Adrienne D'AmbricourtFilmography

The Purple Mask

Actors: Tony Curtis, Colleen Miller, Gene Barry, Dan O'Herlihy, Angela Lansbury

Synopsis: Tony Curtis was by 1955 an accomplished enough actor to get through the costumed derring-do of The Purple Mask minus the awkwardness he'd displayed in his earlier swashbucklers. Curtis is cast as Rene, a foppish 18th century French nobleman who doubles as the Purple Mask, a Royalist supporter who Read More

Million Dollar Mermaid

Actors: Esther Williams, Victor Mature, Walter Pidgeon, David Brian, Donna Corcoran

Synopsis: Who else but Esther Williams could star in a romantic drama (with musical numbers) bearing a title like this? In Million Dollar Mermaid, Williams plays Annette Kellerman, a real-life Australian swimming star who took up the sport as a child to strengthen her legs, which were severely weakened by a Read More

Bal Tabarin

Actors: Muriel Lawrence, William Ching, Claire Carleton, Steve Brodie, Steven Geray

Synopsis: The famed Bal Tabarin cabaret in Paris is the gathering spot for this swiftly paced crime melodrama. It all begins when singer Judy Allen (Muriel Lawrence) scampers away to the City of Light to escape the clutches of the villains who murdered her boss. The bad guys not only want to silence Judy Read More

Calcutta

Actors: Alan Ladd, Gail Russell, William Bendix, June Duprez, Lowell Gilmore

Synopsis: Alan Ladd stars in Calcutta as devil-may-care pilot Neale Gordon. With his equally fearless partners Pedro Blake (William Bendix) and Bill Cunningham (John Whitney), Gordon handles the air-freight route between Calcutta and Chungking. When Cunningham meets his death at the hands of jewel Read More

So Dark the Night

Actors: Steven Geray, Micheline Cheirel, Eugene Borden, Ann Codee, Egon Brecher

Synopsis: This well-plotted and executed film noir suffered from its lack of star power, but has become something of a cult classic. Steven Geray stars as Henri Cassin, a French detective from the Paris Surete, who takes his first vacation in many years to St. Margot and the country inn of the Read More

Paris Underground

Actors: Gracie Fields, Kurt Kreuger, Eily Malyon, Charles Andre

Synopsis: Constance Bennett both produced and starred in the espionager Paris Underground. Bennett and Gracie Fields play, respectively, an American and an English citizen trapped in Paris when the Nazis invade. The women team up to help Allied aviators escape from the occupied city into Free French Read More

Saratoga Trunk

Actors: Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Flora Robson, Jerry Austin, John Warburton

Synopsis: Ingrid Bergman and Gary Cooper paired off again after For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) with this overwrought melodrama based on the romance novel by Edna Ferber. Bergman plays Clio Dulaine, a beautiful half-Creole woman whose return to 1875 New Orleans from Paris creates a stir. Born out of wedlock Read More

Experiment Perilous

Actors: Hedy Lamarr, George Brent, Paul Lukas, Albert Dekker, Carl Esmond

Synopsis: Officially based on a novel by Margaret Carpenter, Experiment Perilous would seem to be more inspired by MGM's psychological thriller Gaslight. Set at the turn of the century, the film stars Hedy Lamarr as Allida, the beautiful young wife of an elderly "gentleman" named Nick (Paul Lukas). Treating Read More

This Love of Ours

Actors: Merle Oberon, Charles Korvin, Claude Rains, Carl Esmond, Sue England

Synopsis: Doctor Charles Korvin walks out on his musician wife Merle Oberon when he suspects her of infidelity. Twelve years later their paths cross again; Oberon is now saddled with an abusive husband. Possessed of a protective instinct that he hadn't evinced in the first part of the film, Korvin rescues Read More

To Have and Have Not

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, Lauren Bacall, Dolores Moran, Dan Seymour, Hoagy Carmichael

