
Acting
William Powell
Born — Died
1892-07-29 — 1984-03-05
Place of birth
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Known for
Acting
Credits
60 titles
William Horatio Powell (July 29, 1892 – March 5, 1984) was an American actor. A major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including the Thin Man series based on the Nick and Nora Charles characters created by Dashiell Hammett. Powell was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times: for The Thin Man (1934), My Man Godfrey (1936), and Life with Father (1947). After high school, he left home for New York and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts at the age of 18. In 1912, Powell graduated from the AADA, and worked in some vaudeville and stock companies. After several successful experiences on the Broadway stage, he began his Hollywood career in …
Known for
6.8Three women set out to find eligible millionaires to marry, but find true love in the process.
How to Marry a Millionaire
1953
7.5Former detective Nick Charles has retired from police work, preferring a life of cocktails, parties, and relaxation with his wealthy wife, Nora. Their holiday is interrupted when the daughter of Nick’s former client asks for help finding her missing father, eccentric inventor Clyde Wynant. When Wynant’s body is discovered, Nick is drawn back into the investigation, with Nora eagerly joining him. As the couple questions Wynant’s family, friends, and business associates, a tangled web of greed, deception, and murder begins to unravel.
The Thin Man
1934
7.3After returning to San Francisco, Nick and Nora Charles are drawn into the disappearance of Nora’s cousin’s husband. When he is found murdered, suspicion falls on the troubled family, and Nick reluctantly resumes his detective work. With Nora eagerly at his side, the pair follows a trail of jealousy, blackmail, secret relationships, and long-buried family scandals.
After the Thin Man
1936
6.3At the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, sideshow barker Florenz Ziegfeld turns the tables on his more-successful neighbor Billings, and also steals his girlfriend. This pattern repeats throughout their lives, as Ziegfeld makes and loses many fortunes putting on ever-bigger, more spectacular shows
The Great Ziegfeld
1936
7.6Fifth Avenue socialite Irene Bullock needs a "forgotten man" to win a scavenger hunt, and no one is more forgotten than Godfrey Park, who resides in a dump by the East River. Irene hires Godfrey as a servant for her riotously unhinged family, to the chagrin of her spoiled sister, Cornelia, who tries her best to get Godfrey fired. As Irene falls for her new butler, Godfrey turns the tables and teaches the frivolous Bullocks a lesson or two.
My Man Godfrey
1936
7.0Mr. Roberts is a Navy officer who's yearning for battle but is stuck in the backwaters of World War II on a non-commissioned ship run by the bullying Captain Morton.
Mister Roberts
1955
Film credits
1990s · 2 titles
NRShort documentary about Jean Harlow's life and career. Episode of A&E's Biography series.
Jean Harlow: Platinum Bombshell
1996
8.0Based on the first centenary of the largest exporter of films in the world, that is Hollywood, is the story told by its protagonists, actors and writers and other people who made life in this business, interspersing images of famous movies.
The First 100 Years: A Celebration of American Movies
1995
1980s · 2 titles
6.5Documentary about James Stewart's long career as an actor and positive personal life.
James Stewart: A Wonderful Life
1987
9.0Robert Preston hosts this documentary that shows what people of the 1930s were watching as they were battling the Depression as well as eventually getting ready for another World War.
Going Hollywood: The '30s
1984
1970s · 3 titles
7.0Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.
That's Entertainment, Part II
1976
6.3Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
1975
7.5A collection of film clips profiling animal actors.
It's Showtime
1976
1960s · 1 titles
1950s · 4 titles
6.8Three women set out to find eligible millionaires to marry, but find true love in the process.
How to Marry a Millionaire
1953
7.0Mr. Roberts is a Navy officer who's yearning for battle but is stuck in the backwaters of World War II on a non-commissioned ship run by the bullying Captain Morton.
Mister Roberts
1955
5.9Comprised of eight unrelated episodes of inconsistent quality, this anthology piece of American propaganda features some of MGM Studios' best directors, screenwriters and actors; it is narrated by Louis Calhern. Stories are framed by the lecture of a university professor. In one tale a Boston resident becomes angry when the census forgets to record her presence. Another sketch chronicles the achievements of African Americans while still another pays tongue-in-cheek tribute to Texas.
It's a Big Country
1951
6.2Attorney's daughter falls for one of his gangster clients.
The Girl Who Had Everything
1953
1940s · 13 titles
6.0The late, great impresario Florenz Ziegfeld looks down from heaven and ordains a new revue in his grand old style.
Ziegfeld Follies
1945
6.7A straitlaced turn-of-the-century father presides over a family of boys and the mother who really rules the roost.
