Want to know the best Jayne Mansfield movies? How about the worst Jayne Mansfield movies? Curious about Jayne Mansfield box office grosses or which Jayne Mansfield movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Jayne Mansfield movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which ones got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place…. because we have all of that information and much more.
Jayne Mansfield (1933-1967) was an American actress and singer. She was a major Hollywood sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s and one of 20th Century Fox’s main sex symbol actresses Her IMDb page shows 34 acting credits from 1954-1967. This page will rank 19 Jayne Mansfield movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Uncredited roles, bit parts and short were not included in the rankings. This page comes from a request from Brit.
Jayne Mansfield 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 Jayne Mansfield movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Jayne Mansfield movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Jayne Mansfield movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Jayne Mansfield 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 Oscar® wins each Jayne Mansfield movie received.
- Sort Jayne Mansfield movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score. UMR puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Stats From The Above Jayne Mansfield Table
- Two Jayne Mansfield movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 10.53% of her movies listed. The Girl Can’t Help It (1956) was her biggest box office hit.
- An average Jayne Mansfield movie grosses $58.70 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 8 Jayne Mansfield movies are rated as good movies…or 42.10% of her movies. Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) was her highest rated movie while The Fat Spy (1966) was her lowest rated movie.
- One Jayne Mansfield movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 5.26% of her movies.
- Zero Jayne Mansfield movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 0.00% of her movies.
- An “a good movie” Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 60.00. 7 Jayne Mansfield movies scored higher than that….or 36.84% of her movies. Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) got the the highest UMR Movie Score while The Fat Spy (1966) got the lowest UMR Movie Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Jane Mansfield
1. Vera Jayne Palmer was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania in 1933. So how did Vera Palmer become Jayne Mansfield? She used her middle name and the last name of her first husband, Paul Mansfield.
2. While attending The University of Texas at Austin, Jayne Mansfield won several beauty contests. Some of her winning titles: Miss Photoflash, Miss Magnesium Lamp, and Miss Fire Prevention Week.
3. Jayne Mansfield posed nude for the February 1955 issue of Playboy. She joined Marilyn Monroe, Bettie Page, and Anita Ekberg as one of the first ever Playboy Playmates.
4. Jayne Mansfield many beauty contest victories led her to signing a 7 year movie contract with Warner Brothers.
5. Dissatisfied with the her Warner contract, Jayne Mansfield, was released from her contract after only a few movies. She later was signed by 20th Century Fox in an effort to mold her as a successor to Marilyn Monroe.
6. Jayne Mansfield was married three times and had 5 children.
7. Jayne Mansfield’s daughter, Mariska Hargitay, has played Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victim Unit since 1999. That show has run for an incredible 417 episodes.
8. Jayne Mansfield turned down the role of Ginger Grant on the television show Gilligan’s Island.
9. Though her film career seemed to have fallen from grace in the mid and late 1960s, Jayne Mansfield’s nightclub act was huge, earning her $8,000-$17,000 weekly.
10. Check out Jayne Mansfield’s movie career compared to current and classic stars on our Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time page.
Steve’s Jayne Mansfield You Tube video goes very well with this page.
This might be a first….Steve’s video has more movies listed than our UMR Mansfield page….20 for him….and 19 for us.
I hate that I’m super late coming on this page, but thank you so much for doing it. Jayne’s BO stats are somewhat surprising considering the fact that her career was pretty short-lived, but here are some things that stuck out to me:
1. Her overall total gross is fantastic. She may not be considered a box-office beast, but to join the $1 billion club with 19 films is pretty great.
2. Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, which is her signature film, is only 7th when ranking her films by overall gross. Shocked by this considering this is the film that made her a star on Broadway, and continued her star in Hollywood, but I guess a film being someone’s signature doesn’t mean that it would be their highest grosser.
3. Speaking of highest grosser, The Girl Can’t Help It, which is my favorite film of hers thus far, was a bigger hit than I thought it was. And the fact that it is only 1 of 2 of her films to cross the 200 million mark, let alone the 100 million mark, says a lot. I did not expect any of her films to go beyond the 100 million mark, but I did expect them to either be at that mark (the films people paid attention to) or way under it.
