Al Shean Filmography

Born:: May 12, 1868 in Dornum, Germany
Occupation:: Actor
Biography:: German-born vaudeville entertainer Al Shean entered show business folklore as one-half of the comedy team of Gallagher and Shean. Few people can remember the team's jokes or routines, but many can recite from memory the duo's signature song, "Absolutely, Mr. Gallagher? Postively, Mr. Shean." Of...Read More

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Atlantic City

Actors: Stanley Brown, Constance Moore, Brad Taylor, Charles Grapewin, Jerry Colonna

Synopsis: Definitely no relation to the 1980 Louis Malle film of the same name, 1944's Atlantic City is a tuneful Republic musical, not quite an "A" picture but certainly not a "B". Brad Taylor (who formerly acted at Columbia under the name of Stanley Brown) stars as Brad, an early-20th-century entrepreneur Read More

1944
Hitler's Madman

Actors: Patricia Morison, John Carradine, Alan Curtis, Howard Freeman, Ralph Morgan

Synopsis: Hitler's Madman is based on an all-too-real wartime atrocity. John Carradine portrays Heydrich, the vicious SS officer put in charge of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Heydrich is killed by the Czech underground, prompting the Nazis to plan a horrible retaliation. The Gestapo selects the Czech Read More

1943
Tish

Actors: Marjorie Main, ZaSu Pitts, Aline MacMahon, Susan Peters, Lee Bowman

Synopsis: In this comedy, the town gossip fills her time running the lives of others. Naturally, she is also a matchmaker. When she tries to find a suitable mate for her nephew, trouble ensues because he only has eyes for the daughter of the busybody's nemesis, the town judge. Meanwhile the girl the town Read More

1942
Ziegfeld Girl

Actors: James Stewart, Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr, Lana Turner, Tony Martin

Synopsis: All that MGM's Ziegfeld Girl lacks is Technicolor; otherwise, the film has talent and "sock" entertainment value in abundance. The story focuses on three showbiz hopefuls-Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr and Lana Turner-and the efforts to attain the lofty status of "Ziegfeld Girl." Garland is compelled Read More

1941
The Blue Bird

Actors: Shirley Temple, Spring Byington, Nigel Bruce, Gale Sondergaard, Eddie Collins

Synopsis: When Darryl F. Zanuck's arrangement to loan Shirley Temple to MGM as star of The Wizard of Oz fell through, Zanuck hastily assembled a lavish Technicolor vehicle for his diminutive star which, he hoped, would match Wizard in popularity and appeal. The result was The Blue Bird, adapted from the Read More

1940
Friendly Neighbors

Actors: Leon Weaver, Frank Weaver, June Weaver, Lois Ranson, Spencer Charters

Synopsis: The Weaver Brothers hit the road and taste the hobo's life in this, the sixth, entry in the eleven-film "Weaver Brothers and Elviry" comedy-drama series. The singing hayseed family's journey begins when a drought destroys their farm. The young travelers soon hook up with a band of tramps and end Read More

1940
Broadway Serenade

Actors: Jeanette MacDonald, Lew Ayres, Ian Hunter, Frank Morgan, Wally Vernon

Synopsis: Jeanette MacDonald and Lew Ayres make strange bedfellows in the overproduced MGM musical Broadway Serenade. She plays aspiring singer Mary Hale, and he plays her husband, struggling songwriter James Geoffrey Seymour. The couple's vaudeville act breaks up when Mary is hired for a big-time Broadway Read More

1939
Joe and Ethel Turp Call on the President

Actors: Ann Sothern, Walter Brennan, William Gargan, Marsha Hunt

Synopsis: This Damon Runyon yarn features William Gargan and Ann Sothern as Brooklynites Joe and Ethel Turp. The Turps are up in arms when their faithful old mailman (Walter Brennan) is fired. Unable to get satisfaction on a municipal level, Joe and Ethel plead their mailman's case to the President Read More

1939
Too Hot to Handle

Actors: Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Walter Pidgeon, Walter Connolly, Leo Carrillo

Synopsis: Alternating effortlessly between comedy and suspense and back again, Too Hot to Handle stars Myrna Loy as a famous aviatrix and Clark Gable as an opportunistic newsreel photographer. Gable and rival shutterbug Walter Pidgeon agree to accompany Loy on her search for her missing brother, sensing a Read More

1938
The Great Waltz

Actors: Luise Rainer, Fernand Gravey, Milza Korjus, Hugh Herbert, Lionel Atwill, Curt Bois

Synopsis: The Great Waltz was the first of two films bearing the same title which told the life story of Austrian "Waltz King" Johann Strauss. European singing sensation Fernard Gravet stars as Strauss, while MGM's two-time Oscar winner Luise Rainer is top-billed as Poldi Vogelhuber. Poldi is the wife of Read More

1938
Rosalie

Actors: Nelson Eddy, Eleanor Powell, Frank Morgan, Edna May Oliver, Ray Bolger

Synopsis: More burdened with leaden production numbers than plot, Rosalie took Sigmund Romberg and George Gershwin's 1928 Broadway hit, threw out most of the songs, including "How Long Has This Been Going On?," but retained the spindly story of the incognito Princess Rosalie of Romanza (Eleanor Powell), who Read More

1938
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

1937
The Road Back

Actors: Richard Cromwell, George "Slim" Summerville, Andy Devine, Barbara Read

Synopsis: A handful of German soldiers readjust to civilian life in the bitter wake of World War I in this follow-up to the classic All Quiet On The Western Front, which like the first film was based on a novel by Erich Maria Remarque. After the signing of the armistice, Capt. Von Hagen (John Emery) Read More

