Dana Andrews Movies

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

Dana Andrews (1909-1992) was an American actor whose career lasted almost 50 years.  Andrews was one of the biggest stars in the 1940s….appearing in 18 $100 million (adjusted gross) box office hits from 1940 to 1949.  His IMDb page shows 104 acting credits from 1940-1984. This page will rank Dana Andrews movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos and movies that were not released in theaters were not included in the rankings.

Drivel part of the page:  We have been getting requests for a Dana Andrews page for years now.  The length of his career and the many low budget movies pretty much scared us away….but….we finally a Dana Andrews UMR page.  Sorry for the delay:  SteinHOF, Hinton66, Flora, Bob, Pierre, Lyle and anybody else that has made this request over the last three or four years.

Dana Andrews in 1946’s The Best Years Of Our Lives

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

Dana Andrews 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 Dana Andrews movies by co-stars of his movies.
  • Sort Dana Andrews movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Dana Andrews movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Dana Andrews 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 Dana Andrews movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Dana Andrews movie won.
  • Sort Dana Andrews 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.
Dana Andrews in 1944’s Laura

Ten Possibly Interesting Facts About Dana Andrews

1. Carver Dana Andrews was born near Collins, Mississippi in 1909.

2. Dana Andrews worked at a gas station near Los Angeles while waiting for his big show business break.  In 1940 after 9 years he appeared in his first movie.  He appeared in 4 movies that with Gary Cooper’s The Westerner being the most famous.

3. Dana Andrews was a trained opera singer.  He rarely got to use his singing voice on screen. It can be heard in 1943’s The North Star….but he is dubbed in his 1945 musical State Fair.

3. Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney appeared in 5 movies together.  Their 5 movies grossed over $635 million in adjusted domestic box office…..that included 4 movies that crossed the $100 million gross mark.  Their most famous together is 1944’s Laura.

4. Dana Andrews was never nominated for an Oscar® or a Golden Globe®….actually on IMDb.com…the only award listed is the Golden Apple Award for Most Cooperative Actor.  That seems a shame.

5. Dana Andrews career domestic adjusted box office is $5.82 billion.  From 1940 to 1949, Andrews appeared in 30 movies that grossed $3.94 billion or $132.52 million per movie.  From 1950 to 1980 he appeared in 39 movies that grossed $2.03 billion or $52.05 million per movie.

6. After not appearing in a movie in 1962, 1963 and 1964…Dana Andrews appeared in 8 movies in 1965.

7. Dana Andrews was married twice…..he had four children.

8. Dana Andrews was the older brother of actor Steve “Mommie Dearest” Forrest.  Dana was 16 years older than Steve.  Steve and Dana appeared together in one film….1951’s Sealed Cargo.

9. Dana Andrews was president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) from 1963-65.

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

And finally…..we have adjusted Worldwide Box Office Grosses on 9 Dana Andrews Movies

  1. Ball of Fire (1941) $256.30 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  2. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) $859.60 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  3. Canyon Passage (1946) $266.80 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  4. Edge Of Doom (1950) $58.40 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  5. Night Song (1947) $96.60 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  6. No Minor Vices (1948) $35.60 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  7. The North Star (1943) $244.10 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  8. Sealed Cargo (1951) $57.70 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  9. Strange Lady In Town (1955) $121.60 million in adjusted worldwide gross

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

Editor’s note:  Calculating adjusted is not an exact science.  Most of our calculations are based on solid sources that we have collected over the years.  In this page we have some great sources for almost all of Dana Andrews’ movies from 1940 to about 1954. After 1955…our sources get a little shaky on some of his movies…as we had to use biographies, movie books, articles and other sources that do not provide the best statistics.   So please keep that in mind when you are looking at the grosses of some of his low budget B movies.

(Visited 5,032 times)

60 thoughts on “Dana Andrews Movies”

  1. STEVE
    1 I see from a post of Flora’s that she prefers to use the U Tube site for comments on your videos and I am sure that you welcome them because you naturally like feed-back and hers are always incisive and I am confident too that she will have been as conscientious as I was in drawing to your attention in her U Tube comments that you had excluded Ox Bow Incident.

