Joel McCrea Filmography

George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey

Actors: George Stevens, Jr., George Stevens, Montgomery Clift, Brandon de Wilde, Fred Astaire, James Dean, Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Katharine Hepburn, Rock Hudson, Sam Jaffe, Jean Arthur

Synopsis: The man who assembled the remarkable documentary George Stevens: A Filmaker's Journey had the benefit of knowing the subject intimately: the film was written, produced and directed by George Stevens Jr. Utilizing pristine-quality filmclips and interviews, Stevens Jr. details Stevens Sr.'s rise Read More

Mustang Country

Actors: Joel McCrea, Robert Fuller, Patrick Wayne, Nika Mina

Synopsis: After 14 years' retirement, Joel McCrea chose to appear in Mustang Country. Looking extremely robust, the septuagenarian McCrea plays Dan, a Montana rancher, vintage 1925, who is in pursuit of a wild mustang. He is joined in his quest by teenaged Native American lad Nika Mina. The magnificent Read More

The Great American Cowboy

Actors: Joel McCrea

Synopsis: Rodeos and the people who work in them are the focus of this documentary. It demonstrates the resonance between the modern rodeo and the lifestyle of pioneer settlers of the American West. The 1973 film's main focus is on veteran Larry Mahan and a newcomer, Phil Lyne, as they prepare for, and Read More

Cry Blood, Apache

Actors: Joel McCrea

Synopsis: Telling the story of his early life in flashback, a former prospector (Joel McCrea, with flashback sequences featuring son Jody) explains his brutal massacre of a tribe of Indians. The only survivor (Marie Gahua) agrees to lead him to a secret gold mine. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

Ride the High Country

Actors: Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott, Mariette Hartley, Ron Starr, James Drury

Synopsis: This Sam Peckinpah-directed feature outing was intended as the cinematic swan song for both Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea; while McCrea would unexpectedly emerge from retirement, this 1961 western serves as an excellent valedictory for both men. The time is the early 1900s, when the Old West was Read More

The Gunfight at Dodge City

Actors: Joel McCrea, Julie Adams, John McIntire, Nancy Gates, Richard Anderson

Synopsis: With Gene Barry already riding the video range as legendary gunfighter-turned-lawman Bat Masterson, independent producer Walter Mirisch hired old-timer Joel McCrea to play a rather less-dandified version in this routine Western released in Cinemascope. When his brother Ed (Harry Lauter) is Read More

Fort Massacre

Actors: Joel McCrea, Forrest Tucker, Susan Cabot, John Russell, Anthony Caruso

Synopsis: In this western, an embittered cavalry sergeant must take over his regiment after their commanding officer is killed during an ambush. To save them, he leads the troop through Apache territory because it is the quickest way to reach the fort. The members of the regiment do not trust their new Read More

Cattle Empire

Actors: Joel McCrea, Gloria Talbott, Don Haggerty, Phyllis Coates, Bing Russell

Synopsis: A brave cowboy/ex-con hits the dusty trail as the leader of a major cattle drive in this western. He is offered the job by the very townspeople his gang terrorized a few years before. They are also the same people who put him in the slammer, and even though he accepts the task, he secretly plots Read More

The Tall Stranger

Actors: Joel McCrea, Virginia Mayo, Barry Kelley, Michael Ansara, Whit Bissell

Synopsis: Joel McCrea essays the title role in this moody little western. McCrea is a Union officer wounded in battle, who joins up with a wagon train heading westward. He is ostracized by those passengers who'd fought on the Confederate side, though leading lady Virginia Mayo welcomes his presence. McCrea Read More

Gunsight Ridge

Actors: Joel McCrea, Mark Stevens, Joan Weldon, Darlene Fields, Addison Richards

Synopsis: In this western, the trouble begins when a ruthless outlaw impersonates a mine owner. When the sheriff begins to suspect him, the badguy kills him. A government agent, working undercover replaces the sheriff, exposes the crook and wins the love of a purty gal in the process. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Read More

Trooper Hook

Actors: Joel McCrea, Barbara Stanwyck, Earl Holliman, Edward Andrews, John Dehner

Synopsis: Trooper Hook is played by Joel McCrea, but top billing goes to Barbara Stanwyck in this multilayered western. McCrea plays a Cavalry officer sent to rescue Stanwyck, who had been captured by Indians years earlier. Upon reaching the Indian village, McCrea discovers that Stanwyck, forced into Read More

