Want to know the best Myrna Loy (1905-1993) movies? How about the worst Myrna Loy movies? Curious about Myrna box office grosses or which Myrna Loy movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Myrna Loy 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.
At the suggestion of Robwrite, I began researching Myrna Loy’s career about two months ago for this movie page. My knowledge of Myrna Loy was pretty much limited to… she had been in the successful Thin Man series and had appeared in a couple of Cary Grant movies. Other than those two things, I did not really think there was much to really know about Myrna Loy’s career…..boy was I wrong.
“Myrna Loy was one of cinema’s brightest stars. Beautiful, talented, warm, witty, wise and urbane, she swept all before her with a startling succession of box-office hits that lasted from 1932 until 1941, when wartime commitments overtook her career. Adored by moviegoers, Myrna was crowned “Queen of Hollywood” in 1938, with twenty million fans casting their votes in the largest poll of its kind ever conducted. Spencer Tracy was besotted with her, Valentino and Barrymore smitten and President Roosevelt obsessed, whilst Miss Loy had to push Gable off her front-step for “getting fresh”! Her extraordinary profile also supplied plastic surgeons with the most requested image of the 1930s, despite Myrna never having gone under the knife. Loy also managed to royally piss off Hitler by speaking out against his treatment of Jews and, with Chaplin, had the distinction of heading his blacklist”.
“Yet, somehow, Myrna Loy – at her peak more popular than Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn combined – seems almost forgotten. Whether this can be attributed to her gracious acting style (allowing her leading men to dominate), the lack of scandal in her private life, or the relative scarcity of her films in this country, I’m not sure, but it is a situation that deserves to be rectified”. The previous two paragraphs come from the Myrna Loy forum at Empire.com by Rick 7.
Her IMDb page shows 138 acting credits from 1925-1982. This page will rank Myrna Loy movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos and movies and many of her early silent movies were not included in the rankings.
Myrna Loy Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Myrna Loy 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 Myrna Loy movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Myrna Loy movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Myrna Loy movies by domestic yearly box office rank
- Sort Myrna Loy movies 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 Myrna Loy movie received.
- Sort Myrna Loy movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
- Use the sort and search button to make this a very interactive page. For example type in William Powell to see 13 Powell/Loy movies….or type Clark Gable in the search box to bring up all of the Gable/Loy movies….or type in….I think you get the idea.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Myrna LoyTable
- Twenty-nine Myrna Loy movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 41.42% of her movies listed. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) was her biggest box office hit.
- An average Myrna Loy movie grosses $118.70 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 52 of Myrna Loy’s movies are rated as good movies…or 74.28% of her movies. After The Thin Man (1936) was her highest rated movie while Parnell (1937) was her lowest rated movie.
- Fifteen Myrna Loy movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 21.42% of her movies.
- Five Myrna Loy movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 7.14% of her movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 49 Myrna Loy movies scored higher than that average….or 70.00% of her movies. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) got the the highest UMR Score while Just Tell Me What You Want (1980) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Myrna Loy
1. Loy had 80 screen credits before finally becoming a star with the release of the low budget surprise hit….1934’s The Thin Man. This UMR page looks at her career from 1933-1980, with a few of her pre-1933 releases.
2. During her early years…..Loy appeared in the first ever European/American co-production…1925’s Ben-Hur…..she appeared in the first movie to use a movie score…..1926’s Don Juan…..she appeared in the first talkie….1927’s The Jazz Singer……and she appeared in the first ever filmed operetta….1929’s The Desert Song.
3. Myrna Loy appeared in over 120 movies, but never received an Oscar® nomination or a Golden Globe® nomination for any of her acting roles. She did receive an honorary Oscar® for career achievement in 1991.
4. In 1921, Loy posed for Harry Winebrenner’s statue titled “Spiritual,” which remained in front of Venice High School throughout the 20th century and can be seen in the opening scenes of the 1978 film Grease.