Life with Father
1947
7.2Boring businessman Larry Wilson recovers from amnesia and discovers he's really a con man...and loves his soon-to-be-ex wife.
I Love You Again
1940
6.7While attending a glamorous jazz cruise on New York’s East River, Nick and Nora Charles witness the fatal shooting of a wealthy patron. When suspicion falls on a young bandleader and his musicians, the couple steps in to clear their friends and uncover the real killer. Their investigation leads through a lively world of jazz clubs, radio personalities, high society, and backstage rivalries, where almost everyone has a secret and the next clue may be hidden in the music.
Song of the Thin Man
1947
7.0While attending a major horse race with their young son, Nick Jr., Nick and Nora Charles witnesse a shocking murder from the crowded grandstand. What first appears to be an isolated killing soon leads to a maze of corruption, blackmail, gambling scandals, and criminal intrigue. As Nick investigates, he encounters suspicious bookmakers, dishonest officials, rival gangsters, and a mysterious killer determined to stay ahead of the law. Nora, as always, is never far from the action, bringing her quick wit and fearless curiosity to the case.
Shadow of the Thin Man
1941
6.5As told to a psychiatrist: Mr. Peabody, a middle-aged Bostonian on vacation with his wife in the Caribbean, hears mysterious, wordless singing on an uninhabited rock in the bay. Fishing in the vicinity, he catches...a mermaid. He takes her home and, though she has no spoken language, falls in love with her. Of course, his wife won't believe that the thing in the bathtub is anything but a large fish.
Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid
1948
5.6The beautiful wife of a tweedy astronomer becomes convinced that her astrologer's prediction of a new dream man in her life will come true.
The Heavenly Body
1944
7.1Hoping for a peaceful visit with his parents in the small town of Sycamore Springs, Nick Charles and his wife Nora soon find themselves surrounded by old rivalries, family tensions, and a mysterious murder. Nick’s father, a respected retired doctor, would much rather see his son give up detective work, but a suspicious shooting quickly draws Nick back into action. As Nick and Nora investigate, they uncover jealousy, deception, hidden motives, and a dangerous secret involving the town’s prominent citizens.
The Thin Man Goes Home
1944
6.8Circumstance, an old flame and a mother-in-law drive a happily married couple to the verge of divorce and insanity.
Love Crazy
1941
6.2A bumbling, long-winded and crooked Southern senator, considered by some as a dark horse for the Presidency, panics his party when his tell-all diary is stolen.
The Senator Was Indiscreet
1947
6.0Emery Slade was one of the brightest stars in Hollywood in 1932, but by 1949 his career has hit the skids. Fortunately, he is able to convince studio head Melville Crossman to cast him in the adaptation of a hit Broadway show. Crossman has one condition: Slade must travel to New York and convince the female star of the stage production to join the film. Slade goes, but, when he eyes the winsome Julie Clarke, he hatches a different scheme.
Dancing in the Dark
1949
8.0This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.
Twenty Years After
1944
5.4Catherine Sykes disappears after a midnight drive with Professor Andrew Gentling . When she's presumed murdered, his friend Martha convinces him that he's a prime suspect and should investigate before he's arrested.
Take One False Step
1949
1930s · 23 titles
7.5Former detective Nick Charles has retired from police work, preferring a life of cocktails, parties, and relaxation with his wealthy wife, Nora. Their holiday is interrupted when the daughter of Nick’s former client asks for help finding her missing father, eccentric inventor Clyde Wynant. When Wynant’s body is discovered, Nick is drawn back into the investigation, with Nora eagerly joining him. As the couple questions Wynant’s family, friends, and business associates, a tangled web of greed, deception, and murder begins to unravel.
The Thin Man
1934
7.3After returning to San Francisco, Nick and Nora Charles are drawn into the disappearance of Nora’s cousin’s husband. When he is found murdered, suspicion falls on the troubled family, and Nick reluctantly resumes his detective work. With Nora eagerly at his side, the pair follows a trail of jealousy, blackmail, secret relationships, and long-buried family scandals.
After the Thin Man
1936
6.3At the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, sideshow barker Florenz Ziegfeld turns the tables on his more-successful neighbor Billings, and also steals his girlfriend. This pattern repeats throughout their lives, as Ziegfeld makes and loses many fortunes putting on ever-bigger, more spectacular shows
The Great Ziegfeld
1936
7.6Fifth Avenue socialite Irene Bullock needs a "forgotten man" to win a scavenger hunt, and no one is more forgotten than Godfrey Park, who resides in a dump by the East River. Irene hires Godfrey as a servant for her riotously unhinged family, to the chagrin of her spoiled sister, Cornelia, who tries her best to get Godfrey fired. As Irene falls for her new butler, Godfrey turns the tables and teaches the frivolous Bullocks a lesson or two.
