Want to know the best Joel Hirschhorn movies? How about the worst Joel Hirschhorn movies? Curious about Joel Hirschhorn box office grosses or which Joel Hirschhorn movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Joel Hirschhorn 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.
Joel Hirschhorn (1937-2005) was a two-time Oscar® winning American singer, composer and writer. Hirschhorn’s songs sold more than 90 million records. Various artists including Elvis Presley, recorded his songs…and Hollywood is still using his work in current movies. His IMDb page shows over 80 credits from 1966-2017. This page will rank Joel Hirschhorn movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.
Drivel Part 1: Why a Joel Hirschhorn UMR page? Well….his book….Rating the Movie Stars…is one of the most influential books on this website. Published in 1983, it is a book I have been referencing for almost 40 years. In that book, Hirschhorn, rated every movie that a movie star appeared in during their career. Sometime in 2010, for the millionth time I was looking at his book when I wondered; had he updated his ratings lately? A quick internet check provided the sad news that Mr. Hirchhorn had passed away in 2005. About a month later, I thought I could update the ratings….tunrs out those were the first baby steps of UMR.
Drivel Part 2: This page is from a request from Bob. Bob has been requesting a Joel Hirschhorn page for almost 2 years now. Constantly filling up our request page…with Hirschhorn requests….day after day. Well Bob….finally your Hirsch page is here….hope it was worth the wait…lol.
Joel Hirschhorn Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Joel Hirschhorn 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 Joel Hirschhorn movies by co-stars of his movies.
- Sort Joel Hirschhorn movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Joel Hirschhorn movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Joel Hirschhorn 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 Joel Hirschhorn movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Joel Hirschhorn movie won.
- Sort Joel Hirschhorn 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 Joel Hirschhorn Table
- Five Joel Hirschhorn movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 22.72% of his movies listed. The Towering Inferno (1974) was his biggest box office hit when looking at adjusted domestic box office gross.
- An average Joel Hirschhorn movie grosses $91.20 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 14 Joel Hirschhorn movies are rated as good movies…or 46.80% of his movies. The Ice Storm (1997) is his highest rated movie while The Fat Spy (1969) was his lowest rated movie.
- Three Joel Hirschhorn movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 13.63% of his movies.
- Two Joel Hirschhorn movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 9.09% of his movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 8 Joel Hirschhorn movies scored higher than that average….or 36.36% of his movies. The Towering Inferno (1974) got the the highest UMR Score while The Fat Spy (1969) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Joel Hirschhorn
1. Joel Hirschhorn was born in Bronx, New York in 1937.
2. After graduating from Manhattan’s High School of Performing Arts, he became a regular performer on New York’s nightclub circuit, both as a solo singer and as a member of the rock & roll band, The Highlighters.
3. During the mid-1960s, Hirschhorn branched out into writing film soundtracks. The results were horrible. 1969’s The Fat Spy is considered to be one of the worst movies ever made.
4. Joel Hirschhorn’s The Fat Spy (1969) is the 11th worst movie in our UMR 36,000 plus movie database.
5. Joel Hirschhorn worked with songwriting partner Al Kasha from the 1960s until the late 1990s.
6. Joel Hirschhorn (and Al Kasha) were nominated for four Oscars® and four Golden Globes®. They won Oscars® for 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure and 1974’s The Towering Inferno. They received two Oscar® nominations for 1977’s Pete’s Dragon.
7. Joel Hirschhorn and Al Kasha also worked together on Broadway musicals, receiving Tony Award® for Best Original Score nominations for both Copperfield and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
8. Joel Hirschhorn the book author. Besides his book RatingThe Movie Stars, Hirschhorn also wrote 2001’s The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Songwriting.
9. *Joel Hirschhorn’s Bette Davis story: “Star quality is difficult to define, but my personal definition was formed after a lunch with Bette Davis. At the time (1972), Davis was to appear in the musical “Copperfield,” which I had co-written with Al Kasha. Al and I went to the Bel Air Hotel to play the score for her. She was a petite, almost delicated woman, but there was nothing timid about her direct gaze, and authoritative speaking voice. We need a piano and the empty dining room didn’t have one, so she told a work-man, “We must have a piano immediately.” She wasn’t rude, but her firmness brooked no argument. The piano materialized in seconds. She applauded after we performed the songs, and I modestly ventured that “We had a lot of help from Dickens.” She responded, “Yes, but look what you did with him!” Her conviction made me feel we were on par with Dickens, that he was lucky to have us as collaborators! She had wit, intelligence, force, charm, vulerability – but most of all, a highly charge belief in herself, in her ability to dominate. The performer who has this belief and this assured, takeover quality can make film vehicles timeless.”
