Birthday:
02-11-1908
Deathday:
06-02-1992 (84 years)
Birthplace:
New Rochelle, New York, USA
Biography
Philip Ives Dunne (February 11, 1908 – June 2, 1992) was an American screenwriter, film director and producer, who worked prolifically from 1932 until 1965. He spent the majority of his career at 20th Century Fox. He crafted well regarded romantic and historical dramas, usually adapted from another medium. Dunne was a leading Screen Writers Guild organizer and was politically active during the "Hollywood Blacklist" episode of the 1940s–1950s. He is best known for the films How Green Was My Valley (1941), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), The Robe (1953) and The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965).[1]
Dunne received two Academy Award nominations for screenwriting: How Green Was My Valley (1941) and David and Bathsheba (1951). He also received a Golden Globe nomination for his 1965 screen adaptation of Irving Stone's novel The Agony and the Ecstasy, as well as several peer awards from the Writers Guild of America (WGA), including the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement.
Many notable directors worked with Dunne's screenplays, including Carol Reed, John Ford, Jacques Tourneur, Elia Kazan, Otto Preminger, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and Michael Curtiz, among others.
Dunne received two Academy Award nominations for screenwriting: How Green Was My Valley (1941) and David and Bathsheba (1951). He also received a Golden Globe nomination for his 1965 screen adaptation of Irving Stone's novel The Agony and the Ecstasy, as well as several peer awards from the Writers Guild of America (WGA), including the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement.
Many notable directors worked with Dunne's screenplays, including Carol Reed, John Ford, Jacques Tourneur, Elia Kazan, Otto Preminger, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and Michael Curtiz, among others.
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Their works
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The Last of the Mohicans
Screenplay
event1936 star_border 6.4
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The story is set in the British province of New York during the French and Indian War, and concerns—in part—a Huron massacre (with passive French acquiescence) of between 500 to 1,500 Anglo-American troops, who had honorably surrendered at Fort William Henry, plus some women and servants; the kidnapping of two sisters, daughters of the British commander; and their rescue by the last Mohicans.
The Egyptian
Screenplay
event1954 star_border 6.4
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In eighteenth-dynasty Egypt, Sinuhe, a poor orphan, becomes a brilliant physician and with his friend Horemheb is appointed to the service of the new Pharoah. Sinuhe's personal triumphs and tragedies are played against the larger canvas of the turbulent events of the 18th dynasty. As Sinuhe is drawn into court intrigues he learns the answers to the questions he has sought since his birth.
Escape
Writer
event1948 star_border 5.7
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A convict sentenced to three years for killing a detective escapes from a prison and goes on the run aided by a local girl.
The Robe
Screenplay
event1953 star_border 6.8
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Drunk and disillusioned Roman, Marcellus Gallio, wins Jesus' robe in a dice game after the crucifixion. Marcellus has never been a man of faith like his slave, Demetrius, but when Demetrius escapes with the robe, Marcellus experiences disturbing visions and feels guilty for his actions. Convinced that destroying the robe will cure him, Marcellus sets out to find Demetrius — and discovers his Christian faith along the way.
David and Bathsheba
Writer
event1951 star_border 5.8
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King David enters into an adulterous affair with the beautiful Bathsheba, which has tragic consequences for his family and Israel.
How Green Was My Valley
Screenplay
event1941 star_border 7.3
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A man in his fifties reminisces about his childhood growing up in a Welsh mining village at the turn of the 20th century.
Pinky
Screenplay
event1949 star_border 7.1
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Pinky, a light skinned black woman, returns to her grandmother's house in the South after graduating from a Northern nursing school. Pinky tells her grandmother that she has been "passing" for white while at school in the North. In addition, she has fallen in love with a young white doctor, who knows nothing about her black heritage.
Demetrius and the Gladiators
Screenplay
event1954 star_border 6.5
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The story picks up at the point where "The Robe" ends, following the martyrdom of Diana and Marcellus. Christ's robe is conveyed to Peter for safe-keeping, but the emperor Caligula wants it back to benefit from its powers. Marcellus' former slave Demetrius seeks to prevent this, and catches the eye of Messalina, wife to Caligula's uncle Claudius. Messalina tempts Demetrius, he winds up fighting in the arena, and wavers in his faith.
