Luise Rainer (1910-2014) was a Two time Oscar®-winning German actress. Most of her movie career was during the 1930s. She is one of the few thespians to win back to back Oscars®. Others on that short list? Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Jason Robards and Tom Hanks. This page ranks 10 Luis Rainer movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows (10 roles) and her movies (4 movies) not released in North America theaters are not included in the rankings. This page comes from a request by bob cox and a “second” by Lupino.
Luise Rainer Movies Ranked By Combination of Box Office, Reviews and Awards (UMR Score) *Classic UMR Table (the one with all the stats is the second table)
Luise Rainer 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 Luise Rainer movies by co-stars of her movies.
- Sort Luise Rainer movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Luise Rainer movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Luise Rainer movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations each Luise Rainer movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Luise Rainer movie won.
- Sort Luise Rainer 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 search and sort button to make this page very interactive.
LMU Of Munich Film Professor Lupino’s Possibly Interesting Facts on Luise Rainer
1. Luise Rainer was born January 12, 1910 in Düsseldorf, Germany into a jewish family
2. Luise Rainer was discovered by legendary stage director Max Reinhardt and became a member of his company in Vienna, Austria. She became a well known stage actress in both Vienna and Berlin.
3. Luise Rainer made her film debut in 1932, in the German/Austrian co-production Desire 202 (referring to a perfume) and followed this with 2 more films before being discovered by a talent scout and being offered a seven year contract by MGM. Since the Nazi regime was already becoming a strong force, Rainer ended her European career and left for Hollywood.
4. Won her 2 Oscars for her second and third American movie.
5. Claimed to have based her tour de force performance in the famous telephone scene in The Great Ziegfeld on Cocteau’s one woman play La Voix Humaine/The Human Voice.
6. Preferred her performance of O Lan to anything she had done during her Hollywood career and was full of praise for director Sidney Franklin
7. Married famous playwrite Clifford Odets in 1937 (divorced 1940).
8. Named Melvyn Douglas as her favorite leading man
9. After the death of Irving Thalberg, who shared a lot of her artistic visions, she constantly clashed with Louis B. Mayer, who was more interested in beautiful people than beautiful performances to grace his pictures. After threatening to kill her career if she remained difficult once too often, Rainer walked out of her contract and left Hollywood for good.
10. Returned once for one Paramount movie in 1943, then, like Dietrich, joined the war effort, touring North Africa and Italy, boosting the morale of soldiers there.
11. Found lasting happiness in her second marriage (1945 to 1989, her husband’s death)
12. Was offered movie roles during her long absence from the screen, most notably in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, but argued with the director about a “sex scene” of sorts she was supposed to act out with Marcello Mastroianni and finally withdrew despite her admiration for the director.
13. Lived in Switzerland and later in London, was in good health until the age of 102, made a “small comeback” in The Gambler in 1997 and was widely praised for her performance. She was a frequent and whitty guest on TV shows, impressing viewers with her sharp memory and funny remarks like “I spent my 90th birthday swimming in the dead sea, injecting some life into it”.
14. Luise Rainer died December 30, 2014 in Belgravia, London, at the age of 104.
15. Check out Luise Rainer‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
LMU of Munich Professor Lupino’s thoughts on Luise Rainer:
“I feel that her O Lan role in 1937’s The Good Earth is one of the finest screen creations I have seen to date, and as most of you know, I have seen quite a few movies in my lifetime. Yet, I do have my reservations about her overall thespian talents as captured on film.
I watched only my fourth LR movie over the weekend and this one proved what I already suspected- Miss Rainer may only be second to Bette Davis when it comes to falling back on mannerisms. Strangely, these mannerisms are highly effective when viewed in one film, but seem to show quite a limited range when witnessed in film after film.
What am I talking about? Her delicate beauty and elfin appearance seem to be inevitably partnered with that faint, whispering voice, soulfull eyes always ready to fill with tears and that Rainer giggle, trying to hide the tears when in fact it is nothing but a showcase for her shaken emotional state. As I said already, I have only seen 3 movies apart from The Good Earth, so maybe I am too harsh in my judgement. But I felt that in both, The Great Waltz and Dramatic School, those mannerisms almost detached her from the other players, as if Rainer’s character existed in a parallel world to everyone else.
Maybe like Davis she needed a good director to keep her acting tricks at bay, or maybe, as she often claimed herself, she didn’t understand what was going on in her films and thus didn’t really know what else to do with her part. Seeing her as O Lan and knowing that the great Max Reinhardt as well as Clifford Odets were taken in by her acting chops, I tend to believe that Rainer and Hollywood simply was a miss-match. Would love to see more of her movies, but haven’t been lucky yet.