My Man Godfrey
1936
6.5A criminal lawyer's wife is blackmailed when she is falsely accused of infidelity.
Evelyn Prentice
1934
6.2A doctor is driven into an investigation of sinister goings-on at a horse race track by his mystery writer ex-wife.
The Ex-Mrs. Bradford
1936
7.0The friendship between two orphans endures even though they grow up on opposite sides of the law and fall in love with the same woman.
Manhattan Melodrama
1934
7.3When a major newspaper accuses wealthy socialite Connie Allenbury of being a home-wrecker, and she files a multi-million-dollar libel lawsuit, the publication's frazzled head editor, Warren Haggerty, must find a way to turn the tables on her. Soon Haggerty's harried fiancée, Gladys Benton, and his dashing friend Bill Chandler are in on a scheme that aims to discredit Connie, with amusing and unexpected results.
Libeled Lady
1936
7.1Nick and Nora Charles are back - and this time, they have a baby, a wealthy new client, and another murder to solve! Retired detective Nick is enjoying family life with Nora and their young son, Nick Jr., when eccentric industrialist Colonel MacFay asks for protection after receiving threatening messages. When MacFay is found dead at his isolated estate, Nick and Nora spring into action, questioning a houseful of suspicious guests and uncovering greed, blackmail, family secrets, and a dangerous inheritance plot. With their trademark wit and sophistication, the glamorous couple balances parenthood, parties, and peril as they race to expose the killer.
Another Thin Man
1939
7.3A terminally ill woman and a debonair murderer facing execution meet and fall in love on a trans-Pacific crossing, each without knowing the other's secret.
One Way Passage
1932
6.4A bohemian free spirit helps meek Waldo win back his fiancée and falls in love with her over-controlling sister in the process.
Double Wedding
1937
6.1Philo Vance, accompanied by his prize-losing Scottish terrier, investigates the locked-room murder of a prominent and much-hated collector whose broken Chinese vase provides an important clue.
The Kennel Murder Case
1933
6.6When the Manhattan investment firm of Sherwood Nash goes broke, he joins forces with his partner Snap and fashion designer Lynn Mason to provide discount shops with cheap copies of Paris couture dresses.
Fashions of 1934
1934
5.3A Butler gets elected to the Hungarian parliament where he opposes his master's government.
The Baroness and the Butler
1938
5.6A woman's life falls to pieces when she's caught cheating on her husband.
The Road to Singapore
1931
6.7John Nelson, a well-to-do businessman, is escorting a woman he knows as Ethel Barry to the door of her apartment suite when a man steps out of the shadows and angrily demands to know where she has been. The embarrassed Nelson excuses himself and goes to his rooms in the same hotel. The woman rushes into his apartment followed by the man who met her in the hall. The man threatens her with violence and Nelson comes to her defense. In the ensuing fight, the man is knocked out of the window and falls to his death to the pavement many stories down. He is charged with the killing and his only witness that can prove self-defense for him has disappeared, and can not be found.
Shadow of the Law
1930
5.9A chic American jewel thief falls in love with one of her marks, an English lord.
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney
1937
7.0Several behind the scenes aspects of the movie-making business, which results in the enjoyment the movie going public has in going to the theater, are presented. They include: the production of celluloid aka film stock, the materials used in the production of which include cotton and silver; construction crews who build sets including those to look like cities, towns and villages around the world; a visit with Jack Dawn who demonstrates the process of creating a makeup design; the screen testing process, where many an acting hopeful gets his/her start; the work of the candid camera man, the prying eyes behind the movie camera; a visit with Adrian, who designs the clothes worn by many of the stars on screen; and a visit with Herbert Stothart as he conducts his musical score for Conquest (1937). These behind the scenes looks provide the opportunity to get acquainted with the cavalcade of MGM stars and their productions that will grace the silver screen in the 1937/38 movie season.
The Romance of Celluloid
1937
6.5Baroness Teri von Horhenfels deals with the tedium of her aristocratic Vienna life with a long line of lovers. Her rich husband, Franz, seems oblivious. As she's just about to end her latest affair, the baroness gets a much-needed dose of adrenaline when she becomes the target of a charismatic thief. After staging a daring robbery, he makes off with not only the baroness's ring but also her heart.