The Oklahoman

Actors: Joel McCrea, Barbara Hale, Brad Dexter, Gloria Talbott, Verna Felton

Synopsis: Joel McCrea stars in this leisurely paced Western from Allied Artists (formerly Monogram) originally released in Cinemascope. Having lost his wife in childbirth en route to California, Dr. John Brighton (McCrea) builds a new home for himself and his baby daughter in an Oklahoma backwater town Read More

The First Texan

Actors: Joel McCrea, Felicia Farr, Jeff Morrow, Wallace Ford, Abraham Sofaer

Synopsis: Cashing in on the popularity of TV's Davy Crockett and the jukebox favorite "Yellow Rose of Texas", Allied Artists came up with the CinemaScope biopic The First Texan. The title character is Sam Houston, played with rugged assuredness by Joel McCrea. The film begins when Houston leaves Tennessee Read More

Wichita

Actors: Joel McCrea, Vera Miles, Lloyd Bridges, Wallace Ford, Edgar Buchanan

Synopsis: Filmed around the same time as Gunfight at the OK Corral, Wichita is a more modest--and to some, more entertaining--slant on the Wyatt Earp legend. Joel McCrea does his usual smooth, underplayed job as Earp, who aims to bring law and order to the wide-open cow town of Wichita. His least popular Read More

Stranger on Horseback

Actors: Joel McCrea, Kevin McCarthy, John McIntire, Nancy Gates

Synopsis: Adapted from a novel by Louis L'Amour, Stranger on Horseback is one of Joel McCrea's shorter western vehicles, zipping merrily along at a mere 66 minutes. McCrea plays a travelling judge who makes it his mission in life to clean up the town of Bannerman. This proves difficult, in that the town is Read More

Border River

Actors: Joel McCrea, Yvonne De Carlo, Pedro Armendáriz, Howard Petrie, Erika Nordin

Synopsis: Border River stars Joel McCrea as idealistic Confederate major Clete Mattson and Yvonne DeCarlo as saloon owner Carmelita Carlas. With the South facing defeat, Mattson desperately tries to save his army by stealing $2,000,000 in Union gold. He then heads to a raucous border town on the Rio Grande Read More

Black Horse Canyon

Actors: Joel McCrea, Mari Blanchard, Race Gentry, Murvyn Vye, Irving Bacon

Synopsis: Black Horse Canyon was adapted from The Wild Horse, a novel by Lee Savage Jr. Joel McCrea stars as novice rancher Del Rockwell, who takes it upon himself to capture a magnificent wild black stallion who has been spiriting mares away from other ranchers. Rockwell hopes to use the stallion for stud Read More

The Lone Hand

Actors: Joel McCrea, Barbara Hale, Alex Nicol, Charles Drake, Jimmy Hunt

Synopsis: Lone Hand benefits immensely from the genuine Colorado locations seen throughout. Zachary Hallock (Joel McCrea) and his son Joshua (Jimmy Hunt) set up farming in a frontier community plagued by outlaws. Vigilantes want to form a united front against the villains, but Hallock refuses to join, even Read More

Shoot First

Actors: Joel McCrea, Evelyn Keyes, Herbert Lom, Roland Culver, Marius Goring

Synopsis: Scripted by Eric Ambler from a novel by Geoffrey Household, the British Rough Shoot top-bills Hollywood stars Joel McCrea and Evelyn Keyes. McCrea plays Taine, an American colonel stationed in England. When he spots what appears to be a prowler, Taine tries to scare the fellow away with a round of Read More

The San Francisco Story

Actors: Joel McCrea, Yvonne De Carlo, Sidney Blackmer, Richard Erdman, Florence Bates

Synopsis: Joel McCrea plays 19th-century miner Rick Nelson in The San Francisco Story. The year is 1856, and Frisco is a wide-open town. To stem the activities of crooks and con artists, newspaper editor Jim Martin (Onslow Stevens) organizes a group of peace-keeping vigilantes. Nelson, an old friend of Read More

Hollywood Story

Actors: Richard Conte, Julie Adams, Richard Egan, Henry Hull, Fred Clark

Synopsis: Economically utilizing the Universal Studio itself as a "set," Hollywood Story is a murder mystery centered in the film capital. The story concerns a long-unsolved homicide case involving several silent-film stars (an echo of the William Desmond Taylor scandal of 1922). Producer Richard Conte Read More

Cattle Drive

Actors: Joel McCrea, Dean Stockwell, Chill Wills, Leon Ames, Henry Brandon

Synopsis: Cattle Drive stars Joel McCrea as boss drover Dana Mathews. It is Mathews' task to make a man out of Chester Graham Jr. (Dean Stockwell), the spoiled-rotten son of railroad executive Chester Graham Sr. (Leon Ames). Accidentally left behind when his dad's train pulls out of a small cow town Read More

