Want to know the best Jane Russell movies? How about the worst Jane Russell movies? Curious about Jane Russell box office grosses or which Jane Russell movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Jane Russell 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.
Jane Russell (1921-2011) was an American film actress and one of Hollywood’s leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s. Her IMDb page shows 32 acting credits from 1943-1986. This page will rank 24 Jane Russell movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Her 7 television appearances and her cameo in Road to Bali were not included in the rankings.
Jane Russell 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 Jane Russell films by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Jane Russell films by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Jane Russell films by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Jane Russell 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 Jane Russell film received.
- Sort Jane Russell 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 Jane Russell Table
- Eight Jane Russell movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 33.33% of her movies listed. Her biggest hit was The Outlaw (1943)
- An average Jane Russell movie grosses an average of $96.70 million in adjusted domestic gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 11 Jane Russell movies are rated as good movies…or 45.83% of her movies. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) was her highest rated movie while Cauliflower Cupids (1970) was her lowest rated movie.
- Two Jane Russell movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 8.33% of her movies.
- One Jane Russell movie won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 4.16% of her movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 12 Jane Russell movies scored higher than that average….or 50.00% of her movies. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) got the the highest UMR Score while Cauliflower Cupids (1970) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Jane Russell
- Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell was born in Bemidji, Minnesota in 1921.
2. In 1940, Howard Hughes signed Jane Russell to a seven-year contract. She made her debut in Hughes’ The Outlaw (1943).
3. Howard Hughes and his aircraft engineers designed a special cantilevered bra to enhance the appearance of Jane Russell’s bust in 1940’s The Outlaw. She never wore it, but this movie was the reason the famous bra was designed.
4. Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe got along great when making 1953’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Russell called Monroe “Blondl,” according to her 1985 autobiography, and was often the only person on the set who could coax Monroe out of her trailer to begin the day’s filming.
5. Jane Russell was married three times. Unable to have children of her own…she adopted three children.
6. Jane Russell championed the passage of the Federal Orphan Adoption Amendment of 1953, which allowed children of American servicemen born overseas to be placed for adoption in the United States.
7. Jane Russell founded Waif in 1955. Waif was the first international adoption program.
8. Jane Russell was the spokeswoman for Playtex “‘Cross-Your-Heart Bras‘ for us full-figured gals”. *That is where I first became aware of Ms. Russell.
9. Jane Russell was a very accomplished singer. She recorded many songs throughout the years…..including “Kisses and Tears” with Frank Sinatra. She debuted in a successful solo nightclub act at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas
10. Check out Jane Russell’s movie 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.
I have seen 9 Jane Russell Movies:
In order of preference:
Paleface
Son of Paleface
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
His Kind of Woman
Macao
The Las Vegas Story
Gentlemen Marry Brunettes
The Outlaw
The French Line
Hey Flora
1. Thanks for the tally, visit and comment.
2. Tally count….you 9, Steve 6 and me at a lowly 3.
3. I have seen two of your Top 3… I have seen one of the Paleface movies…just can not remember which one.
4. I want to see your 4 and 5 movies….both star Mr. Mitchum
Good stuff as always.
STEVE/WORK HORSE
1 “Better late than never” with WH’s Jane page and at last I can compare your Jane Russell Top 5s. Actually you both have the exact same main 5 in very slightly different order. They seem to have been largely the Russell ones that Hirsch liked best so I can only hope that Steve too is not coming under Joel’s spell.
2 Surprisingly you both rank Son of Paleface above the more popular forerunner Paleface. Maybe Steve plumped for that one because Roy Rogers was in it and Bruce went for it because Trigger was natural with Roy and Trigger too was certainly a Work Horse with all those movies he was in.
3 I have no preference because the song Buttons and Bows was in both and when I was 11/12 years of age I loved that song and drove adults wild by singing it night and day. Anyway as always the Jane video and Cogerson page beautifully complement each other.