    2 However I prefer to use the COGERSON site for my comments on your videos as I wish to link those comments to my ones about matters on Bruce’s site and obviously using just the one site avoids duplication and potential mistakes. You sought Bruce’s approval for you and I to work our current arrangement and he helpfully allows us to proceed as we are doing for which I am most grateful.

    Reply

    1. Bob, I don’t mind where you post your reviews and observations but I do prefer to see them here on the UMR because you make interesting comparisons with Bruce’s charts, sometimes favoring his rankings sometimes mine. And I hope Bruce’s regulars enjoy reading our sometimes humorous chit-chats. The same goes for John.

      Ultimately this is Bruce’s movie site and we’re just guests, if he tells us to cut down on the film gossip, we have to oblige.

      Flora probably feels that she has already commented on all of these actors on Bruce’s pages and posted her tally too, so she uses my channel to post brief comments on my videos and point out which films were her favorites. Bruce posts comments on my channel too.

      Reply

      1. HI STEVE

        I agree with everything you say and my concern was to emphasise to viewers who may not have been aware of the background to matters that I was in no way being discourteous to your site by confining my posts to the Cogerson site and that the latter was an arrangement to
        which you, Bruce and I had agreed. Best wishes.

        Reply

      2. Steve is absolutely right. I have already commented on these actors on Bruce’s site with my tallies as well. I enjoy commenting in the same way on Steve’s videos.

        As for The Ox Bow Incident, I noticed it wasn’t included, but I thought that maybe Steve thought the role wasn’t big enough. It happens to be in the top 10 of my faavourite films from 1943.

        Reply

        1. STEVE:

          1 What Flora says does of course make absolute sense in her case because she has for years been a valuable direct contributor to this site and indeed I can remember regularly enjoying some of her comments even before I started to contribute which has been within just the past year.

          2 You will recall though that I explained to you that I was keen to comment on your videos not just because I love posters*** stills and ratings but your profiles of stars along with Bruce’s updates allowed me to belatedly make comments in a lot of cases where I had missed out in the Cogerson early years. So thanks again.

          ***One can’t see every movie so sight of the posters has enabled me to wind up John about billing a lot more than otherwise would have been the case and I wouldn’t have missed that for the world!

          Reply

  2. 1 HI STEVE. We talked recently about the possible bogus friendship between Burt and Kirk but the friendship between Lancaster and Dana Andrews was real and lasting. However it was never talked about to my knowledge back in their heyday and I personally found out about it only in the last few years.

    2 The standard of art work in this video was fairly even in excellence throughout so it’s just a personal choice when I highlight Forbidden Street, Zero Hour, I Want You, While the City Sleeps Three Hours to Kill and especially Night/Curse of the Demon. While the City Sleeps is one of my cherished Dana Andrews flicks and if one looks closely at the magnificent poster for it Rhonda in one of her saucier poses can be spotted and I think that that alone almost justifies my 9.4/10 opinion of this video !! Your posters for the 1947 Daisy Kenyon illustrate how highly thought of Dan was at that time because he gets billed above Fonda though of course NOBODY was going to get billed before JOAN!! Excellent still of Dana and Liz Taylor in 1954’s Elephant Walk one of his rare supposedly high prestige movies at that time [though WH and you didn’t think much of it], with Liz in the role originally meant for Vivien Leigh and tho the one from The Purple Heart had a lovely colour tint to it that might well excite John.

    3 You and WH agree on 3 of the Top 5 but he’s not too far behind you in his ratings for your 2 that he didn’t include in his own 5. I was oblivious to box office grosses in the 50/60s and there probably weren’t many published but I had the instinct to realise that when Dana appeared in A C Lyles’ Town Tamer (1965) the game was just about up for his career. You did well to exclude it. WH gives it a critic/audience rating of just 56% and you will also see above that its box office was abysmal amounting to an adjusted $20.2 million but likely that was enough to make Lyles a profit because of its low cost of probably under $2 million in today’s money.