Synopsis: Humphrey Bogart plays Harry Morgan, owner-operator of charter boat in wartime Martinique. Morgan's right-hand man is Eddie (Walter Brennan), a garrulous alky whose pet question to anyone and everyone is "Ever get stung by a dead bee?" While in port, Harry is approached by Free French activist Read More

Passage to Marseille

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Michèle Morgan, Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Philip Dorn

Synopsis: Designed as a followup to the enormously successful Casablanca, Passage to Marseille utilizes the talents of many of the on- and off-screen personnel of the earlier Warner Bros. classic. Unfolded in a complex flashback-within-flashback structure, this is the story of Matrac (Humphrey Bogart), a Read More

The Song of Bernadette

Actors: Jennifer Jones, Charles Bickford, Gladys Cooper, Vincent Price, Lee J. Cobb

Synopsis: The Song of Bernadette is a reverent recounting of the life of St. Bernadette of Lourdes. As a teen-aged peasant girl growing up in the tiny French village of Lourdes in the 19th century, Bernadette (Jennifer Jones) experiences a vision of the Virgin Mary in a nearby grotto. At least, she believes Read More

The Pied Piper

Actors: Monty Woolley, Anne Baxter, Roddy McDowall, Otto Preminger, Peggy Ann Garner, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: Monty Woolley plays an irascible Englishman who insists that he dislikes children. While on a vacation in France, the Nazis invade the country. Reluctantly, Woolley agrees to transport several French children into England. As the flight to freedom becomes more treacherous, Woolley grows fonder of Read More

Two Girls on Broadway

Actors: Lana Turner, Joan Blondell, George Murphy, Kent Taylor, Richard Lane

Synopsis: Two Girls on Broadway is an updated reworking of MGM's Oscar-winning 1929 musical Broadway Melody. Joan Blondell and Lana Turner play a vaudeville "sister" act, slightly more talented than the similar duo in Broadway Melody. The twosome have sworn never to break up, but that was before hoofer George Murphy Read More

Charlie Chan in City of Darkness

Actors: Sidney Toler, Richard Clarke, Harold Huber, Pedro de Cordoba

Synopsis: This timely entry in Fox's Charlie Chan series is set in Paris during the Munich Crisis of 1938. Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) arrives in the City of Light for a reunion with his war buddies, only to find those lights dimmed by a city-wide blackout. The murder victim this time out is munitions Read More

Pack up Your Troubles

Actors: Jane Withers, The Ritz Brothers [Al, Jimmy, Harry], Lynn Bari, Joseph Schildkraut, Stanley Fields

Synopsis: In this comedy set during WW I, two crazy vaudevillians try their new act out on their agent. He thinks it is a real dud and the boys end up working as mule skinners in France. While there, they meet a French officer's American daughter. Mayhem ensues when they are mistaken German spies Read More

Charlie Chan in the City of Darkness

Synopsis: In this episode of the popular detective series, Chan attends a WW I reunion in Paris. While catching up with his buddies, he gets entangled in the investigation of the murder of a munitions maker who sent arms to the other side. The film was created in response to the Munich crisis of 1938. At Read More

The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle

Actors: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edna May Oliver, Walter Brennan, Lew Fields

Synopsis: The last of RKO's Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicles, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle is also the least typical. At their best playing carefree characters in gossamer-thin musical comedy plotlines, Fred and Ginger seem slightly ill at ease cast as the real-life dancing team of Vernon and Read More

Bulldog Drummond's Bride

Actors: John Howard, Heather Angel, H.B. Warner, Reginald Denny, E.E. Clive

Synopsis: Bulldog Drummond's Bride is the next-to-last entry in Paramount's series of "Drummond" B-pictures. It goes without saying that the oft-postponed wedding of Bulldog Drummond (John Howard) and Phyllis Clavering (Heather Angel) is interrupted yet one more time. The reason is a Parisian crime wave Read More