Hey Bob….I think the margin of victory of the two Paleface movies is pretty slim….as they both reached the Top 4. 5 of Hirsh’s Top 6 made my Top 7…so in this case the ratings are pretty close….not thinking that happens too often. 🙂
1 BRUCE It’s a funny old movie world in which some stars who were great in their heyday become Legends and others are like Jane Russell are more or less forgotten except by movie buffs. Indeed we’ve discussed recently how Bryan Cranston started out in humdrum supporting parts on TV but graduated into the prolific and respected performer that is today. Sadly there are those who have travelled in the opposite direction
2 I recently watched a 1969 episode of Raymond Burr’s Ironside TV crime series and in a virtual walk-on part as a kitchen domestic with almost undetectable billing was Jocelyn Brando who whilst never a star did get some prominent roles in the early 1950s such as Glenn Ford’s leading lady in The Big Heat (1953) and Randolph Scott’s female co-star in Ten Wanted Men (1955). Not for her ultimately the multi- million dollar virtual cameos with generous billing that Little Brother grew accustomed to though HE did get Big Sis some parts in his movies The Ugly American (1963) and The Chase (1966)
Beat you by nine months again Bruce, catch up will ya! 😉
Actually I thought you had already done a page on her long ago, are you sure haven’t? You do check your index page just in case right? 🙂
Thanks for the share, mucho appreciato.
I’ve seen just 6 of the 24 films listed here, I expected more. Favorites include – Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Paleface, Bride of Paleface, Son of Paleface, Daughter of Paleface and Revenge of Paleface.
So who had the um… biggest attributes – Jane, Jayne or Mamie?
Good stuff Bruce. Vote Up!
Hey Steve,
to answer your most important question first: Nowadays it MUST be Mamie, because although she claims that there has been no work done, they seem to grow with every decade. And remember, Mamie is in her ninth now 😉
Great vids on both Jane and Mamie, and although I have no problem at all with Mamie’s attributes being used to promote her movies, I really feel sad when I see slogans like “They will knock both your eyes out” or that lecherous look Groucho is giving “them” in the promo for Double Dynamite.
Luckily, Mamie revelled in that sort of publicity while Jane was self confident enough to shrug it off…or at least so it seemed.
(final word on your initial question- I always thought Jayne to be the winner in that particular 50’s contest, but I might be wrong).
Thanks Lupino, glad you liked the videos.
I’m familiar with Jane Russell, not so much the other two. Might be fun tracking down some of their movies, if they ever turn up on TV. For educational purposes of course…
😉
Hey Steve….gotta admit….I have always been a leg man….so I have not seen many of their movies either.
Hey Lupino….I will go with your logic and say Mamie too….lol.
Hey Steve….with us having over 2000 pages….I must admit it is getting hard to remember all the pages I have done and all the videos you have done. At this point it might be safe to assume…that you and I have a page/video on the subject…versus not having one.
I have been slacking on the index page…as I have not done new links in awhile……but our index is pretty darn big already.
Tally count…..Flora 9, you 6 and me 3…..multiples of 3….I like it. Funny Paleface titles…made me laugh.
As for your question…..I will go with Russell, Howard Hughes and his engineers….lol. Thanks for stopping by.
HOWDY JOEL
1 Never thought you’d say something sensible but I agree with you about M-s Russell. Could it be that now you’re getting more sensible stuff from that Work House guy’s wonderful site that you’re starting to wise up? If so maybe you would revisit my movies and reconsider some of your assessments.
2 One thing that I’ll give Jane though is that being a big girl she was a good counterpart for the likes of Mitchum and my main rival for King of Hollywood, Gable. Those 2 galoots had such powerful screen presence that they could blow smaller actresses like that little slip of a thing Loy off the screen
3 Glad to see a Mitch and a Clark film were given at least 3 stars by you. Jane and my pal Big Bob Mitchum were also good together in Macao though it wasn’t much of a film. William Bendix Ladd’s real life pal and virtual employee in movies was also watchable in that and I remember saying to Pappy Ford that it’s a good job they put Bill Bendix in that one and not that runt of a chum of his as Mitch and Jane would have dwarfed him. Mitch probably wouldn’t have stood for it anyway -he heard some story about the runt looking puny in a swimming costume as he crawled out of a pool.
