Stanley Kramer Movies

22 thoughts on “Stanley Kramer Movies”

1. IMDB credits Stan with 22 awards/37 noms awards which was good for times when formal accolades were not dished out as if they grew all the year round on a Hollywood back lot as seems to be the case today. Celebrity Net Worth puts his value at the time of his death in 2019 dollars at just under $30 million.

   I like the miniature still above with Stanley in the background looking for all the world as the aggressive Mike Hammer about to break up a den of thieves! “Voted Up”! Note Micky Spillane played the part of an author in an 1974 episode of Columbo [“Publish or Perish] in which he was murdered by a Columbo repetive guest murderer Jack Cassidy I though that Mickey too bore a resembalance to Kramer in terms of ruggedness and pugalisitic appearance.

   KRAMER FILMS THAT I HAVE SEEN -Producer and Director
   Not as a Stranger
   Pride and the Passion – awful!
   On the Beach – Astaire breaking into ‘acting’
   Inherit the Wind-like Fred Eugene tries his hand at acting
   Judgment at Nuremberg
   Ship of Joels – it did not impress the great David Shipman
   Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
   The Domino Principle
   The Runner Stumbles – a serious Dick Van Dyke but “A silly film” – Roger Ebert

   PRODUCER/ASSOCIATE PRODUCER ONLY
   The Men-good Brando debut but depressing and dated.
   Death of a Salesman -very- ‘dry goods’
   High Noon-one of my all-time fave westerns
   The Wild One: boring today.
   Caine Mutiny – my 2nd fave Kramer movie
   A Child is Waiting – Burt and Judy: an unusual teaming in a dramatic film
   Invitation to the Gunfighter-Stan uncredited
   The Moon and Sixpence- my own fave Kramer film
   Champion-makes Rocky look like kids pretending to be boxers. In my view matched by only Robert Ryan’s The Setup/Garfield’s Body and Soul/ and DeNiro/Scorsese’s Raging Bull

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   1. Hey Bob….I really enjoyed your mini-reviews on the ones you have seen. No thoughts on Not As A Stranger…..that is a movie that confuses me….such a great cast for a movie nobody seems to remember. I have not seen The Moon and Sixpence…..but seeing it is your favorite is interesting…I have also not seen Champion…..but I want to. Keep up the mini-reviews…fun to read. Good stuff.

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      1. HI BRUCE:

         Thanks for the further feedback. I remember Not as a Stranger well and it is one of my own fave Kramer and Mitchum movies.

         Sinatra although he got equal star billing after Olivia DeHavilland and Big Bob had a small role in it and disappeared half way through the film if I remember correctly.

         Regarding screen time it was Mitchum’s film. The author of the book Morton Thompson was very popular at the time.

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         1. Hey Bob. Thanks for the breakdown on not as a stranger. The more I hear and read about it, the more I think I need to see it. Good stuff.

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2. “CHANGING AMERICA: THE MOVIES [Newsweek article]

   By the end of the 1960s tastes in film too had rapidly been changing. For example with the real-life horrors of the Vietnam war unfolding nightly across a volatile America’s television screens, by comparison the Brando/Marvin kind of character that we saw in The Wild One looked tame rather than a “tearaway” national menace.

   And the War killed off in the sentiments of audiences for the comparatively bland image that the Cary Grant figure projected on the screen as that persona was no longer comforting when audiences could see on television the devastating effects that The War was having on family and other human relationships at home and abroad.

   Children fleeing in terror from exploding bombs made Grant’s placid world up there on the screen seem TOO unreal. John Wayne’s implication in The Green Berets that the Viet Cong shooting back at the Americans in A WAR SITUATION was IN ITSELF an illustration that the Cong were evil killers was very thin though the movie itself was popular because of Wayne’s still strong personal following.

   However in the seventies Wayne’s films started to do less well at the box office and 1971’s Patton, with all Patton’s flaws highlighted, suggested that the day of the screen’s super-heroic patriotic “John Wayne generals” had come to an end. Cary Grant may have already “got the message” ahead of time because he retired in the mid-1960s when he was still popular.

   Brando [younger than the other two of course] survived and although some film observers suggest that that was because he was perceived as the ‘pathfinder’ of modern American acting styles I feel that it was more to do with the very contemporary-world Godfather and the modern craving for erotic films like Last Tango in Paris saving his bacon; in the 60s his career had been going steadily down the tubes and in Hollywood where he had long been regarded by numerous people as an ‘interloper’ he had as many enemies as he had admirers.

   In short whilst changing tastes closed the era of the Old Hollywood of Grant and Wayne they probably kept afloat others like Brando and George C Scott for a while longer.”

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   1. Hey Bob…good thoughts on Wayne, Kramer and Brando. While I agree his The Wild One is somewhat dated…it is one of my favorite Brando roles. I agree about your changing tastes thoughts. Though not thinking Brando and Scott stayed afloat too much longer than Wayne. As always thanks for sharing these thoughts.

