Philip Dunne is particularly noted for his screen adaptations of the works of such authors as John O'Hara, John Galsworthy, Lloyd C. Douglas, John P. Marquand, and Kathleen Winsor. Although he has written few original screenplays, he is adept at transforming other writers' works into successful films. Dunne once compared himself and other screenwriters to Italian sculptor Benvenuto Cellini: "Cellini was a craftsman, not an artist. But he was definitely artistic. We're Cellinis, but we're not Leonardos."

Dunne was born in New York City, the son of the former Margaret Ives Abbott and the noted American humorist Finley Peter Dunne. After attending Harvard from 1925 to 1929 (but failing to graduate due to illness), Dunne went to work for the Guaranty Trust Company in New York in 1929, but, as he observed, "people started dropping out of buildings, splashing on the sidewalk, and I decided some form of literature would pay...