Want to know the best Ben Johnson movies? How about the worst Ben Johnson movies? Curious about Ben Johnson box office grosses or which Ben Johnson movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Ben Johnson movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Ben Johnson (1918-1996) was an Oscar® winning American actor. Johnson was a stunt man, horse wrangler, and double for such stars as John Wayne, Gary Cooper and James Stewart. His break came when legendary director, John Ford, noticed him and gave him a part in an upcoming film, and eventually a star part in 1950’s Wagon Master. His IMDb page shows 105 acting credits from 1939 to 1996. In the table below, Ultimate Movie Rankings ranks 50 of his movies in 6 different sortable columns. Television roles, his early Paramount projects and many of his low budget movies were not included in the rankings on the table.
Ben Johnson Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Ben 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 Ben Johnson movies by co-stars of his movies.
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Sort Ben 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.
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Possibly Interesting Facts About Ben Johnson
1. Ben Johnson Jr. was born in Foraker, Oklahoma, on the Osage Indian Reservation.
2. Ben Johnson’s film career began with the Howard Hughes film The Outlaw. Before filming began, Hughes bought some horses at the Oklahoma ranch that Johnson’s father managed, and hired Johnson to get the horses to northern Arizona (for The Outlaw’s location shooting), and then to take them on to Hollywood.
3. In 1953, Ben Johnson took a break from Hollywood to compete in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association . He became a Team Roping World Champion. Johnson was inducted into the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame in 1973
4. Since both Ben Johnson and his father were named “Ben”, the younger Johnson was known as “Son” at home. The road marker to the actor’s ranch near Shidler, Oklahoma declares it as Ben “Son” Johnson’s ranch.
5. Ben Johnson appeared with John Wayne in eight films: Tall in the Saddle (1944), 3 Godfathers (1948), Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Rio Grande (1950), The Undefeated (1969), Chisum (1970) and The Train Robbers (1973).
6. Ben Johnson initially turned down the role of Sam the Lion in The Last Picture Show (1971) when it was first offered to him by Peter Bogdanovich because he thought the script was “dirty”, and he did not approve of swearing and nudity in motion pictures. Bogdanovich appealed to John Ford, who got Johnson to change his mind as a favor to him. With the permission of Bogdanovich, Johnson rewrote his role with the offensive words removed. Johnson went on to win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar® for playing the role.
7. Ben Johnson was married one time. Johnson’s 1941 marriage to Carol Elaine Jones lasted until her death on March 27, 1994. They had no children. She was the daughter of noted Hollywood horse wrangler Clarence “Fat” Jones.
8. Ben Johnson appeared in four movies directed by Sam Peckinpah. He also starred in the first theatrical feature film directed by Steven Spielberg…1974’s The Sugarland Express.
9. Shrewd real estate investments made Ben Johnson worth an estimated $100 million.
10. Check out Ben Johnson’s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
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NOTES ON GIELGUD TALKING ABOUT BRANDO
The Work Horse’s 24 Nov [6.32pm] post to me seems to suggest that Sir John ran down Marlon in the interview concerned. However I have studied the video a couple of times and here is my own transcript of what Sir John actually said in that interview:
1/He found Brando a “sweet boy”.
2/Brando would arrive on the set of 1953’s Julius Caesar “looking splendid” and whilst at times he appeared worried about something, he displayed “very touching” mannerisms and habits.
3/Marlon was “striking” in the role of Antony in the 1953 movie but wasn’t as familiar with the “shape” of certain scenes that he would have better picked up if he had done the play on stage
4/Sir John wished that Marlon HAD performed Julius Caesar on stage as he was a wonderful stage actor. Sir John had seen him in Streetcar on Broadway and he was great in the role of Stanley and was very “balanced” in the way he blended humour with high drama. Sir John thought it important to be able to marry humour with the serious stuff in a Tennessee Williams play.
5/The upshot of all this was that Sir John tried to coax Marlon to do Shakespeare’s Hamlet on stage as he thought Brando would be good in the role but Marlon wasn’t interested as he said he “planned to retire”. I think Brando meant retire from the STAGE; and in fact in 1953 he did make a final stage appearance in George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man in Boston summer stock and he played Sergius and his close friend William Redfield [Dale Harding in the film One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest] acted Bluntschi. The Work Horse if he wishes can obtain a video of the filming for posterity of that Brando production for $79.99.
It’s difficult for me to see how The Work Horse interprets the Gielgud interview as in any way a serious put-down of Brando: Sir John was simply saying th Marlon would have been even better as Antony if he had done the play on stage. Interestingly enough Lord Oilvier in classifying Brando as a “genius” felt that only the screen -and not the theatre- could demonstrate genius.
Anyway I can only assume that either (1) WH is trying to wind me up – he has picked on me a lot over the years OR (2) he has watched a version of the clip in that parallel universe that Joel seemed to regularly frequent where only ‘bad Brando things’ happen!
However to be fair to Hirsch he did give Brando 3 stars for his Antony performance which I think is good for a Yank playing Shakespeare; and of course Marlon won an Oscar nom for the role.
“Damn that Marlon: he’s such a wonderful actor. With his ability to demonstrate a deep range of feelings via just facial expressions and mannerisms he would have been the greatest actor of ALL eras had he flourished in the silent period of movies.” Richard Burton in his renowned diaries.
HI BRUCE: Thanks for the link which I enjoyed Apart from saying that Brando’s Antony [which Gielgud thought was good] could have been better if he had done the play on the stage Sir John was actually full of praise for Marlon and even tried to encourage him to play Hamlet. Indeed Gielgud tried to coax Marlon to join him on a tour of English theatres.
On the same page as that link is another one: “Sir Laurence Olivier on the genius of Marlon Brando-The Dick Cravat Show” In it Lord Larry calls Brando an acting genius and also says among other superlatives “His Napoleon is the best that there ever has been.” Check it out if you have not already seen the clip.
As you know Hirst hyperbolically said on page 57 of his 1983 book “Nobody cared for Desiree or Brando’s portrayal of Napoleon.” My own conclusion: there MUST be a parallel universe somewhere in which Joel watched another Marlon – a different Brando from the one that Olivier and Gielgud saw in their lifetime.
However if that’s not so and they all watched the same person – whose opinion should an unenlightened man-in-the-street value as likely the more accurate?-
1/an obscure would-be-Elvis rock n roll singer and nightclub entertainer of the late fifties/early sixties who came late to the art of film criticism; OR
2/a much-lauded doyen of the great British actor-knights club along with a Lord of the British realm who is world-famous as a great actor even today and who is included in the American Film Institute’s Top 25 greatest male acting legends of all time.
Tough call! Anyway please take care. I hope you are still not queuing up to vote somewhere and that you voted in good time – and only once: I wouldn’t want you to be accused of fraudulent voting!
Added Steve’s Ben Johnson YouTube video to this page…our thoughts originally found on Steve’s channel are also found below.
Good video on a good character actor. I have seen 23 of the movies listed here and a total of 27 of movies when looking at our UMR page. Favorites include….#4 She Wore A Yellow Ribbon…great western. #8 The Getaway…a great bad guy performance. #9 One Eyed Jacks…Brando’s one and only directed movie. #18 Hang Em High. #16 Bite The Bullet…great cast in a fun movie and #24 The Train Robbers…love the ending. Voted up and shared.