Anatole LitvakFilmography

The Night of the Generals

Crew: Director

Actors: Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Tom Courtenay, Donald Pleasence, Philippe Noiret, Charles Gray

Synopsis: Military Intelligence officer Major Grau (Omar Sharif) investigates the brutal murder of a Warsaw prostitute in this mystery set during World War II. Grau's only clue is that the murderer was wearing the uniform of a Nazi general. The three suspects include Gabler (Charles Gray), who fears his Read More

10:30 p.m. Summer

Crew: Producer

Actors: Melina Mercouri, Romy Schneider, Peter Finch, Julián Mateos

Synopsis: Passion, whether sex or violence, is the root of conflict in this film which follows as the alcoholic Mercouri and her husband Finch travel with their daughter and Schneider across Spain. Being married does not stop Finch from fooling around with other women, however, and an affair flares up Read More

Le Couteau dans la Plaie

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Sophia Loren, Anthony Perkins, Gig Young, Jean-Pierre Aumont

Synopsis: This tragic and suspenseful tale of domestic abuse concerns a couple who have drifted far from the intent of their marriage vows. Bob (Anthony Perkins) is a former soldier who met Lisa (Sophia Loren) when she was a poor girl living in Italy. After they marry, they take up residence in Paris where Read More

Aimez-Vous Brahms?

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Ingrid Bergman, Yves Montand, Anthony Perkins, Jesse Royce Landis, Jackie Lane

Synopsis: Based on the Francoise Sagan novel Aimez vous Brahms?, Goodbye Again stars Ingrid Bergman as Paula Tessier, a successful Parisian interior decorator (with a personal wardrobe by Christian Dior) and Yves Montand as her roving-eye lover, Roger Demarest. Worried that she'll be left in the lurch by Read More

The Journey

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr, Jason Robards, Jr., Robert Morley, E.G. Marshall

Synopsis: The two romantic leads in this standard but well-acted political drama renew a famous pairing that began with The King and I in 1956. Deborah Kerr is Lady Diana Ashmore, caught at the wrong side of the Hungarian-Austrian border in 1956, and Yul Brynner is Major Surov, a Russian commander who works Read More

Anastasia

Crew: Director

Actors: Ingrid Bergman, Yul Brynner, Helen Hayes, Akim Tamiroff, Martita Hunt

Synopsis: Anastasia is adapted from the popular stage play by Marcelle Maurette. The scene is Paris in the early 1920s. Ingrid Bergman plays a would-be suicide who is rescued by Russian expatriate Yul Brynner. Brynner's motives are far from altruistic; together with a group of Russian cohorts, he hopes to Read More

The Deep Blue Sea

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Vivien Leigh, Kenneth More, Eric Portman, Emlyn Williams, Moira Lister

Synopsis: Adapted from the play by Terence Rattigan, The Deep Blue Sea stars Vivien Leigh as the troubled wife of a London attorney (Emlyn Williams). Racked with emotional problems, Leigh turns her back on her loveless marriage and sets up house with a handsome RAF officer (Kenneth More). When her lover Read More

Un Acte d'Amour

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Kirk Douglas, Dany Robin, Barbara Laage, Robert Strauss, Gabrielle Dorziat

Synopsis: Act of Love was based on The Girl on the Via Flamina, a novel by Alfred Hayes. Kirk Douglas plays an American soldier, participating in the 1944 liberation of France. Making the acquaintance of impoverished Parisian girl Dany Robin, Douglas takes pity on the girl, pretending to be married to her Read More

Decision Before Dawn

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Richard Basehart, Gary Merrill, Oskar Werner, Hildegarde Neff, Dominique Blanchar, O.E. Hasse

Synopsis: With the Third Reich disintegrating, several members of the German army are defecting to the Americans and offering their services as spies. US officer Gary Merrill trusts none of these last-minute "converts", but German prisoner Oskar Werner seems to be sincere. Werner insists that by helping the Read More

Sorry, Wrong Number

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Ann Richards, Wendell Corey, Harold Vermilyea, Ed Begley, Sr.

