Five Favorite Hollywood Biopics

Tag time! My lovely friend, Gill of Realweegimidget Reviews challenged me to name my five favorite Hollywood biopics, so here we go. It’s hard to believe this tag is still going after almost four years, but it somehow is. Woo hoo! Here are the rules:

• Nominate one or more people to review the film or films of your choice. Or you can request they review something from a certain year, genre, or star. Everyone can review the same thing, or you can request each person cover something different. As long as it’s something they haven’t written about yet, you’re good.
• Nominees are allowed to request a different pick for whatever reason no more than five times. Stuff happens. We all know it.
• Nominees must thank the person who nominated them and provide a link their blog.
• Nominees may nominate others to keep the tag going. Picking the person who nominated them is allowed, or they can nominate someone else. Maybe both.
• All participants need to include these rules in their post, whether they’re nominees or picking nominees.
• All participants should use the “Pick My Movie” banner or something similar in their posts.
• Have fun!

Find more details here.

I’ll be honest: I usually gravitate to music biopics or historical biopics as opposed to Hollywood ones. Yeah, music biopics in particular are formulaic, but I like music and history, so I’m willing to overlook a little predictability (Bob Marley: One Love, anyone?).

When it comes to Hollywood biopics, though, it’s really easy to get picky. Hollywood seems to have a tendency to want to make themselves look good whenever they talk about Hollywood, a few exceptions notwithstanding, so it can be a little too much navel-gazing for my taste. Still, there are some that would qualify as favorites, although most of their subjects didn’t work strictly in Hollywood.

Night and Day (1946)

A sprightly and highly fictionalized telling of the life of Cole Porter, Night and Day is full of music and Cary Grant makes a debonair Porter. It’s also got a rare film appearance by Mary Martin and a rare musical performance by Eve Arden. It also might get “The Whiffenpoof Song” dancing in the head. Read my review here.

The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

Yeah, this is obviously Broadway and still a bit fictionalized, but Mr. Ziegfeld was no stranger to Hollywood so he counts. right? While this movie is of ponderous length, it’s a lot of fun and there are tons of trademark Ziegfeld numbers. William Powell was born to play Florenz Zeigfeld, so much so that he reprised the role in the 1946 movie, Ziegfeld Follies, and he’s ably matched by Myrna Loy as Billie Burke. It’s also cool to see a young Dennis Morgan in the famous “A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody” scene. Read my review here.

Saving Mr. Banks (2013)

The making of Mary Poppins wasn’t always a fun business, and Saving Mr. Banks looks at the contentious relationship the Disney had with the novel’s author, P.L. Travers. Travers, who didn’t have the easiest childhood, looks askance at the unabashadly fun world of the Disney company, where meetings feature Twinkies and Sno-Balls, and has trouble reconciling her original character of Mary Poppins with Mr. Disney’s vision. Still, the film shows her reconciling herself to what her character was going to be under the Disney brand, although she never quite gets into it.  Read my review here.

The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944)

OK, technically Mark Twain wasn’t Hollywood, but his works have been adapted for the screen so often that he might as well be, and this wonderful film, albeit idealized, is a great retelling of Twain’s life and work. It stars Fredric March as Twain, who embodys his role beautifully. It’s also full of trademark Twain humor, including the then-controversial and side-splitting celebrity roast that became Twain’s winking mea culpa, “The Story of A Speech.”

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

Back on Broadway again, but Cohan’s music has graced numerous films, some of his shows were made into films, and he himself appeared in four films, so the Hollywood connection is definitely there. Starring a man who needs no introduction, James Cagney, this film has been a family favorite for decades. We can all quote it. Just ask us. Read my review here.

---

Now, no listicle would be complete without a wishlist or an Honorable Mention, and I have two.

The first is 1957’s Man of A Thousand Faces, which also stars James Cagney and is about the life of Lon Chaney. Who had Cagney playing Chaney on their bingo card? I didn’t. Each actor is iconic in his own way, so it would be interesting to see how the two managed to co-exist in this film.

The other is the 1976 TV movie, The Disappearance of Aimee, about Aimee Semple McPherson, who founded the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel and pastored the Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, which was the church home of dozens of Hollywood stars, including one Charlie Chaplin. In 1926 McPherson disappeared while on vacation at the beach, only to turn up shoeless in a Mexican desert six weeks later. Where she was during that six weeks is still a mystery to this day, and this movie attempts to solve that mystery.

---

Finally, we have come to the “Tag, You’re It” part of this tag, and here are my five nominees…

• Gill of Realweegimidget Reviews (A favorite Scottish movie or TV show)
• Emily of The Flapper Dame (A favorite filmed concert or stage production)
• J-Dub of Dubsism (A favorite sports movie)
• Barry of Cinema Catharsis (A favorite classic horror or sci-fi movie)
• Kayla of Whimsically Classic (A favorite musical)

Congrats to all my nominees! Hope you have fun.

Another post is coming out tomorrow. Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you then…

---

Night and Day (DVD), The Great Ziegfeld (Blu-ray and DVD), Saving Mr. Banks (Blu-ray and DVD), The Adventures of Mark Twain (DVD), Yankee Doodle Dandy (Blu-ray and DVD), and Man of A Thousand Faces (Blu-ray) are available from Amazon.

~Purchases made via Amazon Affiliate links found on this site help support Taking Up Room at no extra cost to you.~

If you’re enjoying what you see on Taking Up Room, please subscribe to my Substack page, where you’ll find both free and paid subscriber-only reviews of mostly new and newish movies, documentaries, and shows. I publish every Wednesday and Saturday.