Charlie RugglesFilmography

Follow Me, Boys!

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Vera Miles, Lillian Gish, Charlie Ruggles, Elliott Reid, Kurt Russell

Synopsis: Follow Me, Boys!, Disney's paean to the Boys Scouts of America, leaves no cliché unturned: we're even offered the old reliable "kid hanging over cliff by rope" bit. Corny, sentimental and obvious though it may be, the film is a delight to watch, especially whenever Fred MacMurray dominates the Read More

Bonanza: Horse of a Different Hue

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Charlie Ruggles, Julie Parrish

Synopsis: At the request of gallant Colonel Fairchild (Charles Ruggles) and his lovely daughter Patty Lou (Julie Parrish), Ben Cartwright agrees to arrange a championship horse race. What Ben doesn't know is that the Colonel has fixed the outcome of the race to rid himself of nasty creditor Jack Geller Read More

The Ugly Dachshund

Actors: Dean Jones, Suzanne Pleshette, Charlie Ruggles, Kelly Thordsen, Parley Baer

Synopsis: Dean Jones and Suzanne Pleshette star in this Walt Disney family comedy as Mark and Fran Garrison, a dog-loving couple with different tastes in canines. When their dachshund gives birth to puppies, kindly veterinarian Dr. Pruitt (Charlie Ruggles) convinces Mark to take a Great Dane puppy home with Read More

The Andy Griffith Show: Aunt Bee, the Swinger

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Aneta Corsaut

Synopsis: Aunt Bee finds a soulmate in the form of retired US Congressman John Canfield (Charlie Ruggles). Before long, both of the oldsters are behaving like schoolkids-and wearing each other out in the process. "Aunt Bee, the Swinger" was the first color episode of The Andy Griffith Show, albeit the Read More

The Beverly Hillbillies: Mrs. Drysdale's Father

Synopsis: Charles Ruggles makes the first of several appearances as Lowell Farquhar, Mrs. Drysdale's "aristocatic," Boston-born father. Mrs. D is worried that the Clampetts will make the wrong impression when her father arrives on a visit. But the roguish, improvident Farquhar is immediately enchanted by Read More

The Munsters: Herman's Driving Test

Synopsis: Herman (Fred Gwynne) may be up for a better-paying position at the mortuary, but only if he can get a special hearse-driving license. Accordingly, Herman takes a driving test, with disastrous results. Hoping to re-qualify for the exam, Herman accompanies Grandpa (Al Lewis) to a small town where Read More

Bewitched: Aunt Clara's Old Flame

Actors: Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York, Agnes Moorehead, Marion Lorne, Charlie Ruggles

Synopsis: Charles Ruggles, who played soup tycoon Philip Caldwell in the first-season Bewitched episode "Help, Help, Don't Save Me," returns to the series in the role of Aunt Clara's former boyfriend, warlock Hedley Partridge. Not wishing to reveal that Clara has lost her magic touch (literally), Samantha Read More

The Beverly Hillbillies: Mr. Farquhar Stays On

Synopsis: In the conclusion of a two-part story arc, Mrs. Drysdale's aristocratic -- and perennially broke -- father, Lowell Farquhar (Charles Ruggles), is still hanging around Beverly Hills. Hoping to strike it rich at the gaming tables, Farquahr invites Granny -- and her millions -- to accompany him to Read More

I'd Rather Be Rich

Actors: Sandra Dee, Robert Goulet, Andy Williams, Maurice Chevalier, Charlie Ruggles

Synopsis: Maurice Chevalier plays Philip Dulaine, a supposedly dying millionaire, while Sandra Dee co-stars as Cynthia, the elderly man's granddaughter. To allow Dulaine to die happy, Cynthia promises to find a husband. Actually, Dulaine is only pretending to be at death's door to get Cynthia married off. Read More

Bewitched: Help, Help, Don't Save Me

Actors: Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York, Agnes Moorehead, Charlie Ruggles, David White

Synopsis: When Darrin expresses frustration over his inability to come up with a suitable slogan for the Caldwell Soup Company, Samantha offers to help. Worried that Sam intends to use witchcraft to bail him out, Darrin tells her in so many words to mind her own business. But has that ever stopped Sam Read More

Son of Flubber

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Nancy Olson, Keenan Wynn, Tommy Kirk

Synopsis: Son of Flubber represented the first time that Walt Disney ever attempted a theatrical feature sequel: in this case, the earlier film was the 1961 moneyspinner The Absent-Minded Professor. While Flubber is more formula-bound than Professor, it proved an instant audience-pleaser, and a hit to the Read More

Papa's Delicate Condition

Actors: Jackie Gleason, Glynis Johns, Charlie Ruggles, Laurel Goodwin, Linda Bruhl

Synopsis: This charming tale is about a young girl's father and his slightly erratic behavior after sampling a refreshing alcoholic beverage. Although Papa Jack Griffith (Jackie Gleason) never appears to be drunk, his "delicate condition" is well known to his family. His wife is definitely unhappy over his Read More

The Pleasure of His Company

Actors: Fred Astaire, Debbie Reynolds, Lilli Palmer, Tab Hunter, Gary Merrill

Synopsis: Based on a play by Samuel Taylor and Cornelia Otis Skinner, The Pleasure of His Company is an old-fashioned romantic comedy. Fred Astaire plays Biddeford "Pogo" Poole, the long-absent prodigal father of Jessica Poole (Debbie Reynolds), who is just about to be married. Much to the dismay of his Read More

