Jane Powell Movies

Jane Powell

Want to know the best Jane Powell movies?  How about the worst Jane Powell movies?  Curious about Jane Powell box office grosses or which Jane Powell movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Jane Powell movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.

Jane Powell (1929-2021) was an American singer, dancer and actress who rose to fame in the mid-1940s with roles in various musicals Her IMDb page shows 43 acting credits from 1944-2002. This page will rank 20 Jane Powell movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.  Her many television appearances and her Picture Perfect (not released in theaters) were not included in the rankings.  This comes from a request by Samantha.

Jane Powell in 1954’s Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Jane Powell Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.

Jane Powell Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort Jane Powell films by co-stars of her movies
  • Sort Jane Powell films by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Jane Powell films by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Jane Powell films by how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Jane Powell film received.
  • Sort Jane Powell films by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Jane Powell and Fred Astaire in 1951’s Royal Wedding

Possibly Interesting Facts About Jane Powell

  1.  Suzanne Lorraine Burce was born in Portland, Oregon in 1929.

2. In 1943,Suzanne Burce won a talent contest on Janet Gaynor’s radio show Hollywood Showcase: Stars over Hollywood.  After winning the contest she signed a 7 year contract with MGM without even taking a screen test.

3. In 1944, Suzanne Burce was loaned out to United Artist for her first movie role.  She played a character named Jane Powell in Song of the Open Road.  Her stage name was taken from this movie.

4. Although Jane Powell was one of the best singers of her time, she never learned to play an instrument or read music.

5. Jane Powell was married five times.  She has three children.

6. Jane Powell was bridesmaid for Elizabeth Taylor for her first marriage. Taylor was bridesmaid for Powell’s first marriage.

7. When Jane Powell’s The Female Animal (1958) hit theaters it was the A side of a double bill.  The B side?  A little film starring Charlton Heston as a Mexican…1958’s Touch of Evil.

8. Jane Powell’s Tubby the Tuba (1975) was the first animated movie to use computers during production.  Two of the crew members were Edwin Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith, the future founders of Pixar Studios.

9. Parts Jane Powell was seriously considered for or turned down:  Doris Day’s role in 1955’s Love Me or Leave Me, Mitzi Gaynor’s role in 1958’s South Pacific and Debbie Reynolds’ role in 1952’s Singin’ In The Rain.

10. Check out Jane Powell’s movie career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.  Also highly recommended is Steve Lensman’s Jane Powell video.

Jane Powell’s Adjusted World Wide Box Office Grosses 

Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.

34 thoughts on “Jane Powell Movies

  1. Another one I find out passed away from your site. I was never a big fan of the sopranos in movies like Jane and Kathryn Grayson. I always felt that when they sang (sounding operatic to me) they slowed the film down. They weren’t fun to watch like Doris Day or Betty Hutton or Debbie Reynolds.

    I’ve seen all of Jane’s films on your list except Tubby the Tuba.

    Jane was never on the Oracle of Bacon top 1000 list. These are the actors on the 2020 list she appeared with (will they do a new list next year),

    32 DEREK JACOBI Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003)
    39 RODDY MCDOWELL Holiday in Mexico (1946)
    80 MARTIN LANDAU Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003)
    131 BURT LANCASTER Three Sailors and a Girl (1953)
    194 CHARLES DURNING Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003)
    262 KEENAN WYNN Royal Wedding (1951)
    306 JOSE FERRER Deep in My Heart (1954)
    439 CLIFF ROBERTSON The Girl Most Likely (1958)
    501 RALPH BELLAMY Delightfully Dangerous (1945)
    577 ROBERT STACK A Date with Judy (1948)
    609 AMANDA PLUMMER Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003)
    667 PETER LAWFORD Royal Wedding (1951)
    749 KATHLEEN FREEMAN Athena (1954)
    756 DEBBIE REYNOLDS Hit the Deck (1955)
    756 DEBBIE REYNOLDS Two Weeks with Love (1950)
    779 ELIZABETH TAYLOR A Date with Judy (1948)
    788 MARCEL DALIO Rich, Young and Pretty (1951)
    895 JOHN CRAWFORD Three Sailors and a Girl (1953)
    907 WALTER PIDGEON Deep in My Heart (1954)
    907 WALTER PIDGEON Hit the Deck (1955)
    907 WALTER PIDGEON Holiday in Mexico (1946)
    934 RICHARD ANDERSON Hit the Deck (1955)
    934 RICHARD ANDERSON Rich, Young and Pretty (1951)

    Jane appeared with 8 Oscar winners.