10. Check out Joel Hirschhorn’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.
*Bette Davis story comes from Hirschhorn’s Rating The Movie Stars book.
Joel shows up at about 45 seconds.
By the way I forgot to say that in our exchanges about Russell Crowe’s antics we perhaps shouldn’t have judged him too harshly because The Master implies in his profile of Richard Harris that these hellraising louts NEED to practice their nasty and pugilistic activities as that gives them an excellent artistic springboard for their screen performances.
Joel suggested that in the “pugnacious” Harris’ case starting rows, annoying harmless people, bullying others and in general making a thorough drunken nuisance of himself brought to Richard’ acting a ”rugged, pugnacious quality”——“adding drive to his performances.”
Ironically, as we know that seemingly unashamed idolater of someone who in reality seems to have been a ‘nasty piece of work’ made a savage personal attack on Mr Mumbles for, among other things, having the gall to retire temporary from acting to enjoy the money he made from it – after a mere 36 years [1944-1980 – Wiki now cites his years active as 1944-2004] on stage and screen!
Indeed, seemingly driven by some strange gigantic prejudice against The King of Method Acting and apparently unable to ever pass up an opportunity to make an example of the poor ole Mumbler, Hirsh gets on with the good work in the Harris write-up by observing “Harris BULLED [my capitals] his way brilliantly though This Sporting life”—and he “overshadowed Marlon Brando’s prissy Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty.” [What nonsense!]
When I see how the Joels of this world condone, rationalise, support, admire -call it what you like – ‘‘colourful’’ behaviour from some of the rich and famous “characters” among celebs that wouldn’t be tolerated from the man in the street, I never cease to marvel at that wonderfully astute observation of human behaviour that is illustrated in Luke 23:18 and John 18:40 of the Bible when Pilate hopes that the street mob will let him off the hook by asking that Jesus be freed, but “a mighty roar rose from the crowd, and with one voice they shouted, ‘Kill him, and release Barabbas to us!’ Now Barabbas was a robber and had taken part in an uprising.”
And indeed Barabbas Crowe is credited by IMDB with 36 acting awards and 75 noms and has a reported net worth of $95 million. However Russell could well argue (1) he needs that big financial cushion to stay out of jail by paying off people to whom he causes bodily harm (2) as I have said, Russell claims that HE was Mr Mumbles’ favourite actor so it follows Mr M must have been on the side of Russell and Hirsch on the hellraiser issue. So it’s OK to at times manhandle and cause bodily harm to “little” people who have no power and maybe not the physical strength to retaliate-
Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone
Their glowing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,
[Thomas Gray, from his 1750 Elegy]
Joel Hirschhorn Rating The Movie Stars Subjects That Do Not Have An UMR Page. He has 410 stars listed…I have pages on 278 of the stars….that leaves 132 to go….or 32.19% to go.
Alexander, Jane
Anderson, Judith
Arden, Eve
Asner, Ed
Astor, Mary
Attenborough, Richard
Autry, Gene
Avalon, Frankie
Ayres, Lew
Balsam, Martin
Bankhead, Tallulah
Bardot, Brigitte
Barrymore, Ethel
Bates, Alan
Beatles
Bel Geddes, Barbara
Belmondo, Jean-Paul
Bendix, William
Benjamin, Richard
Benny, Jack
Benson, Robbie
Bickford, Charles
Black, Karen
Bogarde, Dirk
Boone, Pat
Boyle, Peter
Brennan, Eileen
Bridges, Lloyd
Bujold, Genevieve
Burnett, Carol
Burns, George
Burr, Raymond
Burstyn, Ellen
Busey, Gary
Cannon, Dyan
Carney, Art
Carradine, David
Carradine, John
Carrol, Leo G.
Carroll, Madeline
Cassavettes, John
Chamberlain, Richard
Christie, Julie
Clive, Colin
Constantine, Eddie
Cook Jr, Elisha
Crawford, Broderick
Crenna, Richard
De Carlo, Yvonne
Delon, Alain
Deneuve, Catherine
Dennis, Sandy
Depardieu, Gerard
Dickinson, Angie
Dillon, Matt
Donahue, Troy
Donat, Robert
Duvall, Shelley
Farmer, Frances
Farrow, Mia
Faye, Alice
Ferrer, Jose
Ferrer, Mel
Fields, W.C.
