Arthur Hoyt Filmography

The Great Moment

Actors: Joel McCrea, Betty Field, Harry Carey, William Demarest, Louis Jean Heydt, Franklin Pangborn

Synopsis: After producing, writing and directing one hit film after another, Preston Sturges finally misfired with the biopic The Great Moment. Sturges was always fascinated with the saga of W.T.G. Morton, the 19th century Boston dentist who, after inventing the first truly effective anesthesia, was forced Read More

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek

Actors: Eddie Bracken, Betty Hutton, Diana Lynn, William Demarest, Brian Donlevy, Porter Hall

Synopsis: "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon 'em." Firmly in the latter category is Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken), a feckless wartime 4-F who must stand by helplessly as his sweetheart Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) entertains every visiting GI in town. One Read More

Hail the Conquering Hero

Actors: Eddie Bracken, Ella Raines, William Demarest, Bill Edwards, Raymond Walburn

Synopsis: It took nerve for writer/director Preston Sturges to lampoon the whole concept of hero worship in the middle of World War II, but once more Sturges' oddball sense of taste and propriety paid off at the box office in Hail the Conquering Hero. Eddie Bracken plays the son of a World War I Marine hero Read More

Keep 'em Slugging

Actors: Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Gabriel Dell, Norman Abbott, Evelyn Ankers

Synopsis: Keep 'Em Slugging was the last of Universal's "Little Tough Guys" series-which, like Monogram's "East Side Kids", was an offshoot of Warner Bros.' "Dead End Kids" films. This time around, the kids decide to mend their troublemaking ways and get real jobs. Tommy (Bobby Jordan) is hired by the Read More

The Palm Beach Story

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, Rudy Vallee, William Demarest

Synopsis: As for the opening reels, the principal motivating factor is money. After a deliberately confusing pre-credit sequence (not explained until the film's punch line), Tom Jeffers (Joel McCrea) and Gerry Jeffers (Claudette Colbert) are married. "And so they lived happily ever after," exults a title Read More

They Meet Again

Synopsis: This last entry in the Dr. Christian series tells about a country doctor who pieces together a defense to get a bank teller-- who has been wrongly convicted of embezzlement--out of jail. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More

Sullivan's Travels

Actors: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn, Robert Warwick, Porter Hall

Synopsis: In Preston Sturges' classic comedy of Depression-era America, filmmaker John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), fed up with directing profitable comedies like "Ants in Your Plants of 1939," is consumed with the desire to make a serious social statement in his upcoming film, "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" Read More

The Lady Eve

Actors: Henry Fonda, Barbara Stanwyck, Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette, William Demarest, Eric Blore

Synopsis: (Preston Sturges) wrote and directed this classic romantic comedy starring Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck, who are involved in a scintillating battle of the sexes, as Sturges points up the terrors of sexual passion and the unattainability of the romantic ideal. Henry Fonda plays Charles Pike Read More

The Great McGinty

Actors: Brian Donlevy, Muriel Angelus, Akim Tamiroff, Allyn Joslyn, William Demarest

Synopsis: The moral of Preston Sturges' first directorial effort The Great McGinty seems to be: If you're a crook, stay a crook, because honesty will get ya every time. Brian Donlevy plays Dan McGinty, a Chicago hobo who is hired by local political bosses as a "professional voter", casting ballots under a Read More

I Love You Again

Actors: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Frank McHugh, Edmund Lowe, Donald Douglas

Synopsis: Those popular MGM co-stars William Powell and Myrna Loy take a break from their usual Thin Man duties to star in the zany comedy I Love You Again. The film opens with Loy prepared to divorce her dull businessman husband Powell. A blow on the head causes Powell to remember his former life as a Read More

Goin' Fishin'

Actors: George "Spanky" McFarland, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, Mickey Gubitosi, Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas, Leonard Landy

Synopsis: Hoping to get an early start on a fishing trip to the East River, the Our Gang kids board a double-decker bus at the crack of dawn. Alas, the kids' bulky fishing equipment causes nothing but discomfort for the rest of the passengers, to say nothing of the irascible driver (Paul Hurst). Thanks to Read More

1-2-3-Go

Actors: George "Spanky" McFarland, Mickey Gubitosi, Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas, Billy "Froggy" Laughlin, Fred Walburn

