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.
Fredric March is spelled Fredric March not Frederic March.
Thanks Candice….I will fix that.
Hey Bob and John…..wow….all of your comments, stats and observations are greatly appreciated….with all the comments…I am finding it hard to keep up with the ones I have responded to….so I am commenting here. Great information share…..even if Bob is wrong….lol. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.
LOY AND CRAWFORD PART TWO
1 The billing order and box office grosses of days gone by will not affect modern audiences’ perception of stars as legends. However the American Film Institute ranked Clark Gable as the 8th greatest male screen legend of all time and Joan Crawford as 10th legend among actresses. William Powell and Myrna Loy were not included in the AFI lists. In her heyday Life magazine dubbed Joan Crawford “The Queen of Hollywood” The current International Movie Database list of the 50 Greatest ACTRESSES of any generation of all time includes Crawford but not Loy. Entertainment Weekly’s list of 100 Greatest MOVIE STARS male and female of any generation of all time again includes Crawford, and Gable, but not Loy or William Powell. If I recall correctly even Quigley was far kinder to Joan than it was to Myrna. As Bill Murray kept entreating in Scrooged “Check it out!” And clearly MGM as their employer saw Crawford as a bigger star than Loy.
1 All of that suggests that I am not alone in my perception of things. Of course it is reasonable to agree to differ as Bruce has urged because the stats are not being disputed but only the interpretation and presentation of them which is subjective and I am as entitled to be as subjective as anyone else However to dogmatically contend that I and ALL of the sources mentioned in the opening paragraph here have got it wrong would be in my view to follow the example of the woman who went out to watch her son march past in a military parade and suddenly shouted to the other spectators “Look, they’re all out of step but my little Johnny!”
3. Steve delights in the wonderful pictorials that he provides us with; the fact that Bruce is better with stats than I does not mean that he loves them more than I do or is entitled to ignore all other tokens of stardom; I also like measuring the stats against other evidence of status such as how the studios who largely called the shots in the classic era perceived matters as reflected in the billing and the money they accorded their stars. That’s my thing as the saying goes and it may be John’s thing to contradict passing remarks or throwaway comments by other site users. That’s fine as we should always be prepared to defend our contentions and it is too great fun – but we should also be consistent. In a post to me on this site a few months ago Bruce said that Myrna’s grosses would “go through the floor” if based only on her stand-alone movies; and in 6 and 7 of Possibly Interesting Facts above Bruce goes to pains to highlight the EXCEPTIONAL level of involvement of many other major stars in Myrna’s movies.
4 The most prolific star in Joan’s films was Gable and the most frequent in Myrna’s case were Clark and Bill Powell. Take the Gable movies away from Joan even though she was the top billed star in them and remove the Powell/Gable films from Myrna but allow her to retain the raft of other major stars mentioned in Bruce’s Pos Int Fact 7 and the respective remaining Cogerson totals for Myrna and Joan are approx. Billions $5.5 and $5.3 respectively. To paraphrase the Duke “I sure wouldn’t like to live on that difference.”
5 Accordingly to suggest that none of those considerations mentioned above raise questions about whether Myrna was in reality “the most successful box actress of all times” – well to quote Wade Garrett in Roadhouse (1889) “Dalton, that’s a hound that just won’t hunt.” Or better still let’s quote John “Who knows?”
In para 5 of my previous post 1889 should of course read 1989 – apologies.
Actually, while Myrna was on the 10 Best list of box office attractions, Joan was on the list of box office poison. Joan obviously recovered @ Warner’s.
LOY AND CRAWFORD PART ONE-
1 From 1930 -1960 Myrna Loy made some 55 films and in only 13 of them was she billed as the top star. Those 13 have an overall Cogerson adjusted domestic gross of $1.45 Billion. In that same 30 year period Joan Crawford made 47 movies and was billed as the top star in 44 of them leaving only 3 in which she was not billed first. The 44 Crawford top billed films have an overall Cogerson adjusted domestic gross of $4.14 Billion.
