Dan Duryea Movies

Want to know the best Dan Duryea movies?  How about the worst Dan Duryea movies?  Curious about Dan Duryea box office grosses or which Dan Duryea movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Dan Duryea movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place.

Dan Duryea (1907-1968) was an American actor who career spanned 3 decades.  Duryea spent most of his career playing bad guys….but if you look hard enough you can find movies like Chicago Calling that show his sensitive side. His IMDb page shows 113 acting credits from 1934-1968.  In the table below, Ultimate Movie Rankings ranks 55 of his movies in 6 different sortable columns.  Television roles and a few 1960s movies were not included in the rankings.  This page was requested by Brando 90 a very long time ago.  Sorry for the delay Brando90.

Dan Duryea and James Stewart appeared in 4 movies together.

Dan Duryea 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 Dan Duryea movies by movie titles and trailers
  • Sort Dan Duryea movies by co-stars of his movies.
  • Sort Dan Duryea movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Dan Duryea movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Dan Duryea 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 Dan Duryea movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Dan Duryea movie won.
  • Sort Dan Duryea 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 Dan Duryea Table

  1. Fourteen Dan Duryea movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 25.45% of his movies listed. The Valley of Decision (1945) was his biggest box office hit.
  2. An average Dan Duryea movie grossed $72.10 million in adjusted domestic box office gross.
  3. That translates to a career adjusted box office of $3.96 billion.
  4. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  37 Dan Duryea movies are rated as good movies…or 67.27% of his movies.  Scarlet Street (1945) is his highest rated movie while Platinum High School (1960) is his lowest rated movie.
  5. Nine Dan Duryea movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 16.36% of his movies.
  6. Two Dan Duryea movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 3.63% of his movies.
  7. A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 60.00. 24 Dan Duryea movies scored higher that average….or 43.63% of his movies.  Pride of the Yankees (1945) got the the highest UMR Score while Platinum High School (1960) got the lowest UMR Score.
Dan Duryea in 1949’s Criss Cross

Possibly Interesting About Dan Duryea

1.  Dan Duryea was born and raised in White Plains, New York.

2.  Dan Duryea attended and graduated Cornell University.  After graduating he worked in advertising.  His career in advertising caused so much stress, that while still in his 20s…he suffered a heart attack.

3.  After his heart attack, Dan Duryea decided to leave advertising and began a acting career.

4.  Following some summer stock experience, Dan Duryea made his Broadway debut in a bit part in the Depression-era play “Dead End” in 1935. He progressed to the leading role of Gimpy later in the show’s year-long run and never looked back.

5. Dan Duryea’s first credited role was in Bette Davis’ The Little Foxes (1941) .

6. Dan Duryea appeared in two movies that received a Best Picture Oscar® nomination:  1941’s The Little Foxes and 1942’s The Pride of the Yankees.

7.  Dan Duryea was married one time and had two children.  His marriage to Helen Bryan was from 1932 to her death in 1967.

8.  1951’s Chicago Calling was Dan Duryea’s favorite movie that he appeared in during his career.

9.  Dan Duryea appeared in 4 movies with James Stewart, 3 movies with Gary Cooper and was directed by Fritz Lang three times.

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

You Tube’s Top Ten Charts Dan Duryea You Tube Video

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40 thoughts on “Dan Duryea Movies”

  1. It has been some time since WH beat you to the punch with a new subject but you will see that he gave us this Duryea page over a year ago and that he and I had a series of, for me at any rate, enjoyable exchanges at the time. Your video now well-complements Bruce’s page.
    Of course as the saying goes “No show without Punch!” and WH opened the contributors’ comments with an extract from The Master’s 1983 Book of Terror. For easy reference I have copied it from the bottom of the pile [where it possibly more rightly belongs!] so here it is. I look forward to commenting tomorrow on your video.

    THE MASTER Dan Duryea was one of Hollywood’s most engaging bad guys. David Thompson once wrote, “In striped suit, bow-tie and straw hat, the Duryea of Scarlet Street is a delicious villain. A sly man, creeps on malice as if it were a cat to catch”.Rating the Movie Stars by Joel H. – 4 star Duryea performances

    1941 The Little Foxes
    1941 Ball of Fire
    1944 The Woman in the Window
    1944 None But The Lonely Heart
    1945 Along Came Jones
    1945 Scarlet Street
    1945 Lady on a Train
    1948 Another Part of the Forest
    1949 Criss Cross
    1949 Manhandled
    1949 Too Late For Tears
    1949 Johnny Stool Pidgeon
    1950 One Way Street”

    ADDITIONAL TRIVIA FROM ME, BOB: Lady on a Train is of particular historical significance in my view because it stars my Deanna and is directed by Frenchman Charles Henri David who ultimately married Deanna and swept her away from us to live in permanent retirement at his farm near Paris in France, where they were together for the next half-century until his death aged 92 [precise dates of marriage 1950-1999] I thought he looked a bit like Woody Allen.