    Reply

    1. Hi Bob, thanks for the review, rating, observation and trivia, much appreciated.

      Glad you liked the stills and posters. I was just replying to Flora’s comment on the video page, she’s a fan of Andrews and has seen 18 of the 30 on the video, I’ve seen 12.

      My big favorite here is Night of the Demon aka Curse of the Demon in the US. I’ve watched it many times since my first viewing on TV in the 70s on the BBC or ITV. I bought it on DVD about 10 years ago, the DVD contained both versions, the US version is a few minutes shorter.

      I had The Westerner and Ox Bow Incident lined up for inclusion but in the end I left them out to concentrate on his bigger roles, though I did include Ball of Fire where he had a small but important role as the head villain of the film. He had a small role in In Harm’s Way too but I liked the poster, a personal choice. 🙂

      I see Bruce has Laura at no.3 on both the critics and UMR chart, I would say that was Dana Andrews most iconic movie and reached no.1 on my video without any help from me. Looking at my datafiles only 3 films from the 49 films I had listed for Andrews scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – Laura, Best Years of Our Lives and The Ox Bow Incident.

      Reply

      1. HI STEVE
        1 I appreciate your additional comments. I agree Laura is the definitive Andrews movie and although Gene has the title role and top billing for me that would not have been the same movie without Dana and his almost trademark laconic phrases. I saw Laura in just TV reruns in the 1950s and although Dana’s film noirs of that decade like While the City Sleeps and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt whilst good were not of the Laura quality it was those films that I spent a lot of hours in actual cinemas watching so they have a more nostalgic hold on me. I simply loved getting the bus into Belfast on a night to watch the latest Dana Andrews movie.

        2 I have said before on this site that I never warmed to Best Years of Our Lives though I enjoyed the romance between Dana and Teresa Wright and I was never able to form a proper opinion of Ox Bow Incident. That is because on the one occasion on which I saw that movie it had been cut to 45 mins down from its original length of around 75 mins. In the mid 1950s some Belfast cinemas had the habit of editing down the length of 1940s classics and other popular films of moderate running time and placing them as second features on double bills. They still made sense but it was a bit like watching the highlights of a football match so that one was not quite able to get the flavour of the likes of Ox Bow Incident as a true classic. However you and the Work Horse are reliable guides in my opinion so I accept the ratings you both have awarded that movie.

        Reply

      2. HELLO AGAIN STEVE

        1 Further to the 2nd paragraph of my previous post, on looking over my notes on your Andrews video I can’t find any reference to Ox Bow Incident so possibly I forgot to jot it down as I was going along. Certainly WH for critic/audience ranks it 4th with an 85% rating and I got the impression from your own comments in your reply to me that you rated it highly so as I will not have the opportunity of a 2nd viewing of the Andrews video until tomorrow.can you clarify matters?

        2 I meant to say also that I saw in your poster for The Purple Heart Donald Barry receiving equal billing to the other stars and I had actually expected to see him included in your earlier cowboy series of videos. He was a protege of the Duke and Mickey Rooney who saw him as another Cagney because he was small and had craggy features. However despite his diminutive stature he had a giant ego that he gave such vent to that his directors and co stars hated him with one director constantly referring to him derisorily as The Midget.
        Women seemingly liked him though and when he played a supporting role in Susan Hayward’s I’ll Cry Tomorrow she reportedly gatecrashed his bedroom and in enormous jealous rage started throwing things about when she found one of the starlets there with him. He committed suicide allegedly over a woman. Despite Wayne and Rooney’s vision of great things for him his consigned him to B movies but he became on of the most prolific stars of the b Movie cowboys era under the name of Don Red Barry.

        Reply

        1. Hello Bob, The Ox Bow Incident was on my master list but I didn’t include it at the last second. Dana Andrews plays one of the three men that are suspected of cattle rustling. In retrospect I probably should have included it. It’s score of 8.1 would have placed it in 3rd position. The poster for that film has already been hopefully uploaded on to my Henry Fonda video and maybe my Anthony Quinn video too.