Artists and Models Abroad

Actors: Jack Benny, Joan Bennett, Mary Boland, Charles Grapewin, Yacht Club Boys

Synopsis: In this musical sequel to the highly successful Artists and Models, Jack Benny plays Buck Boswell, the leader of a troupe of performers who end up broke and stranded in gay Paris. To rustle up a little cash, he decides to produce a musical fashion show. Boswell hires an American father and Read More

The Seventh Heaven

Actors: Simone Simon, James Stewart, Jean Hersholt, Gregory Ratoff, Gale Sondergaard

Synopsis: This romantic tearjerker was the second film based on the popular 1922 stage play. James Stewart stars as Chico, a lowly Paris sewer worker who has abandoned his faith in God and any hope for a brighter future or romance when his prayers go unanswered. Chico meets Diane (Simone Simon), a Read More

Mama Steps Out

Actors: Guy Kibbee, Alice Brady, Betty Furness, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: Even the mighty MGM had to keep the home fires burning with B pictures. The studio's Mama Steps Out is a harmless confection built around the considerable talents of Alice Brady. She plays her standard empty-headed flibbertygibbet, this time vacationing on the Riviera after inheriting a fortune. Read More

Live, Love and Learn

Actors: Robert Montgomery, Rosalind Russell, Robert Benchley, Helen Vinson, Mickey Rooney

Synopsis: Starving artist Robert Montgomery could care less if his paintings sell, so long as he's happy. Montgomery falls in love with Rosalind Russell, an heiress who's gone "slumming" in Greenwich Village. Russell becomes Montgomery's patroness as well as his wife, urging him to make his paintings more Read More

We Have Our Moments

Actors: Sally Eilers, James Dunn, David Niven, Mischa Auer, Warren Hymer

Synopsis: Previously teamed in six early-1930s films, James Dunn and Sally Eilers bring the total up to seven with their last co-starring vehicle We Have Our Moments. A trio of American crooks board a ship bound for Europe, intending to get rid of $100,000 in stolen dough. With detective John Wade (James Dunn Read More

Valiant Is the Word for Carrie

Actors: Gladys George, Arline Judge, John Howard, Dudley Digges, Harry Carey

Synopsis: Gladys George, a superlative actress often wasted in secondary roles, carries her starring assignment in Valiant is the Word for Carrie with singular brilliance. George plays the town trollop, who for the love of two orphaned children sets up a successful dry-cleaning business. Her past comes back Read More

San Francisco

Actors: Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, Spencer Tracy, Jack Holt, Jessie Ralph

Synopsis: The MGM historical "spectacular" San Francisco was allegedly based on a three-sentence synopsis, submitted verbally to producer B.F. Zeidman by studio troubleshooter Bob Hopkins. The story begins on the Barbary Coast on New Year's Eve, 1906, as rakish but likeable political boss Blackie Norton (Clark Gable Read More

The Great Ziegfeld

Actors: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Luise Rainer, Frank Morgan, Fanny Brice

Synopsis: In MGM's three-hour-plus The Great Ziegfeld, William Powell stars as the titular theatrical impresario, whose show business empire begins when he stage-manages a tour for legendary strongman Sandow (Nat Pendleton). With nary a penny in the bank, he charms European stage star Anna Held (Luise Rainer Read More

Suzy

Actors: Jean Harlow, Franchot Tone, Cary Grant, Benita Hume

Synopsis: Suzy is the film in which Cary Grant, overcome by the beauty and vivacity of Jean Harlow, sings her a love ballad! This lighthearted moment aside, Suzy, adapted from a novel by Herbert Gorman is a standard-issue love triangle, set against the tapestry of World War I. Harlow plays a London Read More

Sylvia Scarlett

Actors: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Brian Aherne, Edmund Gwenn, Natalie Paley

Synopsis: This big-budget 1936 RKO Studios picture lost money, perhaps due to a cool box-office reception to the idea of leading lady Katharine Hepburn in drag, and a rare-for-its-day screen kiss between two women. Edmund Gwenn plays the title character's father Henry, who is obsessed with gambling. His Read More