Disneyland: Title Makers and Nature's Half Acre

Actors: Tommy Sands, Annette Funicello, Hayley Mills, Maureen O'Hara

Synopsis: The first half of this 1961 Walt Disney Presents episode shows the work that went behind the delightful animated opening titles of the upcoming Disney theatrical feature The Parent Trap. Famed studio artists Bill Justice, X. Attencio, and T. Hee are seen bringing the titles to life, from Read More

The Parent Trap

Actors: Hayley Mills, Maureen O'Hara, Brian Keith, Charlie Ruggles, Una Merkel

Synopsis: We get a double dose of Hayley Mills in this Disney vehicle: she plays 13-year-old identical twins Susan and Sharon, who meet for the very first time in summer camp. They soon learn that they were separated at a very early age when their parents Mitch and Maggie (Brian Keith and Maureen O'Hara) Read More

All in a Night's Work

Actors: Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, Cliff Robertson, Norma Crane

Synopsis: Tony Ryder (Dean Martin) thinks that Katie Robbins (Shirley MacLaine) was the mistress of a recently deceased millionaire. On this fragile plot peg hangs the rest of All in a Night's Work. The millionaire died with a smile on his face, and Tony, who stands to inherit the dead man's publishing Read More

Playhouse 90: Eloise

Synopsis: This highly anticipated and lavishly publicized semi-musical TV adaptation of Kay Thompson's "Eloise" stories stars 7-year-old Evelyn Rudie as the titular 6-year-old heroine. As devotees of the books written by Thompson and illustrated by Hilary Knight already know, Eloise is a precocious little Read More

A Cop 'n Comedy Christmas

Synopsis: Included are four Christmas episodes from '50s television shows: A Date with the Angels, Racket Squad, The Ruggles and Dragnet. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

The Lovable Cheat

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Peggy Ann Garner, Richard Ney, Alan Mowbray, Iris Adrian

Synopsis: Adapted from a play by Honore de Balzac, Lovable Cheat offers a veritable smorgasbord of Hollywood's top character actors. The title character, one Claude Mercadet, is played by Charlie Ruggles. Posing as a wealthy Parisian, Mercadet fleeces friends and casual acquaintances alike. He is forced Read More

Look for the Silver Lining

Actors: June Haver, Ray Bolger, Gordon MacRae, Charlie Ruggles, Rosemary de Camp

Synopsis: The short but colorful life of American musical comedy star Marilyn Miller is given the standard prettified Hollywood treatment in Look for the Silver Lining. June Haver, an accomplished dancer-singer in her own right, is well-cast as Miller, who rises from an appendage in her parents' vaudeville Read More

The Ruggles [TV Series]

Synopsis: This early-'50s TV situation-comedy show featured Charles Ruggles. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Give My Regards to Broadway

Actors: Dan Dailey, Charles Winninger, Nancy Guild, Fay Bainter, Charlie Ruggles

Synopsis: Charles Winninger plays the head of a vaudevillian family who, when jobs become scarce, takes a humble factory job. He dreams of sustaining a show-biz dynasty with his grown children, but none of them show any real interest in trodding the boards. Realizing that the golden days are past, Winninger Read More

It Happened on Fifth Avenue

Actors: Don DeFore, Ann Harding, Charlie Ruggles, Victor Moore, Gale Storm

Synopsis: It Happened On Fifth Avenue was easily the most ambitious movie made by the then-newly-organized Allied Artists for at least a decade after its release -- actually, as a "Roy Del Ruth Production," it was made through rather than by Allied Artists, which may explain why it stands so far apart from Read More

Ramrod

Actors: Veronica Lake, Joel McCrea, Preston S. Foster, Lloyd Bridges, Jeff Corey, Charlie Ruggles, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: This cowboy drama from Hungarian director Andre De Toth was the first of several films based on the stories of Western author Luke Short. Veronica Lake stars as Connie Dickason, strong-willed daughter of Ben Dickason (Charles Ruggles), a ranch owner who has become the toady of a powerful local Read More

My Brother Talks to Horses

Actors: Peter Lawford, Beverly Tyler, Edward Arnold, Charlie Ruggles

Synopsis: In later years, director Fred Zinneman seldom referred to My Brother Talks to Horses as one of his career highpoints. Even so, this leisurely period comedy has its moments, most of them delivered by precocious Jackie "Butch" Jenkins as the title character. Living with his family in Baltimore Read More

Gallant Journey

Actors: Fernando Alvarado, Conrad Binyon, Paul E. Burns, Tommy Cook

Synopsis: Producer/director William A. Wellman also co-scripted this biopic devoted to John J. Montgomery (Glenn Ford), the unsung 19th-century innovator of glider design. Montgomery's invention of a gold separator proves lucrative, but he pours its profits into financing his legal battles over patent Read More

The Perfect Marriage

Actors: Loretta Young, David Niven, Eddie Albert, Charlie Ruggles, Virginia Field

Synopsis: If the Perfect Marriage in this romantic comedy were truly perfect, there wouldn't be any story, would there? Outwardly an ideal couple, Maggie and Dale Williams (Loretta Young, David Niven) have grown tired of one another after 10 years. Petty squabbles lead to major battles, exacerbated by the Read More

