William Powell Trailers
The Love Story of Jean Harlow and William Powell TrailerCinecittà Babilonia: Sex, Drugs and Black Shirts TrailerDiscovering Jean Harlow Trailer
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 1922, playing a small role as an evil henchman of Professor Moriarty in a production of Sherlock Holmes with John Barrymore. His most memorable role in silent movies was as a bitter film director opposite Emil Jannings' Academy Award-winning performance as a fallen general in The Last Command (1928). This success, along with Powell's pleasant speaking voice, led to his first starring role as amateur detective Philo Vance in the "talkie" The Canary Murder Case (1929). Powell's most famous role was that of Nick Charles in six Thin Man films, beginning with The Thin Man in 1934, based upon Dashiell Hammett's novel. The role provided a perfect opportunity for Powell, with his resonant speaking voice, to showcase his sophisticated charm and witty sense of humor, and he received his first Academy Award nomination for The Thin Man. Myrna Loy played his wife, Nora, in each of the Thin Man films. Their on-screen partnership, beginning alongside Clark Gable in 1934 with Manhattan Melodrama, was one of Hollywood's most prolific, and they appeared in 14 films together. Loy and Powell starred in the Best Picture of 1936, The Great Ziegfeld, with Powell in the title role and Loy as Ziegfeld's wife Billie Burke. That same year, he also received his second Academy Award nomination, for the comedy My Man Godfrey. In 1935, he starred with Jean Harlow in Reckless. A serious romance developed between them, and in 1936, they were reunited on screen and with Loy and Spencer Tracy in the screwball comedy Libeled Lady. However, Harlow surprisingly and quickly became ill, and died from uremia at the age of 26 in June 1937 before they could marry. His distress over her death, as well as a cancer diagnosis of his own, caused him to accept fewer acting roles. Powell's career slowed considerably in the 1940s, although he received his third Academy Award nomination in 1947 for his role as the cantankerous Clarence Day, Sr., in Life with Father. His last film was 1955's Mister Roberts. Powell died in Palm Springs, California, on March 5, 1984, at the age of 91 from heart failure, nearly 30 years after his retirement. He is buried at the Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California, near his third wife Diana Lewis, and his only child, his son William David Powell.
Most Popular William Powell Trailers
Total trailers found: 118
20 February 1927
On a train bound for New York, where she hopes to find work, Honey McNeil captures the appreciative eye of William Ogden, a financier, who offers her a job.
18 February 1938
A Butler gets elected to the Hungarian parliament where he opposes his master's government.
24 October 1940
This short documentary, presented and directed by MGM sound engineer Douglas Shearer, goes behind the scenes to look at how the sound portion of a talking picture is created.
04 June 1990
This tribute to Myrna Loy is organized chronologically with a few photographs, many film clips, a handful of personal appearances, and a detailed commentary delivered on camera by Kathleen Turner.
08 February 1930
'Natural' Davis (William Powell) is a respected gambler who follows a ruthless code of honor with those who cheat against him.
25 February 1983
Out-takes (mostly from Warner Bros.), promotional shorts, movie premieres, public service pleas, wardrobe tests, documentary material, and archival footage make up this star-studded voyeuristic look at the Golden age of Hollywood during the 30s, 40, and 50.
14 June 2017
The story of Italian cinema under Fascism, a sophisticated film industry built around the founding of the Cinecittà studios and the successful birth of a domestic star system, populated by very peculiar artists among whom stood out several beautiful, magnetic, special actresses; a dark story of war, drugs, sex, censorship and tragedy.
27 August 1937
Several 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.
09 June 1934
A British officer stationed in Ireland falls for the wife of an intelligence man.
08 June 1925
After a stormy six year marriage, Barnaby Powers divorces his wife Richmiel. She returns home, taking their young son Oliver with her.
29 May 1940
This short promotes the premise that movies often create a demand for the fashions seen in them. It starts with a vignette in rural America.
06 June 1930
John 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.
20 November 1951
Comprised 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.
05 July 1935
A romantic comedy-drama-musical of mistaken identity, infidelity and farce, set in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century.
01 January 1984
Robert 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.
09 March 1986
In this tribute to her frequent co-star and longtime love, Katharine Hepburn hosts a behind-the-scenes look at Spencer Tracy's personal and professional life that features intimate personal accounts, interviews and clips from his most acclaimed work on the silver screen.
04 April 1926
A movie actress, mistakenly thinking she has killed a fellow actor, goes on the run and finds herself taken in by a Kentucky mountain family.
19 July 1930
William Foster is a slick attorney who stays within the law, but specializes in representing crooks and shady characters.
01 August 1927
A once notorious gunfighter takes a respectable job on a ranch. "Nevada" is charged with protecting the ranch owner's pretty daughter, arousing the enmity of ranch foreman Clan Dillon, who is in love with the girl.
24 December 1944
On a trip to visit his parents, detective Nick Charles gets mixed up in a murder investigation.