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      1. HI BRUCE: Thanks for the triple feedback. I think the longevity point was that whilst Brando’s run of big box office hits ended with Superman and Apocalypse Now in 1978 and 1979 the year in which The Duke died Marlon’s status and influence as a perceived ‘Great’ American acting icon kept him afloat for another 20 years during which he was offered big money for very little [Joel’s gripe!] and his final film in 2001 in which he was still getting star billing with important modern actors like DeNiro and Edwrd Norton crashed your magical 100 million dollar barrier.

         That contrasts with Marlon’s plight in the 1960s when it looked as if he was a complete gonner as a major star though even before Last Tango/Godpop Variety alone did predict he would survive because he was in their words “THE American actor” for many other people at that time.

         I have a theory which the remarkable come-backs of Sinatra in the 1950s and Brando in the early 1970s does support in my opinion: if you are a Great in Hollywood and hit bottom but rise to the top again you have a licence to simply “BE” without having to do much to maintain your renewed former status [a bit like the Gabors and all that untalented “famous for being famous” clique who survive on hype without producing anything artistically or at the box office].

         Guys like Hirsch don’t like it [he in Marlon’s case and I in respect of the Gabor types] but that’s showbusiness. As Jeffrey Jones as Emperor Joseph 2nd kept saying in Amadeus when courtiers kept coming to him with complaints about unfairmness in society “Well there it is!”; and he simply turned his back on them and walked away. He would have had little time for Joel’s complaints about Marlon when others like Archibald and Randy Scott were also rollin about in millions.

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         1. Hey Bob…save this comment. I agree with almost this entire comment. Even the part about Mr, Hirschhorn.

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3. I always thought that with his rugged and pugnacious appearance Stanley looked more like a traditional Hollywood screen tough guy than a director; and indeed it occurred to me that he might well have suited the role of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer [played on screen by for example Ralph Meeker in Kiss Me Deadly and Biff Elliot in I the Jury] so that in my own mind I would nickname Stan “Mike Kramer!” It has been said about Mickey’s Hammer “His love for his secretary Velda is outweighed only by his willingness to kill a killer.” Sound like Laddie’s type of guy!

   I Have seen 18 of the movies with which Stan is associated – see Part 3- as a director and/or producer. That’s again a bit behind Queen Flora’s 21; but it’s good for ME because when Stan was in his heyday I was more into escapism cowboys and Indians B flicks than the kind of strong meat [for those times] that Stanley fed us and indeed he was known as the “king of the message films”.

   However possibly Stan’s reputation as a “message promoter” has today dimmed a bit. For example contemporary critics/historians [who are maybe not as easily taken in by historical movie sentimentality as the likes of Joel Hirschhorn] have thought that although he was truly sympathetic on racial issues [as per The Defiant Ones] Stan’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner went too far in that it was actually patronizing towards the African American community and America’s working class. Often mentioned is the scene where Tracy doing his Great American Liberal act suggests that it is a marvel that a humble [black] postman should produce such a marvelous son as the Poitier character.

   It was in fact only in the 1970s that I caught up with Brando’s debut film The Men [aka Battle Stripe] on a TV rerun; and today it and Marlon’s Wild One seems very dated – and see in Part 2 what one historian writing in the late 1980s about “Changing America” opined in relation to movies –

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   1. Hey Bob. Thanks for the feedback on Stanley Kramer. Tally count: Flora 21, you 18 and me 12. You almost topped Flora…very impressive. I agree…he looks like a leading man versus a producer and a director. Maybe with all the social injustice these days, his movies will get the spotlight shined on them again. I have not seen his The Men with Brando…but it is in the house to be watched. Good stuff.

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4. Great Director and excellent UMR page.

   Thx

   Mike

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   1. Thank you Mike. For some reason I always get my Stanleys mixed up…Donen and Kramer.

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5. I have seen 21 Stanley Kramer movies, including the top 14.

   The HIGHEST rated movie I have seen is High Noon.

   The highest rated movie I have NOT seen is Death of a Salesman.

   The LOWEST rated movie I have seen is Eight Iron Men.

   Favourite Stanley Kramer Movies:

   High Noon
   The Caine Mutiny
   Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
   It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
   The Defiant Ones
   Ship of Fools
   Not as a Stranger

   Other Stanley Kramer Movies I Have Seen:

   Judgement at Nuremberg
   On the Beach
   Champion
   The Wild One
   Cyrano de Bergerac
   Inherit the Wind
   The Secret of Santa Vittoria
   The Moon and Sixpence
   The Men
   The Member of the Wedding
   My Six Convicts
   The Juggler
   Eight Iron Men
   The Sniper

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   1. Hey Flora….thanks for checking out our Stanley Kramer page. Tally count: 21 for you and 12 for me. He directed some of your favorites…Widmark and Peck. I have seen all of your favorites with the exception of Not As A Stranger. Not As A Stranger is a movie that has always confused me….it has a legendary cast, it made a boatload of money….but is rarely discussed. It would seem a movie starring Mitchum, Marvin and Sinatra would be one that people would talk about.

      Surprised that Judgement at Nuremberg is not on your favorites list. My mom still is not over the ending of On The Beach…and it is now over 60 years old. Good stuff as always.

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