A Stolen Life

Actors: Bette Davis, Glenn Ford, Dane Clark, Walter Brennan, Charlie Ruggles

Synopsis: In this romantic melodrama, Bette Davis plays twin sisters for the first time (she would do so again in 1964's Dead Ringer). Kate Bosworth (Davis) is a sincere, demure girl and talented artist. Her twin sister Pat (also Davis) is a flamboyant, man-hungry manipulator. Orphans, the girls' guardian Read More

Her Favorite Patient

Actors: John Carroll, Ruth Hussey, Charlie Ruggles, Ann Rutherford, Claudia Drake

Synopsis: Her Favorite Patient is the TV title for Bedside Manner, an improbable comedy directed by future master of "realism" Andrew L. Stone. Ruth Hussey plays a big-city doctor who travels to a small town to assist her surgeon uncle (Charlie Ruggles). The townsfolk resist the notion of a female Read More

Incendiary Blonde

Actors: Betty Hutton, Arturo de Cordova, Albert Dekker, Charlie Ruggles, Barry Fitzgerald

Synopsis: Incendiary Blonde is a highly entertaining if historically suspect biopic of "Queen of the Nightclubs" Texas Guinan. As played (or overplayed) by Betty Hutton, Guinan is a hoydenish Texas gal whose showbiz career gets under way when she joins a Wild West show in 1909. A favorite with male patrons Read More

Our Hearts Were Young and Gay

Actors: Gail Russell, Diana Lynn, James Brown, Bill Edwards, Dorothy Gish

Synopsis: Our Hearts Were Young and Gay was based on the lighthearted joint autobiography of actress Cornelia Otis Skinner and humorist Emily Kimbrough. Gail Russell and Diana Lynn star respectively as Cornelia and Emily, two innocent but fun-loving young girls at loose in the Roaring 20s. The story Read More

The Doughgirls

Actors: Ann Sheridan, Alexis Smith, Jack Carson, Jane Wyman, Irene Manning

Synopsis: The wartime housing shortage in Washington DC is the basis for this comedy. Several attractive young ladies rent a single DC apartment, causing no end of complications to their various professional and private lives. Also moving in (due to a misunderstanding) is a young newlywed (Jane Wyman) Read More

Three is a Family

Actors: Marjorie Reynolds, Charlie Ruggles, Helen Broderick, Arthur Lake

Synopsis: Based on a play by Phoebe and Henry Ephron, Three Is a Family is a 1940s farce that frequently substitutes noise for humor. Charlie Ruggles plays a hubby whose bungled business schemes force his wife Fay Bainter to enter the workplace. The couple's daughter Marjorie Reynolds shows up with her twin Read More

Dixie Dugan

Actors: James Ellison, Charlotte Greenwood, Charlie Ruggles, Lois Andrews, Helene Reynolds

Synopsis: Lois Andrews, best known in 1943 as the ex-wife of comedian Georgie Jessel, plays the title character in this cinemadaptation of Joseph P. McEvoy's popular comic strip Dixie Dugan. Swept up in the war effort, Dixie gets a job as secretary to government official Roger Hudson (James Ellison). Though Read More

Friendly Enemies

Actors: Charles Winninger, Charlie Ruggles, James Craig, Nancy Kelly, Otto Kruger

Synopsis: In this remake of the 1925 silent film, the breakup of a lifelong friendship between two German millionaires is chronicled. The trouble begins as WW II erupts. One of the men becomes sympathetic to the U.S. while the other becomes a Nazi sympathizer. They spend most of the film arguing about Read More

Honeymoon for Three

Actors: Ann Sheridan, George Brent, Charlie Ruggles, Osa Massen, Jane Wyman

Synopsis: Ann Sheridan and her then-husband George Brent did their expected box-office duty in the Warner Bros. comedy Honeymoon for Three. Brent plays confirmed-bachelor novelist Kenneth Bixby, who wards off marriage-minded females by pretending to be married to his secretary Anne Rogers (Sheridan). Read More

Model Wife

Actors: Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, Charlie Ruggles, Lee Bowman, Ruth Donnelly

Synopsis: The real-life marriage between Dick Powell and Joan Blondell was already on the rocks when they costarred in Model Wife. The story is "Working Girl Plot No. 6": Blondell's employer frowns upon married women working. She's married to Powell. The marriage must remain secret. The boss has a "thing" Read More

The Perfect Snob

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Charlotte Greenwood, Lynn Bari, Cornel Wilde, Anthony Quinn

Synopsis: Ubiquitous 20th Century-Fox contractee Lynn Bari is the heroine of The Perfect Snob. Carefully raised by her social-climbing mother Martha (Charlotte Greenwood) to seek out a millionaire husband, debutante Chris Mason (Bari) throws herself at wealthy Freddie Browning (Alan Mowbray) during a Read More

The Parson of Panamint

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Ellen Drew, Phillip Terry, Joseph Schildkraut, Porter Hall

Synopsis: First filmed in 1916, Peter B. Kyne's novel Parson of Panamint provided an excellent showcase for Charles Ruggles in this 1941 remake. As he looks over the dusty, deserted remains of the western "boom town" of Panamint, grizzled old prospector Chuckawalla Bill Redfield (Ruggles) recalls the town's Read More

