Blanche YurkaFilmography

Born:: June 18, 1887 in St. Paul, MN
Occupation:: Actor
Biography:: Born to Bohemian parents, American actress Blanche Yurka was awarded a scholarship to a school sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera when she was only 15. Appropriately enough, her singing debut was in Balfe's English-language opera Bohemian Girl, performed in Czech. Wearing herself out from...Read More

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Thunder in the Sun

Actors: Susan Hayward, Jeff Chandler, Jacques Bergerac, Blanche Yurka, Carl Esmond

Synopsis: A somewhat wooden rendition of an improbable western, this tale of Basques crossing the U.S. in 1847 with a load of grapevines has stock characters in slightly different guises. Susan Hayward is Gabrielle, a member of the Basque party who inexplicably speaks with a French accent (Basques speak Read More

1959
Taxi

Actors: Dan Dailey, Constance Smith, Neva Patterson, Blanche Yurka

Synopsis: Taxi stars Dan Dailey as Ed Nielson, a been-there-done-that Manhattan cabbie. Nagged by his mother (Blanche Yurka) to find himself a wife, Ed must also contend with a blood-sucking loan company, demanding huge payments for his cab. His life is further complicated when he falls in love with one of Read More

1953
At Sword's Point

Actors: Cornel Wilde, Maureen O'Hara, Dan O'Herlihy, Robert Douglas, Gladys Cooper, June Clayworth

Synopsis: At Sword's Point is about the sons of Dumas' Three Musketeers--one of those "sons" being of the female persuasion, played by Maureen O'Hara. As the swash-buckling daughter of Athos, O'Hara joins the offspring of Aramis and Porthos, portrayed respectively by Dan O'Herlihy and Alan Hale Jr., as well Read More

1951
The Furies

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Wendell Corey, Walter Huston, Judith Anderson, Gilbert Roland

Synopsis: Barbara Stanwyck and Walter Huston give standout performances in this dark, psychological western, which Martin Scorsese has compared to the work of Dostoevsky. T.C. Jeffords (Huston) is a cunning and highly successful ranch owner who has announced his engagement to a wealthy socialite, Flo Read More

1950
The Flame

Actors: John Carroll, Vera Ralston, Robert Paige, Broderick Crawford, Henry Travers

Synopsis: Carlotta Duval (Vera Ralston) is willing to help her boyfriend George McAllister (John Carroll) get his hands on his ailing brother Barry's (Robert Paige) fortune. She is willing to marry Barry, knowing full well that he has only been given a few months to live. And when she deviates from the Read More

1947
13 Rue Madeleine

Actors: James Cagney, Annabella, Roland Belanger, Richard Conte, Frank Latimore, Walter Abel

Synopsis: This film is not only a revealing glimpse into the workings of the O.S.S. (Office of Strategic Services) during WW II, but it is also a full-fledged spy thriller. An excellent cast includes James Cagney, Karl Malden, E.G. Marshall, and Red Buttons. Cagney stars as an O.S.S. training officer, bent Read More

1946
The Southerner

Actors: Zachary Scott, Betty Field, Beulah Bondi, Percy Kilbride, Bunny Sunshine, J. Carrol Naish, Jay Gilpin

Synopsis: The Southerner was Jean Renoir's favorite of his American films. Shot on location, the film stars Zachary Scott as a sharecropper who yearns for a place of his own. On a tiny, scraggly patch of land, Scott tries to make a go of things, along with his wife Betty Field, his grandmother Beulah Bondi Read More

1945
Cry of the Werewolf

Actors: Nina Foch, Stephen Crane, Osa Massen, Blanche Yurka, Barton MacLane

Synopsis: Nina Foch plays the title role in this rather dull horror melodrama from Columbia Pictures. Investigating his father's murder Bob Morris (Stephen Crane) and his Transylvanian girlfriend Elsa (Osa Massen) come to suspect the mysterious Celeste Latour (Foch), who calls herself a Gypsy princess. And Read More

1944
One Body Too Many

Actors: Jean Parker, Bela Lugosi, Bernard Nedell, Blanche Yurka

Synopsis: Another of Jack Haley's comedy vehicles for Pine-Thomas productions, One Body Too Many casts Haley as timid insurance salesman Albert Tuttle. Much against his better judgment, Tuttle makes a business call at a sinister old mansion, intending to sell life insurance to the owner. He proves a bit Read More