Johnny Apollo
Screenplay
event1940 star_border 6.8
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Wall Street broker Robert Cain, Sr., is jailed for embezzling. His college graduate son Bob then turns to crime to raise money for his father's release. As assistant to mobster Mickey Dwyer, then falls for Dwyer's girl Lucky. He winds up in the same prison as his father.
Anne of the Indies
Screenplay
event1951 star_border 6.4
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After buccaneer captain Anne Providence spares Pierre LaRochelle and recruits him into her pirate crew, their growing attraction is tested when Captain Blackbeard reveals LaRochelle's true identity as a former French navy officer.
Forever Amber
Writer
event1947 star_border 6.1
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Amber St Clair, orphaned during the English Civil War and raised by a family of farmers, aspires to be a lady of high society; when a group of cavaliers ride into town, she sneaks away with them to London to achieve her dreams.
Ten North Frederick
Director
event1958 star_border 7.2
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A wealthy, aging businessman with political ambitions conducts an adulturous affair with his daughter's roommate.
The Rains Came
Screenplay
event1939 star_border 5.9
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Indian aristocrat Rama Safti returns from medical training in the U.S. to give his life to the poor folk of Ranchipur. Lady Edwina and her drunken artist ex-lover Tom Ransome get in the way, but everyone shapes up when faced by earthquake, flooding, and plague.
In Love and War
Director
event1958 star_border 5.5
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Three Marines take shore leave in San Francisco during World War II. Frankie O'Neill visits his lower-class dysfunctional family; Nico Kantaylis visits his pregnant fiancée; and the upper-class Alan Newcombe visits his high-living playgirl girlfriend. Each must decide whether to make the best of his situation or break out of it. O'Neill drowns his troubles in alcohol, losing the respect of a potential lover; Kantaylis marries his fiancée, but realizes he may not survive the war to see his child; while Newcombe sheds his decadent girlfriend for a pure-hearted Hawaiian nurse. Later, in battle, a heroic act costs one of the Marines his life.
Hilda Crane
Director
event1956 star_border 7.2
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After two failed marriages, a disillusioned woman returns to her hometown to start life anew.
The Luck of the Irish
Screenplay
event1948 star_border 5.6
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Following American reporter Stephen Fitzgerald from Ireland to New York, a grateful leprechaun acts as the newsman's servant and conscience.
Blue Denim
Director
event1959 star_border 5.2
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Two naive high-school students must deal with the unexpected consequences after a night of passion.
Prince of Players
Director
event1955 star_border 4.7
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Prince of Players is a biographical film about the 19th century American actor Edwin Booth.
The Late George Apley
Writer
event1947 star_border 6.8
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George and Catherine Apley of Boston lead a proper life in the proper social circle, as did the Apleys before them. When grown daughter Eleanor falls in love with Howard (from New York!), and son John with Myrtle (from Worcester!), the ordered life of the Apley home on Beacon Street is threatened, as is the hoped-for union of John and Apley-cousin Agnes.
The Inspector
Director
event1962 star_border 6.7
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At the end of WW2, a compassionate Dutch policeman helps smuggle a Jewish woman into British Palestine.
Blindfold
Director
event1966 star_border 6.3
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A patient being psychoanalyzed by Dr. Snow is a government scientist. General Pratt hides him in a secret place known as "Base X," forcing Dr. Snow to wear a blindfold whenever he is taken there ...
The Last of the Mohicans
Screenplay
event1992 star_border 7.4
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In war-torn colonial America, in the midst of a bloody battle between British, the French and Native American allies, the aristocratic daughter of a British Colonel and her party are captured by a group of Huron warriors. Fortunately, a group of three Mohican trappers comes to their rescue.
Three Brave Men
Director
event1956 star_border 4.8
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A lawyer takes the case of a Navy clerk who sues after he's fired for suspected Communist beliefs.
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Screenplay
event1947 star_border 7.5
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A young British widow rents a seaside cottage and soon becomes haunted by the ghost of its former owner.