Synopsis: When Lucille Fletcher took on the challenge of expanding her classic 30-minute radio suspenser Sorry, Wrong Number into an 89-minute feature film, she opted on the Citizen Kane approach, filling the plotline to the brim with revelatory flashbacks. Barbara Stanwyck stars as bedridden hypochondriac Read More

The Snake Pit

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm, Glenn Langan, Helen Craig

Synopsis: "A woman loses her mind and is confined to a mental institution." That's the usual TV-listing encapsulation of The Snake Pit -- and like most such encapsulations, it only scratches the film's surface. Olivia de Havilland stars as an outwardly normal young woman, married to loyal, kindly Mark Stevens Read More

The Long Night

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Henry Fonda, Barbara Bel Geddes, Vincent Price, Ann Dvorak, Howard Freeman, Elisha Cook, Jr.

Synopsis: Based upon the French film Le Jour Se Lève, The Long Night opens in the in the midst of a dire situation: ex-serviceman Joe Adams (Henry Fonda) finds himself holed up in his apartment, surrounded by policemen who soon open fire in a relentless and determined manner. Adams has been accused of Read More

Meet Me at Dawn

Crew: Play Author

Actors: William Eythe, Stanley Holloway, Hazel Court, George Thorpe, Irene Browne

Synopsis: This romantic comedy is set in Paris at the beginning of the 20th century. It tells the story of a professional duelist who is hired by politicians to insult and challenge an important senator. He does this by pretending to have a tiff over a young woman whose father runs the local newspaper. Read More

War Comes to America

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

D-Day: The Normandy Invasion

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This classic yet little-seen documentary, co-helmed by screen legends Frank Capra and Anatole Litvak, uses strategic newsreel footage to chronicle one of the most famous and pivotal episodes of World War II: the beachfront mass-landing of the Allies in Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. ~ Nathan Read More

The Battle of China

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Battle of China was number six in the Why We Fight series, a group of government-sponsored documentaries aimed at explaining World War II to the American home front. The film describes the rape of China at the hands of the Japanese warlords. Once China is enslaved, Japan uses the captured land and Read More

Show Business at War

The Nazis Strike

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The Nazi Strike was the second of Col. Frank Capra's government-ordained "Why We Fight" series. This hard-hitting documentary artfully assembles existing stock footage to trace the rise of Adolf Hitler and his thirst for world conquest. Virtually wresting the German government from more moderate Read More

The Battle of Russia

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: The 60-minute documentary was the fifth of the Army Special Service's "Why We Fight" series. Assembled under the supervision of Lt. Colonel Frank Capra, the film is a sublimely assembled collection of authentic newsreel footage from both the U.S. Signal Corps and various Soviet sources. Narrated Read More

This Above All

Crew: Director

Actors: Tyrone Power, Joan Fontaine, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Stephenson, Nigel Bruce

Synopsis: Eric Knight's wartime novel This Above All was given the Tiffany treatment in the this 20th Century Fox big-budgeter. Tyrone Power plays Clive Briggs, a conscientious objector from humble origins, who deserts the British Army because he doesn't believe in fighting to preserve his country's Read More

Blues in the Night

Crew: Director

Actors: Priscilla Lane, Betty Field, Richard Whorf, Lloyd Nolan, Jack Carson, Elia Kazan

Synopsis: The big-band mystique of the 1940s was explored by Blues in the Night. Future directors Richard Whorf and Elia Kazan star as, respectively, a neurotic band-leader and a carefree clarinettist. Their jazz band travels from one small-time gig to another, always hoping for their big break but always Read More

Out of the Fog

Crew: Director

Actors: Ida Lupino, John Garfield, Thomas Mitchell, Eddie Albert, George Tobias

Synopsis: Out of the Fog is the film version of the Irwin Shaw play The Gentle People, refashioned to mollify the Hollywood censors by expert wordsmiths Robert Rossen, Jerry Wald, and Richard Macaulay. Humphrey Bogart lobbied strenuously to play the leading role of charming but ruthless waterfront loan Read More

'Til We Meet Again

Crew: Director

Actors: Merle Oberon, George Brent, Pat O'Brien, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Binnie Barnes

