The best Janet Gaynor’s drama movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Janet Gaynor’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Janet Gaynor.
A Star Is Born
7.3/10
Esther Blodgett is just another starry-eyed farm kid trying to break into the movies. Waitressing at a Hollywood party, she catches the eye of her idol Norman Maine, is sent for a screen test, and before long attains stardom as newly minted Vicki Lester. She and Norman marry, though his career soon dwindles to nothing due to his chronic alcoholism.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
7.8/10
Erstwhile childhood friends, Judah Ben-Hur and Messala meet again as adults, this time with Roman officer Messala as conqueror and Judah as a wealthy, though conquered, Israelite. A slip of a brick during a Roman parade causes Judah to be sent off as a galley slave, his property confiscated and his mother and sister imprisoned. Years later, as a result of his determination to stay alive and his willingness to aid his Roman master, Judah returns to his homeland an exalted and wealthy Roman athlete. Unable to find his mother and sister, and believing them dead, he can think of nothing else than revenge against Messala.
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
8.1/10
A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.
7th Heaven
7.6/10
A dejected Parisian sewer worker feels his prayers have been answered when he falls in love with a street waif.
State Fair
6.7/10
The Frakes attend the Iowa State Fair where Father Abel enters his Hampshire boar, Blue Boy, in a hog content while Mother Melissa enters the mincemeat competition. And their children, Margy and Wayne, find love with newspaper reporter Pat Gilbert and trapeze artist Emily Joyce. But will everyone return home safe and happy or will hearts be broken?
4 Devils
7/10
Film historian and collector William K. Everson stated that the only surviving print was lost by actress Mary Duncan who had borrowed it from Fox Studios. In the December 1974 issue of "Films in Review," he explained that Mary Duncan, one of the film's stars, wanted it to show to a group of friends in Florida. The star was aware that it was a dangerous nitrate print and assumed that Fox had others. She threw the only copy in the ocean, a mistake characterized by Everson as "a monumental blunder to rank with Balaclava, Sarajevo, and the Fall of Babylon as one of history's blackest moments."
Lucky Star
7.7/10
Mary, a poor farm girl, meets Tim just as word comes that war has been declared. Tim enlists in the army and goes to the battlefields of Europe, where he is wounded and loses the use of his legs. Home again, Tim is visited by Mary, and they are powerfully attracted to each other; but his physical handicap prevents him from declaring his love for her. Deeper complications set in when Martin, Tim's former sergeant and a bully, takes a shine to Mary.
Street Angel
7.3/10
A spirited young woman finds herself destitute and on the streets before joining a traveling carnival, where she meets a vagabond painter.
Change of Heart
6/10
Catherine and Mack and their close friends Chris and Madge graduate from a West Coast college and fly to New York City to find work.
One More Spring
6.9/10
Three people live together in the maintenance shed at Central Park as an alternative to living on the streets.
Two Girls Wanted
Lost film.
The Johnstown Flood
6.8/10
A dramatic recreation of the Johnstown Flood of 1889.
The Blue Eagle
5.7/10
Waterfront rivals George Darcy (O'Brien) and Big Tim Ryan (Russell) are both in love with Rose Kelly (Gaynor), and continue their feud when they join the Navy. After the war, they call a temporary truce to take on dope peddlers who are destroying their neighborhood.
Tess of the Storm Country
6.7/10
When Captain Howland decides that his daughter Tess is getting a bit to old to continue to go to sea with him, they move into a small cottage on the coast of Maine, but not for long. A local millionaire, Frederick Garfield, lays a false claim to the property and has them evicted. Later, when Tess saves a young man about her age from drowning, she is a bit dismayed to learn that he is Garfield's son. But when her father is jailed on a false-accusation charge of murder, the younger Garfield comes to their aid and proves he himself.
The Plastic Age
5.9/10
Hugh Carver is an athletic star and a freshman at Prescott College. He falls in love with Cynthia Day, a popular girl who loves to party, and finds that it's impossible to please her and still keep up with his studies and athletic training. Soon the two face some difficult decisions.
The Shamrock Handicap
6.1/10
The first film having an Irish motif that John Ford directed, a six reel delight set in Eire's County Kildare and in the United States, with a steeplechase background, mixing charged elements of comedy and sentimental drama, benefiting from a sterling cast including Leslie Fenton, Janet Gaynor, and Ford favourite J. Farrell MacDonald.
The First Year
6.4/10
Grace Livingston is leading a happy life in her small town, with her mother and father, being courted by two men, the steady but predictable Tommy Tucker and the more ambitious, flashy, and worldly Dick Loring, who seems closer to Grace in his desire for travel and adventure.
