramount was the top money-making studio from 1928 to 1930, and again in the forties from 1942 on. MGM topped them from 1931 to 1941, when Gable was their top box-office draw. Cooper had only one year in the 1930’s when he was in the top Paramount box-office film. Gable had four in which he was in MGM’s, and at least one movie in the top ten each year from 1931 to 1941.

          I just don’t see a good argument against Gable in the 1930’s. Cooper’s career peaked in the 1940’s,

          but Crosby and Hope at Paramount were bigger ticket-sellers in that decade.

          Still, no doubt Cooper was a big star over a long time as your chart of 100 million grossers makes clear.

          Reply

          1. HI JOHN

            1 Lots of good stats here and I admire the way you’ve done your homework but I think that when you get to those very top guys in Bruce’s domestic table we would only ever be able to sort it out if we had everybody’s worldwide grosses as well and I have a sneaking feeling that the guys who would come out on top are the likes of Harrison Ford and perhaps Tom Hanks.

            2 That’s because classic era stars like Gable and Cooper usually enjoyed foreign grosses that were around just 50% of their domestic grosses whereas Ford and Hanks etc have often been getting overseas grosses that match or even exceed their domestic grosses. For example

            Clark Gable- 63 films – $10.55 billion domestic gross X 150% = $16 billion
            worldwide gross Average per movie $255 million

            Gary Cooper – 68 films $9.5 billion domestic gross X 150% = $14.3 billion
            worldwide gross Average per movie $210 million

            Harrison Ford -37 films- $19.3 billion worldwide gross Average per movie $520 million

            Figures rounded

            3 Brando made so comparatively few films that he could never have caught the likes of Cooper etc in overall grosses but his AVERAGE domestic gross is very good and in fact in Bruce’s current table of 100 stars there are only 8 performers who exceed Marlon in terms of doing the double in.having better total domestic grosses AND a better average gross per movie. It doesn’t change the fact that Cooper etc sold many more tickets than he but it illustrates that as Bruce said a few days ago you can do anything with stats to get an answer that favours you.

            4 A further twist is added to matters when as Wikipedia does you use the Consumer Price Index to adjust inflation instead of rises in ticket prices. Because the purchasing power of modern films is far greater than those from the classic era the likes of Harrison Ford and Hanks benefit even further. Both of them would definitely outgross Gable and Cooper etc even domestically under the Consumer Price Method whereas under that method it’s swings and roundabouts for stars like Brando and Elizabeth Taylor for example whose films were later in the historical cycle with Brando leapfrogging the likes of Judy Garland and Tyrone Power in even overall domestic grosses but in that respect him being leapfrogged in turn by more modern stars currently below him in Bruce’s Top 100 such as Clint Eastwood.who enjoyed the benefit of a large number of more modern hits with their greater purchasing power

            5 In summary to really sort out things at the VERY top you would need to know not only worldwide grosses but VIDEO/DVD sales as well, but none of this detracts from the fact that Cooper Gable etc were massive stars who drew the biggest audiences available in their day and that it was not their fault that they did not have access to the expanded foreign markets and DVD/VIDEO sales that today’s stars enjoy.

          2. HI JOHN:

            1 Bruce has helpfully given us adjusted worldwide grosses for nearly all Gable’s movies and I have now examined those stats in detail.. When Gone with the Wind is excluded from them the split is 66% domestic gross/ 34% foreign grosses and when that ratio is applied to the few Gable movies without worldwide grosses and Gone with the Wind added back in the total comes to around $16.3 billion worldwide compared with $19.3 billion for Harrison Ford according to Bruce’s figures on Harrison’s page.

            2 However that is still an excellent global figure for Gable back in the days when the overseas movie marketplace was much reduced and of course populations were smaller. The 66/34 split in Gable’s case is broadly in line with the general split that we have identified in the other tables of worldwide grosses that Bruce has given us for Classic Era stars, though from what you and Bruce say Randy did better overseas than in the domestic market and that pleases me for I have always liked him when he got older as I did with Coop so thanks for confirming the overseas market point in Scott’s case.

          3. Bob

            Well, you are taking the discussions in directions I would go. I think comparing Gable to Cooper, which I did, is comparing apples to apples. They were born within three months of each other and died within six months of each other. Their careers were almost a perfect overlap. They were competing in the same era with the same markets and the same circumstances. The only questions is bringing up MGM versus Paramount, or something like that.