Go West, Young Lady

Actors: Penny Singleton, Glenn Ford, Ann Miller, Charlie Ruggles, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: Taking a vacation from her "Blondie" movies, Penny Singleton plays an Eastern girl who follows Horace Greeley's advice and heads westward. She arrives in a flea-bitten frontier town where Marshal Glenn Ford is trying to rid the community of the vicious Pecos Pete. Singleton vies with saloon gal Ann Miller Read More

The Invisible Woman

Actors: Virginia Bruce, John Barrymore, John Howard, Charlie Ruggles, Oscar Homolka

Synopsis: Dispensing with the melodramatic excesses of Universal's previous "Invisible Man" films, 1941's The Invisible Woman aims strictly for laughs. Virginia Bruce stars as Kitty Carroll, an outspoken department store model fired from her job by tyrannical Mr. Growley (Charles Lane). Intrigued by an ad Read More

The Farmer's Daughter

Actors: Martha Raye, Charlie Ruggles, Richard Denning, Gertrude Michael, William Frawley

Synopsis: Imagine the dismay of those hapless TV station managers who've booked the 1940 Martha Raye vehicle The Farmer's Daughter in the belief that they've actually gotten hold of the same-named 1947 Loretta Young picture. Hardly in the same league as its namesake, the 1940 film casts Raye as Patience Read More

Public Deb No. 1

Actors: George Murphy, Brenda Joyce, Elsa Maxwell, Mischa Auer, Charlie Ruggles

Synopsis: Communism-the American variety-is given a hilarious going-over in 20th Century-Fox's Public Deb No. 1. Spoiled society girl Penny Cooper (Brenda Joyce) impulsively lends her voice to a Communist rally, which earns her a public spanking by 100% All-American waiter Alan Blake (George Murphy). Read More

Maryland

Actors: Walter Brennan, Fay Bainter, Brenda Joyce, John Payne, Charlie Ruggles

Synopsis: The success of 1938's Kentucky prompted 20th Century-Fox to come up with the similar (though not entirely identical) horse-racing opus Maryland. After her husband (Russell Hicks) is killed during a fox hunt, Maryland matriarch Charlotte Danfield (Fay Bainter) forbids her son Lee (John Payne) from Read More

Opened by Mistake

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Janice Logan, Robert Paige, William Frawley, Florence Shirley

Synopsis: This zany comedy-mystery gets under way when wiseguy reporter Jimmie Daniels (Robert Paige) and tipsy sports editor Buzz Nelson (Charlie Ruggles) become joint owners of an oversized truck. Examining the contents, Jimmie and Buzz discover that the trunk contains a dead body. When mystery woman Read More

No Time for Comedy

Actors: James Stewart, Rosalind Russell, Genevieve Tobin, Charlie Ruggles, Allyn Joslyn

Synopsis: S.N. Behrman's hit Broadway show about a guy who writes hit Broadway shows comes to the screen in this comedy. Gaylord Esterbrook (James Stewart) is a reporter from Minnesota who writes a play about life in New York City -- a place he's never visited. To his surprise, a Big Apple producer wants to Read More

Invitation to Happiness

Actors: Irene Dunne, Fred MacMurray, Charlie Ruggles, Billy Cook, William Collier, Sr.

Synopsis: Irene Dunne plays an impulsive society girl; Fred MacMurray plays a no-frills prizefighter. They marry (just like Jack Dempsey and his many trophy wives) in the waning days of the Roaring 20s. MacMurray begins training so diligently for the championship that he neglects his wife and son (Billy Cook Read More

Night Work

Actors: Mary Boland, Charlie Ruggles, Billy Lee, Donald O'Connor, Clem Bevans

Synopsis: In this domestic comedy, a husband and wife manage an apartment building owned by the husband's pal. Meanwhile they must also begin caring for an orphaned lad. They take a shine to the boy and desire to adopt him, but first they must convince his grandfather who is not impressed by their Read More

Boy Trouble

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Mary Boland, Donald O'Connor, Joyce Mathews, John Hartley

Synopsis: It may sound like a teenage-romance comedy, but Boy Trouble is actually a sentimental effort about middle-aged parents. Charlie Ruggles stars as a small town shopkeeper whose wife (Mary Boland) adopts a pair of rambunctious orphan boys (Donald O'Connor, Billy Lee). Ruggles is at first hostile Read More

Balalaika

Actors: Nelson Eddy, Ilona Massey, Charlie Ruggles, Frank Morgan, Lionel Atwill

Synopsis: In this romantic musical, a Russian prince sees a lovely singer in a town cafe and falls head-over-heels. Realizing that he cannot be seen with her in royal garb, he masquerades as a worker. Later he secretly arranges for her to sing at the Imperial Opera. Unfortunately, his father the emperor is Read More

Service De Luxe

Actors: Constance Bennett, Vincent Price, Charlie Ruggles, Helen Broderick, Mischa Auer

Synopsis: In this frothy comedy-drama, a businesswoman owns a successful service bureau for the filthy rich. Her service does everything from handling mundane finances to putting on weddings. Her most recent client wants her to prevent his rube of a nephew from coming to New York to visit him. She does her Read More

Bringing Up Baby

Actors: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charlie Ruggles, Barry Fitzgerald, May Robson

