Joan Blondell Movies

Want to know the best Joan Blondell movies?  How about the worst Joan Blondell movies?  Curious about Joan Blondell box office grosses or which Joan Blondell movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Joan Blondell 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.

Joan Blondell (1906-1979) was an Oscar® nominated American actress.  She was a leading lady in the 1930s and 1940s and spent the remainder of her career in supporting roles.  Her IMDb page shows 160 acting credits from 1930-1981. This page will rank 75 Joan Blondell movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.  Her many television appearances, a few not released in North American theaters and some early 1930s movies were not included in the rankings.

Joan Blondell in 1978’s Grease

Joan Blondell 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 Joan Blondell films by co-stars of her movies
  • Sort Joan Blondell films by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Joan Blondell films by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Joan Blondell 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 Joan Blondell film received.
  • Sort Joan Blondell 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.

Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Joan Blondell

Table

  1. Fourteen Joan Blondell movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 18.66% of her movies listed.  Her biggest hit was Grease (1978)
  2. An average Joan Blondell movie grosses an average of $73.20 million in adjusted domestic gross.
  3. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  41 Joan Blondell movies are rated as good movies…or 54.66% of her movies.  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) was her highest rated movie while Kona Coast (1968) was her lowest rated movie.
  4. Eight Joan Blondell movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 10.66% of her movies.
  5. One Joan Blondell movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 1.33% of her movies.
  6. An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 28 Joan Blondell movies scored higher than that average….or 37.33% of her movies. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) got the the highest UMR Score while Kona Coast (1968) got the lowest UMR Score.

James Cagney & Joan Blondell starred in 6 movies together

Possibly Interesting Facts About Joan Blondell

  1. Rose Joan Blondell was born in New York in 1906.

2. After finishing 4th in the 1926 Miss America beauty contest…she turned her attention to a film career.  In less than 4 years she was starring in movies!

3. Joan Blondell was married 3 times.  Her first marriage was to Oscar® winning cinematographer George Barnes.  Her second marriage was to actor/director Dick Powell.  They had one child.  Her third marriage was to Oscar® winning producer Mike Todd.  They also had one child.

4. Joan Blondell made six movies with James Cagney at Warner Brothers – more than any other individual actress. Cagney said that the only woman he loved other than his wife was Blondell.

5. Joan Blondell was nominated for one Oscar®.  She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for 1951’s The Blue Veil.

6. Joan Blondell was nominated for 2 Golden Globes®.  She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for 1965’s The Cincinnati Kid and 1977’s Opening Night.

7. Joan Blondell felt that her best performance was as Aunt Sissy in 1945’s  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  So I imagine she would not argue that UMR has that ranked as her number one movie.

8. Check out Joan Blondell’s movie career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

WAIT!  Not enough stats?  Well here are adjusted Worldwide Box Office Grosses on 34 Joan Blondell Movies

  1. Adventure (1945) $419.70 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  2. Back in Circulation (1937) $78.50 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  3. Blondie Johnson (1933) $34.80 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  4. Broadway Gondolier (1935) $112.80 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  5. Bullets or Ballots (1936) $124.60 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  6. Colleen (1936) $122.70 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  7. Dames (1934) $158.70 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  8. Footlight Parade (1933) $252.70 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  9. God’s Gift to Women (1931) $20.80 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  10. Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) $568.60 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  11. Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936) $157.20 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  12. He Was Her Man (1934) $86.80 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  13. Illicit (1931) $65.30 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  14. I’ve Got Your Number (1934) $49.30 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  15. Lawyer Man (1932) $44.80 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  16. Lizzie (1957) $24.00 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  17. Millie (1931) $75.00 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  18. Miss Pacific Fleet (1935) $48.70 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  19. Night Nurse (1931) $81.80 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  20. Off The Record (1939) $57.10 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  21. Sinner’s Holiday (1930) $32.80 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  22. Sons o’ Guns (1936) $83.50 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  23. Stand-In (1937) $111.60 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  24. The Crowd Roars (1932) $84.40 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  25. The Office Wife (1930) $87.70 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  26. The Opposite Sex (1956) $121.00 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  27. The Perfect Specimen (1937) $165.90 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  28. The Public Enemy (1931) $111.20 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  29. The Reckless Hour (1931) $36.60 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  30. This Could Be The Night (1957) $65.40 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  31. Three Men On A Horse (1936) $121.10 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  32. Three on a Match (1932) $49.00 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  33. Traveling Saleslady (1935) $52.80 million in adjusted worldwide gross
  34. Union Depot (1932) $123.40 million in adjusted worldwide gross

Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences. Golden Globes® are the registered trademarks of the Hollywood Foreign Press.

34 thoughts on “Joan Blondell Movies

  1. Joan Blondell is TCM’s Star of the Month for December. Her movies will air Thursday evenings starting 8pm eastern/5pm pacific into some morning programming on Fridays.

    1. Hey Flora…thanks for sharing this information on Joan Blondell……I wonder if TCM gives our UMR pages on their TCM Star of the Month a view bump? I will have to research that. Thanks again.

      1. I know that tCM’s August Summer Under the Stars 24 hour look at a star a day does give the star’s page a bumb. I noticed that.

  2. Joan is famous for her legs. Does anyone have a list of the films which contain these “leg scenes”? I know about all of her pre-code films, but the later ones are not as well known.

    1. Hey steve….I do not have a list like that…but many one of our very movie savy contributors does…heck…I did not know that about her legs. Hope somebody is able to provide an answer.