Peter Ibbetson

Actors: Gary Cooper, Ann Harding, John Halliday, Ida Lupino, Douglas Dumbrille

Synopsis: "I'll See You in My Dreams" could well have been the theme music of Peter Ibbetson, the second film version of George du Maurier's 1891 novel. Peter Ibbetson (Gary Cooper) is an architect who, while working on a restoration job for the British Duke of Towers (John Halliday), discovers that The Read More

Goin' to Town

Actors: Mae West, Paul Cavanagh, Ivan Lebedeff, Gilbert Emery, Tito Coral, Marjorie Gateson

Synopsis: Mae West is Goin' to Town in this elegant post-Production Code vehicle. West plays Cleo Borden, a nouveau riche cattle rancher who hopes to crash into high society. Though she is willing to subject herself to "refinement" lessons, she still has a high old time puncturing the pretensions of those Read More

It Happened in New York

Actors: Lyle Talbot, Gertrude Michael, Heather Angel, Hugh O'Connell, Robert Gleckler

Synopsis: A famous movie actress takes a trip to New York City. While there, she gets involved with a wisecracking cab driver who is in need of $200. Recognizing her, he devises a plan to get the money he needs from her. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide Read More

Gallant Lady

Actors: Ann Harding, Clive Brook, Otto Kruger, Tullio Carminatti, Dickie Moore

Synopsis: Ann Harding, one of screendom's finest sufferers, stars in Gregory LaCava's Gallant Lady. Left pregnant by her (apparently) deceased lover Dan (Clive Brook, cast against type as a drunken lout), Sally (Harding ) tearfully gives up her son Didi (Dickie Moore) for adoption and endeavors to start Read More

The Cat and the Fiddle

Actors: Jeanette MacDonald, Frank Morgan, Charles Butterworth, Jean Hersholt

Synopsis: Based on the stage musical by Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach, The Cat and the Fiddle stars Jeanette MacDonald as a music student and Ramon Novarro as a struggling composer. When the leading lady walks out of Victor's (Novarro) upcoming operetta, the star's husband pulls his financial support. The Read More

Design for Living

Actors: Fredric March, Gary Cooper, Miriam Hopkins, Edward Everett Horton, Franklin Pangborn

Synopsis: Design for Living was based on the stage comedy by Noel Coward, though little of his dialogue actually made it to the screen. Playwright Fredric March and artist Gary Cooper both fall in love with Miriam Hopkins, an American living in Paris. Both men love the girl, and the girl can't make up her Read More

The Eagle and the Hawk

Actors: Fredric March, Cary Grant, Jack Oakie, Carole Lombard, Guy Standing

Synopsis: Eagle and the Hawk is a "war is hell" saga slightly reminiscent of All Quiet on the Western Front. Fredric March plays a British World War One flying ace suffering from emotional fatigue. March's happy-go-lucky pilot buddy (Cary Grant) tries to help his friend forget his problems by accompanying Read More

Transgression

Actors: Kay Francis, Ricardo Cortez, Paul Cavanagh, Nance O'Neil

Synopsis: In this drama, a bored wife amuses herself with a lover from Spain. Later she writes a letter to her spouse explaining her actions. As she posts the letter, she learn that her lover is also involved with a peasant girl. Later the girl's irate father shoots the Spaniard and the wife decides to mend Read More

This Modern Age

Actors: Joan Crawford, Pauline Frederick, Neil Hamilton, Monroe Owsley

Synopsis: With a blonde wigged Joan Crawford offering one of her more high-handed performances, and veteran silent star Pauline Frederick doing her best to keep up, audiences are in for MGM soap-opera at its 1931 zenith. Reunited with her long-lost mother in Paris, Crawford fails to realize that the loving Read More

Men in Her Life

Actors: Lois Moran, Charles Bickford, Victor Varconi, Luis Alberni

Synopsis: In this drama, a woman with dubious past finds herself blackmailed when she makes plans to marry a senator's son. She finds salvation with a bootlegger who offers to take care of the excursionist. Unfortunately, he chooses to kill the fellow, gets caught, and is put on trial. Now the woman must Read More