5. Gangster John Dillinger was shot to death after leaving a screening of the 1934 film Manhattan Melodrama which starred Loy, Clark Gable and William Powell.
6. Loy and William Powell appeared in 14 movies together. 6 times they appeared as Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man movie series (1934-1947). When looking at the table above….8 of their movies finished in Loy’s Top Ten according to critics and audiences.
7. Check out the list of co-stars for Loy…..Clark Gable (7 movies), Cary Grant (3 movies), Warner Baxter (3 movies), Spencer Tracy (2 films), and with one film….James Stewart, Jack Lemmon, Paul Newman, Frederich March, Will Rogers, Charlton Heston, Tyrone Power, and of course Burt Reynolds.
8. The first part of her career was in silent movies…she was typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent…..her first film her character was called Vamp…..these roles kind of solidified her exotic non-America image…..which is strange as she was born and raised in Montana.
9. Loy’s big break? Loy attended a Hollywood party with director W.S. Dyke. At the party Dyke detected a wit and sense of humor that Loy’s films had not revealed. He then chose Loy for the Nora Charles role in The Thin Man. The success of The Thin Man changed how Hollywood viewed her, and her roles got bigger and better.
10. With the outbreak of World War II, she abandoned her acting career to focus on the war effort and worked closely with the Red Cross. She helped run a Naval Auxiliary Canteen and toured frequently to raise funds.
Check out Myrna Loy‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Not enough stats for you?….Then check out 37 Myrna Loy worldwide adjusted grosses
- After the Thin Man (1936) $355.90 million in adjusted box office
- Animal Kingdom (1932) $58.10 million in adjusted box office
- Another Thin Man (1939) $267.40 million in adjusted box office
- The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) $384.70 million in adjusted box office
- The Bad Man (1930) $84.00 million in adjusted box office
- The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) $859.60 million in adjusted box office
- Bride of the Regiment (1930) $69.70 million in adjusted box office
- The Desert Song (1929) $232.20 million in adjusted box office
- Double Wedding (1937) $264.40 million in adjusted box office
- Evelyn Prentice (1934) $122.30 million in adjusted box office
- The Great Ziegfeld (1936) $525.20 million in adjusted box office
- I Love You Again (1940) $185.30 million in adjusted box office
- Isle of Escape (1930) $37.10 million in adjusted box office
- Libeled Lady (1936) $306.00 million in adjusted box office
- Love Crazy (1941) $200.70 million in adjusted box office
- Lucky Night (1939) $130.20 million in adjusted box office
- Manhattan Melodrama (1934) $129.00 million in adjusted box office
- Man-Proof (1938) $136.90 million in adjusted box office
- The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932) $68.30 million in adjusted box office
- Men In White (1934) $152.20 million in adjusted box office
- Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) $197.50 million in adjusted box office
- New Morals For Old (1932) $36.60 Night Flight (1933) $112.30 million in adjusted box office
- Noah’s Ark (1928) $191.00 million in adjusted box office
- Parnell (1937) $204.70 million in adjusted box office
- Pay As You Enter (1928) $11.30 million in adjusted box office
- Petticoat Fever (1936) $121.90 million in adjusted box office
- The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933) $97.20 million in adjusted box office
- Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) $224.10 million in adjusted box office
- The Show of Shows (1929) $209.90 million in adjusted box office
- Song of the Thin Man (1947) $142.40 million in adjusted box office
- Test Pilot (1938) $487.60 million in adjusted box office
- The Thin Man Goes Home (1945) $193.90 million in adjusted box office
- The Thin Man, The (1934) $159.90 million in adjusted box office
- Too Hot To Handle (1938) $299.20 million in adjusted box office
- The Truth About Youth (1930) $37.00 million in adjusted box office
- Under a Texas Moon (1930) $107.50 million in adjusted box office
- Whipshaw (1935) $97.60 million in adjusted box office
- Wife vs Secretary (1936) $232.70 million in adjusted box office
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For comments….all you need is a name and a comment….please ignore the rest.
