Robert Montgomery Movies

montgomery 11111Want to know the best Robert Montgomery movies?  How about the worst Robert Montgomery movies?  Curious about Robert Montgomery box office grosses or which Robert Montgomery movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Robert Montgomery 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.

Robert Montgomery (1904-1981) was a 2-time American Oscar® nominated actor, director and producer.  In the 1930s he was one of the biggest stars working in movies.  His IMDb page shows 64 acting and 5 directing credits from 1929-1960. This page ranks 57 Robert Montgomery movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, documentaries and shorts were not included in the rankings.

Drivel part of the page:  Wow!…… did we have some problems doing this page.  Problem 1:  While adding information for his Lady In The Lake movie…we some how broke our database….as strange Chinese code started showing up.  This required emergency computer programming by Wife of Cogerson. Problem 2:  When finally ready to write and publish this page…our website provider would not allow changes to be saved….so I had to rewrite the entire page more than once.  Problem 3:  Even though most of his movies were made by MGM…the Eddie Mannix ledgers only listed about half of his movies.  This required us to come up with another way to calculate box office grosses using the Harrison Reports from the 1930s and 1940s to get the other half.  Once again…Wife of Cogerson had to perform some emergency programming work.  The bill for her services is going to be huge!  Finally we were able to overcome all of these obstacles and finish this Robert Montgomery page.

montgomery 222222
Claude Rains and Robert Montgomery in 1941’s Here Comes Mr. Jordan

Robert Montgomery 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 Robert Montgomery movies by co-stars of his movies
  • Sort Robert Montgomery movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Robert Montgomery movies by yearly box office rank
  • Sort Robert Montgomery 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 Robert Montgomery movie received.
  • Sort Robert Montgomery 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 Robert Montgomery Table

  1. Fourteen Robert Montgomery movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 24.56% of his movies listed. They Were Expendable (1945) was his biggest box office hit.
  2. An average Robert Montgomery movie grosses $80.70 million in adjusted box office gross.
  3. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  29 Robert Montgomery movies are rated as good movies…or 50.87% of his movies.  Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) is his highest rated movie while Free and Easy (1930)is his lowest rated movie.
  4. Ten Robert Montgomery movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 17.54% of his movies.
  5. Three Robert Montgomery movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 5.26% of his movies.
  6. An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR )Score is 40.00.  33 Robert Montgomery movies scored higher that average….or 57.89% of his movies.  Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) got the the highest UMR Score while Eye Witness (1950) got the lowest UMR Score.
Robert Montgomery in 1947's Lady In The Lake
Robert Montgomery in 1947’s Lady In The Lake

Possibly Interesting Facts About Robert Montgomery

1. Henry Montgomery, Jr. was born in Fishkill Landing, New York in 1904.

2. Robert Montgomery was nominated for two Best Actor Oscars®: 1937’s Night Must Fall and 1941’s Here Comes Mr. Jordan.

3. After World War II broke out in Europe in September, 1939, and while the United States was still officially neutral, Robert Montgomery enlisted in London for American field service and drove ambulances in France until the Dunkirk evacuation.

4. During the D-Day invasion, Robert Montgomery was one of the first to enter Cherbourg harbor and was awarded the Bronze Star for his service.

5. Robert Montgomery was widely considered to be one of the best dressed men in Hollywood and for years did not carry a wallet because it ruined the drape of his suits.

6. Robert Montgomery was married two times.  He had three children.  His daughter, Elizabeth Montgomery, became an actress…and was best know for her role as Samantha Stevens on the television series, Bewitched.

7. Robert Montgomery was president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) from 1935-38 and 1946-47.

8. Check out Robert Montgomery ‘s career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

Astute readers will notice that three movies are missing….we were unable to find any box office information on: 1929’s Three Live Ghosts, 1930’s Sins of the Children and 1932’s But The Flesh Is Weak.  Also we have worldwide box office grosses on about 30 of his movies…if interested…just leave a request on the comment box…and we will make sure you get that information.

During our research on Robert Montgomery we found this wonderful website from a huge Montgomery fan. Classic Robert Montgomery Blogspot.

Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences. 
(Visited 7,513 times)

117 thoughts on “Robert Montgomery Movies

  1. He is one of the most underrated movie stars of alltime. I loved his movies with Joan Crawford with Foresaking All Others being my favorite though Untamed is a close second. I enjoyed all of these stats pretty impressive work. Thanks for the sharing the link.

    1. I think he is extremely underrated myself. He was a big star at the time. He was a bigger star than John Wayne at the time thy made They Were Expendable.

      You really need to see as many episodes of Robert Montgomery Presents as possible, because he was a fabulous producer. I haven’t seen many of them. But when TCM aired a tribute to James Dean on television, part of the tribute was an episode of Robert Montgomery Presents called “The Harvest – these were all live broadcasts back then – you could see how in charge he was and how much he loved being a host of these serials.

      1. Hey Flora…his television show sounds pretty interesting…and loaded with future stars. Wonder if those shows have made it to home entertainment?

        1. I believe they have as far as the ones that were not recorded over. As far as the early days of live television are concerned, nobody bothered to save the recordings as nobody thought anyone would be interested in them later.

    2. Hey ClassicsFan!!!!……glad you followed the link to our page…I also enjoyed Forsaking All Others…..Montgomery, Crawford and Gable were awesome together. I have not seen Untamed…..but I will try and track it down. Thanks for leaving a comment.

