Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and of course, Bogey and Bacall; these are some of the greatest on-screen duos of all time. And yet, my personal favorite flies under the radar time and time again. The aforementioned brilliant pairings all stuck to essentially the same formula: get a dashing male, pair him up with a female he either adores and can’t have, or hates and can’t get rid of, and let the script take its course. But there was one duo that stepped outside the box.
Enter William Powell and Myrna Loy. Powell wasn’t the dashing type like Grant, Flynn, or Astaire, and he didn’t have intrigue like Bogey. In fact, Powell is often quoted saying, “I haven’t a personality such as Jack Gilbert’s, for instance, that attracts women and makes them like me for myself. When I am on the screen I must make them forget me entirely and think only of my acting.” And Myrna Loy wasn’t your typical female co-star either, although Jimmy Stewart once remarked that there ought to be a law against any man who doesn’t want to marry Myrna Loy. Rather, William Powell and Myrna Loy created a new kind of synergy on screen, that of the perfect team.
I could spend the next hour trying to fully explain how great these two were together, or I could just get on with the list where you’ll be able to experience it for yourself. So here it is, with a heavy bias towards the duo’s most famous characters, Nick and Nora Charles.
#5 – Manhattan Melodrama (1934)
The duo’s first pairing, with the bonus of Clark Gable and a great story that puts a different spin on two men from different walks of life. For modern film buffs that might have been wondering, a scene from this film featuring Powell and Gable makes an appearance in Johnny Depp’s recent movie Public Enemies.
#4 – Libeled Lady (1936)
Take the greatness of Powell & Loy and throw in Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy for good measure. Just another example of the kind of great writing that existed in Hollywood at this time, which after a while, will really start to affect your opinion of the quality of scripts being turned into movies today.
#3, #2, & #1 – The Thin Man Series (1934-1947)
Maybe I’m cheating, but I’m actually putting five movies in the last three spots. The Thin Man series is where these two became Hollywood legends, and in my opinion they still don’t get the recognition they deserve for how great these films are. Granted, like any series, they probably start to get a little stale, maybe a little forced or a little less original the further along the series you get, but if you can only see three William Powell & Myrna Loy movies, watch the first three Thin Mans (The Thin Man, After The Thin Man, and Another Thin Man). It’s brilliant detective/mystery entertainment, and they will cement your affection for this duo for all time.
