Want to know the best William Dieterle movies? How about the worst William Dieterle movies? Curious about William Dieterle box office grosses or which William Dieterle movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which William Dieterle 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.
William Dieterle (1893-1972) was an Oscar® nominated German director, actor and writer. Dieterle who emigrated to the United States in 1930 to leave a worsening political situation. He worked in Hollywood primarily as a director for much of his career, becoming a United States citizen in 1937. His best-known films include The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. His 1937 film The Life of Emile Zola won the Academy Award® for Best Picture. His IMDb page shows almost 200 credits from 1913 to 1966. This page will rank William Dieterle movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos, uncredited roles and movies that were not released in North American and a handful of his movies that we could not find box office on, were not included in the rankings.
William Dieterle Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
William Dieterle 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 William Dieterle movies by his co-stars
- Sort William Dieterle movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost.
- Sort William Dieterle movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort William Dieterle movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each William Dieterle movie received.
- Sort William Dieterle 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.
That’s quick work Bruce.
I’ll be uploading my Henry Hathaway video in about an hour, if you’re fast enough… 😉
I’ve seen 10 of the 43 films on the chart. My favorites include – The Devil and Daniel Webster, Portrait of Jennie, A Midsummer Nights Dream and Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Plenty of films here I wouldn’t mind watching some day, and probably already have watched. I have the memory of a goldfish.
We have the same top 3 but in slightly different order.
Surprised to see ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ topping all those great films at the box office.
Nice work Bruce. Vote Up!
Hey Steve the goldfish….as I watched your W.D. video…I kept thinking….”That movie is in the database….and that one too.” So I went to our database to see just how many of his movies were just sitting there. Turns out WoC had added 9 of them….and another 34 were fully researched….when it crossed 40…I was like…”Heck…I should just do a page on him too.” Apparently I talk to myself a lot…..”Yes you do.”
As for the tally count…once again Flora’s total tops our combined total…in this case 20 to 15….with me bringing very little to the party (5 movies). I will have to check out your Henry Hathaway video on Sunday. Glad to see our Top 3 match. Yep…”I’ll Be Seeing You” was a monster hit. Good stuff!
Thanks for the video link Bruce. When I mentioned Henry Hathaway in that post I meant jokingly if you could produce a page on him fast enough so Bob and I can post our comments on it. We actually requested a Hathaway page a week ago but you must have missed it. No harm done.
https://www.ultimatemovierankings.com/henry-hathaway-movies/ I actually have a HH Page.
Whoa! It wasn’t listed on the index page, I can’t see it anyway. I can see Anne Hathaway but not Henry Hathaway. Makes me wonder how many pages are not on your index page. And of course I forgot you even had a Hathaway page, I mean it was so long ago. 😉
I have seen 19 of these William Dieterle movies including the top 10. Looking at Steve’s video, I had seen 20 of the films included. The one movie here that Is not on the UMR page but was in the video that I saw was Madame Du Barry.
The HIGHEST rated movie I have seen is The Life of Emile Zola.
The highest rated movie I have NOT seen is Rope of Sand.
The LOWEST rated movie I have seen is Satan Met a Lady.
Favourite William Dieterle Movies I Have Seen:
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Love Letters
Jewel Robbery
The Devil and Daniel Webster
The Last Flight
Kismet
Salome
Portrait of Jennie
Fog Over Frisco
Other William Dieterle Movies I Have Seen:
The Life of Emile Zola
I’ll Be Seeing You
The Story of Louis Pasteur
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Elephant Walk
Juarez
The White Angel
Fashions of 1934
Satan Met a Lady
Lawyer Man
In looking at this post and my response to Steve;s video, I’ve noticed that none of my favourites are Paul Muni films. I am not sure why this is. He is a solid actor and deserved his Oscar. I guess it is the subject matter of the films. I’ll have to see if my opinion of his films change as I rewatch or see them for the first time on TCM during his star of the month tribute. Canada does not get A Song to Remember.
Hey Flora.