    1. 7 of the top: LawrenceA: These are his best films. If you are only going to see a certain number of films of an actor due to availability, it is great when the movies are among the actor’s best movies. It really helped when TCM aired a star of the month look at Norma Shearer. I understand as well that Robert Montgomery will be featured on TCM as part of the Summer Under the Stars festival. I think his day is August 22nd, but I cannot be sure from memory.

      Will email you privately, Lawrence about further information.

    2. Hey Larry….looks like another silver medal for you….as your 12 is way ahead of me and Steve’s totals…..but even further behind Flora’s total. 7 of the top 10….. I like that % as it makes it seem that my rankings are in line. Thanks for checking out our latest page.

  2. This third comment will talk about what movies I’ve seen and love Bruce.

    And thanks again for doing my requested page on Robert Montgomery.

    The highest ranking film I have seen is Number 1: Here Comes Mr. Jordan – my favourite Montgomery film, my favourite boxing film, and my favourite sports film of all time.

    The lowest ranking film I have seen is Number 56: Free and Easy.

    The highest ranked film I have not seen is number 6: Ride the Pink Horse. I’ve never had access to it. I have some movies recorded that I have not yet seen. This is not one of them.

    Views by ranking:

    I have seen all 5 of his top 5 movies.
    I have seen 9 of his top 10.
    I have seen 14 of his top 15. From now on, there won’t be such a high percentage.
    I have seen 16 of his top 20.
    I have seen 22 of his top 30.
    I have seen 27 of his top 40.
    I have seen 32 of his films overall.

    That is usually enough to win the viewing Olympics, but since others have joined us now, maybe not. But I really hope to be on the podium. Hahahaha.

    The Hitchcock film he made with Lombard was a comedy, not suspense.

    My favourite 10 Robert Montgomery films are: no order after 1 and 2:

    Here Comes Mr. Jordan
    They Were Expendable
    When ladies Meet
    The Divorcee
    The Last of Mrs. Cheyney
    Riptide
    Mr. and Mrs. Smith
    The Big House
    Night Must Fall
    Private lives

    You will notice the large number of Norma shearer movies on my list.

    Thanks again Bruce ! 🙂

    1. Hey Flora.
      1. Tally count…..you 32, Larry 12, me 6, and Steve 4…..so you did 10 better than our combined total….I blame Steve for this horrible showing…..lol.
      2. Ride the Pink Horse is one of the 6 that I have seen…..it is worth checking out….Thomas Gomez in a supporting role is excellent…he actually got an Oscar nomination for the movie.
      3. I am in the back watching the girls swim so I do not have a calculator for your %s…..but it looks like the UMR rankings got the cream to the top.
      4. I think Mr. & Mrs. Smith is one of my least favorite Hitchcock movie….I also think it was one of Hitch’s least favorite movies.
      5. I have seen 4 of your Top 10….. With Mr. Jordan, They Were Expendable and Forsaking All Others as my Top 3.
      6. He and Shearer made 5 movies together…..the only one I have seen is The Divorce.
      7. Overall I have seen 5 of the top 7 UMR ranked movies.
      Thanks for the comments.

      1. Okay, so I found a calculator and checked my overall percentage. 32 of 57 movies is 56%.

        I’ve seen 56% of the films on this list. Not a high percentage for a Gold medal in my opinion, but I’ll take it.

  3. Second comment about Robert Montgomery that will focus on him.

    I am a huge fan of Robert M. He and his daughter Elizabeth are my favourite Hollywood father and daughter team.

    Thanks SO MUCH for sending me that private email that Robert Montgomery was going to be your next page.

    Robert started out at MGM getting roles by special requests of MGM star Norma Shearer. He was a frequent co-star of hers. sometimes they were a couple, sometimes the love was unrequited, and sometimes he broke up her marriage.

    When he made They Were Expendable with John Ford and John Wayne, he was the bigger star than Wayne, so his name appeared before Wayne in the credits. Plus, he had actually been in those boats in real combat during WWII so that when Ford was ill, Montgomery took over directing until Ford was well again.

    This made MGM decide he was ready to direct a film entirely by himself. He chose lady in the Lake with the camera focused as if the audience was Philip Marlowe. This made Bob’s fans angry that they only saw him in the mirror every now and then. Therefore, MGM forced him and Audrey Totter to tack on a scene at the end of Marlowe and his girl together on the camera and this made Montgomery furious. After a long contract with MGM, he quit the studio and never worked for them again.
    Instead, he set up his own TV show of serials called Robert Montgomery Presents.

    I will now finish this comment about his background with MGM, and write a third comment about his movies.

    1. Hey Flora. …. I made sure to give Elizabeth some love in the interesting facts section. Glad you like your requested page. Thanks for sharing all of this background on him. His military record really impresses me. Sorry his MGMc career ended so bitterly.

  4. Bruce!

    Thanks for completing my requested page on Robert Montgomery!

    Too bad the drivel part of the page could not be about how I love Robert Montgomery and Elizabeth Montgomery as my favourite Hollywood father and daughter team and that this is how I taught you the difference between Robert Montgomery and Robert Taylor!

    I adore Bob Montgomery.

    Now that my comment about your issues with this page been mentioned, I will start a new comment.

    1. Hey Flora……yep the Gremlins were working hard as they made this one very difficult to finish. I now know the difference between the two Bobs….thank you.

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.