Red Skelton Movies

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

Red Skelton (1913-1997) was an American actor who had great success in movies and in television.  His IMDb page shows 47 acting credits from 1938-1981. This page will rank 32 Red Skelton movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows and movies that were not released in theaters were not included in the rankings.

1941’s Whistling in the Dark was a surprise hit and turned Red Skelton into a star.

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

Red Skelton 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 Red Skelton movies by co-stars of his movies.
  • Sort Red Skelton movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Red Skelton movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Red Skelton movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations each Red Skelton movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Red Skelton movie won.
  • Sort Red Skelton 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.

Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Red Skelton Table

  1. Seventeen Red Skelton movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 53.13% of his movies listed. Bathing Beauty (1944) was his biggest box office hit when looking at adjusted domestic box office gross.
  2. An average Red Skelton movie grosses $120.20 million in adjusted box office gross.
  3. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  15 of Red Skelton movies are rated as good movies…or 46.87% of his movies. Three Little Words (1950) is his highest rated movie while Texas Carnival (1951) was his lowest rated movie.
  4. Five Red Skelton movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 15.62% of his movies.
  5. Two Red Skelton movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 6.25% of his movies.
  6. An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 25 Red Skelton movies scored higher than that average….or 78.12% of his movies. Bathing Beauty (1944) got the the highest UMR Score  while Half A Hero (1953) got the lowest UMR Score.
1944’s Bathing Beauty…..statistically Red Skelton’s best movie.

Ten Possibly Interesting Facts About Red Skelton

1. Richard Barnard Skelton was born in Vincennes, Indiana during 1913.

2. Red Skelton’s father passed away two months before he was born.  In order to help his family, Red Skelton went to work at the age of 7.  His jobs?  Newspaper street peddler, errand boy who sold bottles of medicine at medicine shows, circus work, burlesque performer and master of ceremonies for dance marathons.

3.  Red Skelton met Edna Marie Stilwell at one of the dance marthons he was hosting.  She approached Skelton after winning the contest and told him that she did not like his jokes; he asked if she could do better.  They would marry when he was 16 and she was 18.  Stilwell is probably why Skelton became so famous.  First she taught him the basic educational skills he missed when leaving school so early.  Secondly, she began to write his material.  Thirdly, after she joined his act things really picked up for him.  Fourthly, she came up with a “Doughnut Dunkers” routine that put Red Skelton on the map.  Their Doughnut Dunkers routine eventually gave them an audience with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  FDR loved it so much that Skelton became his “master of cermonies”.

4.  After reading about all of the influence Edna Marie Stilwell had on Red Skelton, I was hoping that when I looked up his marriage record I would see they stayed together for 50 or 60 years.  Sadly that was not the case as they divorced in the early 1940s.  Overall Red Skelton was married three times and had two children.

5.  Although famous for his drunk comedy sketches, Red Skelton never drank and was, in fact, allergic to alcohol.

6.  Red Skelton was awarded two Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 6650 Hollywood Boulevard; and for Radio at 6763 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.

7.  Red Skelton served in the United States Army during World War II

8.  Red Skelton’s movies from 1940 to 1949 earned $2.79 billion in adjusted domestic gross.  That puts him in 35th place when looking at all the stars of that decade.  1940’s Top Box Office Stars.

9. Red Skelton’s movies from 1950 to 1959 earned $754.2 million in adjusted domestic gross.  That puts him in 98th place when looking at all the stars of that decade.  1950’s Top Box Office Stars.

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

Want more stats?  How about Red Skelton Adjusted Worldwide Grosses?

 

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

(Visited 4,985 times)

12 thoughts on “Red Skelton Movies”

  1. 1 Although Red continued until the mid-60s in cameos, supporting parts and/or low prestige movies his cinematic heyday was largely past when I started watching movies in the early 1950s so initially I did not know too much about him and the titles of some of his movies induced me to not take him seriously as even a former top star. However when I saw a TV rerun of Three Little Words I was impressed with Red as Harry Ruby to Astaire’s Bert Kalmar.

    2 Historically Red was in fact connected with a modest cinematic “first” in that he was the star of the 1943 DuBarry was a Lady in which Gene Kelly was given his first-star-billed role. Gene had appeared with Judy Garland the year before in For Me and My Gal but did not get equal billing to Judy though of course that would change later when they made further films together and indeed became firm friends.

    3 Today Red is probably another of those “forgotten” stars that in the main just film historians and buffs will be aware of. It is therefore pleasing to see this comprehensive Cogerson tribute to Skelton emerging.

