Want to know the best Van Johnson movies? How about the worst Van Johnson movies? Curious about Van Johnson box office grosses or which Van Johnson movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Van Johnson 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.
Van Johnson (1916-2008) was an American film and television actor and dancer who was a major star at MGM from 1942 to 1954. His IMDb page shows 123 acting credits from 1940-1992. This page ranks 63 Van Johnson movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. But what about his other 60 IMDb credits? Well….his 42 television appearances, his 13 movies not released in North America, his 4 uncredited roles and his one short were not included in the rankings.
Drivel Part: So earlier today we were web hopping around some of our favorite classic movie Facebook pages. While checking out Classic Film Lovers’ Haven we noticed that their current banner was mentioning that tomorrow, August 25th 2016 is Van Johnson’s 100th birthday. Knowing that Flora had requested a Van Johnson page we wonder if we would be able to put together an entire Van Johnson page in time for his 100th birthday….well since you are now reading this page, the answer to that question was yes….thank you Eddie Mannix’s MGM ledgers.
Van Johnson 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 Van Johnson movies by co-stars of his movies
- Sort Van Johnson movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Van Johnson movies by adjusted worldwide box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)….we were able to worldwide box office on 48 of his movies
- Sort Van Johnson 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 Van Johnson movie received.
- Sort Van Johnson 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 Van Johnson Table
- Twenty-seven Van Johnson movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 42.85% of his movies listed. The Caine Mutiny (1954) was his biggest box office hit.
- An average Van Johnson movie grossed $114.80 million in adjusted domestic box office gross.
- That translates to a career adjusted box office of $7.23 billion.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 44 Van Johnson movies are rated as good movies…or 69.84% of his movies. The Caine Mutiny (1954) is his highest rated movie while Plymouth Adventure (1952) is his lowest rated movie.
- Seventeen Van Johnson movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 26.98% of his movies.
- Four Van Johnson movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 6.34% of his movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 34 Van Johnson movies scored higher that average….or 44.11% of his movies. The Caine Mutiny (1954) got the the highest UMR Score while The Enemy General (1960) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Van Johnson
1. Charles Van Dell Johnson was born in Newport, Rhode Island in 1916.
2. Van Johnson met Lucille Ball during the filming of 1940’s Too Many Girls. Ball took Johnson to to Chasen’s Restaurant, where she introduced him to MGM casting director Billy Grady. After his 6 month contract with Warner Brothers was terminated, Johnson signed with MGM.
3. Van Johnson was listed on Quigley’s Annual Top Box Office Star list 6 times. He was ranked 2nd in 1945, 3rd in 1946, 13th in 1947, 20th in 1948, 18th in 1950 and 20th in 1951.
4. Halfway through the filming of 1943’s A Guy Name Joe….Van Johnson was in a serious car accident that left him with a metal plate in his forehead and a number of scars on his face that the plastic surgery of the time could not completely correct or conceal; he used heavy makeup to hide them for years. When the crash happened, Johnson’s scalp was nearly sheared off. The closest rescue units responded, but because the accident happened just over the local county line, the rescuers had to stop at the county line and could not help him. Johnson had to slap his scalp into place and literally crawl nearly 50 yards to get to the rescue workers for aid.
5. Van Johnson’s injury caused the production of A Guy Named Joe to shut down. At first the studio wanted to replace Johnson….but Spencer Tracy and Irene Dunne insisted that Johnson be allowed to finish the picture,
6. Van Johnson’s two main nicknames were: King of Dinner Theater & The Voiceless Sinatra
7. Van Johnson was married 1 times and had 3 children….one daughter and 2 stepsons…..the father of his stepsons was actor Keenan Wynn.
8. Van Johnson starred in 4 movies that earned Best Picture Oscar® nominations: 1943’s Madame Curie, 1943’s The Human Comedy, 1949’s Battleground and 1954’s The Caine Mutiny.
9. Van Johnson has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6600 Hollywood Blvd.
10. Check out Van Johnson ‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
Hey, Van Johnson was a good actor and I have seen many of his movies. The Last Time I Saw Paris with Elizabeth Taylor was a very good movie. He had some very good roles. A Guy Names Joe was on the TV just last week. I also liked the remake of that movie too. Interesting that he was only married one time – another good site. Thanks!!!
Hey Bern1960…I fixed your comment…..I have not seen The Last Time I Saw Paris….but a few people have mentioned that it is one of their favorites…so I will have to check that one out…pretty sure I gave you a DVD of that movie…maybe you can let me borrow it. Wow…I missed A Guy Named Joe….that is a movie that I have wanted to see for awhile now. Yep only one marriage…and it was a studio marriage at that….sorta of like when another of your favorites….Rock Hudson got married. Thanks for the comment and the visit.
Great job! Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for the kind words…Diana S…..it is greatly appreciated.
He was very versatile! As much as some stars at the time said that they were typecast, MGM seemed to let him do all kinds of genres
Hey David P…MGM gave him lots of different roles…but his specialty was playing soldiers….though his Esther Williams movies showed his music skills as well.
Van Johnson is an American Treasure!
Yes indeed he is…..thanks for the feedback
My father was in the battle that this film portrays. A superb film.
Did your father see Battleground? If he did…did it think it was accurate or did he feel Hollywood ruined the story? Thanks for feedback Deb A.
My dad wouldn’t watch war films Bruce. He wouldn’t even discuss the war. My dad was also at Normandy. He said all they could see were bodies.
That is understandable…thanks for the feedback
Believe me, I’d give anything to know what he felt and what he went through. I know he wrote a song about dying in a foxhole…he played it for us- only once.
That is one of those things you are curious about but you have to respect your family member who does not want to discuss it. In our family we had a close friend who served in Vietnam and was involved in the incident shown in Hamburger Hill. Occasional he would start talking about it….but it was so painful to him that we would try to get him to change the subject as quickly as possible. Curiosity losing out to sympathy.
My father was in The Battle of the Bulge. I will ask him if he’s seen this. If not, I’ll find it so he can. He watches the military channel a lot, and war movies. He was wounded in TBOTB twice. His helmet was shot off, and he has a scar on his head from the bullet that just grazed his scalp. It was the fascination of the neighborhood when we were kids, because he wore a flat top, had almost-black hair, and so you could see the scar, in the exact shape of a bullet. He has a purple heart and the “second” purple heart, an oak leaf cluster. He is not the type to go on and on about it. He’s a quiet man. But he will answer questions and explain things. His troops also freed death camps in Germany, and I don’t ask him about that much, but he and I did look online for maps of where certain places his division was at certain times.
Hey Kimba Kat…..thanks for sharing that information.