Alan Hale Filmography

Stars in My Crown

Actors: Joel McCrea, Ellen Drew, Dean Stockwell, Lewis Stone

Synopsis: Stars in My Crown is an episodic movie about a rural Southern community in the 19th century. Though the film features a number of characters, it focuses on a preacher who moves into the city and helps solve the town's problems. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

Colt .45

Actors: Alan Hale, Randolph Scott, Ruth Roman, Zachary Scott, Lloyd Bridges

Synopsis: The Randolph Scott western Colt .45 was retitled for TV so as not to be confused with the TV series of the same name. The new title, Thundercloud, misleads the audience into expecting a Native American epic. Actually the film involves a gun salesman (Randolph Scott) whose sample case of Colt 45's Read More

Always Leave Them Laughing

Actors: Milton Berle, Virginia Mayo, Ruth Roman, Bert Lahr, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Milton Berle was enjoying the first flush of his television success when his musical-comedy movie vehicle Always Leave Them Laughing hit the screens. Though his character name is Kip Cooper, Uncle Miltie more or less plays himself: an ambitious comedian who rises to fame by stealing other Read More

The Inspector General

Actors: Danny Kaye, Walter Slezak, Barbara Bates, Elsa Lanchester, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: The satirical bite of Gogol's play The Government Inspector is dispensed with in favor of traditional Danny Kaye buffoonery in The Inspector General. Kaye plays the illiterate stooge of two-bit medicine-show- entrepreneur Walter Slezak. Abandoned by Slezak, the starving Kaye wanders into a Read More

The House Across the Street

Actors: Wayne Morris, Janis Paige, Bruce Bennett, Alan Hale, James Mitchell

Synopsis: House Across the Street was the second remake of the 1933 Paul Muni starrer Hi, Nellie. The original's satirical jibes against columnist Walter Winchell are downplayed in favor of undistilled concentration on the plot. Crusading newspaperman Dave Joslin (Wayne Morris) is kicked downstairs to the Read More

The Younger Brothers

Actors: Wayne Morris, Janis Paige, Bruce Bennett, Geraldine Brooks, Robert Hutton

Synopsis: The story of the outlaw Younger Brothers is duly Hollywoodized in this Technicolor western. Wayne Morris, Bruce Bennett, Robert Hutton and James Brown star as Cole, Jim, Johnny and Bob Younger, who as the film begins have just been released from jail. They try hard to follow the straight and Read More

The Adventures of Don Juan

Actors: Errol Flynn, Viveca Lindfors, Robert Douglas, Raymond Burr, Alan Hale, Romney Brent

Synopsis: Though Errol Flynn was well past his prime (and obviously well lubricated in certain scenes), he rises to the occasion of The Adventures of Don Juan with a spirited, athletic performance. As fabled Spanish swashbuckler/lover Don Juan, Flynn spends the early portions of the film romancing willing Read More

Whiplash

Actors: Dane Clark, Alexis Smith, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden, Jeffrey Lynn

Synopsis: In this drama, a California artist abandons his work to become a New York prizefighter after he falls in love with a married nightclub singer. Her husband was a fighter, but suffered a crippling accident in the ring and was unable to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming the world champion. The Read More

South of St. Louis

Actors: Joel McCrea, Alexis Smith, Zachary Scott, Dorothy Malone, Douglas Kennedy

Synopsis: Produced by Milton Sperling's United States Pictures, South of St. Louis was given a widespread release by Warner Bros. The story begins in the last days of the Civil War. Chased off their property by guerillas, ranching partners Kip Davis (Joel McCrea), Charlie Burns (Zachary Scott) and Lee Read More

Pursued

Actors: Teresa Wright, Robert Mitchum, Judith Anderson, Dean Jagger, Harry Carey, Jr., Alan Hale

Synopsis: Chased by a posse to a remote cabin, Jeb (Robert Mitchum) is joined by his fearful wife Thorley (Teresa Wright), awaiting the arrival of the men tracking them, as they try to reason out what has gone wrong in their lives. Jeb can't remember anything about his early childhood except for a horrible Read More

Cheyenne

Actors: John Alvin, Bruce Bennett, Monte Blue, John Compton, Tom Fadden

Synopsis: A mysterious crook by the name of "The Poet" is robbing Wells Fargo stages and creating havoc in the Old West. The sheriff is having no luck discovering the desperado's identity; when he comes across James Wylie (Dennis Morgan), a gambler who is running from the law in Carson City, he blackmails Read More