What I love about the stats here is that they prove that her movies were not box office duds and thus killing her career prematurely as I have read quite often. Her 8 MGM films brought in over a billion $, and only 2 failed to reach the 100 million $ mark domestically. No Davis, Hepburn, Stanwyck or Garbo had such a “run” in the mid 30’s.
My favorite Luise Rainer films are The Good Earth and The Great Ziegfeld, and although neither The Great Waltz nor Dramatic School are anywhere close to my favorite movies, they are entertaining enough for various reasons.”
Hello Bruce,
as always I’m quite curious what your favorite movie critic had to say about Miss Rainer…or if he doesn’t mention her at all. Thank you 😉
Lupino
September 7, 2018 at 1:32 pm
Hello Bruce,
as always I’m quite curious what your favorite movie critic had to say about Miss Rainer…or if he doesn’t mention her at all. Thank you
HEY LUPINO
For goodness sake let sleeping dogs lie!
And remember that “when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks out at you.”
Hey Bob….you know…..deep down….you too….are disappointed their is no Joel breakdown for Luise Rainer….lol. Actually working on a page…and guess what….one of that person’s movies has music by Joel…..so Joel is in the massive table coming very soon to UMR. It is a Joel world….we are just lucky to be living in it…lol.
HI Bruce
You know I have absolutely no quarrel with Joel’s taste in music.
I’m sure that many of his admirers on this site will be delighted that “It is a Joel world, ” as you say
Speaking for myself I am reminded of Anthony Newley’s 1962 Broadway musical play and 1966 movie adaptation “Stop the World I want to Get off”!
BOB,
I knew what I had done before I did it -and thus choose to hide…but like any brave man would, I return to face the consequences!
(…but is it my fault that this Nrohhcsrih guy has put a spell on me? Is it my fault that the landlord of this house whorships him? Is it my fault he didn’t pay enough respect to Brando? After all, he showered well deservered praise on my Margaret…guess I better go back into hiding now,..because, dear Sir, there are worse things than the ABYSS looking out at me!)
Hey Lupino….Luise Rainer did not make his book. He did not look at many early film stars. Hayes, Pickford, Fairbanks Sr, Gish and Rainer are some of the stars you would think should be in the book….but sadly they are not.
Bruce,
thanks for checking Joel’s book out…strange that he choose Margaret Sullavan but neglected the first back to back Oscar winner Luise Rainer for inclusion in his book. No complaints about Miss Sullavan making an appearance, though 😉
Hey Bob and Lupino…..enjoyable conversation between you two about Luise Rainer. Enjoyed the Oscar links. Good finds. Enjoyed the stories on Robert Taylor, Brando, and all the others. Good feedback from both of you.
Hey Professor Lupino…your excellent comment is now part of the page…..it is listed under interesting fact #15. Thanks again for sharing it.
Bruce,
saw this thursday night and didn’t know how to react. Now it’s sunday, and I’m none the wiser. So let me put it plain and simple. Thank you very much for the honor, I am glad that you and some others liked my comment on Miss Rainer 😉
The LMU in Munich is one of the most distinguished universities in Germany, more than 500 years old I did go to uni decades ago, but not to one as famous as that one!
Hey Lupino…glad I randomly picked a good college for you. When I typed German film study in Google Search….LMU was the one that popped up. 500 years old….that is impressive. Makes WoC’s William and Mary look like a baby….it is only 324 years old. This is almost looking like a Lupino Luise Rainer page versus an UMR Luise Rainer page…lol. That works for me.
I have posted quite a bit on Miss Rainer’s page already, but I haven’t said anything about my personal feelings towards this actress. As I said before elsewhere, I feel that her O Lan in The Good Earth is one of the finest screen creations I have seen to date, and as most of you know, I have seen quite a few movies in my lifetime. Yet, I do have my reservations about her overall thespian talents as captured on film. I watched only my fourth LR movie over the weekend and this one proved what I already suspected- Miss Rainer may only be second to Bette Davis when it comes to falling back on mannerisms. Strangely, these mannerisms are highly effective when viewed in one film, but seem to show quite a limited range when witnessed in film after film. What am I talking about? Her delicate beauty and elfin appearance seem to be inevitably partnered with that faint, whispering voice, soulfull eyes always ready to fill with tears and that Rainer giggle, trying to hide the tears when in fact it is nothing but a showcase for her shaken emotional state. As I said already, I have only seen 3 movies apart from The Good Earth, so maybe I am too harsh in my judgement. But I felt that in both, The Great Waltz and Dramatic School, those mannerisms almost detached her from the other players, as if Rainer’s character existed in a parallel world to everyone else. Maybe like Davis she needed a good director to keep her acting tricks at bay, or maybe, as she often claimed herself, she didn’t understand what was going on in her films and thus didn’t really know what else to do with her part. Seeing her as O Lan and knowing that the great Max Reinhardt as well as Clifford Odets were taken in by her acting chops, I tend to believe that Rainer and Hollywood simply was a miss-match. Would love to see more of her movies, but haven’t been lucky yet.