    BURT LANCASTER Three Sailors and a Girl (1953)
    CLIFF ROBERTSON The Girl Most Likely (1958)
    ELIZABETH TAYLOR A Date with Judy (1948)
    JANE DARWELL Hit the Deck (1955)
    JOSE FERRER Deep in My Heart (1954)
    MARTIN LANDAU Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003)
    MAUREEN STAPLETON Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003)
    WALLACE BEERY A Date with Judy (1948)

  2. Jane Powell died of natural causes today. She was 92. My favourite films were Royal Wedding and Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. Rest in peace.

  3. HI STEVE 1 I am a bit of a puritan when it comes to being fair in recognising achievements and I like to think that everyone is being examined on a level playing field as far as that is practical.

    2 Accordingly when your video highlighted ALL TOGETHER the enormous number of stand-alone billed above the title movies that Clint has made and I realised that other performers who could barely carry one movie on his/her own were getting the same credit as Clint for movies individually or collectively it made me so despondent that I didn’t notice that in cruising the site for points of reference I had strayed onto Jane’s page. I apologise to you for that.

    3 To paraphrase Baby Houseman’s father in Dirty Dancing “When YOU are wrong I say you are wrong,” and I do think you too are guilty of giving too much credit at times but it doesn’t matter so much in your case because you are not producing ranking lists that MIGHT give the impression to some that for example Walter Brennan was a bigger box office star than Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant [Bruce’s Top Stars of the 1940s which was nevertheless a brilliant survey overall].

    4 I realise that when there are practical limitations on how far you can make distinctions in sharing out honors for movies, but to give an uncredited actress in an ensemble who is not mentioned on posters and is ranked 82nd in an IMDB cast list and not at all on that of Wikipedia the same credit for a movie as Clint gets for carrying, and at times even directing as well, a 2 hour flick isn’t really in my opinion within the spirit of the Biblical advice that we should “Render to Caesar the Things that are Caesar’s”

    5 I think it is spurious although commendably in a spirit of generosity, to suggest Ginny should get credit for a Kaye movie in which she barely appears simply because she was his leading lady in future movies. For example Costner played the supporting role of Jonathan Kent in the 1913 Man of Steel and was given credit for it in his box office totals on Box Office Mojo site but when he reprised that role in the 2016 Superman v Batman Mojo mentioned that as a “cameo” but excluded the 2016 film from Kevin’s totals because his role was not sufficient enough for it to be given a box office credit.

    6 Virginia Mayo made 4 films with Kaye after Up in Arms – Wonder Man in 1945, The Kid from Brooklyn in 1946 and in 1948 Walter Mitty and A Song is Born. It was not until the two 1948 films that she was billed equally and above the title with Kaye and in my database I credit her with just those two Kaye movies which I think is more than fair as I’m quite sure that in even those two movie more people went to see Danny than wanted to watch Ginny.

    7 I think that if a performer is to be included in a ranking list along with mega box office draws like Wayne and Gable it should be on the basis of movies in which the functions of a star were performed to at least some extent. Also in my opinion throwing in “everything but the kitchen sink” in the end might simply obscure serious achievements and therefore I shall be watching with interest Bruce’s new surveys of just the top 20 or so of a star’s movies. I think that a popular cliché currently going the rounds is “Less is more.”

    8 Still one doesn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and I find comprehensive lists of a star’s movies such as Bruce’s ones informative and indeed fun and have often been sorry that YOU were not able to produce extended videos to cover more films Accordingly there might be a case for including in a star’s own page all of his/her movies along with the stats but excluding films like Up in Arms in Ginny’s case from future lists that rank performers directly with each other though selections will always entail a degree of subjectivity.

    1. PS STEVE

      In case you think that I’m on another “Myrna” type crusade against Virginia personally I will emphasise that she is one of my favourite actresses of whom I hold fond, nostalgic memories from the 1950s

Leave a Reply to BOB Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.