My Wild Irish Rose

Actors: Sara Allgood, Ben Blue, George Cleveland, Arlene Dahl, Ruby Dandridge, Andrea King, Dennis Morgan

Synopsis: The Warner Bros. musical My Wild Irish Rose purports to tell the life story of popular 19th century balladeer Chauncey Olcott-or at least, the version set down by Olcott's daughter Rita. Starting his career in minstrel shows, Olcott (Dennis Morgan) is given his first break by stage luminary Read More

That Way with Women

Actors: Herbert Anderson, Charles Arnt, Monte Blue, Barbara Brown, Dane Clark

Synopsis: The 1931 George Arliss vehicle The Millionaire was updated and retailored in 1947 as That Way With Women. Sidney Greenstreet plays the old Arliss role as automobile tycoon James P. Alden, forced into involuntary retirement by his well-meaning wife Minerva (Barbara Brown) and family doctor Harvey Read More

Perilous Holiday

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Ruth Warrick, Alan Hale, Edgar Buchanan, Audrey Long

Synopsis: Pat O'Brien makes the casual acquaintance of fellow American Ruth Warrick while on vacation in Mexico City. What Warrick doesn't know is that O'Brien is a treasury agent, out to get expatriate counterfeiters Alan Hale and Edgar Buchanan. What O'Brien doesn't know is that Warrick is also out to get Hale Read More

Night and Day

Actors: John Alvin, Cary Grant, Alexis Smith, Eve Arden, Herman Bing, Monty Woolley, Jane Wyman, Paul Cavanagh, Tom D'Andrea, Dorothy Malone

Synopsis: Faced with the challenge of writing a screenplay based on the life of fabulously wealthy, fabulously successful composer Cole Porter, one Hollywood wag came up with a potential story angle: "How does the S.O.B. make his second million dollars?" By the time the Porter biopic Night and Day was Read More

The Man I Love

Actors: Ida Lupino, Robert Alda, Andrea King, Martha Vickers, Bruce Bennett

Synopsis: Ida "Don't mess with me" Lupino takes a job as a singer in Robert Alda's seedy Santa Monica nitery. Lupino ignores Alda's advances to cultivate a romance with pianist Bruce Bennett. Alda uses his connections with the Mob to break up the relationship--and also, hopefully, to break up Bennett into Read More

The Time, the Place and the Girl

Actors: Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson, Janis Paige, Martha Vickers, S.Z. Sakall

Synopsis: Dennis Morgan and Jack Carson, the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope of Burbank, star in the Warner Bros. musical The Time, the Place and the Girl. The story involves a pair of nightclub owners and the problems inherent in their mounting The Big Show. Victoria Cassel Martha Vickers agrees to help out. The Read More

God Is My Co-Pilot

Actors: Dennis Morgan, Dane Clark, Raymond Massey, Alan Hale, Andrea King

Synopsis: Such was the prevailing mood among filmgoers in 1943 that God Is My Co-Pilot was allowed to show a spiritual shaft of light in the sky and several scenes of enemy pilots spitting up blood when shot down by American bullets. The film was based on the best-selling novel by fighter pilot Col. Robert Read More

Hotel Berlin

Actors: Helmut Dantine, Andrea King, Raymond Massey, Faye Emerson, Peter Lorre

Synopsis: Vicki Baum, the author of the novel Grand Hotel, also wrote this similarly structured tale about a group of disparate characters brought together in a towering hotel in Germany as the nation teeters on the verge of collapse near the end of World War II. Martin Richter (Helmut Dantine), a Read More

Roughly Speaking

Actors: Ray Collins, Kathleen Lockhart, Ann E. Todd, Andy Clyde, Rosalind Russell, Robert Hutton

Synopsis: This odd combination of roughneck comedy and serious domestic drama was adapted by Louise Randall Pierson from her own autobiographical novel. Rosalind Russell is cast as young Louise Randall, the headstrong daughter of a New England merchant. Inheriting her father's business, Louise intends to Read More

Escape in the Desert

Actors: Jean Sullivan, Philip Dorn, Irene Manning, Helmut Dantine, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Escape in the Desert is a thinly disguised remake of The Petrified Forest (1936), updated with a WW II angle. Cynical Dutch pilot Philip Artveld (Philip Dorn) pays a visit to the American desert before being shipped off to the Front. He wanders into a lonely inn, where he befriends starry-eyed Read More