Frenchie

Actors: Joel McCrea, Shelley Winters, Paul Kelly, Elsa Lanchester, Marie Windsor

Synopsis: Though the title role of Frenchie goes to Shelley Winters, top billing in this period actioner is bestowed upon Joel McCrea as sheriff Tom Banning. Hoping to find her father's murderers, New Orleans gambling-house proprietress Frenchie Fontaine (Shelley Winters) sets up shop in the Wild West. With Read More

Stars in My Crown

Actors: Joel McCrea, Ellen Drew, Dean Stockwell, Lewis Stone

Synopsis: Stars in My Crown is an episodic movie about a rural Southern community in the 19th century. Though the film features a number of characters, it focuses on a preacher who moves into the city and helps solve the town's problems. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

Saddle Tramp

Actors: Joel McCrea, Wanda Hendrix, John Russell, John McIntire, Jeanette Nolan

Synopsis: Joel McCrea was still relatively new to westerns when he starred in Saddle Tramp. McCrea is cast as footloose and fancy free cowpoke Chuck Connor, who has no intention of settling down. Alas, this decision is made for him when Connor "inherits" the four recently orphaned sons of his best friend. Read More

The Outriders

Actors: Joel McCrea, Arlene Dahl, Barry Sullivan, Claude Jarman, Jr., James Whitmore

Synopsis: MGM went into the western-programmer business relatively late in the game, but made up for lost time with such laudable efforts as The Outriders. Joel McCrea stars as one of three Confederate soldiers who escape from a northern prison compound. The three men join a wagon train, hoping to capture a Read More

Colorado Territory

Actors: Joel McCrea, Virginia Mayo, Dorothy Malone, Henry Hull, John Archer

Synopsis: Though not acknowledged by contemporary reviewers, Colorado Territory is a westernized remake of the 1941 crime drama High Sierra. Raoul Walsh, director of the earlier film, returns to helm the remake, doing a grand job on both occasions. Joel McCrea stars in the Humphrey Bogart role, playing a Read More

Four Faces West

Actors: Joel McCrea, Frances Dee, Charles Bickford, Joseph Calleia, William Conrad

Synopsis: When the family land is threatened with foreclosure, honest, hard-working rancher Ross McEwen (Joel McCrea) resorts to bank robbery in order to come up with the necessary cash. Although he leaves the bank an I.O.U., Sheriff Pat Garrett (Charles Bickford) is sent out to catch the criminal as he Read More

South of St. Louis

Actors: Joel McCrea, Alexis Smith, Zachary Scott, Dorothy Malone, Douglas Kennedy

Synopsis: Produced by Milton Sperling's United States Pictures, South of St. Louis was given a widespread release by Warner Bros. The story begins in the last days of the Civil War. Chased off their property by guerillas, ranching partners Kip Davis (Joel McCrea), Charlie Burns (Zachary Scott) and Lee Read More

Ramrod

Actors: Veronica Lake, Joel McCrea, Preston S. Foster, Lloyd Bridges, Jeff Corey, Charlie Ruggles, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: This cowboy drama from Hungarian director Andre De Toth was the first of several films based on the stories of Western author Luke Short. Veronica Lake stars as Connie Dickason, strong-willed daughter of Ben Dickason (Charles Ruggles), a ranch owner who has become the toady of a powerful local Read More

The Virginian

Actors: Joel McCrea, Brian Donlevy, Sonny Tufts, Barbara Britton, Fay Bainter

Synopsis: Owen Wister's 1902 novel was made into a movie several times, most notably in 1929, with Gary Cooper starring. This 1946 remake of the often-filmed saga gave Joel McCrea the title role as the standing-tall cowboy in Wyoming. The Virginian and his best friend Steve (Sonny Tufts) are rivals for the Read More

The Unseen

Actors: Joel McCrea, Gail Russell, Herbert Marshall, Phyllis Brooks, Isobel Elsom

Synopsis: This follow-up to the classic Hollywood ghost story The Uninvited doesn't quite measure up to its predecessor. Joel McCrea stars as widower Davie Fielding, who has long been suspected of bringing about his wife's death. It helps not at all when a series of murders coincides with Fielding's move Read More

Buffalo Bill

Actors: Joel McCrea, Maureen O'Hara, Linda Darnell, Thomas Mitchell, Anthony Quinn

