
Director · Writer · Producer
Norman Panama
19 credited titles on WatchWise
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Norman Panama (April 21, 1914 – January 13, 2003) was an American screenwriter and film director born in Chicago, Illinois. He collaborated with a former school friend, Melvin Frank, to form a writing partnership which endured for three decades. He also wrote gags for comedians such as Bob Hope's radio program and for Groucho Marx. The most famous films Panama directed were Li'l Abner (1959), the Danny Kaye film The Court Jester (1956), and Bob Hope's How to Commit Marriage (1969). He wrote Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), Road to Utopia (1946), and The Court Jester, among other movies. He won an Edgar Award for A Talent for Murder (1981), a play he co-wrote with Jerome Chodorov. Panama continued to write and direct through the 1980s. He died in 2003 in Los Angeles, California from complications due to Parkinson's disease. Description above from the Wikipedia article Norman Panama, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Norman Panama in one minute
Commercial performance
All figures are associated, not attributed — box-office numbers are sourced from TMDB and Wikipedia (reused under CC BY-SA), shown in US$, and weighted by billing prominence. Coverage varies by title; figures are estimates, not audited trade data.
What drives the index
0.6x return · 12% of films profitable · little recent work. Weighted toward recent releases (a film counts half as much every 6 years) and toward titles they actually carried.
Directed (4)
Written (6)
Produced (2)
Titles are ones WatchWise has catalogued so far — not necessarily a complete filmography.