Synopsis: While recklessly playing baseball in a busy street, Our Gang member Mickey (Robert Blake) is struck by a car. Though he fully recovers from his injuries, Mickey meets several other kids in the hospital who weren't so lucky. Instantly developing a sense of civic responsibility, the Gang members Read More

Christmas in July

Actors: Dick Powell, Ellen Drew, Raymond Walburn, Alexander Carr, William Demarest

Synopsis: This modest Preston Sturges comedy stars Dick Powell as an office clerk dreaming of better things and Ellen Drew as his more pragmatic girlfriend. Powell convinces himself that his fortune will be made if he can win a slogan contest sponsored by a coffee company. Powell's contribution: "If you Read More

Should Husbands Work?

Actors: James Gleason, Lucille Gleason, Russell Gleason, Harry Davenport, Marie Wilson

Synopsis: This comedy chronicles the further exploits of the hilarious "Higgins Family." In this entry, the father eagerly awaits a promotion. Unfortunately, he is temporarily derailed when his wife accidentally reveals a business secret concerning an upcoming merger. This results in the wife taking over Read More

Made for Each Other

Actors: Carole Lombard, James Stewart, Charles Coburn, Lucile Watson, Eddie Quillan

Synopsis: James Stewart and Carole Lombard star in this comedy-drama about the struggles of a young married couple directed by John Cromwell. Stewart and Lombard play a recently married couple, Jane and John Mason. John works as an attorney for the law firm of skinflint Judge Doolittle (Charles Coburn). Read More

East Side of Heaven

Actors: Bing Crosby, Joan Blondell, Mischa Auer, Irene Hervey, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Bing Crosby plays a tune-happy cab driver who finds himself the reluctant recipient of an abandoned baby. Together with his roommate, dour doorman Mischa Auer, Crosby offers care and shelter to the infant until he can locate the parents. The baby brings in some unwanted publicity for Crosby, which Read More

The Sisters

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 Black Doll

Actors: Nan Grey, Donald Woods, Edgar Kennedy, William Lundigan, Doris Lloyd

Synopsis: The Black Doll is one of the better entries in Universal's "Crime Club" series. Most of the action takes place on a dark and very stormy night, as the survivors of a long-ago mining expedition gather together in fear and trembling. It seems that a man whom the miners left for dead is very much Read More

The Devil's Party

Actors: Victor McLaglen, William Gargan, Paul Kelly, Beatrice Roberts, Frank Jenks

Synopsis: This melodrama chronicles the enduring friendship between four boys in New York's Hell's Kitchen. As boys, the made a pact that they would meet annually to renew their friendship. Trouble ensues when one of the boys accidently sets fire to a building. Another boy took the blame. He went to reform Read More

Start Cheering

Actors: Jimmy Durante, Joan Perry, Charles Starrett

Synopsis: Start Cheering is Columbia Pictures' idea of a college musical: Practically everyone in the cast is past the age of 30. Charles Starrett plays a movie star who wearies of Hollywood and decides to get a college education. He enrolls incognito in a small university, much to the discomfort of his Read More

The Cowboy and the Lady

Actors: Gary Cooper, Merle Oberon, Patsy Kelly, Walter Brennan, Fuzzy Knight

Synopsis: After an eccentric young woman (Merle Oberon) is left on her father's estate to keep her from spoiling his Presidential bid, she attends a rodeo and falls in love with a cowboy (Gary Cooper). They marry soon after, and must confront the furious father. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

The Rage of Paris

Actors: Danielle Darrieux, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Mischa Auer, Louis Hayward, Helen Broderick

Synopsis: This late-30s gem is an engaging spoof that features the U.S. film debut of the French acting beauty Daniell Darrieux. She appears as a French model who's come to New York to find a job. Things go a little awry in her first interview when she applies for a nude modeling position and gets the Read More

Girls on Probation

Actors: Jane Bryan, Ronald Reagan, Anthony Averill, Sheila Bromley, Henry O'Neill

Synopsis: Warner Bros.' Girls on Probation was, and is, a potboiler, redeemed slightly by its cast. The fascinating, underused Jane Bryan stars as innocent young Connie Heath, who is falsely accused of theft by witchy Gloria Adams (Susan Hayward). Though Gloria withdraws her charge, the insurance company Read More