All in all, I think Jayne’s career could have been better because the potential was there. However, too many things like being in Marilyn’s shadow and being compared to her (which I never understood the comparisons considering Jayne was the comedienne and Marilyn was more of or wanted to be seen as a serious actress), 20th Century Fox using her as a pawn rather than a talent (promoting her for the film Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? as “Marilyn Monroe king-sized” proves this), big-breasted blondes no longer being the center of people’s attention anymore by the time the 60s hit, and more misses than hits at the box office hindered it from happening. On the other hand, I do not think the constant publicity stunts ended her career, like most people speculate, because not only did it get people’s attention, but it kept their attention since she was such a big hit in the nightclubs once her career started to wane. And despite being the Queen of Publicity, she certainly had longevity.
1 Hi Again LUPUNO. It struck me that it would perhaps be best if I amplified my comments about the blonde bombshells as I may have left the impression that I am prejudiced against blonde ladies and on the law of averages some of Bruce’s regular female viewers are likely to have hair that colour. We wouldn’t want to upset any demographic of the followers of a God would we?
2 My objections to the blonde bombshell cycle in the Hollywood of the 1950s were twofold (1) whether tongue-in-cheek or not I thought that the cycle was perhaps subscribing to or attempting to create a myth that blondes were superior/sexier than females with other hair colours –Gentlemen Prefer Blondes etc – whereas in real life and on screen of course there are droves of highly attractive women in every hair colour group
3 (2) the women that Hollywood chose to represent the blond bombshell cycle didn’t interest me as screen personas and I thought that most if not all of them owed their screen careers to a gimmick. They were all I should add highly attractive as females but even if they had been say brunettes or redheads I wouldn’t have been interested in their movies. Now if they had been waiting outside the cinema to date me that would have been a different thing!
4 Conversely my own favourite female movie star Deanna Durbin became a blonde for the 1945 Lady on a Train and for good measure sported her blonde hair in 5 different styles throughout the movie and I still adored her. So it was the WOMAN herself and not her hair colour that was the thing. Doris Day another of my Top 3 favourite actresses was labelled by a historian in the Independent newspaper over here “The cutest blonde of them all.” Doris clearly had star persona not dependant on being a “bombshell” – in fact the opposite in a lot of her movies!
5 On a lighter note one critic quipped that the most beautiful woman that he had seen in movies was Curtis in Some Like it Hot and another critic sincerely opined that in Pretty Woman Richard Gere, then at his physical peak, was “prettier than Julia Roberts”!
6 However my favorite quote on the subject has long been a fictitious one from the great Arthur Kennedy in Jimmy Stewart’s 1952 Bend of the River [aka Where the river Bends]
Asked what type of women he preferred Arthur’s character gunman Emerson Cole pointing to a couple of different women round the campfire and said something like “Well it depends on my mood. Today I might fancy that little brunette over there but tomorrow I might go for this buxom blonde over here!”
7 Anyway your posts do usually give me food for thought and a subject to write about as they often raise interesting topics so well done Lupino.
Hello BOB,
It’s been a while since you posted your original comment, sorry for being so late with my reply. Meanwhile, though, I did have the chance to see your fav actress in Lady on a Train, so I know what you are referring to in your post ?
As I’ve stated before, I am a fan of some of the blonde bombshells, and as strange as it may seem, I usually find their later films as interesting as the ones that made them famous. Marilyn went out as a still attractive woman, but Diana Dors, Anita Eckberg and some others lost their famous figures and showed real talent in supporting parts(Dors more than Eckberg imo). Speaking of sexual attractiveness, I totally agree with you- it depends on the woman, not on the hair color….Hedy Lamarr, Maureen O Hara, Vivien Leigh, Sylvia Sidney, all those Joans… highly attractive individuals, non of them bleached blondes ?
Still, to me that doesn’t take away from the beauty or attractiveness of bleached Monroe and some of her contemporaries.
Always great talking to you, have a good Sunday ?