2 Joan Crawford made 8 movies with Clark Gable and was top billed in all of them. Myrna Loy made 7 movies with Clark Gable and 14 movies with William Powell and was never billed first in any of them. Clark Gable. William Powell and Myrna Loy appeared in Manhattan Melodrama and were billed in that order. Hence the ranking order in which MGM placed these 4 stars in all their movies together was:
1/Joan Crawford
2/Clark Gable
3/William Powell
4/Myrna Loy.
3 Clark was the biggest star with whom Joan appeared in her 47 top billed movies the only other performer coming near him being Tracy, but when Joan made her two films with Tracy he had not quite reached super-stardom so that in them and with Gable especially in the 6 before Gone with the Wind Joan was THE LEAD with for example Joan being the DANCING LADY of the title in that one.
4 Nonetheless if we take the Gable films away from Joan she is still left with 39 top-billed films totalling about $3 billion against Loy’s 13 top billed movies totalling $1.45 billion. It can of course be said that Loy had a higher average per movie than Joan in their top billed films but then you are arguing against yourself because if we go on only averages the case for Myrna being the most successful box office actress ever”goes out the window entirely” as many other actress have a better average than she
Hey Bob….good stuff….lots of stats…..which makes me think “There are lies, damned lies and statistics” – Mark Twain and “Be able to analyze statistics, which can be used to support or undercut almost any argument.” – Marilyn vos Savant
The way my brain works….which is of course trying to prove my point….is to long at the 39 stand alone Joan movies and the 13 stand alone Loy movies….so that would give Joan an average $76.92 million per movie and $111.53 per Loy movie….so by average Loy has Joan beat in stand alone movies.
Still….my “Greatest Female Box Office Star of All-Time” was only looking at one part of the equation….like Samuel L. Jackson…yes….by stats….he is among the biggest ticket sellers of all-time……but that only looks at one point….when I did a stat study that looked at many factors…Loy did not make my Top 10.
But If I said….Greatest Female Ticket Seller of all-time…the answer would be Myrna Loy
If I said…Greatest Female Average Ticket Seller of all-time….the answer would be Julie Andrews
If I said …..Greatest Female Quigley Box Office Star of all-time….the answer would be Doris Day (making that up….but she would be in the running)
If I said…..Greatest Female Box Office Star of all-time with the intials P.Z……the answer would be Pia Zadora.
Just my thoughts.
Interesting though flawed thoughts from Mr. Bob. Loy was one of the most successful, most loved and most appreciated actresses of the entire 1930s and 1940s. She might have gotten second billing but her movies were event movies for millions of women.
Women wanted to look like her. Women followed her Red Cross lead during World War 2. Hitler feared her influence. When the war was over her first movie back was a massive hit. Loy’s fans helped make The Best Years of Our Lives one of the biggest hits of all time.
I do concede her legend has not grown at all. That makes it easy to dismiss her. But she was one of the most popular stars. Sadly she got no respect from the “experts”. But lots of respect from movie paying patrons.
So in my nutshell. Myrna is one of the most successful box office actresses of all time. Added footnote. She is actually not in my Top Five of favourite actresses.
Hey In the shadows….great comments….and ones I agree with 100%….glad to see that Bob was able to check out your comments….as we have been having a friendly disagreement on the greatness of Myrna Loy.
I agree her “legend” has not taken off at all….sadly she is almost a forgotten actress….which is a shame with all of these highlights in her career.
Appreciate the comment and the visit….which I would say even if you did not agree with me on this subject.
HELLO DARK SIDE OF THE FORCE !
1 No quarrel with most of this and I don’t dismiss her but I suspect that some of her publicity might have hyperbole as I doubt very much if for example Hitler was seriously concerned about her. My contention remains simple in that it is too sweeping a statement to say that she was the most successful box office star of all time. And in my opinion second billing or lower DOES matter if it’s the norm as it was in her case because it reflects the lesser status of a star in the eyes of the producers of movies whose job it is to know such things or go out of business.