            Harrison Ford?

            My primary interest in “Golden age” history. When you get to Ford you are going into different worlds.

            Population? The US population was about 120 million in 1930. Now it is 330 million. Ford’s career is in a era with a population of about double what it was in the Gable-Cooper era. And the world? Here is a chart of world population in billions:

            1930–2.070
            1950–2.557
            1960–3.042
            1970–3.712
            1990–5.521
            2000–6.034
            2016–7.5 (est)

            I would guess the average world population at about 2.5 billion for Gable-Cooper. I think it would be at least 5 billion average for Ford.

            Even more important, folks have more money today. G-C was the era of the Great Depression and WWII. Much of the world was devastated. The USA, which was not bombed or a battlefront, emerged from WWII with an estimated 50% of world GDP. This was probably unheard of. Still the American GDP was a fraction of what it is today. And the rest of the world? Here are the latest GDP figures in trillions:

            China–21,269
            USA–18,562
            India–8,721
            Japan–4,932
            Germany–3,979
            Russia–3.745

            Okay. So the USA is not even #1 any more. I wonder if one is looking at world ticket sales if the real number one stars aren’t Chinese or Bollywood performers.

            Bottom line–a comparison of Gable or Cooper to Ford is comparing apples to watermelons in my judgment. It is just too different a world for the comparisons to have all that much meaning. And I’m not even considering impact of technological advances like DVD’s or streaming movies.

            I think as far as I would take this ends with judging who was the top performer in a given era, how he compared to others in his own era, and how massive his position was when he was alive compared to how massive others are in other eras.

          4. Bob

            My first line should have been

            ‘You are taking this discussion in directions I would not go.’

          5. Bob

            Your figures on total world box office gross

            Gable–16.3 billion
            Cooper–14.3 billion
            Ford–19.3 billion

            My take is that given the vast increase in population and world standard of living, to have the same impact at the movie box office those older stars had, Ford should be up around 40 to 50 billion.

            How DVD’s and streaming factors into this, I can’t tell.

          6. Hey John.
            1. Good points about Paramount…..I am sure my bias on Paramount (their box office is the hardest to find of all the studios out there) …so every time I see Paramount mentioned…I am like Seinfeld when he saw his neighbor Newman…..only for it is “PARAMOUNT!”
            2. That being said…I have read that Paramount had a horrible decade of the 1930s (even worse than some of the big studioes that were also struggling)….with Mae West pretty much saving the studio from bankruptcy…..so knowing they were struggling…I would say MGM provided more support for Gable than Paramount did for Cooper.
            3. Cooper $100 million movies by decade….the 1920s….4 movies…..the 1930s….12 movies…the 1940s….15 movies..(actually one of his did not reach the mark)….and the 1950s….8 movies…..4 decades of hits….one of the best records ever.
            4. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Cooper and Gable….in the end they are two of the greatest and most successful actors of all-time.

  2. HI STEVE

    1 Just seen the Cooper Top 30 video and again some pretty impressive scores; and I especially agree with the top 3 with High Noon’s vertiginous score of 9.22. The art work on some of the poster reproductions is stunning and the ones for Vera Cruz really impressed me. My own favourite Coop movies were Hanging Tree**Garden of Evil, Vera Cruz and Court Martial of Billy Mitchell (called One Man Mutiny over here) though you have some fascinating classic golden oldies dating back to the 1920s in your selection.

    **I liked the posters tagline for Hanging Tree when it came out in 1959 “Only a bullet could get close enough to Doc Frail [Cooper]” though I couldn’t spot it on your reproduction.

    2 I loved the opening to Vera Cruz in the actual film where screen lettering told how numerous adventurers, mercenaries etc drifted into Mexico during the Franco-Mexican war seeking to exploit the conflict; and the wording told how they arrived in groups or pairs and then the final punch line said “And some came alone.” as a solitary Cooper rides over a hill and into sight of the audience. Vera Cruz has special nostalgic value for me as it was the very last movie I watched the night before I took my first ever job at the age of 14 and I was able to go to one of the dearest cinemas to see it in anticipation of my future earnings !

    3 Apparently Cooper was a man who was always generous in his praise of fellow artists and for example he said once that Lives of a Bengal Lancer wouldn’t have been the sclassic it was without the spellbinding performance of his co-star Franchot Tone..