HI LUPINO
1 Thanks for the interesting reply and don’t feel guilty about the lateness because I know you’re busy and guys like Bruce who have plenty of time on their hands often don’t respond to me at all. Though that seems to be mostly happening since I outed his idol Joel as a failed minor nightclub performer !
2 On the subject of blonde bombshells please look up my post to Steve today on Kathleen Turner’s new page in which I invite him to go to Kim Novak’s page [very bottom] on Wikipedia. You might want to do the same if you’ve time. Best wishes BOB
Hello again, BOB,
I saw Kim at the Oscars in 2014 and I was shocked. I also read about Trump’s tweed on her appearance and how hurt she was. I do think that Hedren looks quite well for an octogenarian- not saying she has no work done at all, but she certainly aged gracefully. On yt there is a video showing Mamie van Doren on a public occasion in 2014, where she was honored for her efforts entertaining troops during the vietnam war, and I remember how amazing she looked. After reading your post, I googled her and found a photo from 2017, where her “fillers” can clearly be seen. So, no miracle there, either. In the end, it seems, time is getting to all of us, no matter how much money we invest to fight it. Certainly, even if in that respect only, Monroe, James Dean, Jayne went out “the easy way”.
Hey Lupino….I remember that Novak Oscar appearance well….I thought she looked pretty good.
Hey Bob….I am trying to keep up……sometimes…I fall behind…..but I am trying….lol.
Hey Lupino…I am sure Bob is thinking…better late than never.
Jayne was never on the Oracle of Bacon Top 1000 Center of the Hollywood Universe list. In 2016 there were only 2 actors who appeared on the list who worked with her and Kathleen Freeman has fallen off since then;
385 STEVEN BERKOFF The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1958)
966 KATHLEEN FREEMAN Kiss Them for Me (1957)
On the original list in 2000 these actors who have since fallen off appeared in a film with her;
14 JOHN CARRADINE Female Jungle (1955)
93 HARRY CAREY JR. Kiss Them for Me (1957)
94 ROBERT MORLEY The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1958)
133 WALTER MATTHAU A Guide for the Married Man (1967)
171 JOHN WOOD It Takes a Thief (1960)
194 LAWRENCE TIERNEY Female Jungle (1955)
222 BESS FLOWERS Illegal (1955)
232 ROY JENSON The George Raft Story (1961)
234 AKIM TAMIROFF Panic Button (1964)
236 LEE MARVIN Pete Kelly’s Blues (1955)
299 FRITZ FELD Promises! Promises! (1963)
406 EDMOND O’BRIEN Pete Kelly’s Blues (1955)
406 EDMOND O’BRIEN The Girl Can’t Help It (1956)
409 ROD TAYLOR Hell on Frisco Bay (1955)
446 RAY WALSTON Kiss Them for Me (1957)
463 EDWARD G. ROBINSON Hell on Frisco Bay (1955)
463 EDWARD G. ROBINSON Illegal (1955)
472 TERRY-THOMAS A Guide for the Married Man (1967)
484 LEOPOLDO TRIESTE Panic Button (1964)
504 ANDY ROMANO The George Raft Story (1961)
562 PAUL BRYAR Hell on Frisco Bay (1955)
583 PAUL STEWART Hell on Frisco Bay (1955)
599 JOHN DOUCETTE Kiss Them for Me (1957)
606 ALBERTO MORIN Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957)
612 JEFFREY HUNTER A Guide for the Married Man (1967)
634 JOAN COLLINS The Wayward Bus (1957)
648 HARRY MORGAN Pete Kelly’s Blues (1955)
699 ART CARNEY A Guide for the Married Man (1967)
746 HERB VIGRAN Hell on Frisco Bay (1955)
746 HERB VIGRAN Illegal (1955)
746 HERB VIGRAN The Girl Can’t Help It (1956)
806 NINA FOCH Illegal (1955)
840 FRANK GORSHIN The George Raft Story (1961)
859 MYRON HEALEY The George Raft Story (1961)
873 PAUL MULLER It Happened in Athens (1962)
889 ROBERT BROWN It Takes a Thief (1960)
895 TONY RANDALL Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957)
915 IVAN TRIESAULT It Happened in Athens (1962)
951 PERCY HERBERT It Takes a Thief (1960)
977 ANTHONY QUAYLE It Takes a Thief (1960)
989 BRUCE CABOT The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1958)
994 ELLEN CORBY Illegal (1955)
Jayne only appeared with 4 Oscar winners.