Janie

Actors: Robert Hutton, Edward Arnold, Ann Harding, Robert Benchley, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Janie, adapted from the Broadway play by Josephine Bentham and Herschel Williams, was one of a 1940s cycle of stage-to-film comedies about teenagers. Joyce Reynolds stars as Janie, a typical teen whose life is turned topsy turvy by the installation of a military base near her home town. Edward Arnold Read More

Make Your Own Bed

Actors: Jack Carson, Jane Wyman, Alan Hale, Irene Manning, George Tobias

Synopsis: After several years' faithful service in supporting roles, Jack Carson was awarded his first Warner Bros. starring vehicle with 1944's Make Your Own Bed. Carson's costar is the pert Jane Wyman, with whom he'd previously been felicitously teamed in Princess O'Rourke. The nonsensical story is set in Read More

Hollywood Canteen

Actors: The Andrews Sisters, Robert Hutton, Joan Leslie, Jack Benny, Julie Bishop, Bette Davis, John Garfield, Betty Brodel, Sydney Greenstreet, Barbara Brown

Synopsis: The West Coast's answer to Broadway's Stage Door Canteen, the Hollywood Canteen was created as a GI morale-booster by film stars Bette Davis and John Garfield. The Canteen was established so that Our Boys on leave in Tinseltown could have a good time with good food and good dancing -- and, as a Read More

The Adventures of Mark Twain

Actors: Fredric March, Alexis Smith, Donald Crisp, Alan Hale, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Dismissed by critics as corny and obvious in 1944, this overlong but sincere biopic looks pretty good when seen today, cliches notwithstanding. Fredric March, 47 at the time, convincingly plays American author Sam Clemens, aka Mark Twain, from his early 20s to his death at 75. In typical Read More

Thank Your Lucky Stars

Actors: Eddie Cantor, Dinah Shore, Joan Leslie, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Dennis Morgan, Olivia de Havilland, Edward Everett Horton

Synopsis: Practically everybody on the Warner Bros. lot shows up in the wartime morale-boosting musical extravaganza Thank Your Lucky Stars. Believe it or not, this one has a wisp of a plot. A pair of enterprising producers, played by S.Z. Sakall and Edward Everett Horton, want to hire singer Dinah Shore Read More

This Is the Army

Actors: George Murphy, Joan Leslie, Ronald Reagan, George Tobias, Alan Hale, Julie Oshins, Charles Butterworth

Synopsis: The splashy, star-studded This is the Army is based on the Irving Berlin Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was a reworking of Berlin's WW1 "barracks musical" Yip Yip Yaphank. In both instances, the cast was largely comprised of genuine servicemen, many of them either recently Read More

Destination Tokyo

Actors: Cary Grant, John Garfield, Alan Hale, Dane Clark, John Ridgely

Synopsis: Though its purely propagandastic aspects are never far from surface, Destination Tokyo must rank as one of the most intelligent and objective of wartime thrillers. Cary Grant is a tower of strength as Captain Cassidy, skipper of an American submarine bound for Tokyo harbor. Its mission: to allow a Read More

Action in the North Atlantic

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Raymond Massey, Ruth Gordon, Alan Hale, Julie Bishop

Synopsis: Action in the North Atlantic is solid wartime propaganda with a rather endearing inner lining of left-wing politics, courtesy (no doubt) of scenarist John Howard Lawson, who based his screenplay on a novel by maritime specialist Guy Gilpatric. While running war goods to America's Russian allies, a Read More

Juke Girl

Actors: Ronald Reagan, Ann Sheridan, Richard Whorf, Gene Lockhart, Betty Brewer

Synopsis: Director Curtis Bernhardt hadn't wanted to make Juke Girl, but he was under contract to Warner Bros. and had to tow the line lest he find himself drawing Unemployment. One of Bernhardt's gripes against the film is that it starred Ronald Reagan, whom he considered an "unimportant" screen Read More

Captains of the Clouds

Actors: James Cagney, Dennis Morgan, Brenda Marshall, Alan Hale, George Tobias

Synopsis: James Cagney made his first Technicolor appearance in the morale-boosting aviation flick Captains of the Clouds. Cagney plays Brian MacLean, a hotshot Canadian bush pilot who delights in stealing jobs-and women-away from his competitors. Brian is forced to shape up in a hurry when he's assigned to Read More

Desperate Journey

Actors: Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, Arthur Kennedy, Raymond Massey, Sig Rumann, Pat O'Moore