Synopsis: Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant star in this inspired comedy about a madcap heiress with a pet leopard who meets an absent-minded paleontologist and unwittingly makes a fiasco of both their lives. David Huxley (Grant) is the stuffy paleontologist who needs to finish an exhibit on dinosaurs and Read More

Breaking the Ice

Actors: Bobby Breen, Charlie Ruggles, Dolores Costello, Robert H. Barrat, Dorothy Peterson

Synopsis: Boy soprano Bobby Breen dons a pair of skates in the oddball musical Breaking the Ice. Escaping his super-strict Mennonite relatives, our hero gets a job singing at a Philadelphia ice-skating rink. Here he tries to earn enough money to help his beloved widowed mother (Dolores Costello) wrest Read More

His Exciting Night

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Richard Lane, Stepin Fetchit, "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom

Synopsis: In this comedy, a milquetoast clerk is betrothed to the socialite whose aunt holds a big account with his company. When the agency owner hears that the generous aunt is preparing to close her account and give all the money to the happy couple, the boss decides to stop the wedding. To do so, he Read More

Exclusive

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Frances Farmer, Charlie Ruggles, Lloyd Nolan, Fay Holden

Synopsis: Frances Farmer plays the daughter of an honest and ethical newspaper publisher (Charlie Ruggles). She wants to become a reporter herself, but when her Dad refuses to give her an easy break, Frances goes to work for a rival "tell all" tabloid. Her irresponsible reporting causes a highly respected Read More

Mind Your Own Business

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Alice Brady, Lyle Talbot, Ben Baker, Jack LaRue

Synopsis: In this drama, a Boy Scout leader hosts a local gossip show. Trouble ensues when he predicts a politician's murder just before it occurs. He is arrested by the DA, but before getting to jail, he is abducted by irate gangsters--the real killers. Fortunately, his loyal Scout troop rallies to his Read More

Turn off the Moon

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Eleanore Whitney, Johnny Downs, Kenny Baker

Synopsis: Department store owner Elliot Dinwiddy (Charlie Ruggles) never makes a decision without first consulting his astrologer Dr. Wakefield (Andrew Tombes). Problem is, Dinwiddy's dependence upon the stars to dictate his fate has a negative trickle-down effect on his impending marriage to his secretary Read More

Anything Goes

Actors: Bing Crosby, Ethel Merman, Charlie Ruggles, Ida Lupino, Grace Bradley

Synopsis: Anything Goes is a fun-filled but hardly faithful adaptation of the same-named Cole Porter Broadway musical, with additional songs by Hoagy Carmichael, among many many others. Set on a luxury liner, the story gets under way when Moonface Mullins (Charlie Ruggles), Public Enemy No. 13, slips on Read More

Yours for the Asking

Actors: George Raft, Ida Lupino, Reginald Owen, James Gleason

Synopsis: In this crime comedy, a street-savvy gangster involves himself with a Miami socialite. Together, they conspire to turn her familial mansion into a secret gambling casino. The hood is convinced her beauty will draw customers and with the ensuing profits, the two will be able to pay their debts. 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

The Preview Murder Mystery

Actors: Reginald Denny, Frances Drake, Gail Patrick, Ian Keith

Synopsis: It's a black night in Hollywood when matinee idol Neil DuBeck (Rod LaRoque) is murdered at the preview of his latest film. Director E. Gordon Smith (Ian Keith), who has long harbored a deep hatred for DuBeck, is the main suspect -- until he too is killed, along with a movie-studio watchman (Spencer Charters Read More

Hearts Divided

Actors: Dick Powell, Marion Davies, Charlie Ruggles, Arthur Treacher, Claude Rains, Edward Everett Horton

Synopsis: A remake of 1928's Glorious Betsy (itself based on a stage play by Rida Johnson Young), Hearts Divided is based, believe it or not, on a true story. Marion Davies stars as 19th-century Baltimore belle Betsy Patterson, who falls in love with Jerome Bonaparte (Dick Powell) -- the younger brother of Read More

Wives Never Know

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Mary Boland, Adolphe Menjou, Vivienne Osborne

Synopsis: In this bedroom farce, a writer rails against marriage and touts the benefits of staying single. He then convinces his friend that only relationships based on struggle and strife are worth having. His friend is married so the writer suggests he start trouble by trying to make her jealous. The Read More

Ruggles of Red Gap

Actors: Charles Laughton, Mary Boland, Charlie Ruggles, ZaSu Pitts, Roland Young, Leila Hyams

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1918 and 1923, Harry Leon Wilson's novel achieved movie classic status when it was remade by Leo McCarey in 1935. The story opens in Paris, circa 1908. Ruggles, beautifully underplayed by Charles Laughton, is the ultra-obedient manservant to the bibulous Earl of Burnstead (Roland Young Read More

The Big Broadcast of 1936

Actors: Jack Oakie, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Lyda Roberti, Wendy Barrie, Bing Crosby

Synopsis: After a false start in 1932, Paramount's Big Broadcast series was jump-started in late 1935 with The Big Broadcast of 1936. The wisp of a storyline involves two-bit radio station owner Spud (Jack Oakie), who doubles as the station's sole announcer while his comic partner Smiley (Henry Wadsworth) Read More

People Will Talk

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Leila Hyams, Dean Jagger, Ruthelma Stevens