Synopsis: 'Til We Meet Again is an inflated remake of 1932's One Way Passage. As in the original, the hero is a convicted murderer en route to the death house by way of a merchant ship; the heroine is suffering from a terminal illness. Once more, hero and heroine fall in love, each keeping the facts of his Read More

Castle on the Hudson

Crew: Director

Actors: John Garfield, Ann Sheridan, Pat O'Brien, Burgess Meredith, Jerome Cowan, Henry O'Neill

Synopsis: In this remake of the classic prison story 20,000 Years in Sing-Sing, John Garfield plays Tommy Gordon, a jewel thief who has been sent up the river for a minimum of 25 years. Tommy isn't especially worried about prison, as he's convinced his well-connected friends will help him get out before Read More

City for Conquest

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: James Cagney, Ann Sheridan, Frank Craven, Donald Crisp, Arthur Kennedy

Synopsis: There are three key characters in Anatole Litvak's filmization of Aben Kandel's novel City for Conquest, as opposed to the six or more in the book -- but the real star, to a large extent, is New York City and its entire population. For purposes of the movie, however, the dramatic arc is linked to James Cagney Read More

All This and Heaven Too

Crew: Director

Actors: Bette Davis, Charles Boyer, Jeffrey Lynn, Barbara O'Neil, Virginia Weidler

Synopsis: An incredibly long but never dull adaptation of the Rachel Field best-seller, All This and Heaven Too was based on a once-notorious European scandal. Star Bette Davis, playing Henriette Deluzy-Desportes, is first seen as a French schoolteacher in a 19th century American seminary. When her Read More

Confessions of a Nazi Spy

Crew: Director

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Francis Lederer, George Sanders, Paul Lukas, Lya Lys, Henry O'Neill

Synopsis: Bold for its time (just prior to World War II), Confessions of a Nazi Spy is an expose of a genuine Nazi espionage ring operating in the United States. Dedicated National Socialist Paul Lukas arrives in America to conduct Bund rallies and enlist German-Americans in the service of Hitler. His Read More

The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor, Humphrey Bogart, Allen Jenkins, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: Edward G. Robinson shines in a fine comic role as Dr. Clitterhouse, a brilliant psychiatrist doing research into the criminal mind. The good doctor wants to gain a clearer understanding of how a thief feels when he's in the midst of a robbery, so strictly for academic purposes he tries to crack a Read More

The Sisters

Crew: Director

Actors: Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, Anita Louise, Ian Hunter, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: The 1938 filmization of Myron Brinig's novel The Sisters stars Bette Davis, Jane Bryan and Anita Louise as Louise, Grace and Helen Elliot. The daughters of turn-of-the-century druggist Henry Travers and his wife Beulah Bondi, the Elliot girls all meet their future husbands at a 1904 ball in honor Read More

The Woman I Love

Crew: Director

Actors: Paul Muni, Miriam Hopkins, Louis Hayward, Colin Clive, Minor Watson

Synopsis: Director Anatole Litvak's first Hollywood film was a remake of his French success L'Equipage, itself based on a novel by Joseph Kessel. Paul Muni stars as Maury, an unorthodox, abrasive WWI fighter-pilot whose skill in the air is compromised by his inability to get along with his colleagues and Read More

Tovarich

Crew: Director

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Charles Boyer, Basil Rathbone, Anita Louise, Melville Cooper

Synopsis: Two members of the Russian monarchy pose as French servants while hiding the Czar's fortune. This unlikely plot is at the core of this successful 1937 Hollywood comedy-drama starring the French-born Charles Boyer as Prince Mikail Alexandrovitch Ouratieff. The prince and his wife, Grand Duchess Read More

Mayerling

Crew: Director

Actors: Charles Boyer, Jean Dax, Jean Debucourt, Marthe Regnier, Danielle Darrieux, Suzy Prim, Gabrielle Dorziat

Synopsis: Based on Idol's End, a novel by Claude Anet, the French Mayerling is based on the tragic real-life story of Hapsburg Crown Prince Rudolph and his mistress, Baroness Marie Vetsera. Since the details of Rudolph and Marie's lives and deaths are clouded in controversy, much of the film is romanticized Read More