1. Thanks for the visit, comment and tally count….all are appreciated.
2. Good eye seeing the missing Dieterle movie…sadly I was unable to find any box office grosses on that movie.
3. Your tally of 20 destroys my total of 5. Actually I was surprised that my tally was that high…mainly because when I first saw Steve’s video…..my first and second response was “Who is that”?
4. I have seen 2 of your favorites…Portrait of Jennie and The Hunchback of Notre Dame…both are very good movies.
5. That is interesting that the Paul Muni movies are not in your favorite list….especially since those movies are two of the ones Muni is known for….along with Scarface.
6. TCM is making it easy for you to see the Muni/Dieterle movies again….I am sure your thoughts will change….just not sure which way it well go….could be interesting. Good stuff as always.
BOB ROY to STEVE William Dieterle Part One
October 2, 2019 at 11:06 am
William’s career spanned 55 years from the silent era in 1911 until 1966 and comprised a large filmography as a director, an actor, a producer and a writer. His contribution in those fields is broken down as follows:
Director/89 credits
Includes TV movies. Large number of movies in each of silent and sound eras.
Actor/67 credits – 66 from period 1913-1931 and one in 1959.
Producer/7 credits-2 in silent era
Writer/7 credits – Includes 3 TV movies. 2 movies made in silent era.
Because of the diversity and extent of his contribution to movies, and given that both the silent and sound eras were involved, his video must have been quite a complicated one for you to compile?
William’s net worth at the time of his death in 1972 was equivalent to 15 million dollars today.
His ranking positions in 5 separate polls of the greatest directors have a wide span: 4, 14, 18,22, 44, average position 20.4
BOB ROY to STEVE William Dieterle Part Two
October 2, 2019 at 11:45 am
I am familiar with a large number of the films the William was involved with, in fact more familiar than I had been with him personally before your video appeared and encouraged me to research him. I doubt if this is one guy whom the Work Horse will have posted up in his classroom!
Best POSTERS in your video [FL=foreign language] 1/FL saucy one for Dubrosky 2/two for Volcano 3/Joel Met a Lady 4/FL for Laddie’s Red Mountain [with its McCarthy Red-scare era title] 5/FL Paid in Full 6/Myrna DuBarry 7/two for Blockade 8/2nd and 3rd ones for Salome 9/Kismet 10/White Angel 11/FL for Boots Malone.
12/The Great O’Malley 13/two for Elephant Walk [Liz replaced Vivien Leigh] 14/FL Rope of Sand 15/ two for Dark City [Chuck’ debut mainstream film] 16/The Accused 17/FL Juarez 18/Louis Pasteur 19/Midsummer Night’s Dream 20/1st one for Portrait of Jennie 21/two stunners. for Hunchback.
My personal pick of the very best STILLS [LC=lobby card] 1/Laddie in Red Mountain 2/Liz Scott 3/very raunchy one for Salome 4/Granger and Hayworth [Stewart in the heyday of his Hollywood career, which faded around 1960] 5/Kismet 6/Bette in Fog over Manchester 7/Golden Holden in Turning Point [most disappointing Holden film I’ve ever seen] 8/LC Elephant Walk 9/LC Rope of Sand 10/Chuck in romantic mode 11/LC Lawyer Man 12/Jennifer in Love Letters 13/Muni as Pasteur 14/I think that was the Dirty Rat inside the ass’s head? 15/ a boyish Joe Yule Jr 16/Portrait of Jennie 17/two splendid ones for Hunchback.
A cracker video well worth 98% rating under my scoring system. You are certainly leaving WH behind in profile classy directors – and you’ve picked one who was a prolific actor as well.
Steve Lensman
October 2, 2019 at 3:06 pm
Hi Bob, thanks for reviewing my William Dieterle video. The generous rating, info and trivia are very much appreciated. Happy you liked the posters, lobby cards and stills.
Dieterle directed a few silent films but they weren’t rated high enough for inclusion. I also have to watch out for films in which the subject is an uncredited director, I don’t include them unless the subject directed most of the film.
That was the great James Cagney with the head of an ass in the photo.
Mickey Rooney played the mischievous sprite Puck in Midsummer Nights Dream. I have a soft spot for that film from watching it on TV as a kid. The Devil and Daniel Webster is another childhood favorite. Portrait of Jennie is a late teens early 20s favorite.