Synopsis: No slouch himself at rearranging the facts to make a good story, Colonel William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody would probably have enjoyed this Technicolor version of his life and times. Well played by Joel McCrea, Cody is first seen as an army Indian scout, pursuing peaceful coexistence despite the Read More

The Great Moment

Actors: Joel McCrea, Betty Field, Harry Carey, William Demarest, Louis Jean Heydt, Franklin Pangborn

Synopsis: After producing, writing and directing one hit film after another, Preston Sturges finally misfired with the biopic The Great Moment. Sturges was always fascinated with the saga of W.T.G. Morton, the 19th century Boston dentist who, after inventing the first truly effective anesthesia, was forced Read More

The More the Merrier

Actors: Ann Doran, Ann Savage, Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn, Richard Gaines, Bruce Bennett

Synopsis: To fully appreciate The More the Merrier, it is important to know that, during WW2, there was an acute housing shortage in Washington DC. This is why elderly Benjamin Dingle (Charles Coburn) is obliged to share a tiny DC apartment with pretty Connie Milligan (Jean Arthur) and handsome Joe Carter Read More

The Great Man's Lady

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Brian Donlevy, Thurston Hall, Lloyd Corrigan

Synopsis: This rambling historical drama covers 109 years in the life of one woman. Encased in convincing old-age makeup, Barbara Stanwyck reminisces on her experiences in the American West. As a young woman, she is squired by gambler Brian Donlevy, but her heart belongs to dreamer Joel McCrea. She chooses Read More

The Palm Beach Story

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, Rudy Vallee, William Demarest

Synopsis: As for the opening reels, the principal motivating factor is money. After a deliberately confusing pre-credit sequence (not explained until the film's punch line), Tom Jeffers (Joel McCrea) and Gerry Jeffers (Claudette Colbert) are married. "And so they lived happily ever after," exults a title Read More

Reaching for the Sun

Actors: Joel McCrea, Ellen Drew, Eddie Bracken, Albert Dekker, Billy Gilbert

Synopsis: Wessel Smitter's semicomic novel FOB Detroit was the source material for Reaching for the Sun. Joel McCrea plays a North Woods clam digger who orders an outboard motor for his business. Figuring he'll save shipping money by picking the motor up himself, he heads for Detroit. Here he decides to Read More

Sullivan's Travels

Actors: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn, Robert Warwick, Porter Hall

Synopsis: In Preston Sturges' classic comedy of Depression-era America, filmmaker John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), fed up with directing profitable comedies like "Ants in Your Plants of 1939," is consumed with the desire to make a serious social statement in his upcoming film, "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" Read More

Foreign Correspondent

Actors: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders, Albert Basserman

Synopsis: Fourteen scriptwriters spent five years toiling over a movie adaptation of war correspondent Vincent Sheehan's Personal History before producer Walter Wanger brought the property to the screen as Foreign Correspondent. What emerged was approximately 2 parts Sheehan and 8 parts director Alfred Hitchcock Read More

He Married His Wife

Actors: Joel McCrea, Nancy Kelly, Roland Young, Mary Boland, Cesar Romero

Synopsis: This slick marital farce features Joel McCrea as T. H. Randall, a race horse owner whose devotion to his work causes a strain in his relationship with wife Valerie (Nancy Kelly). Unable to stand any more neglect, Valerie divorces Randall, even though the audience is well aware that she's still in Read More

The Primrose Path

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Joel McCrea, Marjorie Rambeau, Henry Travers, Miles Mander

Synopsis: In her third film for innovative director Gregory LaCava, Ginger Rogers briefly turns her back on her established screen image by playing the daughter and granddaughter of prostitutes. Determined not to pursue the "family business", Ellie May Adams (Rogers) opts for respectability, as personified Read More

Land of Liberty

Synopsis: Originally designed for exhibition at the 1939 World's Fair, Land of Liberty is a 137-minute compendium of filmclips from past American historical epics. The project was sponsored by the Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America, Inc. and supervised by Cecil B. DeMille, who also edited Read More

Union Pacific

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Akim Tamiroff, Robert Preston, Lynne Overman, Brian Donlevy

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille takes us back to the 1860s, then rebuilds the first intercontinental railroad in Union Pacific. The real-life spectacle is occasionally interrupted by the fictional adventures of railroad overseer Joel McCrea, postmistress Barbara Stanwyck (with an incredible Irish brogue), and Read More

Espionage Agent

Actors: Joel McCrea, Brenda Marshall, Jeffrey Lynn, George Bancroft, Stanley Ridges

