The 10 Best Movies Starring Joel McCrea
by Bernadette_P | created - 07 Jun 2012 | updated - 13 Oct 2014 | PublicThis list was made for movie lovers & McCrea fans. He is too underrated. He is the (California native) who became the All-American Guy! Also, thank goodness for FDR & Joel McCrea, Alan Ladd, Humphrey Bogart, et al.
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1. Sullivan's Travels (1941)
Passed | 90 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Hollywood director John L. Sullivan sets out to experience life as a homeless person in order to gain relevant life experience for his next movie.
Director: Preston Sturges | Stars: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Robert Warwick, William Demarest
Votes: 28,510
Veronica Lake is an asset to this Preston Sturges' comedy/drama. But it is the understated performance by McCrea that is the heart of it all. Drew Barrymore said how deeply moved she is by this movie. I am also moved by this great film. Every serious movie lover ought to see it.
2. Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Passed | 120 min | Action, Romance, Thriller
On the eve of World War II, a young American reporter tries to expose enemy agents in London.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders
Votes: 23,710 | Gross: $3.48M
"Joel McCrea is the American Everyman as reporter Johnny Jones aka Huntley Haverstock. Hitchcock wanted us naive Americans to see the devious work being done in Europe. McCrea succeeds. He is aided well by George Sanders, Laraine Day, Albert Basserman, Herbert Marshall and Edmund Gwenn."
3. The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
PG-13 | 63 min | Action, Adventure, Horror
A psychotic big game hunter deliberately strands a luxury yacht on a remote island, where he begins to hunt its passengers for sport.
Directors: Irving Pichel, Ernest B. Schoedsack | Stars: Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Leslie Banks, Robert Armstrong
Votes: 14,007 | Gross: $0.97M
Shining performance by young McCrea. He proved his great ability to become an ordinary/extraordinary character.
4. Wichita (1955)
Passed | 81 min | Drama, Western
In 1874, after noticing the total lawlessness in Wichita, Wyatt Earp reluctantly accepts the Marshal's job and runs into the worst local troublemakers.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Joel McCrea, Vera Miles, Lloyd Bridges, Wallace Ford
Votes: 2,347
Two fine actors portrayed Wyatt Earp in 1955. First one was Joel McCrea. The second one was TV's Hugh O'Brian. Wichita was the first town to make Wyatt Earp into a Lawman. Dodge City came later. Then we all found out about Tombstone, Arizona.
5. The Palm Beach Story (1942)
Passed | 88 min | Comedy, Romance
A New York inventor needs cash to develop his big idea, so his adoring wife decides to raise it by divorcing him and marrying an eccentric Florida millionaire with a capricious high-society sister.
Director: Preston Sturges | Stars: Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, Rudy Vallee
Votes: 12,871 | Gross: $0.44M
Another from Preston Sturges
6. Ride the High Country (1962)
Approved | 94 min | Drama, Western
An ex-union soldier is hired to transport gold from a mining community through dangerous territory. But what he doesn't realize is that his partner and old friend is plotting to double-cross him.
Director: Sam Peckinpah | Stars: Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott, Mariette Hartley, Ron Starr
Votes: 14,833
A Joel McCrea western classic. Peckinpah directed!
7. Union Pacific (1939)
Passed | 135 min | Drama, Western
In 1862, Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads compete westward across the wilderness toward California.
Director: Cecil B. DeMille | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Akim Tamiroff, Robert Preston
Votes: 3,382
Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck--what else is there to say with these two on the great Union Pacific Railroad together!
8. The More the Merrier (1943)
Passed | 104 min | Comedy
During the World War II housing shortage in Washington, two men and a woman share a single apartment and the older man plays Cupid to the other two.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn, Richard Gaines
Votes: 7,470
World War II housing shortage makes for a funny threesome in a cramped apartment in Washington, D.C.
9. The Unseen (1945)
Approved | 80 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Horror
A secretive widower hires a governess for his children, a willful boy and impressionable girl. Strange occurrences and the governess's curiosity lead her to unlock the secrets of the mysterious and uninhabited brownstone next door.
Director: Lewis Allen | Stars: Joel McCrea, Gail Russell, Herbert Marshall, Phyllis Brooks
Votes: 611
Good acting from McCrea. But with Gail Russell who had debuted in The Uninvited (1944) was this an attempt to boost Russell's career with another ghost story?
10. Internes Can't Take Money (1937)
Passed | 78 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
In his first film, young Dr. Kildare helps a female ex-con find her child.
Director: Alfred Santell | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Lloyd Nolan, Stanley Ridges
Votes: 780
Stanwyck gives young doctor her most dazzling look and a sob story. He can't take her money but he can have her love--for awhile. A really good movie. It's McCrea and Stanwyck, one of the best teams of the 1930's.
11. St. Vincent (2014)
PG-13 | 102 min | Comedy, Drama
A young boy whose parents have just divorced finds an unlikely friend and mentor in the misanthropic, bawdy, hedonistic war veteran who lives next door.
Director: Theodore Melfi | Stars: Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, Naomi Watts, Jaeden Martell
Votes: 108,512 | Gross: $44.13M
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