What I love about the stats here is that they prove that her movies were not box office duds and thus killing her career prematurely as I have read quite often. Her 8 MGM films brought in over a billion $, and only 2 failed to reach the 100 million $ mark domestically. No Davis, Hepburn, Stanwyck or Garbo had such a “run” in the mid 30’s.
My favorite Luise Rainer films are The Good Earth and The Great Ziegfeld, and although neither The Great Waltz nor Dramatic School are anywhere close to my favorite movies, they are entertaining enough for various reasons.
I feel this post is long enough now, so I won’t start rambling about Rainer’s irritating relationship towards the Academy and other things…but maybe that’s enough stuff for a later comment?
LUPINO
You have given us a very balanced view of your feelings about M-s Rainer.
Excellent knowledge/research/analysis on your part.
Look forward to anything else you have to say about Luise.
Hello BOB,
appreciate your kind words. I may post some random thoughts on Luise later, but don’t expect too much- no great revelations to be expected 😉
Dead tired tonight, so this will be all for now.
Thanks Lupino.
Hey BOB,
as I said, no big shakes. just some things that make it hard for me to “grab” Miss Rainer’s personality. For somebody who claims to be “horrified” by the Acadamy Awards show, it seemed easy enough for it’s producers to secure her participation- if proof is needed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTW7UOExwLU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txWS0x_Q8j0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WlDvrqGuzA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyOYokyiCF8
She said that her own Oscars didn’t matter to her, that “her” Oscar was a compliment by Max Reinhardt, when he asked her after a stage performance “Rainer, how did you do this?”
I find it easy enough to believe that Rainer was too serious a person to be attracted by MGM glamour product, and I understand that one of her very rare TV parts post the 1950’s was in an episode of “Combat” in 1965 (“A French countess (LR) walks a dangerous tightrope as she entertains a château full of German soldiers–while sheltering a wounded GI”), but to follow this 19 years later as one of the guest stars on Love Boat? Had her artistic reservations about pure escapist fare been put to rest by then?
I want to repeat that I found Miss Rainer extremly charming and likeable on german talk shows in the 90’s and if I remember correctly, she thought of herself neither as a beautiful woman nor a good actress. I think she was both, but also a bit irritating in her lesser performances as well as in her statements about herself.
To end this, a quote by Miss Rainer about Robert Taylor- as an example of the superficiality she, a woman with a social conscience, encountered when working in Hollywood:
“I’ll tell you a wonderful story. Coming with all of these ideas that I had, and still have, and still feel because I never change and still believe in the same things. Soon after I was there in Hollywood, for some reason I was at a luncheon with Robert Taylor sitting next to me, and I asked him, ‘Now, what are your ideas or what do you want to do,’ and his answer was that he wanted to have 10 good suits to wear, elegant suits of all kinds, that was his idea. I practically fell under the table.”
HI LUPINO
Thanks for the additional information about Luise and the links. It will take a while to work my way thru everything but here are my initial thoughts.
I’m disappointed that you didn’t mention that Luise’s character in Combat was called Countess De Roy. I get few enough plugs on this site as it is! I see that Ramon Novarro played the Count De Roy. He was Ben Hur in the 1925 Silent version.
Interesting story about Robert Taylor and his suits. I’ve mentioned before that Clark Gable said that one of his inspirations to become a big star was that he wanted to copy Wallace Beery who earned enough money to show it off in public by walking about the sets pulling huge dollar wads from his pockets.
I think your are beng a bit hard on Luise though for taking low prestige roles in later life. Olivier and Brando are two of the most celebrated actors in the history of the cinema yet Larry defended his choice of some poor roles by reminding people he had to put bread on the table. Brando was invited by Sir John Gielgud to join him on a prestigious theatrical tour in 1953 but Marlon refused saying that Hollywood movies offered more money.
Olivier and Brando therefore “followed the money” at times and probably could have gotten prestige parts all of their acting careers. However you may have seen us discuss “The Curse of 39” which was a comprehensive academic study by Bruce’s wife [W o Cogerson she’s called on this site] that showed that in Hollywood on average most actresses became has-beens after the age of 39
Luise was 55 in Combat and 74 in Love Boat when The Curse had long since finished other actresses’ careers so we can’t blame her in my view for trading on her past celebrity to “put a crust on the table”. Combat was actually prestigious for a TV presentation because IMDB give it a whopping 90% rating. Only Bruce is allowed to hand those out on this site!