          When it’s a large filmography and there are some striking posters to display I have to balance which films should rightfully be included and which films I can get away with leaving out, hoping no one will notice their omission. I try to include as many top billed roles for the subject as I can, especially their highest rated top billed movies. Let’s see if anyone complains about Ox Bow…. 😉

          Reply

          1. HI STEVE – Not complaining but just wanted your further guidance in the matter for which i thank you. BOB

      3. Steve

        Just watched your Dana Andrews video. What really jumped out at me was the Ox-Bow Incident not being on it. In The Westerner he just had a small role, but his role in the Ox-Bow Incident was big and important as the leader of the three men who were lynched. I certainly think of him second only to Henry Fonda when I think of that movie. So I find it an odd omission. I think it should have been in his top three.
        Your top two are interesting. They would be my top two but in reverse order. I would put The Best Years of Our Lives in the first position. Laura is a great murder story, but Best Years touched a lot of nerves about the lives of average folk back then. The people at the time felt it spoke to them realistically about really important issues of the day. It being rated second to Laura in my judgment speaks less about the worthiness of the two movies than the limitations of the critics you relied on.
        I was happy to see Curse of the Demon getting a high rating. I think it the best ;horror film of the 1950’s.
        Anyway, thanks for an excellent video.

        Reply

        1. Hello again John, thanks for checking out my Dana Andrews video, much appreciated.

          Yes I felt a bit bad leaving Ox Bow out of there, should have left it in. It would have been in 3rd position. Luckily so far only you and Bob, noticed or know it’s missing out of over 100 views for that video, other people either just don’t care or ‘Trust in Steve’s choices’. 🙂

          Good to know there are more Curse of the Demon fans out there, is it the best horror movie of the 1950s? hmmm I’m a huge Hammer Horror fan and I just can’t put it above Hammer’s first Dracula movie, I can’t. I will agree it’s the best B/W horror film of the 1950s.

          Is Night of the Demon (it’s British title) my all time favorite B/W horror movie? Difficult again, I also adore James Whale’s Frankenstein + Bride of Frankenstein and Edgar Ulmer’s The Black Cat. And than there’s Hitchcock’s psychological thriller Psycho which frightened the hell out of people in the 1960s, and IMO Hitchcock’s greatest masterpiece (sorry Vertigo fans).

          Reply

          1. I noticed The Ox-Bow Incident wasn’t in it, but I generally don’t talk about your videos here instead on Youtube video pages itself.

          2. Hi Flora, looking at the video comments, Bruce also noticed Ox Bow’s absence from that video. 4 people out of nearly 200 views isn’t too bad. Funny thing is I did make sure it was included in Anthony Quinn’s video and he had a smaller role in that film. It’s a strange old world. 🙂

          3. Steve

            You raise the interesting questions of the best b/w horror movies. Certainly I would agree with all those you list, but there are others. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and especially Nosferatu from the 1920’s. (the 1925 Phantom of the Opera has an all-time great monster but is not for me overall one of the best) Your trio from the 1930’s are top choices and have to be on any list of this sort, but for me the Fredric March Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Island of Lost Souls, and Mad Love deserve a mention. From the 1940’s The Wolf Man and The Body Snatcher as well as The Picture of Dorian Gray rate. From the 1950’s, I would mention The Thing from Another World. From the 1960’s, Black Sunday and Night of the Living Dead. There are a lot of them.

            *Horror of Dracula (the US title) 1958 is the best of the Hammers in my judgment. I can see your point. Night of the Demon is so different in approach that it probably depends on what you are looking for.

            **Psycho–well, for Hitch I would rate Rear Window and North by Northwest ahead of Vertigo. I would especially give Rear Window the edge on the basis of a credible plot. Something like that I believe could happen. Vertigo? Nah. Too far-fetched in my judgment to really be plausible. Psycho is great, of course, but I would go with the other two I listed as my favorite Hitch’s. Just a matter of taste.