Synopsis: In this, one of many World War II propaganda films of the early 1940s, Errol Flynn is one of five RAF pilots to survive a crash-landing in occupied Poland. They are relentlessly pursued by Nazi officer Raymond Massey, who despite his erudition and poise comes across as one of the densest men on Read More

Gentleman Jim

Actors: Errol Flynn, Alexis Smith, Jack Carson, Alan Hale, John Loder

Synopsis: Maybe Errol Flynn was never the war hero that he often played, but he was a capable boxer, and Gentleman Jim makes full use of this skill. Flynn stars as Jim Corbett, the 19th-century American pugilist who introduced "scientific" methods to bare-knuckle boxing. Originally an office clerk, Corbett Read More

The Strawberry Blonde

Actors: James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland, Rita Hayworth, Jack Carson, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Strawberry Blonde is the second, and by far the most well-regarded, of the three film versions of James Hogan's play One Sunday Afternoon. James Cagney stars as Biff Grimes, a turn-of-the-century dentist married to onetime suffragette Amy Lind (Olivia de Havilland). A former convict, Biff has Read More

The Great Mr. Nobody

Actors: Eddie Albert, Joan Leslie, Alan Hale, William Lundigan, John Litel

Synopsis: The Great Mr. Nobody is an easygoing classified ad salesman, appropriately nicknamed Dreamy (Eddie Albert). All Dreamy wants out of life is to own a boat and drift aimlessly across the ocean in the company of his good pal Skipper (played by Alan Hale-ironically the father of Gilligan's Island's Read More

Footsteps in the Dark

Actors: Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Ralph Bellamy, Alan Hale, Lee Patrick

Synopsis: Footsteps in the Dark is a comedy/mystery, starring Errol Flynn as a wealthy investment counselor who secretly doubles as a dilettante detective, the better to write mystery novels. Brenda Marshall plays his wife, who can't understand why he is never home and begins to suspect hanky-panky. In Read More

Manpower

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Marlene Dietrich, George Raft, Alan Hale, Frank McHugh

Synopsis: Manpower was Warner Bros' latest reworking of 1932's Tiger Shark, with power-company linemen substituting for tuna fisherman. While repair some downed lines in a heavy thunderstorm, Hank McHenry (Edward G. Robinson) saves the life of his best pal Johnny Marshall (George Raft). While Johnny emerges Read More

Thieves Fall Out

Actors: Eddie Albert, Joan Leslie, Jane Darwell, Alan Hale, William Orr

Synopsis: In this comedy, a grandmother decides to help her naive grandson get the money he needs to marry his girl by allowing him to get his inheritance, a mattress factory, before she dies. She suggests that he use it as collateral on a loan, but instead the young man sells the business to a crook who Read More

The Smiling Ghost

Actors: Wayne Morris, Brenda Marshall, Alexis Smith, Alan Hale, Lee Patrick

Synopsis: Like MGM's Whistling in the Dark, Warner Bros.' The Smiling Ghost was inspired by the success of Paramount's comedy-mystery The Ghost Breakers--even unto the casting of Ghost Breakers' Willie Best in a similar role. During a gloriously oversized thunderstorm, hapless hero Lucky Downing (Wayne Read More

Tugboat Annie Sails Again

Actors: Marjorie Rambeau, Alan Hale, Jane Wyman, Ronald Reagan, Clarence Kolb

Synopsis: Tugboat Annie Sails Again stars Marjorie Rambeau as the rambunctious female skipper created by Norman Reilly Raine. In this one, Tugboat Annie is threatened with the loss of her job as cap'n of the tacky tugboat Narcissus, much to the delight of Bullwinkle (Alan Hale), skipper of the rival Salamander Read More

They Drive by Night

Actors: George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, Gale Page

Synopsis: They just don't make 'em like They Drive By Night anymore. This slam-bang Warner Bros. attraction stars George Raft and Humphrey Bogart as Joe and Paul Fabrini, owners of a small but scrappy trucking firm. The film deftly combines comedy with thrills for the first half-hour or so, as the Fabrini Read More

Virginia City

Actors: Errol Flynn, Miriam Hopkins, Randolph Scott, Humphrey Bogart, Frank McHugh

Synopsis: Promoted as a follow-up to the popular 1939 western Dodge City (which, indeed, was left wide open for a sequel in its closing scenes), Virginia City bears only surface resemblance to the earlier film. Indeed, the only discerning links between the two pictures are the western setting and the Read More