4 Anyway Joel I was always proud of the fact that like a Real American you turned up and graciously accepted you shared Oscar unlike that mumbling little rat who didn’t have the guts to appear and sent that Indian girl along in his place. It reminded me of High Noon where that weakling Cooper depended on his wife to save him whereas a Real American does what a man’s got to do! You may have heard that II tried to drag the girl off the stage but 6 strong bouncers prevented me. Those guys sure weren’t Real Americans Joel and I’d like to meet them 3 at a time on a dark night and I’ll certainly tell Uncle Joe McCarthy about them
5 Anyway Good chatting with you Joel and might do so again but in meantime forget about that nightclub act and those rock songs and brush up a bit more on your movies so that you can become a real hero to this knowledgeable movie site.
Best wishes THE DUKE
1 Good Morning WH British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher used to say “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” By that Margaret meant of course that if you are given something SOMEBODY pays for it even if it is yourself in some alternative fashion or other.
2 Maggie was right because for a long time now I have been looking forward to a Jane Russell Cogerson page but now that it has finally arrived I have had to “pay” by digesting more of Hirschhorn’s tripe as I seek to enjoy the new page. However that will not ruin my joy of transcribing Jane’s figures [no pun intended] into my database because of course Hirsch’s fabled rating stars will get no mention there.
3 Jane’s career was like Audrey Hepburn’s very top years relatively short and like Audrey she didn’t make a lot of films compared with other female stars of her own albeit brief important status. Where she parted company with AH was though in that the latter went on to be an AFI legend whereas Jane was sent to the A C Lyles graveyard to make cheapie B westerns Waco and Johnny Reno.
4 Again like Audrey who had the good luck to co-star with many of the top male stars of her day Jane (a) was paired with male movie Giants like Mitchum, Gable and Hope (b) but nevertheless did some stand-alone movies – The Outlaw, Young Widow, Underwater, The French Line, The Revolt of Mamie Stover and several minor ones.
5 For years I’ve tried to locate earnings stats for the stand-alone movies and although you had given us a figure for the Howard Hughes western I could find nothing for any of the others and I’m pleased that you have now provided the missing stats and am also happy to see that all but one of the movies I have just mentioned crashed your 100 million barrier as they were a nostalgic part of my early experience at the movies. Obviously therefore I greatly welcome the page and indeed would have given it four stars had not Hirsch’s contribution reduced its rating to three and ½ stars !!!
Hey Bob
1. Sorry Joel’s thought are a distraction……one day I will have all of his actors from his book on the website…then I can retire his book and his thoughts.
2. Now the bad news is I am only about half way done….as this makes the 201st UMR page that is in Joel’s book….only 209 more to go…lol.
3. I agree with you about her career being pretty short like Hepburn’s career.
4. I also agree she had some pretty impressive co-stars….with John Wayne being one of the missing ones…seems a Wayne/Russell movie in the early 1950s could have been good.
5. Actually researching her movies was pretty easy…as she remained pretty popular even as the end of career was coming.
6. Thanks for the feedback….good stuff as always.
HI BRUCE
Only 209 Joel offerings to go! Ah well –
“From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.”
[from The Garden of the Prosperpine by Algernon Charles Swinburne]
Always nice to see legends like Wayne and Joel seeing eye to eye. It is too bad Wayne and Russell did not make a movie together. Thanks for the thoughts Mr. Wayne. Lol
Jane Russell was a heavily promoted sex symbol in the 1940s. She gained notoriety as a result of her appearance in The Outlaw. Despite her looks, she seemed synthetic and manufactured. Only occasionally, in comedies, did glimpses of warmth and charm emerge.
My top Jane Russell 4 star performances would be 1948’s The Paleface, 1952’s Son of Paleface and 1953’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
Honorable mention to my 3 star Jane Russell performances: 1951’s His Kind of Woman, 1955’s The Tall Men and 1970’s Darker Than Amber
My thoughts are from my book….Rating The Movie Stars
Hey Joel….as always….thanks for sharing your thoughts on Jane Russell. Four of the six movies you mentioned reached our UMR Top 4.