  3. Hi Bob, thanks for the review, rating, info, trivia and comment, much appreciated.

    Glad you approve of it’s pictorial qualities.

    This video would have been a lot naughtier if I had my way, there was a wonderful photo of Joan Blondell sitting in a bath tub naked, scrubbing her back and smiling at the camera, a publicity shot from the Jimmy Cagney film Blonde Crazy. I mean who wouldn’t want to see that? And have the photo enlarged and framed on the wall too? They really knew how to take publicity photos 85 years ago! Alas youtube is a lot more stringent now when it comes to displays of female flesh, and I wimped out. Sorry.

    On the plus side you can view our Joanie’s near-nakedness at Google Images, type in ‘Joan Blondell bath tub’ and enjoy! There’s even a shot of Cagney sitting on the edge of the bath tub, oh dear… avert your eyes! Think of the children! 😉

    Looking at Bruce’s chart – we don’t really match up, we obviously use different sources. At least my no.1 is somewhere in the top 10. 🙂

    Only two of Blondell’s films scored 10 out of 10 from my unmentionable sources – The Public Enemy and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Three scored 9 – Footlight Parade, Gold Diggers of 1933 and Nightmare Alley.

    No.1 at IMDB is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which matched Bruce’s chart. No.1 at Rotten Tomatoes is Public Enemy which matches mine.

    1. HI AGAIN CAPT V
      1 Duly watched M-s Blondell taking her bath so thanks for mentioning the link and for the other useful feedback I see that slipped into the montage is Mr. Mumble’s Tango partner also taking a bath. That guy’s like his drawling fellow superstar the Duke as connections to Mr M seem to pop up everywhere.

      2 Despite his Yankee Doodle Dandy image the “Dirty Rat” seems to be fond of invading women’s privacy in his movies. In another movie one that I saw he accidentally walks into the Ladies’ restroom and the leading lady is standing by the mirror combing her hair and she turns and says to Jimmy “Did your parents never explain to you the protocol regarding places like this?”

      3 There is also a fine still of Joan Blondell on her Wikipedia page and in this one a chair is her only cover. It was actually initially given wide release to promote a 1932 picture but was later banned by Hayes Movies Production code.

      4 Anyway whilst it’s disappointing for you to not be given free rein in what you post I suppose we have to have a line drawn somewhere or we might even be getting up-to-date nude pictures of former male “body-beautifuls” Arnie, Sly and Harrison Ford [Bob shudders!].

      5 However even if all you site producers were allowed to do as you liked the Work Horse would have to stay clear of taking advantage of the situation otherwise I’d probably be the only one still looking at his stats!

    2. Hey Steve…..sorry you used the wrong Blondell sources….lol. You produce a lot more videos than I do pages….so your quantity overcomes your source mistakes….lol. I always say….Variety is the spice of life. I will be checking out your latest video after I catch up on these comments….if I ever get there…lol.

  4. HI CAPTAIN VIDEO: 1 Joan Blondell’sBbroadway/movie career spanned 52 years [1927-1979] but her most active period in movies was the 1930s. She played leading roles back then but was usually 2nd billed or lower if a big male star or where another prominent female star was involved – for example Margaret Sullivan and Ann Sothern in Cry Havoc and Dorothy McGuire in A Tree Grow in Brooklyn.

    2 I am not familiar with many of Joan’s leading lady flicks and indeed quite a few t of them are possibly forgotten by, or were never known to, most people today though movies in the classic era were churned out at such a rate that many of them are probably bound to have faded from audiences’ memory whoever the star. In her heyday Joan was apparently a favourite frequent co-star of Pat O’Brien as Bruce’s co-stars columns on this page ably demonstrates.

    3 I am certainly aware of that part of Joan’s career from about the mid- 1940s that largely revolved supporting parts as in Jane Wyman’s 1951 The Blue Veil and Eleanor Parker’s 1957 Lizzie and whilst in my perception Joan was in her heyday an important but not vertiginous star I have praised WH’s site for profiling performers of varying status who merited a Cogerson page in my view so I welcome videos like your Blondell one where the star is not someone of the perceived highest ilk such as Katie Hepburn.

    4 Certainly there is a run of wonderful “old world” posters in your Blondell pictorial which are probably new to most people and definitely are to me. The best in the overall presentation were I thought Two Girls on Broadway, Model Wife, Big City Blues, Night Nurse, Union Depot and a very original one from the more modern Cincinnati Kid. Also worthy of mention is Lady for a Night an early Duke co-starrer – say, what’s the big deal about that guy that he keeps getting mentioned!?

    5 For me best stills were Joan with Flynn, with Bing, in a threesome with Dick Powell and presumably Ruby Keeler, the one with Joan and the “Dirty rat” and the closing saucy one of Miss Blondell in her prime.

    6 Had I not known that the presentation had been compiled by our very own respectable Captain Video I would have thought at times that I had strayed onto a porn movies site but even if I was prudish that would not have stopped me from giving the video a well-earned 97% rating because of its delicious as previously said old world appeal for me

    7 You and The Great Panjandrum agree on 3 of Joan’s top 5 artistically. Below on this page is a post from me dated 29 May 2017 [8.02 AM] and there is also a reply to it a copy of which hangs on my wall as i a nostalgic reminder of the Halcyon Days when I would get a response from this site’s Favourite Son. Ah “Never glad confident morning again!”

    1. Hey Bob….good breakdown on Steve’s latest video…..speaking of porn…..Steve’s video breakdown of the films of Linda Lovelace and Marilyn Chambers are ones to check out….lol.

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