2 Your nutshell puts it perfectly “ONE of the most successful actresses of all time”. Or if you like “Collectively the films in which Myrna Loy and Samuel L Jackson happened to appear statistically outgrossed in the case of the former those of any other actress and in the case of the latter those any star of either sex.” Heck even I would probably have been able to claim that if I had gotten into 14 films with Bill Powell at his peak, 7 with King Gable, 3 with the Great Cary Grant and 2 with Old Cantankerous
3 Anyway Shadow Man you’ve cheered me up by reminding me of one of my all-time favourite horror films The Legend of hell House (1973). In it Roddy McDowell is intent on tracking down to his secret lair within Hellhouse the villainous Delasco played by Michae Gough [Alfred Pennyworth in Batman before Sir Maurice Micklewhite replaced him.] When Roddy succeeds in finding Delasco he shouts into his hiding place “No more hiding in the shadows Emeric Delasco – out you come!” When my son used to watch the American wrestling there was a figure called Yellow Dog who used to come out in a mask. Everyone knew that he was one of the wrestlers who was seen openly all the time without the mask but the big mystery that got kids going was which one. People who follow this site will wondering who the heck is Shadow Man. I know I will and my first suspect is Flora.
Hey Bob…the Shadow speaks….you should listen..lol. I think I read that Hitler really disliked her….not thinking he was scared of her….but he was well aware of Myrna Loy. I think one of the history books I read said that his last words were…”I do not like Myrna Loy…..but she is probably going to go down in history as the greatest ticket selling actress of all-time”.
Good mini-review on The Legend of Hell House….and good story about your son and Yellow Dog. Pretty sure “In the shadows” is not Flora….as I did some “google analytics” on this page…and Canada only checked out this page 3 times today…..and it was nowhere near Flora’s home. So I think…there might be another “Bob” out there…someone who read but never commented. Maybe we will find out in the future.
HI BRUCE
1 For once we agree about Myrna Loy in that Hitler whilst he would not have ‘feared’ any Hollywood stars was wary of their potential propaganda value to the Allies. For example so keen was the Hollywood of the war years to retain the German market that to Hollywood’s shame they apparently gave the Nazis an office in Tinseltown to enable the Nazis to vet movies that mentioned or dealt with the war or Hitler. Thus many US movies about the Fuhrer were sanitised. Conversely stars like Loy, Henreid and apparently Leslie Howard who incurred the displeasure of the 3rd Reich deserve credit though we should not confuse our admiration of them as courageous human beings with their status as box office stars.
2 Also we should be on guard for extreme hype by agents and publicists seeking to maximise the favourable images of their proteges and to be fair we should be also be on the look out for possibly bogus NEGATIVE claims as well. On the one hand if it was put about that Sandra Bullock had secretly helped overthrow an evil terrorist regime I am sure YOU would not accept it at face value! and I for one do not believe a rash of stories that some years ago a number of respectable UK journalists subscribed to that suggested that Flynn might have been a Nazi spy.
3 What is beyond doubt because evidence of it is in the public domain is that Richard Nixon as probably most world leaders do had his own personal ‘enemies list’ and as I’ve said before written on it was “Paul Newman – dangerous trendy Liberal – needs watching.”
Have a good weekend. Meanwhile I am analysing the details of your very welcome MacDonald page and drafting a post on Steve’s video on another of those Brits who seem to have taken over your site these days – Sir Alec Guinness.
Hey Bob….yes we agree on Hitler and Loy……and the D list. Funny about Mr. Newman. Weekend is busy….getting ready for our Alaska trip….and trying to have some pages ready to go in our absence…..busy busy weekend.
Isn’t the Robert Osborne theory that the best always get overlooked by the Academy? Wasn’t it Mrs. Odets who said to her husband, “Losing is no big deal, they gave it to Louise Rainer twice.”