Want to know the best Maureen O’Sullivan movies? How about the worst Maureen O’Sullivan movies? Curious about Maureen O’Sullivan box office grosses or which Maureen O’Sullivan movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Maureen O’Sullivan movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Maureen O’Sullivan (1911-1998) was an Irish-American actress best known for playing Jane in the Tarzan series of films starring Johnny Weissmuller. Maureen O’Sullivan’s IMDb page shows 97 acting credits from 1930-1994 This page will rank 50 Maureen O’Sullivan movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Her television appearances were not included in the rankings. Sadly, I was unable to find box office information on 11 of her movies made from the early 1930s….so they were also not included in the massive table below.
Drivel Part: Gotta admit..I have always gotten Maureen O’Sullivan and Margaret Sullavan mixed up. I knew one of them was Jane in the Tarzan movies (Maureen), I knew one of them was from my hometown of Norfolk, Va (Margaret), I knew one of them was Mia Farrow’s mom (Maureen), I knew one of them was married to Henry Fonda (Margaret)….well maybe after doing this UMR page on Maureen O’Sullivan…I will be able to keep the two Sullys separate in my head. This page comes from a request by one of our most recent commenters, John.
Maureen O’Sullivan 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 Maureen O’Sullivan movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Maureen O’Sullivan movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Maureen O’Sullivan movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Maureen O’Sullivan 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 Maureen O’Sullivan movie received.
- Sort Maureen O’Sullivan 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.
- Blue link in Co-star column takes you to that star’s UMR movie page
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Maureen O’Sullivan Table
- Fifteen Maureen O’Sullivan movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 30.00% of her movies listed. A Day At The Races (1937) was her biggest box office hit.
- An average Maureen O’Sullivan movie grossed $81.40 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 32 of Maureen O’Sullivan’s movies are rated as good movies…or 64.00% of her movies. The Thin Man (1934) is her highest rated movie while The Phynx (1970) is her lowest rated movie.
- Seven Maureen O’Sullivan movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 14.00% of her movies.
- Two Maureen O’Sullivan movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 2.00% of her movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 40.00. 28 Maureen O’Sullivan movies scored higher that average….or 56.00% of her movies. A Day At The Races (1937) got the the highest UMR Score while The Phynx (1970) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Maureen O’Sullivan
1. Maureen Paula O’Sullivan was born in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland, in 1911.
2. Maureen O’Sullivan’s film career began when she met motion picture director Frank Borzage, who was doing location filming on Song o’ My Heart. She got a small part in that movie and returned with Borzage to Hollywood to complete the movie….and the rest is history.
3. Maureen O’Sullivan was never nominated for an Oscar® or a Golden Globe® in her entire 60 plus year career.
4. Maureen O’Sullivan is considered to be Ireland’s first film star.
5. Maureen O’Sullivan despised working with the chimpanzee Cheetah during the filming of the Tarzan movies at MGM.
6. Maureen O’Sullivan was for awhile Frank Sinatra’s mother-in-law.
7. Maureen O’Sullivan was married two times and had seven children. Her first marriage was to Oscar®-winning writer John Farrow. They were married from 1936 until his death in 1963 they had 7 children together.
8. Maureen O’Sullivan’s cumulative box office totals: Adjusted domestic box office: $4.07 billion. 19 Oscar® nominations all her movies in all categories. 4 Oscar® wins all her movies in all categories.
Check out Maureen O’Sullivan‘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. Golden Globe® is a registered trademark.
Not enough stats for you? Well here are Adjusted Worldwide Grosses On 22 Maureen O’Sullivan Movies (in millions)
- A Yank In Oxford (1938) $341.20 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Tarzan’s Secret Treasure (1941) $315.40 million adjusted worldwide box office
- David Copperfield (1935) $307.20 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Tarzan The Ape Man (1932) $304.40 million adjusted worldwide box office
- A Day At The Races (1937) $298.80 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Tarzan’s New York Adventure (1942) $280.00 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Tugboat Annie (1933) $268.70 million adjusted worldwide box office
- The Crowd Roars (1938) $254.00 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Tarzan Finds A Son (1939) $251.10 million adjusted worldwide box office
- The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) $245.70 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Tarzan Escapes (1936) $241.50 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Tarzan And His Mate (1934) $233.90 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Anna Karenina (1935) $230.80 million adjusted worldwide box office
- The Emperor’s Candlesticks (1937) $173.10 million adjusted worldwide box office
- The Thin Man (1934) $159.90 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Pride and Prejudice (1940) $159.10 million adjusted worldwide box office
- West Point Of The Air (1935) $131.90 million adjusted worldwide box office
- The Big Clock (1948) $120.50 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Where Danger Lives (1950) $65.20 million adjusted worldwide box office
- The Tall T (1957) $52.30 million adjusted worldwide box office
- My Dear Miss Aldrich (1937) $45.90 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Payment Deferred (1932) $33.50 million adjusted worldwide box office
Cogerson
I have mentioned that Randolph Scott with 36 color movies appeared in by far more color movies than any other classic actor through the 1950’s. Interestingly, Maureen O’Sullivan was almost completely a black and white actress. Although she began her career about the same time as Scott, her first color appearance was in The Tall T with Scott in 1957. I think this was his 32nd color movie. O’Sullivan made one other color movie in the fifties, Wild Heritage, and one in the sixties, Never too Late. Because of color appearances in the eighties and nineties, she ended up with a total of 8, not counting made-for-TV movies.