Anyhow I always find hearing from you is doubly welcome as I enjoy your posts and learn a lot from them too.
I agree with your comment 100% Bob.
HI BRUCE
You and I will have to stop agreeing or as the saying goes “people will be talking about us.”
Steve will be eating his heart out at the Dan-like link that I revealed in my post to Lupino –
1/Steve and I are both big Chuck Heston fans
2/Chuck played the 1959 Ben Hur
3/ The 1925 silent Ben Hur was played by Ramon Novarro
4/Ramon went on to play the Count De Roy alongside Luise Rainer in Combat
5/Ramon never played a Count De Lensman [probably too English sounding whereas De Roy is quite cosmopolitan sounding!]
Hey Bob…..I say enjoy the agreeing while it happens it is only a matter of time before we won’t see eye to eye…..lol.
Bob,
I was hesitant at first to post my second comment on Luise. I know it seems a little hard on the poor woman, but that wasn’t even my intention. I know actors have to work in order to live, and “my” Sylvia has done worse during her career than guest starring on Love Boat without any bickering from me about it. Luise, though, didn’t have to “follow the money” as she was well off after her second marriage to my knowledge. Even that wouldn’t matter to me, but her persistence in later interviews of putting down the roles offered in her heyday, without mentioning that a piece of fluff like Love Boat was part of her more current filmography didn’t ring true. I know humans are creatures with flaws, and it is only natural that Miss Rainer is no exception. So, in the end, no big deal. and maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it in the first place. Still find her fascinating for many more reasons than having been O Lan.
About “Combat”- seems you got me wrong there, after reading up on the content of her episode, I could understand why she wanted to do that part. Wasn’t aware of Luises name in that one, but glad you somehow seem related to Ben Hur due to her? As the coined phrase goes:”Ah, the magic of movies…”
Final say on Love Boat: One of the few episodes I’ve seen, and I found Miss Rainer utterly charming playing twins- one a maid on the ship, the other a lady well off taking a cruise on said ship. So they meet for the first time after 40 years….
HI LUPINO More great comments and information from you so thanks very muchRegarding Luise having enough money I recall some other actress saying “Too much is never enough” However there are other reasons apart from money to keep working whilst making sure you don’t overtax yourself
It is therapeutic, and can even prolong your life trying to keep busy as you age and in that respect things like the Cogerson site can help me keep ticking over. I know Bruce and Steve can be pains in the *** but I can make use of them like a bird of passage !!!
Louise may have needed the occasional movie to keep herself in tune but felt she couldn’t take anything highly demanding or that took up too much time so froth like The Love Boat was just what the doctor ordered, followed by the 1991 A Dancer [just 30 mins long but Luise top billed] and the 1997 The Gambler in which she had a supporting role as a grandmother.
Heck the woman was 87 then, a long, heavy dramatic role was probably beyond her. At the time of the 1965 Combat when she was just 55 it was all different and I gather they had to coax her out of retirement to do that one If you still have reservations in the matter try to look at it that what she did in later years was harmless.as it didn’t nullify the great work that she did in her heyday.
And if she did have a few airs and graces, so what? Most of those thespians have egos the size of a small planet and are full of themselves. Look for example at Spencer Tracy who stopped speaking to others on the set if he didn’t get top billing [see Possibly Interesting facts on Bruce’s Melvyn Douglas page] and Monroe pressurised the writers of Let Make Love to build up her part to the extent that her co-star my Gregory finally walked out on the movie in disgust.My Joan [Crawford] invaded Louis B Mayer’s office and would’t leave until Louis reversed an order for Clark Gable to be billed above her in 1940’sStrange Cargo
“I’m sick of Hollywood. All people there do all the time is sit around arguing about money and childish things like who gets top billing.” [Peter Lorre]
Anyway whichever one of us has the more accurate take on this it’s been great fun debating the matter with you and learning new things in the process. Take care.
Hey Lupino….this is probably one of the Top 10 best comments we have had. Your thoughts, comparison and breakdown of her career are worthy of a page itself. So we have included your breakdown on the page directly. That way it will not disappear as more comments come it.