Synopsis: No relation to the 1951 Cary Grant film of the same name, People Will Talk was another of Paramount's moneymaking comedies starring Charles Ruggles and Mary Boland. This time the middle-aged pair try to patch up the marriage of their daughter (Leila Hyams) and son-in-law (Dean Jagger, with hair). Read More

No More Ladies

Actors: Joan Crawford, Robert Montgomery, Charlie Ruggles, Franchot Tone, Edna May Oliver

Synopsis: MGM regularly churned out films in the 1930s that were all "star power" and very little plot. No More Ladies is a good example of this. Joan Crawford marries bon vivant Robert Montgomery, hoping to mend his wastrel ways. Montgomery refuses to assumes the proper responsibilities of a husband, so Read More

The Pursuit of Happiness

Actors: Francis Lederer, Joan Bennett, Charlie Ruggles, Mary Boland, Minor Watson

Synopsis: Pursuit of Happiness was adapted from the risque stage comedy by Lawrence Langner and Armina Marshall. Set during the American revolution, the film centers around the quaint 18th century custom of "bundling"--that is, having unmarried men and women share the same bed during cold weather, albeit Read More

Friends of Mr. Sweeney

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Ann Dvorak, Eugene Pallette, Dorothy Burgess, Dorothy Tree

Synopsis: In this British comedy, a mild mannered editorial writer for a right-wing newspaper becomes fed up with the constant badgering of his domineering, self-righteous editor. The writer decides that there is more to life than kow-towing to his supervisor, and so sets off looking for fun and adventure. Read More

Goodbye Love

Actors: Veree Teasdale, Mayo Methot, Sidney Blackmer, Phyllis Barry, Ray Walker

Synopsis: Goodbye Love is a lampoon of what was once designated the "alimony racket." Refusing to meet his wife's exorbitant alimony demands, Sidney Blackmer volunteers to go to jail, where he finds that his cellmate is his own valet (Charlie Ruggles), incarcerated because he can't make his alimony Read More

Six of a Kind

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Mary Boland, George Burns, W.C. Fields, Gracie Allen

Synopsis: The "six" are Charlie Ruggles, Mary Boland, George Burns, Gracie Allen, W.C. Fields, and Alison Skipworth, who star in this cross-country comedy. Planning a motor vacation to California, J. Pinkham Whinney (Ruggles) and Flora Whinney (Boland) advertise for a couple to help drive and share Read More

Melody in Spring

Actors: Lanny Ross, Mary Boland, Ann Sothern, George Meeker

Synopsis: Radio tenor Lanny Ross made a game but unsuccessful bid for film stardom in Paramount's Melody in Spring. Though Ross, cast as one John Craddock, is given top billing, the picture belongs to the delightful screen team of Charlie Ruggles and Mary Boland as Warren and Mary Blodgett, sponsors of a Read More

Murder in the Private Car

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Una Merkel, Mary Carlisle, Russell Hardie, Porter Hall

Synopsis: Harry Beaumont, a director-composer most closely associated with MGM's musical product, does a nice job handling the tongue-in-cheek melodramatics of Murder in the Private Car. Charlie Ruggles goes through his standard drunken-detective act as amateur gumshoe Scott, who stumbles onto a dead body Read More

Terror Aboard

Synopsis: In this suspenseful mystery, a murderous psychopath aboard a luxury liner begins a series of grisly but creative murders. One victim is found in a refrigerator, one is poisoned. Still others are shot and stabbed. In the end, he dumps a lifeboat filled with sailors into the sea where they drown. Read More

Girl without a Room

Actors: Charles Farrell, Charlie Ruggles, Marguerite Churchill, Gregory Ratoff

Synopsis: In this comedy, a Tennessee lad, enrolled in art school wins a scholarship to paint in Paris. He is thrilled until he arrives and discovers that his style is hopelessly passe and is considered trashy. The enterprising artist immediately changes style and begins painting highly abstract moderns. Read More

Murders in the Zoo

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Lionel Atwill, Gail Patrick, Randolph Scott, John Lodge, Kathleen Burke

Synopsis: Insanely jealous of his wife, wealthy zoologist Lionel Atwill uses his knowledge of animals to dispose of any would-be rivals. Atwill brings his latest collection of wild animals to a major metropolitan zoo. Here he continues his homicidal ways, dispatching his wife's lover (John Lodge) with the Read More

Mama Loves Papa

Actors: Mary Boland, Charlie Ruggles, Lilyan Tashman, George Barbier, Morgan Wallace

Synopsis: The felicitous screen team of Mary Boland and Charles Ruggles once more collaborated with director Norman Z. McLeod for the delightful Mama Loves Papa. Middle-class Wilbur Todd (Ruggles) is content with his lot in life, but his wife Jessie (Boland) is an inveterate social climber. Convinced that Read More

Alice in Wonderland

Actors: Charlotte Henry, Richard Arlen, Roscoe Ates, William Austin, Billy Barty

Synopsis: This star-laden version of Lewis Carroll's novel combines elements of both the title novel and Carroll's sequel, Through the Looking Glass. In England of the 19th century, young Alice finds that the mirror over the library fireplace opens into a strange world. She has odd adventures and changes Read More

If I Had a Million

Actors: Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton, W.C. Fields, Charlie Ruggles, George Raft, Jack Oakie

Synopsis: Based on a story by Robert Andrews, If I Had a Million is a multipart comedy-drama employing Paramount's top directorial and acting talents. Refusing to leave his fortune to his grasping relatives, dying millionaire Richard Bennett selects several people at random from the phone book and bestows Read More

