Want to know the best Howard Keel movies? How about the worst Howard Keel movies? Curious about Howard Keel box office grosses or which Howard Keel movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Howard Keel 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.
Howard Keel (1919-2004) was an American actor who had great success in 1950s MGM musicals. His IMDb page shows 47 acting credits from 1948-2002. This page will rank 26 Howard Keel movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television appearances and his last movie (2002’s My Father’s House) which was not released in theaters were not included in the rankings.
Howard Keel 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 Howard Keel movies by co-stars of his movies.
- Sort Howard Keel movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Howard Keel movies by adjusted worldwide box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Howard Keel 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 Howard Keel movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Howard Keel movie won.
- Sort Howard Keel 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.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Howard Keel Table
- Eleven Howard Keel movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 42.30% of his movies listed. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) was his biggest box office hit when looking at adjusted domestic box office gross.
- An average Howard Keel movie grosses $88.60 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 13 of Howard Keel movies are rated as good movies…or 50.00% of his movies. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) is his highest rated movie while Arizona Buschwhackers (1968) was his lowest rated movie.
- Six Howard Keel movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 23.07% of his movies.
- Three Howard Keel movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 11.53% of his movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 14 Howard Keel movies scored higher than that average….or 53.84% of his movies. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) got the the highest UMR Score while Arizona Buschwhackers (1968) got the lowest UMR Score.
Ten Possibly Interesting Facts About Howard Keel
1. Harry Clifford Keel was born in Gillespie, Illinois in 1919.
2. Howard Keel first gained famed for his role in 1947’s Oklahoma. Oklahoma was the first postwar traveling show. He would sign a movie contract with MGM in 1950.
3. Howard Keel broke his leg when his horse fell on him during the filming of 1950’s Annie Get Your Gun. He could not continue filming for six weeks.
4. Due to his Howard Keel’s size, many of his petite leading ladies had to stand on boxes to be in the same frame.
5. Howard Keel is known to many for his role as Clayton Farlow on television’s Dallas. He appeared on 262 episodes from 1981 to 1991.
6. Howard Keel was married 3 times and had 4 children.
7. Howard Keel’s son-in-law was actor Edward James Olmos.
8. Esther Williams gave his daughter, Kaija Keel, swimming lessons.
9. Howard Keel’s movies from 1950 to 1959 earned $2.13 billion in adjusted domestic gross. That puts him in 29th place when looking at all the stars of that decade. 1950’s Top Box Office Stars.
10. Check out Howard Keel’s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
Hi
I first became aware of Howard Keel in Dallas but it was mother who pointed out that he was once a big movie star in the 50’s.
I think Seven Brides and Showboat are his high points. Calamity Jane was more of a supporting role as well as Annie Get Your Gun. A movie I never really enjoyed. I’ve yet to see Kiss Me Kate but I’m going to make a point of searching it out.
It must have been fantastic after all them years in the wilderness, to have such a comeback as Dallas and then revive his music career.
Hey Chris….I guess I noticed him on Dallas….but he was not one of the characters I really liked…but you are right…it had to be awesome for him to rebound on such a huge hit television show. This is one subject I am pretty weak in…..musicals have never been my favorites…though Kiss Me Kate is one I watch to watch. Thanks for the feedback.
BRUCE
POSTSCRIPT TO MY HOWARD KEEL COMMENTS:
DAN-LIKE LINKS TO YOUR MENTION OF EDWARD JAMES OLMOS-
(1) Edward was in several 2011 episodes of the hit TV series Dexter in which Ed played a religious fanatic whose disciple was Colin Hanks the lookalike son of your idol.
(2) You may already know that in a current post production sequel to the 1982 Blade Runner Edward reprises his role of Gaff and the star is again another of your idols Harrison Ford along with Clooney protege Ryan Gosling
Hey Bob….good to know that EJO is coming back to the Blade Runner role….I am glad that he is back as well as Harrison Ford….looking forward to that movie for sure.
BRUCE 1 I agree that a $2 billion gross for such a short top star period is impressive but again whilst Howard definitely made a considerable contribution to his movies we are faced with the quandary as to how much of a stand-alone box office attraction he actually was when one considers the following points:
(1) He was in 11 major musicals/romantic comedies/fantasies on the screen and in 10 of these he played second fiddle to his female co-stars some of whom were big box office attractions in their own right and he was ALWAYS billed below every one of them – Jane Powell, Betty Hutton, Ava Gardner,Doris Day, Ann Blyth in Rose Marie, Kathryn Grayson (3 times) and Esther Williams (3 times).
(2) The exception was the 1955 Kismet where he was billed above Ann Blyth and had the lead but as your table above shows virtually nobody went to see it and in fact it lost MGM approx 20 million in 2017 dollars.
(3) Away from such fare he was In The War Wagon but had just a supporting role to Kirk and the Duke and was not given star billing with them. In the 1953 Ride Vaquero he was billed 3rd to Legend Robert Taylor and again below Ava Gardner.