So my thoughts on your comments. (1) I think many people agree with you on her performance in The Good Earth…her second straight Oscar is one heckuva point in your thought. (2) Love the comparison to Bette Davis. (3) Good points on her acting style and her looks. (4) Your 4 is still 40% of the movies listed here….so you have many of us beat when it comes to tally counts. (5) Glad my stats back up your thinking. Seems once the boy wonder Irving Thalberg passed away…her movie career and Hollywood life went with him….which is a horrible shame. (6) Good to know that I have watched the right “2” Rainer movies…as The Good Earth and The Great Ziegfeld are the ones I liked…with The Good Earth being the best in my eye.
Once again…thanks for such a detailed well thought out comment…it is greatly appreciated.
LUPINO I meant to say you in my last post that we might anyhow wish to consider cutting a little slack to a 74 year old woman as Luise was when she made Love Boat.
Our psychology and needs usually change as we age and we can’t all our lives remain the blazing furnace human dynamo and beacon of artistic taste that for example our own Work Horse always is at the moment!
In the Fonda 1957 movie 12 Angry Men juror no 9 played by the 73 year old Joseph Sweeney [who sadly passed away 6 years later aged 79] explains how one elderly witness may in his testimony have padded out or misrepresented the facts just to gain attention.
“An old man, not used to being listened to these days,” [tell me about it Steve!] taking the opportunity to make hay while the sun shone before a captive audience while he was in the witness box, Joseph SweenEy articulated.
In short I hope we don’t begrudge our Luise a mild Indian Summer long past her heyday when she was truly wonderful.
I wandered today to the hill Maggie
To watch the scene below,
The creek and the creaking old mill Maggie
As we used to long ago.
The green grove is gone from the hill Maggie
Where first the daisies sprung
The creaking old mill is still Maggie
Since you and I were young.
They say we are feeble with age Maggie
Are steps are less sprightly than then,
My face is a well written page Maggie
And time alone is the pen
But let’s sing of the days that are gone Maggie
When You and I were young.
“When You and I were young Maggie” written in 1884 by George Washington Hamilton a Canadian school teacher who fell in love with and married one of his pupisl Margaret [Maggie] Clarke. Stuff about schoolteachers is very popular on this site these days though they do need to be watched around young female pupils!!
Bob,
what a beautiful poem (song?). I lay to rest my grudge towards Miss Rainer, which has never been as deeply grounded as it might have come across anyway. I will always remember the elderly lady that lit up my TV screen in 1998 with her sharp memory, distinct views on facism and social injustice and who, despite her age, left me in awe of her feminine charms that belied her (visible) age. And I will always remember O Lan, the long suffering, frail chinese peasant, whose inner strength touched me in a place only few other thespians have ever been able to reach. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me about Luise in such a detailed way. Greatly appreciated!
Always a pleasure talking to YOU Lupino.
I think it was first a poem then put to music by other authors. My fave tenor John McCormack sings two versions of it both which I have in my music collection.
I’ve seen all her movies but The Gambler. Luise has only 1 connection on the 2016 Oracle of Bacon Top 1000 Center of the Hollywood Universe list that being;
388 MICHAEL GAMBON The Gambler (1997)
The following actors who appeared on the 2000 list but have since fallen off and appeared with her;
100 IAN WOLFE The Emperor’s Candlesticks (1937)
171 JOHN WOOD The Gambler (1997)
222 BESS FLOWERS Escapade (1935)
222 BESS FLOWERS The Great Waltz (1938)
278 KEYE LUKE The Good Earth (1937)
344 JAMES STEWART The Good Earth (1937)
542 PAUL FIX Big City (1937)
606 ALBERTO MORIN The Toy Wife (1938)
651 MELVYN DOUGLAS The Toy Wife (1938)
740 GEORGE CHANDLER Big City (1937)
767 PHILIP AHN The Good Earth (1937)
783 JAMES FLAVIN Big City (1937)
894 PHILIP VAN ZANDT Hostages (1943)
915 IVAN TRIESAULT Hostages (1943)
Luise appeared with 6 Oscar winners;
GALE SONDERGAARD DRAMATIC SCHOOL (1938)
JAMES STEWART The Good Earth (1937)
MELVYN DOUGLAS The Toy Wife (1938)
PAUL LUKAS Hostages (1943)
PAUL MUNI The Good Earth (1937)
SPENCER TRACY Big City (1937)
Even though she appeared in so few movies I thought she would have more Oscar winners but outsides of her there are none in The Great Ziegfeld.
Hey Dan…thanks for the information on Luise Rainer. Not surprised her lists are so small….though I guess it is hard to say the first part is a list….maybe a Michael Gambon shout out….lol. As always…it is good to see Bess Flowers on the second section. 6 Oscar winning co-stars is pretty good…..but if she had stayed with MGM that number might have been huge. Not sure I understand the James Stewart connection to The Good Earth….I will have to do some IMDb research on that one. Good stuff as always.