You and Me

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, George Raft, Robert Cummings, Barton MacLane, Roscoe Karns

Synopsis: This film is one of acclaimed director Fritz Lang's less noted achievements, a mixture of romance, comedy, drama, and satire. It includes three songs by the famed Kurt Weill, including "The Right Guy for Me." George Raft plays Joe Dennis, an ex-convict working in a department store. The store's Read More

Hard to Get

Actors: Olivia de Havilland, Dick Powell, Charles Winninger, Melville Cooper, Allen Jenkins, Bonita Granville

Synopsis: Dick Powell had already played the poor guy who falls for rich gal in Happiness Ahead (34); Hard to Get is a far superior film in this vein, and with better songs to boot. The wealthy lady in this film is Olivia de Havilland, who at this point in her career specialized in spoiled heiresses. Dick Powell Read More

It's All Yours

Actors: Madeleine Carroll, Francis Lederer, Mischa Auer, Grace Bradley

Synopsis: In this romance, a secretary is awarded a legacy. Later she meets a male secretary who begins protecting her from an avaricious baron endeavoring to steal her money. The two rivals engage in fisticuffs, and the secretary loses. Fortunately, he wins the love of the girl. He then reveals that his Read More

Ever Since Eve

Actors: Robert Montgomery, Marion Davies, Patsy Kelly, Frank McHugh, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: A lovely stenographer, tired of men falling all over her, tries to make herself homely in this comedy. With her horn rim specs and tweed suits, she finds that she is actually able to get some work done. She begins working as a writer's secretary to help him make his deadline. When the writer Read More

Easy Living

Actors: Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold, Ray Milland, Luis Alberni, Mary Nash

Synopsis: Financier J.B. Ball (Edward Arnold) -- known in the press as "the Bull of Broad Street" -- may be one of the wealthiest investment bankers in the country, but he also knows the value of a dollar. And when his wife (Mary Nash) spends 50,000 of them on a sable coat, he is driven into such a fury in Read More

The Wrong Road

Actors: Richard Cromwell, Helen Mack, Lionel Atwill, Russell Powell

Synopsis: In this crime drama, a young couple decides to rob the bank where the woman works as a teller. They get 100,000 dollars and hide it in a music box. Unfortunately, they are caught and sentenced to prison. Upon their release, the two hope that the money will still be in the little box, which they Read More

Let's Get Married

Actors: Ida Lupino, Walter Connolly, Ralph Bellamy, Reginald Denny, Raymond Walburn

Synopsis: Contrary to earlier published reports, Columbia's Let's Get Married was not directed by Leo McCarey. Nor would McCarey have evinced much interest in this minor-league romantic comedy set in, of all places, a weather bureau. Ralph Bellamy plays the diligent chief weatherman who falls in love with Read More

Love Takes Flight

Actors: Bruce Cabot, Beatrice Roberts, John Sheehan, Astrid Allwyn, Elliot Fisher

Synopsis: Though he would later dismiss it as "just a ten-day job," actor Conrad Nagel made a remarkably smooth directorial debut with Grand National's Love Takes Flight. Bruce Cabot stars as Neil Bradshaw, an egotistical commercial pilot in love with stewardess Joan Lawson (Beatrice Roberts). Somewhat Read More

Love in a Bungalow

Actors: Nan Grey, Kent Taylor, Hobart Cavanaugh, Richard Carle

Synopsis: Raymond McCarey, the prolific if less-inspired brother of Leo McCarey, called the directorial shots for Universal's Love in a Bungalow. Nan Grey stars as young real estate agent Mary Callahan, whose job it is to guide potential house-buyers through a "model" bungalow. Enter Jeff Langan (Kent Taylor Read More

Paradise Express

Actors: Grant Withers, Dorothy Appleby, Arthur Hoyt, Maude Eburne, Harry Davenport

Synopsis: Paradise Express is Grand Hotel out of Twentieth Century, fresh from the Republic Studio breeding farms. The titular express is a small-time freight service, struggling for survival against a larger, more streamlined rail company. Faced with bankruptcy, the owners of the underdog railroad Read More