Finch, Peter
Fonda, Peter
Gabor, Eva
Garrett, Betty
Gaynor, Janet
Gazzara, Ben
Gielgud, John
Gordon, Ruth
Gossett, Jr., Lou
Gould, Elliott
Granger, Farley
Harris, Richard
Harvey, Laurence
Hayden, Sterling
Hiller, Wendy
Hopper, Dennis
Houseman, John
Howard, Trevor
Hunter, Jeffrey
Hutton, Timothy
Huston, Walter
Ives, Burl
Jackson, Glenda
Jagger, Dean
Johnson, Ben
Jones, James Earl
Jourdan, Louis
Kinski, Nastassia
Kristofferson, Kris
Lawford, Peter
Leachman, Cloris
Lugosi, Bela
McCambridge, Mercedes
McDowall, Malcolm
MacGraw, Ali
McNichol, Kristy
Magnani, Anna
Marshall, Herbert
Mason, Marsha
Merman, Ethel
Miller, Ann
Mills, John
Montez, Maria
Monty Python
Moore, Mary Tyler
Morley, Robert
Morrow, Vic
Mostel, Zero
O’Brien, Edmond
O’Neal, Tatum
Peppard, George
Raft, George
Rathbone, Basil
Ray, Aldo
Redgrave, Michael
Redgrave, Vanessa
Reed, Oliver
Richardson, Ralph
Ross, Katharine
Rowlands, Gena
Seberg, Jean
Snodgress, Carrie
Torn, Rip
Trevor, Claire
Weissmuller, Johnny
Welch, Raquel
Weld, Tuesday
Williams, Billy Dee
Just added the 2006 Oscar Memoriam to this page. Joel gets his shout out at about the 43 second mark.
Always sad watching the In Memoriam part of the Oscars. I don’t think 2018 was as terrible as previous years for celebrity deaths, but we did lose Burt….
Joel has always been a foremost critic of the failings of others in matters such as Wayne’s acting and Brando’s “greed” for money.
It’s just a pity then that Joel didn’t set an example himself by for example finding a worthy cause to support and then turning down the Oscar in protest about how his cause wasn’t receiving enough attention.
Hey Steve
1. A few weeks ago I realized that my Joel book….which is covered in duct tape and still falling apart was nearing the end.
2. Joel Book 1 and Joel Book 2 got thrown away when they reached this level of dilapidation…but knowing how much Bob would enjoy this book…I instead wrapped up Joel Book 3 in Christmas paper and sent it to Ireland.
3. I should have torn out the Wayne and Brando pages…maybe if I had done that …Bob would give the book a chance….lol.
Winston-Salem North Carolina . My passenger time is almost up.
HI BRUCE Actually The Master didn’t attack The Duke as a person in the way that Hirsch seemed to me to do with Brando and in fact Big John got praise in the book for his courage in fighting illness. Also
1/Joel was kinder, at least in his ratings, to some performances of Marlon’s than were many other critics. For example he gave 3 stars [which in my book is “respectable”] to Ugly American, The Nightcomers and Reflections in a Golden Eye. The big surprises were just 2 stars for Guys and Dolls – “C’mon man! You cannot be serious!” [John McEnroe]- and The Young Lions which Sir Anthony Hopkins publicly hailed as one of THE 1950s iconic performances
2/you mentioned that Joel saw Bud as “a bad actor” [your precise words] whereas Hirsch seems to imply lack of consistent application was Marlon’s problem “he can veer wildly from brilliance to staggering mediocrity.” I would not completely quarrel with that which in fact broadly reflects Jack Lemmon’s opinion except that Jack added “But when Brando touches the heights you know that nobody else can match that performance.” Hank Fonda implied something similar “The best actor of all time is Bud – when he wants to be!”
So when he stuck to reasoned critical analysis instead of indulging in petty sarcasm and in relation to longevity seemingly demanding standards from Brando that other actors were being excused [even if Marlon had permanent retired in 1981 his screen career would have been just 4 years shorter than Cary’s and you know how much I admire Archie’s great career] Joel was a bit more balanced about the Duke and ole Mumbles than I interpreted from what you said. All of which goes to show that you need to get things “straight from the horse’s mouth” as the saying goes whereas I got them from just the Horse’s mouth if you get my distinction!!