    4 I do hope that you are taking a leaf out of the Cogerson book and retaining impartiality in yours selections; and I say that because I note that you have not included Coop’s final film The Naked Edge which – no doubt coincidentally – was produced by the real life father of The Godfather!

    5 Hope to have a look at your Golden Holden Top 30 next but meanwhile you should be thinking about doing more in the series though you do have a fine collection as it is.

    BOB

    Reply

    1. Hi Bob, when I first started that youtube channel I was using box office grosses and the majority of the 400 plus videos on there are box office charts. But when I segued to classic movie stars and directors I abandoned grosses and switched to ratings, as Bruce knows box office figures for these old movies are not easy to find and I found that most of them have similar totals of around 3 to 4 million dollars. Most importantly box office success has never been an indicator of quality.

      My favorite tagline on that video was for Friendly Persuasion “It will pleasure you in a hundred ways!” 🙂

      I used a foreign poster for The Hanging Tree, it looks great but the downside is we lose the taglines and hype.

      The Naked Edge had a low score of 5.7 and wasn’t included.

      I’m planning to do as many Golden Age actors and actresses as possible, I use Bruce’s index page for ideas. Randy Scott next. 🙂

      Thanks for checking these out.

      Reply

      1. HI STEVE

        1 Thanks for the explanations.

        2 Of course if your rankings/artistic scores and Bruce’s coincided we’d all think that something was being fixed ! Nevertheless Bruce too gives high marks to the likes of Sgt York, Pride of the Yankees and of course High Noon all of which are in his top 10 for artistic scores

        3 I agree with your comments about Laddie not producing many classics but he was reasonably consistent at the box office with 23 of his movies crashing Bruce’s 100 mil barrier and on his box office scale you have to get almost to 40 out of 50 movies before his grosses start to become ghastly, whereas many other stars reach that point before they get half way down their box office scales. So he was pretty consistent at the box office; and of course most of the movies Bruce has listed were ‘Alan Ladd’ films and he was not depending on other big stars to carry them.

        4 Furthermore as I’ve said elsewhere very few of his flicks are reported to have lost money probably because most of them not being blockbusters they had modest budget. {I’m proud of having been a B movie man because B meant you brought it int on budget as I propose to do for America – Ronnie Reagan.]

        5 R Scott will be an excellent addition to the collection. Maybe in tandem with the video Bruce will bring out the long awaited Scott update as a companion piece [Hint ! Hint !] as I love comparing your lists with his. Thanks again for both the entertainment and the chat.

        BOB

        Reply

        1. I have caught up….got some involved in the nuts and bolts of the website…that I did not have time to comment back….but reading your comment to Steve….finally catches me up. Good stuff as usual. 🙂

          Reply

    2. Glad you enjoyed Steve’s Cooper video…..seems he is finally seeing the light….which I saw by the end of 2011….that classic movie star pages can generate some serious amount of traffic. Enjoyed reading your comment to STeve.

      Reply

    3. HI JOHN

      1 Thanks for replying. Please forgive me as I thought that your interest in movies was wider than you now suggest. Also as we are on this site and Bruce’s table does rank the stars from different eras in relation to one and other and comparisons are regularly made between the box office performance of those stars I thought that it was legitimate to mention Harrison Ford as he appears to be the main competitor to Wayne/Gable at the very top of Bruce’s 100 stars table.

      2 Bruce goes to a lot of trouble to give us those kinds of comparative tables and even if one aspect of them did not interest me particularly I would still consider it good manners to respect ALL aspects of them and the readers interested in those aspects.

      3 Personally I would feel that I was burying my head in the sand if I did not try to get some basic overview of how stars of the different eras measured up to each other at the box office and in terms of acting skills. I realise though that the factors that I mentioned are not the be all and end all of the equation and indeed there is a formula that professional historical statisticians use in measuring cinematic box office inflation that includes all of the considerations that you mention above and then some – for example number of cinemas in existence at any one time, competition from other forms of entertainment and social activities; but it’s very complicated and time-consuming to apply and after using it on the box office careers of about 20 selected performers I abandoned the exercise. However for what it’s worth the actors and movies of the 1970s do best when the particular method of which I am talking is used.

      4 For my part as we are involved in a site that busies itself with all eras of cinematic history, including even the silent one, I am quite happy for other readers to make ANY point that they feel is legitimate in supporting, contesting or qualifying arguments that I advance or information that I give and I feel that indeed the broader and more far-reaching the exchanges are the more that I will have to think about and ultimately learn.