1937
52nd Street

Actors: Ian Hunter, Leo Carrillo, Pat Paterson, Ella Logan, ZaSu Pitts

Synopsis: This musical chronicles 15 years in the life of a New York City Street. In 1912, 52nd Street is a peaceful residential neighborhood and by 1937 it has become a bawdy red-light district. As the street changes, so do the lives of a brother and his two sisters who become estranged when he marries an Read More

1937
Stella Dallas

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles, Anne Shirley, Barbara O'Neil, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Produced by Sam Goldwyn, this second film version of Olive Higgins Prouty's Stella Dallas is by far the best. The combined talents of Goldwyn, director King Vidor and star Barbara Stanwyck lift this property far above the level of mere soap opera. Stanwyck is perfectly cast as Stella Martin, the Read More

1937
The Prisoner of Zenda

Actors: Ronald Colman, Madeleine Carroll, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Mary Astor, David Niven, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Ronald Colman stars in David O. Selznick's classic production of Anthony Hope's swashbuckling adventure. The film takes place in a mythical Central European kingdom with Colman in a dual role as King Rudolf V and Rudolph Rassendyl, a visitor from England who's a distant cousin to the prince. Read More

1937
It Could Happen to You

Actors: Alan Baxter, Andrea Leeds, Owen Davis, Jr., Astrid Allwyn, Walter Kingsford

Synopsis: It Could Happen to You is one of those captivating "little" pictures whose reputation is built up via word of mouth. Alan Baxter and Owen Davis Jr. star as Bob and Fred, the sons of immigrant Pa Barrett (Al Shean). Fred is a dutiful offspring, but Bob, an adoptee, is a no-good, stealing money from Read More

1937
Tim Tyler's Luck [Serial]

Actors: Frankie Thomas, Frances Robinson, Al Shean, Norman Willis, Earl Douglas

Synopsis: The 12-episode Universal serial Tim Tyler's Luck was based on the comic strip of the same name by Lyman Young (the brother of "Blondie" creator Chic Young). Frankie Thomas stars as youthful adventurer Tim Tyler, who heads to Africa in search of his scientist father (played by veteran vaudevillian Read More

1937
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

1936
Hitch Hike to Heaven

Actors: Henrietta Crosman, Herbert Rawlinson, Russell Gleason, Polly Ann Young, Al Shean

Synopsis: Virtually all of the Chesterfield Pictures efforts of the 1930s served as starring vehicles for Hollywood's best character actors. It was Henrietta Crossman who headed the cast of the 1936 Chesterfield production Hitch Hike to Heaven, sharing star billing with former silent-movie matinee idol Herbert Rawlinson Read More

1936
The Law in Her Hands

Actors: Margaret Lindsay, Glenda Farrell, Warren Hull, Lyle Talbot, Eddie Acuff

Synopsis: According to encyclopedic film historian Roger Dooley, The Law in Her Hands is the only film of the 1930s to concern itself with a pair of female legal partners. The firm of Mary Wentworth (Margaret Lindsay) and Dorothy Davis (Glenda Farrell) specializes in defending criminals -- and ethics are Read More

1936
It's in the Air

Actors: Jack Benny, Ted Healy, Una Merkel, Nat Pendleton, Mary Carlisle

Synopsis: Jack Benny is cast against type as a small-time con man in this lightweight MGM programmer. Whenever he manages to outsmart himself, Calvin (Benny) returns to his ever-patient wife Alice (Una Merkel) to bail him out. In dutch with the law again -- this time he's managed to offend the IRS! Read More

1935
The Traveling Saleslady

Actors: Joan Blondell, Glenda Farrell, William Gargan, Hugh Herbert, Grant Mitchell

Synopsis: In this comedy, a toothpaste magnate's mischievous daughter, tired of her father's traditional ways of conducting business, joins forces with her father's rival and a crazy inventor. Together they create "Cocktail Toothpaste." The new concoction tastes like whiskey in the morning, a martini at Read More

1935
Sweet Music

Actors: Rudy Vallee, Ann Dvorak, Ned Sparks, Helen Morgan, Robert Armstrong

Synopsis: Rudy Vallee made his third feature-film starring appearance in the breezy Warner Bros. musical Sweet Music. Vallee is appropriately cast as singer-bandleader Skip Houston, who falls in love with aspiring dancer Bonnie Haydon (Ann Dvorak). Though Bonnie feels the same way about Skip, the two leads Read More

1935
Symphony of Living

Actors: Evelyn Brent, Al Shean, Charles Judels, John Darrow, Albert Conti

Synopsis: This drama is based on a true story and chronicles the story of a veteran musician who must give up his beloved career after he is terribly injured in an auto accident. His children do little to help their struggling father. His daughter marries a wealthy man and bears a musically talented son. To Read More

1935
Page Miss Glory

Actors: Marion Davies, Pat O'Brien, Dick Powell, Mary Astor, Frank McHugh

Synopsis: William Randolph Hearst's Cosmopolitan Productions moved from MGM to Warners with Page Miss Glory--along with Cosmopolitan's biggest commodity, actress Marion Davies. The plotline has something to do with a composite photo prepared for a magazine contest: The combined facial attributes of Garbo, Dietrich Read More

1935
Music in the Air

Actors: Gloria Swanson, John Boles, Douglass Montgomery, June Lang, Al Shean

Synopsis: The 1932 Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein Broadway hit Music in the Air was brought to the screen two years later by Fox Studios. Temperamental Bavarian prima donna Frieda (Gloria Swanson) and equally volatile lyricist Bruno (John Boles) spend half their time quarrelling and the other half making Read More

1934