Jewel Robbery
1932
6.1A ruthless, crooked stockbroker is murdered at his luxurious country estate, and detective Philo Vance just happens to be there; he decides to find out who killed him.
The Benson Murder Case
1930
5.9When a dancer disappears from a theater, Clay Dalzell is asked to investigate, leading him on a trail of murder and deception.
Star of Midnight
1935
4.9A decoding expert tangles with enemy spies.
Rendezvous
1935
4.9Spies on opposite sides fall in love in pre-revolutionary Russia.
The Emperor's Candlesticks
1937
1920s · 11 titles
8.0George Thorne is a young army lieutenant at a border post. He is in love with Mercedes Castanada who, in the lawless life about the fort, is always in danger of falling into the hands of Snake Landree's bandit gang that is the terror of the region. Into the life of the post comes Dick Gale, a man from the East who is soon engaged in a battle for the heart of the girl, whom he has quickly come to love. He aids her in a battle with the desperados. They escape onto the desert and are lost in a sandstorm. They are rescued by the lieutenant, whom, the young woman confesses to the other man, she loves. The Easterner accepts his defeat in the struggle for her affections. According to silentera.com the film survives while Arne Andersen Lost Film Files has it as a lost film.
Desert Gold
1926
7.4A former Imperial Russian general and cousin of the Czar ends up in Hollywood as an extra in a movie directed by a former revolutionary.
The Last Command
1928
9.0A product of the Bowery, Trent Regan grows up to become a powerful gangster. Regan's girlfriend Angie Miller, hearing that her childhood sweetheart (and Regan's lifelong pal) Mike Cassidy is about to marry Marjorie Church, pays a visit to Mike to offer congratulations. Convinced that Angie is fooling around behind his back, Regan accidentally kills her. A lost film.
New York
1927
5.7A beautiful showgirl, name "the Canary" is a scheming nightclub singer. Blackmailing is her game and with that she ends up dead. But who killed "the Canary". All the suspects knew and were used by her and everyone had a motive to see her dead. The only witness to the crime has also been 'rubbed out'. Only one man, the keen, fascinating, debonair detective Philo Vance, would be able to figure out who is the killer.
The Canary Murder Case
1929
6.2Sherlock Holmes is a master at solving the most impenetrable mysteries, but he has his work cut out for him on his latest case. As the famed detective investigates an alleged theft, he’s brought face to face with his most devious adversary yet — Professor Moriarty.
Sherlock Holmes
1922
7.0Roddy Forrester has formed the White Mice club with a pal. The purpose of the club is to help those in trouble. When Roddy's father sends him to the South American republic of Montebello, he gets his chance to be of service. General Rojas, the former president, is locked away in a prison and slowly dying. Roddy decides to rescue him, especially since he has been inspired by the general's pretty daughter, Inez.
White Mice
1926
10.0A newspaper publisher finds out that his wild daughter has fallen in with a ring of gamblers. A reporter who has infiltrated the gang to get a story falls in love with the gang's female leader, and when the two are caught in a police raid, they find themselves in equal amounts of trouble.
My Lady's Lips
1925
6.7In Renaissance Florence, a Florentine trader meets a shipwrecked stranger, who introduces himself as Tito Melema, a young Italianate-Greek scholar. Tito becomes acquainted with several other Florentines, including Nello the barber and a young girl named Tessa. He is also introduced to a blind scholar named Bardo de' Bardi, and his daughter Romola. As Tito becomes settled in Florence, assisting Bardo with classical studies, he falls in love with Romola.
Romola
1924
5.8Mary Tudor falls in love with a new arrival to court, Charles Brandon. She convinces her brother King Henry VIII to make him his Captain of the Guard. Meanwhile, Henry is determined to marry her off to the aging King Louis XII of France as part of a peace agreement.
When Knighthood Was in Flower
1922
6.0Philo Vance investigates when a murderer preys upon members of a wealthy family on New York's Upper East Side.
The Greene Murder Case
1929
6.0The second and last of Eddie Cantor's silent vehicles, Special Delivery casts the wide-eyed comedian as a hapless mailman. While going through his swiftly appointed rounds, Eddie stumbles upon a gang of crooks who are planning a large-scale confidence scam. He exposes the villains and wins the love of heroine Madge (Jobyna Ralston). Though Cantor was a fine physical comic, he didn't truly score in films until the arrival of talkies allowed his fans to hear as well as see him. Special Delivery was directed by "William Goodrich," who in reality was comedian Fatty Arbuckle, hoping to stage a comeback after the sex scandal that destroyed his career.
Special Delivery
1927