      4 One problem that I have encountered down the years is that some people often think that entertainment effectively came to an end with Bing Crosby and James Stewart whereas some others today feel that it only began with Lady Gaga and Brad Pitt. As I have said before on this site I saw a poll last year in which those questioned about who was the greatest actress of all time came out with Elizabeth Hurley as their No 1 pick. You will perhaps understand that having a broad interest in the cinema I want to do everything that I can to avoid the fool’s paradise in which that kind of ignorance flourishes.

      5 That said I apologise to you again for bothering you with matters in which YOU are not interested but please accept my assurances that I was acting in good faith and that it will not reoccur.

      Have a good weekend BOB

      Reply

      1. Hey Bob…..I like to think the website is put together to cover all eras of movies….my older children visit often but they do not have any interest in classic stars…and they think Judd Nelson is a classic star…..lol. On the other end of the spectrum others have no interest in current movies.

        When I look at how this website has grown….I see those two spectrums helped. Luckily I listened to my mother-in-law….and started doing classic pages…as those pages as a group provide almost 65% of views……while listening to my oldest son provided two of my most popular pages….Pixar vs Dreamworks (closing in on 500,000 views) and Marvel vs D.C.. Thanks for the thoughts shared in this comment.

        Reply

  3. BRUCE
    1 We have recently been drawing attention to a number of coincidences and the latest is that no sooner does a Rita Hayworth update appear than Dan mentions Gary Cooper who had Rita as his penultimate female co-star when they made They Came to Cordura in 1959.

    2 Although Sinatra had the title role in Pal Joey(1957) Flora has described how he ceded top billing to Rita in that film. In an interview at the time Frank was pressed on the issue and as Flora has indicated he explained that Pal Joey was a Columbia picture and Rita’s name had always been synonymous with Columbia so that it was only right that she should be billed first in any Columbia movie.

    3 I admired Frank for showing such courtesy to a fellow professional; but They Came to Cordura too was a Columbia movie and it will be seen from the reproduced posters on IMDB and Wikipedia that apparently Coop did not feel Frankie’s need to be so chivalrous to Rita !

    4 Of course Gary’s status related solely to his movies whereas Frankie was not just a prominent movie star but was also a Great among singers with Spencer Tracy once commenting that in his Hollywood heyday Frankie had more power than most of the old studio magnates.
    Any thoughts of your own on the subject Bruce?

    BOB

    Reply

    1. Hey Bob…as Dan’s comments show about the Oracle of Bacon….all of these stars are connected. Interesting stories on the billing of Pal Joey and They Came To Cordura…..I think some of that might have had to do on where they were in their careers. To Frank…the future was still vast…while the future movie careers of Rita and Cooper (and Cooper’s case his life) were quickly closing. Still kudos to Frank for giving Rita her finally day in the sun. I imagine Burt Reynolds would have done the same thing for Frank in Cannonball Run 2….if Frank’s role would have been bigger. Granted Frank only had a cameo in that one…..but I am sure for more Frank…..Burt would have taken second billing to the legend Frank.

      Reply

  4. Hey Dan….not thinking Coop is ever going to get back on the list. With his last movie 55 years ago….not thinking there are too many active actors that worked with him. Actually after taking a look at his last 4 or 5 movies… I did not find anybody that was still alive…granted I did not look at all of the ones with screen credits. Robert Rietty? The king of the extras? It is cool that his name is still going on even though he passed away last year. Had fun looking over these lists you sent…I think I am ready to play the Kevin Bacon game…lol. Thanks for all of your hard work!

    Reply

  5. Gary Cooper has 40 films to make 100 million per your list. His last film was in 1961 and he was never on the Oracle of Bacon’s top 1000 on their center of the universe list. Here are the only actors that have acted with him on the current list. For your info I don’t trust any of Mr. Rietty’s credits on the IMDB nor a number of current extras that somehow get credited for everything it seems.

    Blowing Wild (1953) – 681 Anthony Quinn
    The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell – 112 Rod Steiger
    The Naked Edge (1961) – 767 Robert Rietty
    The Plainsman (1936) – 681 Anthony Quinn
    Vera Cruz (1954) – 142 Ernest Borgnine
    You’re in the Navy Now – 762 Jack Warden

    Reply

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