            ***King Kong–certainly arguably better than any of the b/w horror films I mentioned, but I don’t consider it really a horror film. I think of it more as a fantasy adventure. Even as a kid, it never scared me. Thrilled me, yes. Scared me? No.

            ****If you are interested in classic horror, I would recommend the Classic Horror Film Board forums which have discussions of all these films as well as actors and directors.

          4. Hi John, I’ve visited that horror forum quite a few times over the years, mostly for the rare pictures they post. I own and have read several books on the Universal and Hammer horror classics and grew up reading Famous Monsters of Filmland and Cinefantastique, so let’s just say I knew exactly who Jack Pierce and Arthur Edeson were when I was a young teen watching Wacky Races on TV. 🙂

            You’ve mentioned my two other favorite Hitchcock movies – Rear Window and North by Northwest, together with Psycho they are my most watched films from Hitch.

            Rear Window is one of the very few films I’ve watched twice in one evening at home. At the cinema during the 70s I would sometimes go early and stay and watch the same film twice, I remember doing that with The Omega Man and Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon.

            How did I manage to segue from Hitchcock to Bruce Lee so quickly? [shakes head] 🙂

        2. Steve

          Hi. It appears off your comment on the Classic Horror Film Board that you were what that board calls a “monster kid.” So was I, but back then I had never heard of the term. Anyway, I wish you happy monster movies.

          Reply

          1. John, I drifted from horror to sci-fi during my teens and the latter eventually became my favorite genre, in fiction and movies. I was mesmerised by the futuristic stories of Asimov, Heinlein, Van Vogt and Clarke.

            Btw I wrote about Psycho and other Hitchcock movies at Hubpages.com, along with some of the Universal horrors too. I think I wrote over a hundred movie articles while I was there and that’s where I first met the chief, Cogerson. 🙂

    1. Hey Kevin….well this is a battle of two sources. You are right….in the Variety Top Grossing movies of 1948…published January 5th, 1949…sitting in 78th place is Night Song with a rental total of $1,700,000. However in my RKO ledgers it is listed as having …Cost of movie: $1,887,000 Domestic Rentals: $1,195,000 Overseas Rentals: $375,000 Total Rentals: $1,570,000 Overall Loss: $1,040,000 or -55%.

      While doing these numbers of the years…..I have come up with a pecking order……with the ledgers being the Best Source…..Variety as the Second Best source….sometimes I think the studio executives liked to report a higher number to Variety…..and in this case I think the worldwide rental number got reported for the Variety year end result.

      Wiki’s Night Song page….using both sources…as they use the rental number from Variety ….but the loss number from the ledger……in one of Dana Andrews’ books I have they talk briefly about how much money Night Song lost…..which makes the $1 million loss seem more connected to the lower rental number. In the end….nobody can be 100% sure….but I think the lower rental number is the way too go in this case. Thanks for keeping me on my toes. 🙂

      Reply

    1. Hey Kevin….good catch….not sure how The Purple Heart did not get to the table….as I found all the information….put it into my database…..just somehow….I did not attach the movie to Dana’s sub category…but with the help of your eagle eyes….that error has been found. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. It is now in the table…..and sits in the Top 20. Thanks again.

      Reply

  5. Hi

    I always thought Andrews should have been a bigger star than he was, he certainly had the talent. My favourite movie would be Laura. On paper the story seems very silly, a guy falling in love with a girl in a portrait. But the movie works very well with its wonderful soundtrack and great supporting cast. And of course The Best Years of your Life, which he didn’t even get a nomination for.
    Anyway, a great actor.

    Reply

    1. Thanks Chris. If he could have maintained his 1940s pace in the 1950s he would have become an all-time legend. Instead his years of B movies took a toll on his legacy. Maybe William Hurt is a modern day Dana Andrews…. great success early in his career and then decades of supporting roles. I bet my oldest son does not realize Hurt was a huge leading man. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Dana Andrews.

      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.