    Reply

  2. BRUCE
    WORK HORSE
    1 I should have mentioned in my previous Duryea posts that in the 1954 Silver Lode Dan plays a mureerous Marshal Fred McCarty who frames John Payne and creates a lynch-mob mentality against him amongst the townspeople.

    2 Apparently the name of that Duryea villain was a veiled reference to the infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy so that, depending on political viewpoints, that might have been considered by some as the baddest bad-guy that Dan ever undertook! .

    Reply

    1. Hey Bob….that is some good information on Silver Lode…..you might be right that might be “baddest bad-guy” Duryea ever played.

      Reply

  3. 1 I meant to say to you that I found your description of Duryea’s career in your post on 4 April post at 6.59 am to me very incisive. However it strikes me that I should maybe emphasise that when I recall my own impressions of films and actors in the 1950s I am often recounting those of first a small boy and then a teenager.

    2 My pals and I back then would not have seen the movie world in the way that you and I do today as adults. You know the old quote “When I became a man I put away childish things.” Heck that New Kid on the Block who was creating a “buzz” by “blowing minds” of the adults in dry goods stuff like Streetcar and Julius Caesar did not interest us whatsoever in the early 50s!

    3 Hence in those “cowboys and Indians” days we probably had no interest in the great majority of films that Duryea mostly appeared in during his heyday of the 1940s such as The Little Foxes, Ball of Fire and None but the Lonely Heart [and of course any time I watched Lady on a Train I had eyes for only you know whom!] but we were enthralled by the 1950s sneering villain Duryea in Winchester 73, Ride Clear of Diablo with Murphy, Night Passage, The Marauders, and the 1954 Silver Lode and Rails into Laramie both with John Payne. I also enjoyed Dan as Stewart’s contrary [and for once!] good-guy sidekick “Gambi” in the 1953 oil wells drama Thunder Bay. and I find your little coloured miniature above of the pair from that movie pleasing on the eye

    4 When the 1960s dawned we started to realise that as you point out today Dan was unfortunately becoming a back number as were hero Audie and other B western figures of the 1950s and indeed probably the last B western movie of the old kind that I enjoyed was the 1962 Murphy/Duryea Six Black Horses.

    5 Anyway great chatting with you about these matters of bygone times–and does this post count in my views ongoing tally as I am writing under “Bob Roy”?!

    Reply

    1. Hey Bob…..a very enjoyable comment to read. Good to know the angle the movie memories are coming from. Thunder Bay is a western hidden in a oil well movie. Your positive thoughts on Six Black Horses makes me want to go back and see if I can dig up anything with regards to box office…so that movie can be included on the page. Bob Roy has about 54 comments…..so it counts to that total…I will have to go back and merge all the Bob Roy, Robert Roy, and Robert Roy., comments…..plus Bob To Steve has many comments….in the end….you are probably right behind Steve….and he had a few years head start. Good feedback as always.

      Reply

  4. Dan Duryea could be so horrible! He excelled in parts that made you hate him with a vengeance. My favorite Duryea movie is The Little Foxes…although this has also something to do with his fellow actors in that film and the universal theme of the story about greed and man’s weakness. Other favs include the films for Fritz Lang, the great comedy Ball of Fire, the Cornell Woolrich based Black Angel, Deanna Durbin’s Lady on a Train and None but the lonely Heart with the landlord’s favorite actor. His performance in This is my Love made me cringe…and I am still unsure wether he just performed badly or if his performance made the unlikeable character so believable that I can’t differenciate between actor and part…

    Reply

    1. Hey Lupino.
      1. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Dan Duryea.
      2. Interesting that your favorite Duryea movie is his very first one….but I agree he is very good in that one….and it probably is the reason why his career went the way it did.
      3. I watched Woman in the Window years ago….but just saw Scarlet Street for the first time a few days ago….both are very good movies.
      4. I have not seen Black Angel or Lady on a Train…..but I really like Ball of Fire…..as for None But The Lonely Heart….glad Grant got a nomination for that one…..but it is not one of my favorite Grant movies…..I watch it about every 10 years to see if I like it…..that has not happened yet.
      5. The poster of This is My Love is cringe worthy….or at least the one I saw.
      Good feedback as always.