Svengali

Actors: John Barrymore, Marian Marsh, Bramwell Fletcher, Donald Crisp, Lumsden Hare

Synopsis: The George du Maurier novel Trilby, about a hypnotist who controls a female musician, was originally filmed as Trilby, a 1920s silent. In the 1931 talkie, the emphasis shifts from the music student to the teacher, Svengali. John Barrymore gives a scenery-chewing performance as Svengali, who is Read More

The Bad One

Actors: Dolores Del Rio, Edmund Lowe, Don Alvarado, Adrienne D'Ambricourt

Synopsis: In this melodrama, a dancer works in a sleazy Marseilles portside dive that is really the front for a bordello. While dancing one night she meets a sailor and agrees to be his bride. Unfortunately, one of her former suitors suddenly shows up and a terrible fight ensues. The sailor kills his rival Read More

L'Enigmatique Monsieur Parkes

Actors: Emile Chautard, Adrienne D'Ambricourt, Claudette Colbert, Adolphe Menjou, Sandra Ravel, Armand Kaliz

Synopsis: L'Enigmatique Monsieur Parkes is the French-language version of the American romantic melodrama Slightly Scarlet. Replacing Evelyn Brent and Clive Brook, the stars of the original version, are Claudette Colbert and Adolphe Menjou. The story takes place on the French Riviera, where heroine Lucy (Colbert Read More

What a Widow!

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Owen Moore, Lew Cody, Margaret Livingston, William Holden

Synopsis: The widow in question is wealthy Tamarind Brooks (Gloria Swanson), who flits from one man to another with the rapidity of a butterfly. Beginning in New York and ending in Paris, Tamarind collects men like some people collect stamps. Among her most ardent suitors are lawyer Gerry (Owen Moore) Read More

Footlights and Fools

Actors: Colleen Moore, Raymond Hackett, Mickey Bennett, Edward Martindel

Synopsis: In this musical, a naive entertainer is sent to Paris by a Broadway producer who wants her return with a more sophisticate, "French" persona. She does, and debuts again on Broadway as "Fifi D'Auray." She then finds herself wooed by a young mobster, and a rich man. She chooses the former until she Read More

The Trial of Mary Dugan

Actors: Norma Shearer, H.B. Warner, Raymond Hackett, Lilyan Tashman

Synopsis: In this well-executed courtroom drama, a Broadway chorine is accused of stabbing her wealthy boy friend to death. The girl is defended by her good friend. During the trial, the lawyer refrains from cross-examining the witnesses. This enrages the dancer's younger brother, who has just passed the Read More

God Gave Me Twenty Cents

Actors: Lois Moran, Lya de Putti, Jack Mulhall, William Collier, Jr., Adrienne D'Ambricourt

Synopsis: The scene is New Orleans, during Mardi Gras week. The story concerns the misadventures of sailor Steve Doren (Jack Mulhall), who tries his best to support his wife Mary (Lois Moran) on his piddling income. But like seafaring men everywhere, Steve is constitutionally unreliable, especially when Read More

Wages of Virtue

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Ben Lyon, Norman Trevor, Ivan Linow

Synopsis: Although Gloria Swanson was known as a clotheshorse, occasionally her studio would allow her to rely purely on her acting ability instead of the fashions she wore (they didn't do this very often, of course). The star dresses down for this drama, based on the novel by Percival Wren (which bears a Read More

Humming Bird

Actors: Gloria Swanson, William Ricciardi, Cesare Gravina, Mario Majeroni

Synopsis: Glamorous Gloria Swanson dressed down for this story of a little Parisian thief. Toinette (Swanson) is the leader of a band of thieves called "the Wolves of Montmartre." Dressed like a boy, she is known only as the Humming Bird and is wanted by the police. American reporter Randall Carey (Edward Read More