Madame Butterfly

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Cary Grant, Charlie Ruggles, Sandor Kallay, Irving Pichel

Synopsis: This adaptation of the Puccini opera jettisons all the music and retains only David Belasco's timeworn libretto. American actress Sylvia Sidney plays Japanese maiden Cio-Cio San, while Cary Grant is the dashing American navy lieutenant Pinkerton. The girl and the officer have a brief affair Read More

Love Me Tonight

Actors: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Charlie Ruggles, Charles Butterworth, Myrna Loy

Synopsis: One of the most technically accomplished and sophisticated movie musicals of the 1930's, Rouben Mamoulian's Love Me Tonight (1932) had a profound effect on the shape of the musical genre (especially the films of Vincente Minnelli), and remains a candidate for best movie musical ever made, some Read More

Melody Cruise

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Phil Harris, Greta Nissen, Helen Mack, Chick Chandler

Synopsis: Melody Cruise, director Mark Sandrich's first feature film, is an unofficial extension of Sandrich's Oscar-winning RKO short subject So This is Harris (1933). Once again, the director's star is bandleader Phil Harris, then in his wavy-haired romantic lead period. Harris plays a millionaire who Read More

Evenings for Sale

Actors: Herbert Marshall, Sara Maritza, Charlie Ruggles, Mary Boland, George Barbier

Synopsis: In this romance, an impoverished Viennese aristocrat becomes a gigolo. While on the job, he encounters a Yankee widow who is terribly impressed by titled men. They get involved and she helps him start afresh. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

70,000 Witnesses

Actors: Phillips Holmes, Dorothy Jordan, Charlie Ruggles, Johnny Mack Brown, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: This "gimmick" murder mystery begins during a crucial college football game. Wally Clark (Johnny Mack Brown), the team's star player, is killed just before making the winning touchdown, as the titular 70,000 witnesses look on. Wally's teammate Buck Buchanan (Phillips Holmes), the younger brother Read More

Trouble in Paradise

Actors: Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall, Charlie Ruggles, Edward Everett Horton

Synopsis: Ernst Lubitsch used Laszlo Aladar's play The Honest Finder as a springboard for one of his most delightful early-'30s Paramount confections. Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins play Gaston and Lily, a pair of Parisian thieves, both disguised as nobility, who decide to rob lovely perfume company Read More

Make Me a Star

Actors: Stuart Erwin, Joan Blondell, ZaSu Pitts, Ben Turpin, Charles Sellon

Synopsis: Joan Blondell, borrowed for the occasion from Warner Bros., earned top-billing in this delightful Hollywood parable, but the real star is of course Stuart Erwin as the irrepressible grocery clerk Merton Gill. Paramount screenwriters Saul Mintz, Walter De Leon and Arthur Kober based their witty Read More

The Night of June 13

Actors: Clive Brook, Lila Lee, Charlie Ruggles, Gene Raymond, Frances Dee

Synopsis: A multi-character drama set in a suburban neighborhood, The Night of June 13th takes place in four households. One of these is inhabited by unhappy husband Clive Brook, who is accused of murdering his wife. Actually, she has committed suicide, but those neighbors who could provide Brook with an Read More

One Hour with You

Actors: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Genevieve Tobin, Charlie Ruggles, Roland Young

Synopsis: A musical remake of The Marriage Circle (1924), One Hour with You stars Maurice Chevalier as a Parisian doctor and Jeanette MacDonald as his loving wife. Chevalier is scrupulously faithful, much to the chagrin of his lovely female patients. But when MacDonald's best friend Genevieve Tobin insists Read More

This Is the Night

Actors: Lili Damita, Charlie Ruggles, Roland Young, Thelma Todd, Cary Grant

Synopsis: Cary Grant made his feature film debut in 1932's This is the Night. Grant plays the Olympic-athlete husband of Thelma Todd, who in turn is the object of desire for Parisian millionaire Roland Young. To keep Grant from catching on, Young hires Lily Damita to pose as his wife. Later, Young arranges Read More

This Reckless Age

Actors: Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Richard Bennett, Peggy Shannon, Charlie Ruggles, Frances Dee

Synopsis: An early comedy about the generation gap, this 1932 movie was written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who went on to write and direct films such as Guys and Dolls and Cleopatra. Director Frank Tuttle co-wrote the script, based on a successful play called The Goose Hangs High by Lewis Beach. Donald Ingals Read More

The Smiling Lieutenant

Actors: Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert, Miriam Hopkins, Charlie Ruggles, George Barbier

Synopsis: Maurice Chevalier plays a 19th century Viennese lieutenant, conducting an affair with sexy violinist Claudette Colbert. While publicly flirting with Colbert, Chevalier is spotted by a dowdy princess (Miriam Hopkins), who thinks that the lieutenant's wink was meant for her. Forced to marry the Read More

The Beloved Bachelor

Actors: Paul Lukas, Dorothy Jordan, Betty van Allen, Charlie Ruggles, Vivienne Osborne

Synopsis: The continental-flavored comedy drama Beloved Bachelor was based on a play by Edward H. Peple. Unmarried sculptor Paul Lukas and his two bachelor pals kindheartedly adopt little orphan girl Betty Van Allen. Time passes, and awkward little Van Allen grows up to be lovely and graceful Dorothy Read More