1 AFTERNOON STEVE! Bruce stated as a fact that Myrna was the most successful box office star of all time and I disagreed with him because I find her statistical record as a stand-alone performer to be one of the most abysmal that I have ever seen among supposed major stars of the Classic Era and I feel that her “success” was to some extent on the coat-tails of the likes of Gable and Bill Powell. I feel that I am entitled to state a contrary opinion if I have one and my doing so does not interfere with others liking Loy if that is how they feel.
2 Alan Ladd is my own 5th favourite actor of all time but if someone tried to say that he had the same status as Gable or Wayne I would contradict that claim and I would not feel that I was “attacking” Laddie because he was in truth no more at that highest level of stardom than Loy was in relation to Gable, Crawford, Katie Hepburn, Liz Taylor or Bette Davis. Indeed if stating qualifying facts or opinions is to be regarded as an attack from which one should refrain then one is left with really only three options – say nothing, tell lies or airbrush out everything but sycophantic babel
There is an old barroom cliché “Talk’s cheap but it takes money to buy drink.” It is all very well for some placeman to get up at a ceremony when there is nothing at stake and gush with hyperbolic drivel about someone being “the best” when nobody will challenge it by asking “Why then did her peers never consider that she was worthy of a proper Oscar in all those years that she was active?” In my opinion, if I’m still allowed to express one, the guy that made that “she’s the best” speech is not just probably a hypocrite but he does not seem to have the wit to realise that he is in effect saying that the proper Oscar presentations are meaningless and that he is being unfair to all of those who DID win Oscars by in reality minimising their achievements. I have really no time for such misplaced sentimentality and am surprised that people can actually be fooled by the inherent double standards. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
List of Katharine Hepburn awards
Academy Awards
4 wins 12 nominations
BAFTA Film Awards
2 wins 5 nominations
Emmy Awards
1win 6 nominations
Tony Awards
0 wins 2 nominations
Total 7 wins 25 nominations
Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) was an American actress of film, stage and television. Her career spanned 66 years and eight decades (1928–1994), during which time she was honored with many of the industry’s top awards. She was nominated for a total of 12 Academy Awards for Best Actress and won four—the record amount of wins for a performer
Myrna Loy – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrna_Loy
Myrna Loy was an American film, television and stage actress. .Although Loy was never even nominated for a competitive Academy Award, in March 1991 she was presented with an Honorary Academy Award….
So I finally made it to “The Chosen One”! I have seen 28 of the above listed movies, my favs are the first 2 Thin Man films ( have not seen the other ones, but I have the DVD Box), The Best Years of our Lives, From the Terrace and Lonelyhearts. Some of her 30s and 40s movies are “too crazy” for my taste, but that’s the scripts and my personal taste, not the Quality of her acting. I really enjoyed some of her later movies, too, that didn’t make it to my Favorites, like Cheaper by the Dozen, Belles on their Toes and Midnight Lace. She my have been a little too old for her part in So goes my Love, but I enjoyed that film nevertheless. Isn’t it amazing that Loy started before the movies learned to talk, then usually was cast as a mysterious, exotic woman and after years “found” her screen image as a comedienne? When she reached that “dangerous age” for actresses, she didn’t struggle to maintain Top Star status, but very comfortably “reinvented” herself, threw some pride aside and became a highly capable character actress. A true Lady, a highly capable, versatile actress and a great STAR indeed!
Hey Lupino
1. Tally count (which has been going on for 6 years)….Flora 31, Lupino 28, Cogerson 20 and Steve 17….so Flora has you beat.
2. The first 2 Thin Man movies are the best…but the others are fun movies to watch…as watching the Powell/Loy team is a joy to watch…though the storylines got weaker and weaker as the franchise aged.