(4) Indeed his only stand-alone major dramatic role was as Simon Peter in The Big Fisherman and whilst you have given it a respectable enough adjusted domestic gross it was a costly 3 hour biblical epic and therefore overall a financial flop as well as a critical disaster. Your own critic/audience panel did not think much of it and Leslie Halliwell gave it NO stars out of 4. Back in 1959 I recall critics complaining that Keel played Simon Peter as a kind of Burt Lancaster action man who for example gatecrashed palaces to rescue “damsels in distress”
2 One has to wonder if Howard massively likeable though he was had come on the scene earlier in the talkies musical era like for example Crosby/Astaire/Kelly the overall pattern of Keel’s contribution to his movies would have been any different – would be have been a singing male Myrna? As it is his main cinematic acting career ended sadly with his falling into the clutches of A C Lyles for as many as 3 of those awful graveyard westerns. Anyway bring on the 91 year old still professionally active London lady that Steve has promised us!
Hey Bob…good points on Howard Keel….I think he was an above the title star for that decade…..but as you point out having solid co-stars seems to be a main reason for his success. I do not think he has had a very lasting footprint…I am a huge movie fan….and I am not too aware of his career at all.
Interesting about The Big Fisherman…..all of that information is new to me….I had not even heard of the movie before doing this page. I have often thought a page on that 91 year old would be a good one….some of her stats are truly impressive…..especially that her first Oscar nomination was 73 years ago.
STEVE
1 Howard on the big screen has always reminded me of the character in the novel The Hired Hand who was “a day late and a dollar short” as I have felt that with his fine musical voice Howard Keel arrived at the wrong time in movies because soon after Howard debuted the musical which was his main stock in trade stated to decline as you and I have discussed before but luckily Dallas on TV later revived his acting career and as a spin-off I think that new generations discovered his voice.
2 I think that Bruce has taken on so many commitments that he has now invoked what in the field of Economics is called The Law of Diminishing Returns. That Law insists that anybody or anything that continually overloads will reach a point where efficiency and output deteriorates.
Film critics have often conjectured that Redford’s character in The Natural may have been a ghost and it occurs to me that someday we may wonder if that was actually the case with Bruce.
Indeed if I were an 11 year old boy again back in the fifties I would perhaps speculate if the Work Horse was just a figure of my imagination as some films historians have suggested Laddie’s Shane was in the mind of young Joey who was desperately in need of a hero figure.
Hey Bob
1. Good point about Keel arriving at the end of the musical peak….but I think a 2 billion gross decade shows he got to surf many musical waves.
2. I had no idea the old guy on Dallas had been a major movie star when I was watching Dallas when I was a kid.
3. I get Howard Keel mixed up with Harve Presnell and Howard Duff. Maybe one day I will get them right in my head…lol.
4. I can safely say that I am not a figment of your imagination…..yes my comments have slowed…but I have maintained putting out new information….from the daily updates to the 8 new pages in June to our first new You Tube video in 9 months. I alive and well.
5. My oldest son arrived in town….all the way from Alaska….and for the last two weeks we have been getting in some serious golf….11 rounds in 13 days….with the final round being tomorrow before they head back on Wednesday morning.
6. Just finished a Robert Young page…for some reason I thought it was going to be an easy one……since I looked at the years he was active….1931 to 1954…..I just did not realize he was a hard working actor….making almost 5 movies a year for almost 20 years.
As always your feedback is greatly appreciated.
Was this page uploaded by Bruce or artificial intelligence, enquiring minds need to know.
Not that there’s anything wrong with the page, it’s just that sightings of the life form known as Bruce have been sporadic of late. [wink]
A feeling of deja vu glancing at this page, I finished a video of Howard Keel not too long ago.
I’ve seen 10 of the 26 films lsted on the page, favorites include The Day of the Triffids, The War Wagon, Seven Brides, Kismet, Kiss Me Kate, Show Boat and Calamity Jane.
“Bless your beautiful hide, wherever you may be…” Good to see Seven Brides topping all three main charts, it was probably his best film. But I also liked Calamity Jane quite a bit too.
Another excellent stats-filled addition to your movie site Bruce. Vote Up.
Hey Steve
1. Tally counts….Lupino 11, you 10, Flora 6, me and Laurent at 2. My lack of enjoying musicals has hurt my tally count here.
2. As for A.I. doing these pages….gotta admit…the last few weeks have been pretty crazy. From major sickness in my house (bronchitis to WoC getting pneumonia) to Bryan and his family visiting….my spare time has been greatly reduced. Still I have managed to write 8 new pages in 25 days….that is almost a new page every 3 days….plus 1 new You Tube video.
3. Your Keel video got me thinking I should do a page on him….especially since I had so many of his movies in the database.
4. The two Keel movies I have seen…did make your favorites list….as I have seen War Wagon and Calamity Jane.
5. I am sure I will be seeing 7 Brides in the near future.
Thanks as always for the comment, tally and nice words…they are greatly appreciated.