Join the Marines

Actors: Paul Kelly, June Travis, Purnell Pratt, Reginald Denny, Warren Hymer

Synopsis: This service comedy from the Republic Studio mills was perhaps the most aggressively titled of the "Marine Corps" film cycle of the mid-1930s (Come on Leathernecks, Pride of the Marines et. al.) Paul Kelly plays Phil Donlan, a pugnacious ex-cop and ex-Olympic athlete who is run out of New York in Read More

She's No Lady

Actors: Ann Dvorak, John Trent, Harry Beresford, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, Aileen Pringle

Synopsis: Not only is "she" no lady, but heroine Jerry (Ann Dvorak) doesn't even have a ladylike name. Jerry is an insurance investigator who moonlights as a jewel thief, making life difficult for professional diamond-swiper Carter (John Trent). It turns out that at least one of these two reprobates is Read More

Partners in Crime

Actors: Lynne Overman, Muriel Hutchison, Anthony Quinn, Inez Courtney

Synopsis: Partners in Crime was Paramount's follow-up to its successful Murder Goes to College; both films were based on a series of mystery novels by Kurt Steel. Lynne Overman and Roscoe Karns are back as insouciant private eye Hank Hyer and his bibulous partner-in-crimesolving Sim Perkins. Our heroes are Read More

The Westland Case

Actors: Preston S. Foster, Carolyn Hughes, Barbara Pepper, Frank Jenks, Astrid Allwyn

Synopsis: The Westland Case was the opening volley in Universal's "Crime Club" series. The film was based on Headed for a Hearse, a novel by Jonathan Latimer which had to be toned down considerably for the filmgoers' consumption. Latimer's cynical private-eye team of Bill Crane and Doc Williams are here Read More

When You're in Love

Actors: Grace Moore, Cary Grant, Aline MacMahon, Henry Stephenson, Thomas Mitchell

Synopsis: In this tuneful, romantic drama, an Australian opera star (Grace Moore) wants to perform in a major U.S. festival but cannot enter the country unless she is married. To this end, she hires a handsome artist (Cary Grant) temporarily marry her. At first it is all strictly business, but in time, the Read More

A Star Is Born

Actors: Janet Gaynor, Fredric March, Adolphe Menjou, May Robson, Andy Devine

Synopsis: A Star is Born came into being when producer David O. Selznick decided to tell a "true behind-the-scenes" story of Hollywood. The truth, of course, was filtered a bit for box-office purposes, although Selznick and an army of screenwriters based much of their script on actual people and events. Janet Gaynor Read More

Lady Luck

Actors: Patricia Farr, William Bakewell, Duncan Renaldo, Iris Adrian

Synopsis: In this drama, a manicurist is mistaken for the winner of a large sweepstakes and finds herself pursued by fortune hunters. One of them wants to marry her for the publicity and a stage contract. The trouble really begins when the real winner shows up. She is more than happy to let the manicurist Read More

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Actors: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, George Bancroft, Lionel Stander, Douglas Dumbrille, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: When a car crash ends the life of a fabulously wealthy patron of the arts, the decedent's $20,000,000 fortune is inherited by one Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) of Mandrake Falls, Vermont. Already a reasonably successful local businessman, Deeds doesn't really feel the need for anything extra in Read More

Walking on Air

Actors: Gene Raymond, Ann Sothern, Jessie Ralph, Henry Stephenson, Gordon Jones

Synopsis: In this musical comedy, a strong-willed young woman hires a student to impersonate a boorish French count and brings him home to meet her parents. She wants him to be as appalling as possible so they will hate him and allow her to date the man she really loves who has recently been divorced. Read More

Don't Turn'em Loose

Actors: James Gleason, Bruce Cabot, Louise Latimer, Betty Grable

Synopsis: In this crime drama a high-school principal's principles are put to the test when he, also a member of a parole board, is given the ultimate power to decide whether his son, a brutal criminal is to be paroled. The others do not know about the inmate's relationship to their colleague and the son Read More

Poor Little Rich Girl

Actors: Shirley Temple, Alice Faye, Gloria Stuart, Jack Haley, Michael Whalen

Synopsis: A remake of the 1917 Mary Pickford vehicle of the same name, Poor Little Rich Girl stars Shirley Temple in the title role. Neglected by her widowed soap-tycoon father (Michael Whalen), lonely Barbara Barry (Temple) spends most of her time in the company of her nursemaid Collins (Sara Haden). While Read More

Fury

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Sylvia Sidney, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis

Synopsis: Fritz Lang's first American film is a vigorous and perceptive indictment of mob law, starring Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sidney. Katherine (Sidney) leaves her boyfriend, Joe Wilson (Tracy), behind in their Midwestern hometown when she takes a job in another city. Joe is a decent, hard-working soul Read More

Great Guy

Actors: James Cagney, Mae Clarke, James Burke, Robert Gleckler, Henry Kolker

Synopsis: After retiring from a boxing career, Johnny Cave (James Cagney) accepts an appointment to serve as head of the Bureau of Weights and Measures. However, when he discovers that his organization is full of corruption and lies, he sets out to uncover the scam, much to the dismay of his girlfriend Read More

M'Liss

Actors: Anne Shirley, John Beal, Guy Kibbee, Douglas Dumbrille, Moroni Olsen

Synopsis: Loosely based on a story by frontier writer Bret Harte, this romantic western drama tells the story of an innocent, carefree mountain-raised girl who causes quite a stir every time she comes to town to bring her boozy father home from the bar. One day, the flirtatious gal is kissed by the town Read More

Pennies from Heaven

Actors: Nydia Westman, Bing Crosby, Madge Evans, Edith Fellows, Donald Meek, John Gallaudet, Louis Armstrong, Tom Dugan

Synopsis: In his only visit to Columbia Pictures, Paramount's resident crooner Bing Crosby stars in a sentimental musical drama. In jail on a trumped-up charge, Crosby meets a condemned prisoner, and promises the doomed man to look after his little girl (Edith Fellows) when he gets out. The girl's Read More

Early to Bed

Actors: Mary Boland, Charlie Ruggles, George Barbier, Gail Patrick, Robert McWade

Synopsis: In one of the best Charlie Ruggles-Mary Boland vehicles of the 1930s, Ruggles plays a mild mannered husband prone to sleepwalking. His nocturnal prowlings cause no end of embarrassment for his wife (Mary Boland), especially since Ruggles is a more aggressive personality when asleep. Eventually Read More

Magnificent Obsession

Actors: Irene Dunne, Robert Taylor, Charles Butterworth, Betty Furness, Sara Haden

Synopsis: A man who has ruined a woman's life attempts to make good on his debt to her (and his conscience) in this sudsy drama based on a best-selling novel by Lloyd C. Douglas. Bobby Merrick (Robert Taylor) is an alcoholic ne'er-do-well whose recklessness causes the death of Dr. Hudson, a respected Read More

$1,000 a Minute

Actors: Roger Pryor, Leila Hyams, Edgar Kennedy, Edward S. Brophy, Purnell Pratt

Synopsis: Two rich and wealthy millionaires who have a lot of money bet that reporter Robert Pryor can't spend $720,000 in twelve hours. If you're asking "Why $720,000?", the answer is: because this Republic programmer is titled $1000 a Minute . Anyway, a couple of cops spot Pryor flashing a roll of bills Read More

Welcome Home

Actors: James Dunn, Arline Judge, Raymond Walburn, Rosina Lawrence, William Frawley

Synopsis: In this comedy, a con artist gets elected to the chamber of commerce in his home town. He then goes there with three fellow grifters who are not welcome until they pay off the bad bonds they sold the town. Fortunately, the protagonist wins a fortune at the track and pays the debt. Despite this Read More

A Night at the Ritz

Actors: William Gargan, Patricia Ellis, Allen Jenkins, Dorothy Tree, Erik Rhodes

Synopsis: There's nary a serious moment in the loopy Warner Bros. programmer A Night at the Ritz. William Gargan stars as Duke Regan, a hot-shot hotel publicity agent. Fired from several jobs, Duke is given one last chance by the Ritz-Carlton. Improvising quickly, he promotes his future brother-in-law Read More

One Hour Late

Actors: Joe Morrison, Helen Twelvetrees, Conrad Nagel, Arline Judge, Ray Walker

Synopsis: Radio baritone Joe Morrison was being groomed for stardom by Paramount when he was top-billed in One Hour Late. Morrison is cast as shipping clerk Eddie Blake, whose girlfriend Betty Dunn (Helen Twelvetrees) is secretary to big boss Stephen Barclay (Conrad Nagel). A trusting soul, Betty sees Read More

Vagabond Lady

Actors: Robert Young,