Steve
“I’m waiting for John to pop in”
Hi Steve.
“and tell me off for not including one of his favorites.”
No. Two of them. lol. Where are Payment Deferred and Where Danger Lives? I think they should have been somewhere in the bottom half of her top thirty. lol.
What strikes me is what a great and wide ranging career she had. Although identified as Jane, she was in a ton of biggies away from Tarzan. Her success illustrates again that it was often better in a way to not be a top billed star, as then one landed in more good movies. I was thinking counting down your list that if A Day at the Races is her #8, she did very well indeed quality wise. I found your top ten reasonable. A fun video to watch and I thought the music appropriate for this classy actress.
Hi John, thanks for checking out my new video, always appreciated.
I don’t know what happened Payment Deferred and Where Danger Lives, it’s one of those anomolous anomalies… no? It’s a top 30 some films were bound to fall by the wayside, just bad luck that they always seem to be your favorites. 😉
What’s great is that these videos get plenty of views but I rarely get a “why is that film not on there?” or “why is it ranked so low?” comment on my video channel. People either – simply don’t care – they trust my ratings – can’t be bothered to look up what’s missing on IMDB – they just want to look at the movie posters.
Good post on The Tall T thingy. When I watched the film last year and I looked at the (much missed) IMDB message boards and there were people wondering what Tall T stood for.
🙂
🙂
Bob & Cogerson & Steve
On what The Tall T stands for. I don’t know if anyone has the inside scoop from the folks who made the movie, but I have my own guess. The rancher whose bull Scott tries to ride is named Tenvoorde. If you notice the scene just before Scott mounts the bull, there is a tall wooden T clearly visible above one of the buildings on Tenvoorde’s ranch. I think the viewer is expected to gather that this tall T was put up by Tenvoorde to mark his ranch with a sign of his name, the Tenvoorde ranch. It is important symbolically in the movie as Scott’s dream is to own such a ranch himself, as it seems also does villain Richard Boone.
On the point of movie journalists thinking Maureen O’Sullivan at 46 or so was too old for the 59 year old Scott (a rather odd point of view), I don’t know, but off the book The Films of Randolph Scott, Scott himself certainly didn’t look at it that way. He was very happy that the “hot and heavy” romantic scenes were not with an actress young enough to be his daughter. As he was the producer, he might well have been the one who cast O’Sullivan. Apparently Scott and O’Sullivan got along very well during the shooting as they enjoyed each other’s company and frequently dined together.
I enjoyed the in-joke from Scott when Arthur Hunnicutt mentioned that O’Sullivan’s father was worth on the upper side of half a million dollars, with Scott commenting that this was too much money for any one man to manage. That must have broken up the crew.
JOHN
Thanks for revealing what The Tall T may stand for. Your theory makes sense and it was not one of my own alternative theories. Interesting new information about the Scott/O’Sullivan relationship
and it was good to know they got on well as I like them both as performers and I l love the very humorous Scott/Hunnicutt story. Well done!
🙂
Hey John…..Sold!…..your reasoning works for me. Interesting about Hollywood thinking an actress 13 years younger than the star might have been too old. Cary Grant had that problem too. I think the only romance I did not buy was Audrey Hepburn and Gary Cooper in Love In The Afternoon….in that one Coop looked like her granddad.
It seems I did not make a comment on this page yet. I did not realize this until I commented on youtube on Steve’s video. All my responses to Steve’s videros I make on youtube rather than on your site. I have seen 20 movies from his video, but my total on your page is much lower.
My favourite of her films is The Thin Man. I used to get Margaret and Maureen mixed up too.
He Flora…thanks for the visit and comment here. 20 from his video is pretty impressive. I am right there with you about The Thin Man….as it is one of my favorites as well. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.