13 October 1924
Boardinghouse servant Adele Clark is unexpectedly awarded the ownership of a certain piece of New York City property known as Clark's Field.
01 March 1952
Young David, orphaned en route to California, falls into the hands of medicine-show rascal Baltimore Dan.
21 July 1933
After tricking him into marriage, a woman tries to win the love of her philandering husband.
04 April 1946
A former reporter comes back home after serving in the army during World War I and finds that it's much more difficult to find work than he expected.
19 September 1926
In a mountain village in South America, Dr. McCoy and the padre watch Roger Drake enter a small chapel near a towering bridge, and McCoy recounts the story of Drake's life: As a rising engineer, he marries Janet Stone, the ambitious daughter of a wealthy family, and neglects his career while Janet becomes a candidate for the State Assembly.
09 November 1934
A criminal lawyer's wife is blackmailed when she is falsely accused of infidelity.
02 July 1937
Spies on opposite sides fall in love in pre-revolutionary Russia.
06 August 1975
Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.
02 September 1931
A woman's life falls to pieces when she's caught cheating on her husband.
01 July 1925
A 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.
30 August 1930
The Voice of Hollywood hosted by Pat O'Brien. Features Joan Blondell, Robert Montgomery, Elissa Landi, Warner Baxter, and the coronation of Mary Pickford as "Queen of the Arts.
31 December 1947
A 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.
11 August 1929
Philo Vance investigates when a murderer preys upon members of a wealthy family on New York's Upper East Side.
02 September 1964
Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.
01 January 1945
Frank Morgan is hired to put together a movie using odds and ends from the MGM vaults. He does so by splicing together a string of completely unrelated short subjects and musical numbers, interspersed with a repeated loop of a scene from some melodrama.
10 July 1955
Mr. 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.
01 January 1944
This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.
01 June 1929
An Englishman (Richard Arlen) fights in the Sudan after receiving white feathers of cowardice from his fiancee (Fay Wray) and friends.
13 September 1947
A straitlaced turn-of-the-century father presides over a family of boys and the mother who really rules the roost.
05 August 1928
A petty thief who robs the very rich at speakeasies, and gets away with it because the rich don't want the bad publicity, is finally caught and sent to Sing Sing.
04 May 1934
The friendship between two orphans endures even though they grow up on opposite sides of the law and fall in love with the same woman.
22 April 1923
Charles Abbott is implicated in the death of his friend Escobar, brother to the woman he loves.
28 May 1939
An MGM short showing how materials are shipped by boat 'From the Ends of the Earth' to Hollywood. Featuring footage from the MGM films being made at the time.
07 December 1935
La Fiesta de Santa Barbara is a 1935 American comedy short film directed by Louis Lewyn. It was nominated for an Academy Award at the 9th Academy Awards in 1936 for Best Short Subject (Color).
19 April 1935
When a dancer disappears from a theater, Clay Dalzell is asked to investigate, leading him on a trail of murder and deception.
31 March 1976
A collection of film clips profiling animal actors.
25 May 1934
A husband and wife detective team takes on the search for a missing inventor and almost get killed for their efforts.
02 December 1949
Emery Slade was one of the brightest stars in Hollywood in 1932, but by 1949 his career has hit the skids.
17 November 1939
Not even the joys of parenthood can stop married sleuths Nick and Nora Charles from investigating a murder on a Long Island estate.
13 March 1987
Documentary about James Stewart's long career as an actor and positive personal life.
26 February 1943
Best friends Joan and Patricia are teenage autograph seekers who spend most of their day bumping into and having tea with movie stars like Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon.
17 August 1929
Charming Sinners was a stilted adaptation of Somerset Maugham's play The Constant Wife. Robert Miles (Clive Brook) starts the ball rolling when he falls in love with Anne-Marie Whitley (Mary Nolan), the best friend of his own wife Kathryn (Ruth Chatterton).
24 March 1931
A young American girl visits Paris accompanied by her fiancee and her wealthy uncle. There she meets and is romanced by a worldly novelist; what she doesn't know is that he is a blackmailer who is using her to get to her uncle.
29 October 1953
Three women set out to find eligible millionaires to marry, but find true love in the process.
24 December 1932
Idealistic attorney Anton Adam makes headlines when he successfully prosecutes a prominent New York City political party boss named Gilmurry.
09 August 1940
Boring businessman Larry Wilson recovers from amnesia and discovers he's really a con man...and loves his soon-to-be-ex wife.
15 October 1937
A bohemian free spirit helps meek Waldo win back his fiancée and falls in love with her over-controlling sister in the process.
18 January 1930
Gardoni, a down-on-his-luck vaudeville performer, is taken in by a fellow performer, a clown who has a bicycle riding act.
21 November 1926
Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner now living on Long Island, finds himself fascinated by the mysterious past and lavish lifestyle of his neighbor, the nouveau riche Jay Gatsby.