    Reply

  2. I did not realize you were joking…..I thought I had made one of the dumber mistakes….if I had indeed spelled an entire UMR subject name wrong that many times. As soon as I got home I went to fix it when I realized that you were joking….so you got me good. When I saw the comment I was at a swim party and could not check the spelling…..so for about 3 hours I kept kicking myself for making such a big error.

    Reply

    1. Sorry about that Bruce. My joke post nearly caused a disaster. I thought Red Skelton was well known in the States, well maybe he was in the distant past.

      The funny thing is the film I most remember him in isn’t on your chart – no don’t panic it’s not an oversight – he plays various roles in the opening sequence of the blockbuster comedy – Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) – which shows man’s attempt to fly through history, before the main credits come up. He also turns up briefly at the end of the film.

      Reply

  3. Cogerson

    Red Skelton’s movie career was only a sidelight for him. I was surprised looking up radio ratings to find out how successful he was on the radio. He broke into the top ten in 1941-42 at 9th. In 1942-43 his show was #2 behind only Bob Hope. When you get down to it, only Hope was as successful on the radio and TV (and Hope was never a regular on TV) as Skelton was. He went to TV in 1951-52 with his show ranking #4. He seemed to slip a bit during the early fifties and I believe there was some sort of controversy, but he gradually made his way back up the ratings, reaching #5 in 1959-60. He was in the top ten, and often in the top five, throughout the 1960’s, peaking at #2 in 1966-67. He was still #7 in 1969-70 when CBS decided his audience was too old and cut his time slot. Still, no one was more popular consistently from the early forties into the early seventies on radio and TV than Skelton. His radio success surprises me as he seems such a visual comedian.
    some thoughts
    1–he gave Johnny Carson his first big break by appearing on his afternoon show and then having Johnny replace him on his own show when Skelton was injured and could not perform. Carson was grateful and said so when he had Red on the tonight show in the 1980’s. Red refused to take any credit for Johnny’s success with a “the cream always comes to the top” type of explanation.
    2–Skelton was a very talented artist. He generally painted clowns and copies of his paintings run from $3000 to $8000. I couldn’t quite find out what an original goes for, but I did find one offered for $68,000. I have heard, but can’t definitely verify, that some of his best work goes for over $100,000. In an interview late in his life he mentioned that he made more money from painting than he ever did from entertaining.
    3–Red was a decently talented composer. His Red’s White and Blue March is a standard for marching bands.
    4–Buster Keaton was his gag man at MGM and has an interview in which he said that Skelton spread himself too thin and could have been a great movie comedian if he had only concentrated on movies.

    Anyway, I don’t think young folks probably realize how big Skelton once was, and he certainly was a very talented and creative man.

    Reply

    1. Cogerson

      Ship Ahoy is interesting as the Tommy Dorsey band appears. Dorsey has a skinny young singer with him that seemed to have a lot of promise, even if a trifle underfed. I wonder what happened to that guy. He got no billing in Ship Ahoy.

      Reply

  4. I’ve seen 10 of Skelton’s films. The highest rated film I’ve seen is Number 1: Bathing Beauty.

    The highest rated I have not seen is Ship Ahoy.

    The lowest rated I’ve seen is Lovely To Look At.

    My favourites are Zeigfeld Folies, Ocean’s 11, and Three Little Words

    Reply

  5. Bruce, you’ve spelt skeleton wrong – red skeleton – I can’t seen any on the page. Disappointed.

    Looking at the chart I’ve seen 4 of the 32 films listed – Neptune’s Daughter, Jupiter’s Brother, Triton’s Nephew and Apollo’s Aunt [Stop it Steve!] Bathing Beauty, Ziegfeld Follies and Ocean’s 11.

    I may have seen Thousands Cheer, can’t remember. Looks like it was a big hit worldwide, but not as big as Bathing Beauty. Millions of people lining up to ogle Esther Williams in her swimsuit, can you blame them? 🙂

    Another Vote Up!

    Reply

    1. Well that is not good…..especially since I am away from my computer for a few hours. This means I have been spelling his name wrong as a co-star for years. I will put the Dunce hat for that error. Thanks for the heads up.

      As for the rest of your comment your …your 4 has me beat by three as I have only seen him in his brief appearance in Ocean’s 11.

      As a kid I always got Buttons mixed up with Skeelllleeetttttooooonnnm. Thanks for the feedback.

      Reply

      1. Bruce not sure if you were joking or not but I was kidding. It is Skeletor, Red Skeletor.

        No I mean Skelton, Red Skelton.

        🙂

        Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.