The Girl Habit

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Tamara Geva, Sue Conroy, Margaret Dumont, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: Though he'd been given top billing at other studios, Charles Ruggles attained star status at his home lot of Paramount for the first time in 1931's The Girl Habit. Hoping to escape the murderous wrath of a gangster, wealthy middle-aged playboy Charlie Floyd (Ruggles) tries to get himself arrested. Read More

Husband's Holiday

Actors: Clive Brook, Charlie Ruggles, Vivienne Osborne, Julie Compton, Harry Bannister

Synopsis: The patience of a long-suffering wife is finally rewarded in this drama. The devoted wife has known that her husband has been having an affair for years but she has passively allowed it to continue, believing that eventually her husband will come back to her. Her belief is unshakable and when he Read More

Honor Among Lovers

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Fredric March, Monroe Owsley, Charlie Ruggles, Ginger Rogers

Synopsis: Trailblazing female director Dorothy Arzner helmed this well-crafted romantic drama. Julia Traynor (Claudette Colbert) is a secretary working for Jerry Stafford (Frederic March), a successful stock broker. Jerry has taken a decidedly non-professional interest in Julia, and when he asks her to join Read More

Young Man of Manhattan

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Norman Foster, Ginger Rogers, Charlie Ruggles, Leslie Austin

Synopsis: In this sports drama, Toby McLean, a sportswriter encounters another journalist, Ann Vaughn at the Tunney-Jack Dempsey fight. They end up married and living in a tiny New York apartment. One day he travels to St. Louis to cover the World Series and meets a socialite named Puff. Though she uses her Read More

Queen High

Actors: Stanley Smith, Ginger Rogers, Charlie Ruggles, Helen Carrington

Synopsis: In this musical comedy, two partners in the garter business fight for control and decide to play a round of poker to settle their differences. The winner will get to run the company for a year while the loser will serve as his butler. Meanwhile a pretty girl falls in love with one of their sons. Read More

Charley's Aunt

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, June Collyer, Hugh Williams, Doris Lloyd, Halliwell Hobbes

Synopsis: This first talkie version of the evergreen Brandon Thomas stage farce Charley's Aunt stars Charlie Ruggles, obviously having the time of his life in the leading role. Though updated to 1930, the film adheres to the familiar plot as set down by Thomas back in 1895. Two Oxford undergraduates Read More

Her Wedding Night

Actors: Clara Bow, Ralph Forbes, Charlie Ruggles, Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, Geneva Mitchell

Synopsis: Clara Bow's career as one of Hollywood's liveliest leading ladies was drawing to a close when she made this early sound farce, one of her few talkies. Larry Charters (Ralph Forbes) is a highly successful songwriter who is growing weary of life in the public eye. Hoping for a break, Larry convinces Read More

Roadhouse Nights

Actors: Helen Morgan, Charlie Ruggles, Fred Kohler, Jimmy Durante, Eddie Jackson

Synopsis: Jimmy Durante made his movie debut in Roadhouse Nights, a strange amalgam of musical comedy and gangster melodrama. In truth, Durante is a special added attraction, together with his nightclub partners Lou Clayton and Eddie Jackson. The film's nominal star is Helen Morgan, a nitery chanteuse whose Read More

The Battle of Paris

Actors: Gertrude Lawrence, Charlie Ruggles, Walter Petrie, Arthur Treacher

Synopsis: The great British stage star Gertrude Lawrence was seldom seen to her best advantage in films. In Paramount's Battle of Paris, Lawrence stars as Georgie, a British singer stranded in not-so-gay Paree during WWI. To keep food on the table, Georgie teams up with amiable pickpocket Zizi (Charlie Ruggles Read More

The Lady Lies

Actors: Walter Huston, Claudette Colbert, Charlie Ruggles, Patricia Deering, Tom Brown

Synopsis: When blue-blooded widower Robert Rossiter (Walter Huston) announces his plans to marry salesgirl Joyce Roamer (Claudette Colbert), his family goes out of their way to stop the engagement. Despite their original suspicion that Joyce (Colbert) was only involved with their father for his money Read More

Gentlemen of the Press

Actors: Walter Huston, Charlie Ruggles, Betty Lawford, Norman Foster

Synopsis: In this dark drama, based on a play by Ward Morehouse, the life of a tough newspaperman is chronicled. The man is a work-a-holic, and the demands of his job cause him to miss all the pleasures of his life. Because he is working on a story, he misses the birth of his daughter. He is not there for Read More

The Heart Raider

Actors: Agnes Ayres, Mahlon Hamilton, Charlie Ruggles, Frazer Coulter, Marie Burke

Synopsis: Agnes Ayres stars as Muriel Gray in the lightning-paced comedy Heart Raider. Described in an introductory title as "a speed girl," Muriel proves this assertion true as she chases after her wealthy boyfriend John Dennis (Mahlon Hamilton). Meanwhile, Muriel's father Reginald Gray (Frazer Coulter) is Read More

Hushing the Scandal

Peer Gynt

Synopsis: This first feature-length version of Henrik Ibsen's 1867 stage epic Peer Gynt was based on the recent Broadway staging by Oliver Morosco. Written in the form of a narrative poem, the story concerns a reckless, irresponsible young man who manages to find success in the world in a variety of Read More