      Reply

  5. Good day o Dark God. I hope W o C let you have some of her birthday cake. I agree with you about her being more important yesterday than the actors we mentioned. Indeed it’s a pity we couldn’t have given your Goddess some grosses so that she could knock Myrna off the top spot – if just for the day!

    1. Duryea was one of the great supporting villains of my youth and his stock in trade was, certainly in westerns, sneering villains or falsely-jocular ones whose apparent sense of humour at times cloaked an icy killer. As well as supporting Stewart and Cooper on several occasions he was in 3 movies with Murphy, one of them, 1957’s Night Passage, starring both my Jimmy and Audie

    2. Dan’s final outing with Murphy was the 1962 Six Black Horses [not listed here or on Audie’s page]. It was so called because Dan’s character had a deep-seated wish for six black horses to draw his hearse when he died, which I think they do at the end. Anyway for once the title was about Dan’s character and not the leading actor hero though Dan himself did have the lead and title role in the 1951 Al Jennings of Oklahoma, which you HAVE listed

    3. In real life Dan’s son was apparently being disciplined at a boarding school so the boy wrote and complained to Dan about being mistreated and Duryea immediately travelled to the school for a confrontation but when the headmaster explained that young Duryea had been guilty of clear acts of indiscipline Dan promptly told the Head to persist with the disciplinary action. I was lectured with that story by my own dad every time I misbehaved!

    4. As you will have guessed my Liege this new page is in my opinion an excellent choice for an addition to the Cogerson catalogue so not just a Steve “Vote UP” but HIGH up. One of the most entertaining screen villains I’ve seen in westerns is Duryea’s Waco Johnny Dean in 1950s Winchester 73 with Stewart [I hardly noticed Young Bull!]. It was the first time I encountered Dan – ah the world was young then Bruce.

    Reply

    1. Hey Bob
      1. DoC2 (Daughter of Cogerson #2) at the age of 11….made a beautiful birthday cake for her mom…..not sure where this talented young lady came from.
      2. Glad you like this Duryea page…..he is one of 410 actors listed in someone’s book….often I go through that book and see who does not have an UMR page….after watching Scarlet Street on Monday night…….he moved to the top of the pile…and now has a UMR page.
      3. I liked Night Passage…..Murphy is very good in that one.
      4. You are right….Duryea very rarely got the Top Billed spot…but I really want to see his Chicago Calling.
      5. His 1940s career was stellar…..his 1950s career was struggling….but the wheels came off in the 1960s…..most were barely seen in movie theaters.
      6. Yep….struck out again with Six Black Horses…… I do know it did not make much at the box office…my confidence in many of the movies listed for the late 1950s and 1960s is not too high…as books on Duryea were used…and they are my least favorite source.
      7. Good story about Duryea’s son….and your father’s approach…..sounds like a good one to me.
      8. The world was indeed young.
      Good feedback as always.

      Reply

      1. 1 BRUCE Yes many people like me who admire your talented wife will be wondering how you can be lucky enough to get a talented daughter as well. Obviously I don’t have the answer but I’ll throw this one open purely for consideration – Is there any chance that somewhere along the line the Cogerson family tree became entwined with for example the Loy one?

        2 Even in his heyday Murphy’s westerns in which he was THE star weren’t – all but a few – big grossers and by the time of Six Black Horses he was past his best times. His films like many other B westerns were made for different markets than those that exist today and the idea back then was a production line that mass-produced cheap movies to feed the multitude of small cinemas that certainly in the Belfast of the 50s existed at virtually every street corner.

        3 Although not in my Top 10 very favourite actors Audie nevertheless was and is one of my favorite cowboy stars but your Murphy table shows that his 10 highest grossing stand-alone westerns had a total adjusted domestic gross of just $650 million [average $65 million] whereas for example Godpop by itself starring of course a TOP TEN idol of mine has a Cogerson adjusted US gross of $705 million.

        4 Those figures illustrate the huge gap between B list guys like Audie and the A listers like for example others among my own top idols such as The Duke and Jimmy Stewart. Your tables show that 18 of Jimmy’s westerns made between 1950 and 1970 had a staggering total adjusted US gross of $2.2 billion [average $122 million].

        5 I always knew of course that the likes of Wayne &Stewart were bigger stars that the B list boys like Murphy, John Payne and my Rory and there was a gap i what their respective films earned but until you came along I wasn’t aware of the extent of it so I am indebted to you for the information

        Reply

        1. Thanks for the breakdown on Murphy’s movies…as well on Stewart…..and the B western stars…as for my daughter….not sure Myrna Cogerson family tree has any Loys….lol. Good feedback.

          Reply

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