L'Equipage

Crew: Director

Actors: Charles Vanel, Annabella, Suzanne Desprès, Jean-Pierre Aumont

Synopsis: Filmmaker Anatole Litvak was still one year away from his "breakthrough" picture Mayerling when he co-wrote and directed L'Equipage (The Crew). Charles Vanel and Annabella star respectively as a daring WW I aviator and his loving but neglected wife. Ostracized by the other pilots because of his Read More

Cette Vieille Canaille

Crew: Director

Actors: Christiane Dor, Alice Field, Harry Baur, Pierre Blanchar

Synopsis: The great Harry Baur plays the title character in Cette Vielle Canaille -- which translates as "That Old Bum"! But he's no bum at the beginning of the picture: In fact, he's a retired doctor/chemist who spends his spare time conducting medical experiments on small lab animals. Looking for new Read More

Sleeping Car

Crew: Director

Actors: Ivor Novello, Madeleine Carroll, Kay Hammond

Synopsis: In this romance, a wealthy woman is duped by a charming conductor. Later she ends up using him so she can remain in France. In the end, the sparring partners fall in love for real. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Be Mine Tonight

Crew: Director

Actors: Jan Kiepura, Sonnie Hale, Magda Schneider, Edmund Gwenn, Athene Seyler

Synopsis: Polish opera star Jan Kiepura makes a rare film appearance in the British Be Mine Tonight. Kiepura plays an opera star who is besieged by his eager female fans. He heads to a tiny village where no one knows who he is. The peace and quiet rapidly drives him crazy, but at least he finds romance in Read More

Das Lied Einer Nacht

Crew: Director

Actors: Jan Kiepura, Magda Schneider, Pierre Brasseur, Charles Lamy, Ida Wuest, Otto Wallburg

Synopsis: He was known as Anatole Litvak during his Hollywood directorial career, but he was still Anatole Litwak when he helmed the German musical Das Lied Einer Nacht (The Song of Night). Famed Polish tenor Jan Kiepura stars as famed Italian tenor Ferraro. Escaping from his tyrannical manager, Ferraro Read More

Coeur de Lilas

Crew: Director

Actors: André Luguet, Marcelle Romee, Jean Gabin, Madeleine Guitty, Paul Pauley

Synopsis: Also known as Lilac, this early Anatole Litvak-directed talkie was based on a play by Tristan Bernard and Charles Henry Hirsch. The story bears traces of the Bertold Brecht-Weill piece The Threepenny Opera, with heroine Lilac (Marcelle Romeo) consorting with the criminal scum of Paris. Lilac falls Read More

Nie Wieder Liebe

Crew: Director

Actors: Lilian Harvey, Harry Liedtke, Felix Bressart, Margo Lion

Synopsis: Nie Wieder Liebe (Never Again Love) is based on Dover to Calais, a stage play by Julius Bertral. Having nearly bankrupted himself through a series of a disastrous love affairs, hero Harry Liedtke promises that he will not come anywhere near a woman for five years. To strengthen his resolve, he Read More

Dolly macht Karriere

Crew: Director

Actors: Dolly Haas, Alfred Abel, Hermann Blass, Kurt Gerron, Oscar Karlweis, Theo Lingen, Paul Kemp

Synopsis: (Dolly Macht Karrier) Dolly's Career top-bills the delightful Dolly Haas in the title role. It's a harmless little story about a starry-eyed chorus girl who hopes to become a big star and also keep her virtue, and of the various antagonists who try to prevent her from doing either. The film is Read More

Napoléon

Crew: First Assistant Director

Actors: Albert Dieudonné, Abel Gance, Edmond van Daele, Gina Manès, Annabella, Antonin Artaud, Pierre Batcheff, Alexandre Koubitzky

Synopsis: The chef d'ouevre of legendary French filmmaker Abel Gance, the 235-minute Napoleon was supposed to have been the first installment in a multipart film study of the French military hero. Each of the film's set pieces is treated like a movie in itself: the opening pillow fights and snowball Read More