3. The only one of your favorite Loy movies that I have not watched is Lonelyhearts…..but I really enjoyed Best Years Of Our Lives (though repeat viewings are not high on my list of things to do)….From The Terrance has many many great performances in the movie.
4. Her career is amazing….and so long too. She was like John Wayne…..as she made many many movies before hitting stardom…her Stagecoach was The Thin Man….and she never looked back.
5. My favorite quote on Myrna Loy….“Yet, somehow, Myrna Loy – at her peak more popular than Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn combined – seems almost forgotten.” I think that shows just how big she was back then.
Good feedback. 🙂
Hey Lupino…..thanks for checking out our page on “The Chosen One”. 28 is a pretty stout total. I am currently walking out the door to go to work…and do not have the time to search the 167 comments to see where your tally ranks….but I do know it tops me. I am guessing it will give Flora a run for the movie too.
The first two Thin Man movies are the best….with the James Stewart being the best of those two. Finding a quality copy of The Thin Man is hard to do. I can see your point about some of the “too crazy” movies….I recently watched I Love You Again and thought the entire movie was just silly.
Wow….I have not seen a single one of the latter movies you like so much. I will have to check out So Goes My Love. I agree her career is amazing….and this page which has a healthy amount of movies…is still missing about 50 of her movies (mostly silent ones).
“A true Lady, a highly capable, versatile actress and a great STAR indeed!”…I agree with this 100%….thanks for the awesome comment.
Good news….discovered I had the worldwide rental numbers for Best Years of Our Lives…..so it has been added to the page…..it has an adjusted worldwide gross of $859 million…..boy…she sure was a beast at the box office….lol. 🙂
I remember my father and I had a heated argument about Jerry Lewis versus Phil Silvers as comedians and my mother intervened and told us to stop it. “They won’t be fighting about you,” she said.
INTERNET EXTRACTS
THE FUNERAL OF JOAN CRAWFORD
According to Crawford’s instructions, she was cremated, and her ashes were placed in an urn at Ferncliff Cemetery, Westchester County, New York, next to her last husband, Alfred Steele. The funeral was held at Campbell’s Funeral Home, in New York City. Among those in attendance were the actress Myrna Loy, who had known her the longest, the actors Van Johnson and Brian Aherne, the artist Andy Warhol, John Springer, and Joan’s four children: Christina, 37; Christopher, 33; and the twins, Cindy and Cathy, 30.
THE PUBLICATION OF MOMMIE DEAREST {CRITICAL OF JOAN CRAWFORD]
Some of Joan Crawford’s friends disputed the version of events presented in Mommie Dearest. Among them Van Johnson, Cesar Romero, Bob Hope, Barbara Stanwyck, Sydney Guilaroff, Ann Blyth, Gary Gray, and in particular Myrna Loy,[1] Joan’s friend since 1925.
Your mom was a wise woman…..I can see you and your dad getting into it. My arguments I have with my sons is mainly based on their knowledge versus my knowledge. They are trying to get to 50% of my knowledge…..and although are improving they are not learning as much as I do ….because my knowledge has expanded so much from this pages….and from receiving comments like yours.
Good information about Joan’s friends….the fact that Myrna came to her defense brought a smile to me. Thanks for sharing this information.
Myrna does a complete takedown of Christina in her memoirs, claiming that her irrational jealousy of her Mother’s fame caused her to make false claims. Myrna would know, she worked with Christina in a production of Barefoot in the Park, Christina was fired despite marrying her director.
Hey John…..good point about Gable and his leading ladies. I call that the curse of 39 for actresses…seems once an actress reaches that age….it is a steep downhill drop from there. My wife did a study on that subject for her masters degree….and only Sandra Bullock was able to avoid that curse….yet Our Brand Is Crisis might be the beginning of her drop.
Meanwhile…men get to go to 59 before they reach the cliff. Poor Bruce Willis….he hit 59 and the wheels came off and he crashed hard.
Good points about Crawford…..her 1940s bounce back was pretty impressive….thanks for return comment.