1944
The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Actors: Lynn Bari, Akim Tamiroff, Francis Lederer, Alla Nazimova, Louis Calhern

Synopsis: First filmed in 1928, Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer-winning novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey is given a ponderous treatment in this 1944 remake. Like the novel, the film begins at the end, with the collapse of a rope bridge in 18th century Peru. The story then flashes back to the lives of the five 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
Tonight We Raid Calais

Actors: Annabella, John Sutton, Lee J. Cobb, Beulah Bondi, Blanche Yurka

Synopsis: A timely film when first released in 1943, Tonight We Raid Calais survives as an entertaining adventure some fifty years later. John Sutton plays a British intelligence officer, sent into occupied France with a small unit to local a German munitions depot. While travelling under cover of darkness Read More

1943
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

1943
A Night to Remember

Actors: Loretta Young, Brian Aherne, Jeff Donnell, Sidney Toler

Synopsis: Brian Aherne stars as a successful murder-mystery novelist; his wife, Loretta Young, wishes Aherne would switch to writing love stories (Young doesn't have a very realistic grasp on the literary marketplace, but we'll let that pass). Young sweet-talks Aherne into vacating their apartment and Read More

1942
Pacific Rendezvous

Actors: Lee Bowman, Jean Rogers, Carl Esmond, Paul Cavanagh, Blanche Yurka

Synopsis: Pacific Rendezvous is a B-picture remake of the 1935 MGM A-picture Rendezvous, updated to accommodate WW2. Lee Bowman plays the old William Powell role as a American naval intelligence operative (this time named Lt. Bill Gordon) assigned to decipher enemy code. His mission is compromised by his Read More

1942
Keeper of the Flame

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Richard Whorf, Margaret Wycherly, Forrest Tucker

Synopsis: If you're wondering what Citizen Kane might have looked like had it been produced by MGM, we submit for your approval Keeper of the Flame. War correspondent Spencer Tracy is assigned to write the life story of a recently deceased super-patriot. One would suppose that the much-beloved decedent's Read More

1942
Lady for a Night

Actors: Joan Blondell, John Wayne, Philip Merivale, Ray Middleton, Blanche Yurka, Edith Barrett

Synopsis: The unlikely combination of John Wayne and Joan Blondell adds a bit of vinegar and spice to the so-so costume drama Lady for a Night. Blondell is cast as Jenny Blake, owner of the Memphis Belle-not a WW2 bomber, but a gambling ship moored just outside New Orleans. Jenny's partner and erstwhile Read More

1941
Ellery Queen and the Murder Ring

Actors: Ralph Bellamy, Margaret Lindsay, Charles Grapewin, Mona Barrie, Paul Hurst

Synopsis: Ralph Bellamy made his fourth and final appearance as literary sleuth Ellery Queen in Columbia's Ellery Queen and the Murder Ring. On this occasion, Ellery and his police-inspector father (Charley Grapewin) are summoned to a private hospital by its owner, philanthropist Mrs. Stack (Blanche Yurka). Read More

1941
City for Conquest

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

1940
Escape

Actors: Norma Shearer, Robert Taylor, Conrad Veidt, Alla Nazimova, Felix Bressart

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Ethel Vance, Escape stars Robert Taylor as a young American, the son of a widowed European woman (Alla Nazimova). The mother has been imprisoned in a German concentration camp, compelling her son to ignore America's neutrality and attempt a rescue. Sneaking into German-occupied Read More

1940
Queen of the Mob

Actors: Ralph Bellamy, Blanche Yurka, J. Carrol Naish, William Henry

Synopsis: Though the title character is loosely based on that of the notorious killer/robber Ma Barker, she has been sanitized and prettified to meet the perceived conservative values of Hollywood movie audiences. Unlike Barker, who was bad to the bone, Ma Webster is simply a matriarch who would do anything Read More

1940
A Tale of Two Cities

Actors: Ronald Colman, Elizabeth Allan, Edna May Oliver, Reginald Owen, Basil Rathbone

Synopsis: It is a tale known well, filmed many times over the years, but never better than this early black and white version from the MGM Studios, David O. Selznick producing. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"-- Charles Dickens juxtaposes England and France, George and Louis, tradition Read More

1935