The Fighting 69th

Actors: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, George Brent, Jeffrey Lynn, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Officially, America had no intention of entering the Second World War in 1940: Why, then, were there so many "preparedness" pictures like The Fighting 69th? This film, based on the experiences of military priest Father Duffy (Pat O'Brien), is set during World War I. The US 69th division was a Read More

Green Hell

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Vincent Price, Joan Bennett, Alan Hale, George Sanders, John Howard

Synopsis: Angry natives or a beautiful widow -- which poses the greater threat? Keith Brandon (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) is an archeologist leading a team of researchers -- Richardson (Vincent Price), Loren (Alan Hale), Forrester (George Sanders), and Scott (John Howard) -- who are exploring the jungles of Read More

Three Cheers for the Irish

Actors: Priscilla Lane, Thomas Mitchell, Dennis Morgan, Alan Hale, Virginia Grey

Synopsis: Stereotypes abound in this drama that follows the attempts of a Scottish lad to marry a pretty Irish lassie and join the police force. The girl's father, a New York policeman who was forcibly retired, is not happy that his daughter desires to marry a highlander. Still, amidst the turmoil, the Read More

The Sea Hawk

Actors: Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Claude Rains, Flora Robson, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: In the 1580s, the Sea Hawks -- the name given to the bold privateers who prowl the oceans taking ships and treasure on behalf the British crown -- are the most dedicated defenders of British interests in the face of the expanding power of Philip of Spain. And Captain Geoffrey Thorpe (Errol Flynn) Read More

Santa Fe Trail

Actors: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Raymond Massey, Ronald Reagan, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Santa Fe Trail, Errol Flynn's third western, has precisely nothing to do with the titular trail. Instead, the film is a simplistic retelling of the John Brown legend, with Raymond Massey playing the famed abolitionist. The events leading up to the bloody confrontation between Brown and the US Read More

On Your Toes

Actors: Vera Zorina, Eddie Albert, Alan Hale, Frank McHugh, James Gleason

Synopsis: In this musical, a composer abandons vaudeville in favor of the legitimate stage. He soon finds himself entangle with a Russian ballet company that contains his old childhood lover, but when the troupe mistake him for a traitor trouble ensues. Perhaps the film is most notable for Balanchine's Read More

Elizabeth, the Queen

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex

Actors: Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Vincent Price, Donald Crisp, Alan Hale

Synopsis: It is no secret that Bette Davis and Errol Flynn were at each other's throats throughout the filming of The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. Boiled down to essentials: Davis felt that Flynn was unprofessional, while Flynn thought that Davis took herself too damned seriously. Besides, Davis Read More

The Man in the Iron Mask

Actors: Louis Hayward, Joan Bennett, Joseph Schildkraut, Alan Hale, Warren William

Synopsis: Man in the Iron Mask is independent producer Edward Small's 1939 edition of the much-filmed Dumas classic. The title character is the rightful King of France, imprisoned by his pretender-to-the-throne twin brother (both roles are played by Louis Hayward, with an uncredited Peter Cushing doubling Read More

Dust Be My Destiny

Actors: John Garfield, Priscilla Lane, Alan Hale, Frank McHugh, Billy Halop

Synopsis: John Garfield once more plays a social outcast who's had nothing but lousy breaks. Released from prison for a crime he didn't commit, Garfield is promptly arrested as a vagrant and sent to a work farm. He falls in love with Priscilla Lane, stepdaughter of the farm's no-good foreman. Garfield Read More

Pacific Liner

Actors: Victor McLaglen, Chester Morris, Wendy Barrie, Alan Hale, Barry Fitzgerald

Synopsis: An outbreak of cholera threatens a luxury liner in this surprisingly low-budget melodrama from RKO. En route from Shanghai to San Francisco, chief engineer Crusher McKay (Victor McLaglen) and shipboard doctor Tony Craig (Chester Morris) become rivals for the attention of nurse Ann Grayson (Wendy Read More

Dodge City

Actors: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Ann Sheridan, Bruce Cabot, Frank McHugh

Synopsis: This landmark western -- which, along with Stagecoach, has often been credited with revitalizing what had become a stagnant genre -- stars Errol Flynn as Wade Hatton, a cattle man who arrives in the frontier community of Dodge City, which is overrun by footloose cowboys and outlaws. When Hatton Read More

The Adventures of Robin Hood

Actors: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Patric Knowles

Synopsis: In order to avoid the material copyrighted by Douglas Fairbanks Sr. for his 1922 Robin Hood, the scripters of this Flynn version relied on several legendary episodes that had never before been filmed, notably the battle between Robin and Little John (