Synopsis: Unlike many another pre-WW II spy melodramas, Espionage Agent clearly identifies the villains as Germans. Joel McCrea plays Barry Corvall, the son of a recently deceased US diplomat. Boarding a Berlin-bound train, Corvall attempts to swipe a briefcase stuffed with documents which will prove that Read More

They Shall Have Music

Actors: Jascha Heifetz, Andrea Leeds, Joel McCrea, Gene Reynolds, Walter Brennan

Synopsis: This musical drama follows a young ghetto kid who dreams of being a classical musician like his idol Jascha Heifetz. He first hears the renowned violinist after finding a ticket to Carnegie Hall on the sidewalk one day. The young man is so inspired by what he hears that he enrolls in Professor Read More

Youth Takes a Fling

Actors: Andrea Leeds, Joel McCrea, Frank Jenks, Dorothea Kent, Isabel Jeans

Synopsis: Andrea Leeds, whose career had shifted into hyperdrive after her brilliant performance in Stage Door (1937), stars in the Universal programmer Youth Takes a Fling. Leeds plays Helen Brown, a New York City department-store salesgirl who falls in love with Kansas City truckdriver Joe Meadows (Joel Read More

Three Blind Mice

Actors: Loretta Young, Joel McCrea, David Niven, Stuart Erwin, Marjorie Weaver

Synopsis: Whenever things got slow at 20th Century-Fox, the studio revved up its old reliable "three girls looking for millionaires" plotline. Three Kansas sisters (Loretta Young, Marjorie Weaver and Pauline Moore) use a small inheritance to set themselves up in a Manhattan penthouse. Figuring that Young Read More

Wells Fargo

Actors: Joel McCrea, Frances Dee, Lloyd Nolan, Porter Hall

Synopsis: The third of Paramount's "deluxe" westerns of the 1930s (following The Texas Rangers and The Plainsman) was Wells Fargo, filmed on a Cecil B. DeMille scale by producer-director Frank Lloyd. In his first western appearance, Joel McCrea plays Ramsey McCay, troubleshooter for the newly formed Read More

Internes Can't Take Money

Actors: Joel McCrea, Barbara Stanwyck, Lloyd Nolan, Stanley Ridges, Gaylord "Steve" Pendleton

Synopsis: Pulp fiction writer Max Brand's 1936 creation Dr. Kildare made his screen debut in the amiable person of Joel McCrea in this well-received Paramount production. Aided by Janet (Barbara Stanwyck, young Dr. Kildare saves the life of gangster boss Hanlon (Lloyd Nolan), who awards the intern $1,000 Read More

Woman Chases Man

Actors: Miriam Hopkins, Joel McCrea, Charles Winninger, Erik Rhodes, Ella Logan

Synopsis: This early feminist tale was a box-office flop that was released after years of script doctoring. Producer Samuel Goldwyn insisted that the story be made into film, because he wanted to pair his romantic stars Joel McCrea and Miriam Hopkins for a fifth time. Hopkins plays Virginia Travis, an Read More

Dead End

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Joel McCrea, Humphrey Bogart, Wendy Barrie, Claire Trevor

Synopsis: Adapted by Lillian Hellman from Sidney Kingsley's Broadway play, Dead End concerns itself with several denizens of New York's East River district. Here the elite and the slum-dwellers rub shoulders due to the close proximity of the riverfront tenements with the East Side luxury hotels. Slum girl Read More

These Three

Actors: Miriam Hopkins, Merle Oberon, Joel McCrea, Catherine Doucet, Alma Kruger

Synopsis: Lillian Hellman's 1934 Broadway play The Children's Hour was such a hot potato that film producer Samuel Goldwyn was denied Production Code permission to use the play's original title. The reason was the story's lesbian theme, a factor that also blocked The Children's Hour from winning a Pulitzer Read More

Banjo on My Knee

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Walter Brennan, Buddy Ebsen, Helen Westley

Synopsis: This lively riverboat musical shows off the vocal and terpsichorean talents of former Ziegfeld Follies star Barbara Stanwyck as it tells the tale of two newlyweds who must postpone their honeymoon when the groom gets in a fight with a villain, decks him and, believing he has killed him, flees upon Read More

Adventure in Manhattan

Actors: Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Reginald Owen, Thomas Mitchell, Herman Bing

Synopsis: Crime reporter George Melville (Joel McCrea) arrogantly repeated accurate predictions about jewel robberies. He befriends Claire (Jean Arthur), who involves him in a mysterious adventure. Later, George meets producer Blackton Gregory (Reginald Owen), who reveals Claire is an actress hired by other Read More

Come and Get It

Actors: