Philip Yordan’s Typical Vibe
Signature vibe

Highest-ranked title
Highest-ranked title
Philip Yordan has 14 titles in the CriticCrunch catalog across a career spanning the 1950s through the 1960s.
Recurring themes

On the outskirts of town, the hard-nosed Vienna owns a saloon frequented by the undesirables of the region, including Dancin' Kid and his gang. Another patron of Vienna's establishment is Johnny Guitar, a former gunslinger and her lover. When a heist is pulled in town that results in a man's death, Emma Small, Vienna's rival, rallies the townsfolk to take revenge on Vienna's saloon – even without proof of her wrongdoing.
Dir. Nicholas Ray · With Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge

A medical examiner discovers that an innocent shooting victim in a robbery died of bubonic plague. With only 48 hours to find the killer, who is now a ticking time bomb threatening the entire city, a grisly manhunt through the seamy underworld of the New Orleans Waterfront is underway.
Dir. Elia Kazan · With Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes
Epic film of the legendary Spanish hero, Rodrigo Diaz ("El Cid" to his followers), who, without compromising his strict sense of honour, still succeeds in taking the initiative and driving the Moors from Spain.
Dir. Anthony Mann · With Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren, Raf Vallone

Will Lockhart arrives in Coronado, an isolated town in New Mexico, in search of someone who sells rifles to the Apache tribe, finding himself unwillingly drawn into the convoluted life of a local ranching family whose members seem to have a lot to hide.
Dir. Anthony Mann · With James Stewart, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Crisp

Jobless sportswriter Eddie Willis is hired by corrupt fight promoter Nick Benko to promote his current protégé, an unknown Argentinian boxer named Toro Moreno. Although Moreno is a hulking giant, his chances for success are hampered by a powder-puff punch and a glass jaw. Exploiting Willis' reputation for integrity and standing in the boxing community, Benko arranges a series of fixed fights that propel the unsophisticated Moreno to #1 contender for the championship. The reigning champ, the sadistic Buddy Brannen, harbors resentment at the publicity Toro has been receiving and vows to viciously punish him in the ring. Eddie must now decide whether or not to tell the naive Toro the truth.
Dir. Mark Robson · With Humphrey Bogart, Rod Steiger, Jan Sterling

Tells the story of one day in the lives of the various people who populate a police detective squad. An embittered cop, Det. Jim McLeod, leads a precinct of characters in their grim daily battle with the city's lowlife. The characters who pass through the precinct over the course of the day include a young petty embezzler, a pair of burglars, and a naive shoplifter.
Dir. William Wyler · With Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, William Bendix

Who is Jesus, and why does he impact all he meets? He is respected and reviled, emulated and accused, beloved, betrayed, and finally crucified. Yet that terrible fate would not be the end of the story.
Dir. Nicholas Ray · With Jeffrey Hunter, Siobhán McKenna, Hurd Hatfield

Police Lt. Leonard Diamond vies to bring a clever, well connected, and sadistic gangster to justice all the while obsessing over the gangster's girlfriend.
Dir. Joseph H. Lewis · With Cornel Wilde, Jean Wallace, Brian Donlevy

Diplomats, soldiers and other representatives of a dozen nations fend off the siege of the International Compound in Peking during the 1900 Boxer Rebellion. The disparate interests unite for survival despite competing factions, overwhelming odds, delayed relief and tacit support of the Boxers by the Empress of China and her generals.
Dir. Nicholas Ray · With Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, David Niven

Blaise Starrett is a rancher at odds with homesteaders when outlaws hold up the small town. The outlaws are held in check only by their notorious leader, but he is diagnosed with a fatal wound and the town is a powder keg waiting to blow.
Dir. André de Toth · With Robert Ryan, Burl Ives, Tina Louise

In the winter of 1944, the Allied Armies stand ready to invade Germany at the coming of a New Year. To prevent it, Hitler orders an all-out offensive to re-take French territory and capture the major port city of Antwerp.
Dir. Ken Annakin · With Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Robert Ryan

The Leiningen South American cocoa plantation is threatened by a 2-mile-wide, 20-mile-long column of army ants.
Dir. Byron Haskin · With Eleanor Parker, Charlton Heston, Abraham Sofaer

Jim Douglass arrives in the small town of Rio Arriba in order to witness the hanging of the four men he believes murdered his wife. When the convicts escape, Jim tracks them into Mexico, determined to see that justice is done. But the farther Jim goes in his quest for vengeance, the more merciless he becomes, losing himself in an unrelenting spiral of hatred and violence.
Dir. Henry King · With Gregory Peck, Joan Collins, Stephen Boyd

In the year 180 A.D. Germanic tribes are about to invade the Roman empire from the north. In the midst of this crisis ailing emperor Marcus Aurelius has to make a decision about his successor between his son Commodus, who is obsessed by power, and the loyal general Gaius Livius.
Dir. Anthony Mann · With Sophia Loren, Stephen Boyd, Alec Guinness
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Directors with 2+ shared titles, ranked by frequency