The View from Pompey's Head
Director
event1955 star_border 3.5
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Anson Page, a lawyer with Southern roots leaves New York, his wife and his kids for Georgia. His assignment is to investigate the case of Garvin Wales, a famous writer, now nearly blind and embittered, whose royalties have apparently never reached him. Back in his native South, Page finds himself immediately exposed to what he had fled : racial and class prejudices. But he also meets his former love, Dinah, now married to go-getter uncouth businessman Mickey Higgins. Will he find out whatever happened to 2,000 dollars in rights Wales did not cash? Will Dinah and Anson renew their love story?
Lancer Spy
Writer
event1937 star_border 6
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An Englishman impersonates an imprisoned German officer and "returns" to Germany to become a national hero. A female German spy is assigned to check him out but falls in love with him.
Lydia Bailey
Writer
event1952 star_border 6.1
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A young Boston lawyer, Albron Hamlin, goes to Haiti in 1802 to find Lydia Bailey, whose estate he must settle. The island is war-torn in the strife between Toussaing L'Overture, the black president, and the French who are trying to retake possession of the country. Hamlin finds Lydia and, against the background of war and rebellion, they fall in love while helping the Haitians against the French.
Way of a Gaucho
Screenplay
event1952 star_border 5.6
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In 1875 Argentina, after killing a man, a gaucho is sentenced to harsh army duty but he deserts the army and becomes a bandit leader.
Stanley and Livingstone
Screenplay
event1939 star_border 6.4
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When American newspaperman and adventurer Henry M. Stanley comes back from the western Indian wars, his editor James Gordon Bennett sends him to Africa to find Dr. David Livingstone, the missing Scottish missionary. Stanley finds Livingstone ("Dr. Livingstone, I presume.") blissfully doling out medicine and religion to the happy natives. His story is at first disbelieved.
Swanee River
Screenplay
event1939 star_border 6.5
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Swanee River is a 1940 American biopic about Stephen Foster, a songwriter from Pittsburgh who falls in love with the South, marries a Southern girl, then is accused of sympathizing when the Civil War breaks out. Typical of 20th Century Fox biopics of the time, the film is more fictional than factual biography.
Wild in the Country
Director
event1961 star_border 6.4
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A troubled young man discovers that he has a knack for writing when a counselor encourages him to pursue a literary career.
The Agony and the Ecstasy
Screenstory
event1965 star_border 7.1
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During the Italian Renaissance, Pope Julius II contracts the influential artist Michelangelo to sculpt 40 statues for his tomb. When the pope changes his mind and asks the sculptor to paint a mural in the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo doubts his painting skills and abandons the project. Divine inspiration returns Michelangelo to the mural, but his artistic vision clashes with the pope's demanding personality and threatens the success of the historic painting.
A Salute to France
Screenplay
event1944
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Directed by Garson Kanin and Jean Renoir.
Kiss of Death
Additional Writing
event1947 star_border 7
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An ex-con trying to go straight must face a crazed criminal out for revenge.
Student Tour
Writer
event1934 star_border 5
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A philosophy professor accompanies his school's rowing team on a worldwide tour.
The Count of Monte Cristo
Writer
event1934 star_border 6.7
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After greedy men have Edmound Dantes unjustly imprisoned for 20 years for innocently delivering a letter entrusted to him, he escapes to revenge himself on them.
Suez
Screenplay
event1938 star_border 5.2
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Ferdinand de Lesseps, disappointed in love, is sent as a junior diplomat to the Isthmus of Suez, and realizes it's just the place for a canal.
Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake
Screenplay
event1942 star_border 7.2
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Sir Arthur Blake has inherited title and lands from his brother. He also has his orphaned nephew Benjamin working for him as a bonded servant. While he believes the lad was born out of wedlock and so cannot claim the inheritance, he is taking no chances. Benjamin eventually rebels against his uncle and sets sail to try and make his fortune. This may enable him to return to prove his claim to being the rightful heir to the estate.
Breezing Home
Story
event1937
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Bookmakers try to fix a horse race.
Me and My Gal
Additional Writing
event1932 star_border 6.5
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Jaunty young policeman Danny Dolan falls in love with waterfront cafe waitress Helen Riley.
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