Four films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – Emile Zola, Daniel Webster, Quasimodo and Jenny Appleton.
Two more scored 9 out of 10 – Dr. Paul Ehrlich and Louis Pasteur.
According to IMDB – William Dieterle directed five different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Paul Muni, Joseph Schildkraut, Brian Aherne, Walter Huston and Jennifer Jones. Muni and Schildkraut won for their performances in Dieterle’s movies.
BOB ROY to STEVE Reply
October 2, 2019 at 4:50 pm
HI STEVE
Fine feedback – much appreciated. By my calculations here is the breakdown of William’s 89 directed movies. On many occasions he used the name of Wilhelm Dieterle
63 credited cinematic sound movies
5 uncredited sound movies
12 TV movies
1 TV series [1 episode]
8 silent movies.
Cogerson
October 2, 2019 at 10:16 pm
Added Steve’s William Dieterle You Tube Video to this page. Our thoughts found on his channel.
Wow….never even heard of this director before seeing this video. Real curious how many of his movies I have seen….betting not many. First match is #20 Elephant Walk….good climax. #6 The Story of Louis Pasteur….good movie with an excellent performance from Paul Muni. #4 The Life Of Emile Zoe…another good performance from Muni. #3 Portrait of Jeannie…I like this one…but would put the Muni classics ahead of this one. #1 Hunchback…Laughton makes a great Hunchback…one of Maureen O’Hara’s first movies. So a grand total of 5…..out of 40…..not too impressive. I bet our database has about 75% of these listed movies. Still shocked his name escaped me all of these years. Voted up and shared
Reply
Cogerson
October 3, 2019 at 5:59 am
Interesting information Bob. William Dieterle…unknown to me yesterday…today known and with lots of information. Hey Steve….interesting Cagney photo in your video. Good stuff as always
“Sanctuary! Sanctuary!”
You are granted Sanctuary Mr. Hunchback. Welcome aboard.
HI BRUCE: That was quick considering you had never heard of William. I have taken the liberty of copying to this page from Steve’s U Tube page the comments there about William from you Steve and me. Any comment about Laddie’s Red Mountain deserve to go on as many pages as possible!
I see that you have confined you coverage to 43 of William’s big screen talkie movies from 1931 until 1957. As probably this site’s Wooden Spoon Guy once again I have seen 9 of the ones you list-
Hunchback of Manchester
Salome
Kismet
Elephant Walk
Red Mountain
Peking Express
Omar Khayam
Dark City
The Turning Point
As is always your page admirably complements Steve’s video in giving viewers a wide coverage of one artist’s career, so the new page is “Voted Up!” Keep safe.
Hello,
William Dieterle made a film as an Actor and Director with an actress who was Marlene Dietrich and it was in 1923 , a German film of course which is called « Der mensch am were « and the English title was « Man by the wayside »not sure it came in America.
The Dietrich part was not very important and it was one her first film.
Both were German and it is interesting they made another film in 1944 « Kismet » a big box office but not enough to be rental because the budget was something like 3 millions dollars so it was an very expensive film at that time.
After that film Dietrich went to Europe for USO and when the film came back in France at the beginning of the 50 the , it was not a box office at all, because may be it was too long time between the production in America and the exploitation in France.
I read somewhere that the contract of Dietrich with MGM was for two films but the second film was never turned.
I saw Kismet, the Dietrich part was small but there is a dance sequence with her legs painted in gold, Bette Davis in an interview with Joan Rivers on TV said that in the Hollywood Canteen, when Dietrich went after the work with with her legs painted in gold , the soldiers were crazy about her.
By the way I drink a glass of water ….lol
Good day
Pierre
Hey Pierre. Drinking water today? …that is what I am drinking as well. Thanks for checking out our William Dieterle page….or I guess…I should say my Steve Lensman page….as just a couple of days ago I was clueless of his existence. Good information on Dieterle and Dietrich making movies in the early 1920s and in Germany. Dietrich’s gold legs in Kismet are legendary…I can easily see the troops getting excited about them at the Hollywood Canteen. Good to hear from you, and as always…..thanks for the comment and the feedback.