ART CARNEY A Guide for the Married Man (1967)
EDMOND O’BRIEN Pete Kelly’s Blues (1955)
EDMOND O’BRIEN The Girl Can’t Help It (1956)
LEE MARVIN Pete Kelly’s Blues (1955)
WALTER MATTHAU A Guide for the Married Man (1967)
LUPINO
In my previous post I meant 100 Greatest People of the 20th CENTURY. Apologies for the original omission.
How do I convince the people here that I am not a fan of 50’s bombshells? Let me think….I simply don’t care for Monroe, Mansfield, Mamie, Diana Dors and Lollollo what’shername? And I don’t know how on earth I happened to watch 12 Mansfield movies in my life…I probably was drugged by someone trying to torture me….
Anyway, Miss Mansfield was build up by Fox as a threat to Monroe, who started to question the way she was treated by the company. For a short time, Jayne’s star shone brightly, but she was her own worst enemy careerwise, living her live in public, doing almost everything for a headline, thus neglecting the one thing that is as important for a movie star as publicity certainly is: that final touch of mystery to keep the public persona interesting.
I think that all of Jayne’s 50’s movies are watchable for one reason or another, and I do think that her 60’s movies, at least her starring ones, went from awful to worse. I started The Fat Spy three times but never made it through the whole film, same goes for Single Room Furnished.
My favorite Mansfield’s are Will Success spoil Rock Hunter, The Girl can’t Help It, The Wayward Bus (this COULD have been a turning point in her career, maybe Mansfield’s Bus Stop) and The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw. She did a few movies in England, and I have enjoyed Playgirl After Dark/Too Hot To Handle and It Takes A Thief.
Jayne, like fellow Blonde Mamie van Doren, came to Germany in the 60’s to costar in a movie with german singing sensation Freddy Quinn. The movie was called Heimweh nach St. Pauli/Homesick for St. Pauli. She still looked every inch the Hollywood Glamour Star and got to sing a few songs, most notably “My Snick-Snuck-Snuckelchen”. The film was successful enough for movie producers to invite Mamie soon after to costar with Freddy in “Freddy und das Lied der Prärie/Freddy and the Song of the Prairie”. Mamie got to sing “Ich Dich lieben”…something along the lines to “I You Loving”.
Both ladies starred in Las Vegas Hillbillies….a torture I’m still looking forward to 🙂
HI LUPINO
1 I agree with you about the Blonde Bombshells as I found them all bores, even MM who I thought was a “one trick pony” but not only is she an AFI legend but Time magazine voted her one of the 100 Greatest People of the along with Chaplin, Sinatra and Brando from mainstream movies and a variety of people from other professions and walks of life so you and I are in a minority regarding Monroe at least.
2 However Redheads also got a good mention in the 1950s – Rhonda Fleming and Glenn Ford in the 1951 The Redhead and the Cowboy, Rhonda Fleming, Agnes Moorhead and Gene Barry in the 1953 Those Redheads from Seattle and Maureen O’Hara and Alex Nicol in The 1953 The Redhead from Wyoming. I personally have to admit that redheaded Rhonda appealed to me more than any of the blonde bombshells and hopefully our Lord and Master will not disagree as he tells us his wife is a redhead.
Hello BOB,
thanks for your reply as it is proof that my ability to make myself understood in english isn’t nearly as good as I would wish….Sorry to disappoint, but I love Monroe and Dors, and I like Mansfield and even van Doren a lot- and I was trying to be funny by stating the contrary 🙁
Is it any consolation that I consider Maureen O’Hara to be one of the most enchanting creatures ever to grace the silver screen?
HI LUPINO
Sorry that I misunderstood you and as I’ve indicated mine was certainly a minority opinion anyway at least in relation to MM. I did like Betty Grable though and she was blonde and I agree with you about Maureen O’Hara.
Anyway have a good weekend as it is clear that you work hard enough to earn one.