Claire Du BreyFilmography

Frontier Gun

Actors: John Agar, Joyce Meadows, Barton MacLane, Robert Strauss, Lyn Thomas

Synopsis: 3DFrontier Gun3D is another of the moderately interesting low-budget westerns turned out by 20th Century-Fox's Regal Films subsidiary in the late 1950s. John Agar plays Jim Crayle, who offers his services as voluntary marshal when crazed gunman Yubo (Robert Strauss) inaugurates a reign of Read More

Hot Rod Gang

Actors: John Ashley, Jody Fair, Gene Vincent, Steve Drexel, Henry McCann

Synopsis: In this youthful drama, a young nephew is forced to live a highly restricted lifestyle by his two spinster aunts who will only bequeath him their fortune if he behaves like a proper gentleman. His aunts would have apoplexy if they new that their "perfect gentleman" had created a hot-rod club Read More

The Adventures of Superman: The Prince Albert Coat

Synopsis: Grandfather Jackson (Raymond Hatton) has sewn his life savings into the lining of an old coat. His grandson Bobby (Stephen Wooton) unwittingly donates the coat to a flood-relief fund drive. Reporters Lois (Noel Neill) and Jimmy (Jack Larson) endeavor to retries the coat back, but a couple of Read More

Dragnet: The Big Salvage

Synopsis: In the final episode of Dragnet's fifth TV season, Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) investigate a series of burglaries, all of which have occurred at local auto-rental agencies over a period of seven weeks. Chasing after one of the suspects, a police officer is seriously wounded, but Read More

Raiders of the Seven Seas

Actors: John Payne, Donna Reed, Gerald Mohr, Lon Chaney, Jr., Anthony Caruso

Synopsis: John Payne stars as legendary pirate Barbarossa -- aka Redbeard -- in Raiders of the Seven Seas. Capturing a Spanish galleon almost single-handedly, Barbarossa claims haughty Contessa Alida (Donna Reed) as his own property. Engaged to marry naval officer Alfredo (Gerald Mohr), Alida despises Read More

Double Dynamite

Actors: Jane Russell, Groucho Marx, Frank Sinatra, Don McGuire, Howard Freeman

Synopsis: One man's good luck leaves a very bad impression in this comedy. Johnny Dalton (Frank Sinatra) and Mildred Goodhug (Jane Russell) are two tellers working at the same bank who have fallen in love and want to get married. However, neither is making much money, and Johnny doesn't want to set a date Read More

Ace in the Hole

Actors: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur, Porter Hall, Frank Cady

Synopsis: Billy Winder directed and co-wrote this bitterly satiric comedy-drama which turns a jaundiced eye towards both the news media and its consumers. Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) is a talented but short-tempered reporter whose fondness for booze and unwillingness to bow to authority has cost him jobs at Read More

Cinderella

Actors: Ilene Woods, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Claire Du Brey, Helene Stanley

Synopsis: Cinderella was Walt Disney's return to feature-length "story" cartoons after eight years of turning out episodic pastiches like Make Mine Music and Three Caballeros. A few understandable liberties are taken with the original Charles Perrault fairy tale (the wicked stepsisters, for example, do not Read More

Destination Big House

Actors: Dorothy Patrick, Robert Rockwell, Jimmy Lydon, Robert Armstrong, Larry Blake

Synopsis: Destination Big House is a well directed Republic Programmer starring Dorothy Patrick as a vacationing schoolteacher. Gangster Richard Benedict bursts into Dorothy's mountain cabin, where he dies in a shootout with the Law. As he breathes his last, Benedict wills $80,000 to Dorothy, but neglects Read More

Samson and Delilah

Actors: Hedy Lamarr, Victor Mature, George Sanders, Angela Lansbury, Henry Wilcoxon

Synopsis: Samson and Delilah is Cecil B. DeMille's characteristically expansive retelling of the events found in the Old Testament passages of Judges 13-16. Victor Mature plays Samson, the superstrong young Danite. Samson aspires to marry Philistine noblewoman Semadar (Angela Lansbury), but she is killed Read More

Dear Wife

Actors: William Holden, Joan Caulfield, Billy De Wolfe, Mona Freeman, Edward Arnold

Synopsis: A sequel to 1947's Dear Ruth, this movie has William Holden and Joan Caulfield portraying a young married couple with some definite in-law problems. When Caulfield's younger sister gets Holden to run for the State senate, a whole new kettle of worms is opened--his opponent is his Father-in-law. In Read More

Abbott & Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff

Actors: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Boris Karloff, Lenore Aubert, Gar Moore

Synopsis: This Abbott & Costello vehicle was originally planned as a Bob Hope comedy titled Easy Does It. The Hope role is fairly evenly divided between Bud Abbott, as hotel house detective Casey Edwards, and Lou Costello, as bumbling bellhop Lou Costello. When a much-hated criminal attorney (Nicholas Joy Read More

Streets of San Francisco

Actors: Robert Armstrong, Mae Clarke, Gary Gray, Wally Cassell, Richard Benedict

Synopsis: No relation to the 1970s TV series of the same name, Republic's Streets of San Francisco stars Hollywood veterans Robert Armstrong and Mae Clarke. Armstrong plays Willard Logan, a tough Frisco detective who is forced to killer a gangster leader. Logan takes pity on the gangster's orphaned son Read More

The Loves of Carmen

Actors: Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, Ron Randell, Victor Jory, Luther Adler, Arnold Moss

Synopsis: Perhaps it's just as well that Columbia elected to film Prosper Merimee's Carmen without Georges Bizet's music: after all, Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford weren't exactly Leontyne Price and Robert Merrill. The Loves of Carmen is a reasonably faithful rehash of Merimee's story of the tempestuous gypsy Read More

Every Girl Should Be Married

Actors: Cary Grant, Franchot Tone, Diana Lynn, Betsy Drake, Alan Mowbray

Synopsis: Cary Grant met his future wife Betsy Drake on the set of the appropriately titled Every Girl Should be Married. Grant plays well-known baby specialist Madison Brown, who is Dr. Spock in everything but name. After a chance meeting with headstrong young Anabel Sins (Drake), poor Brown finds his Read More

Out of the Storm

Actors: Jimmy Lydon, Lois Collier, Marc Lawrence, Richard Travis, Robert Emmett Keane

Synopsis: Former "Henry Aldrich" James Lydon acquits himself nicely in a serious role in Republic's Out of the Storm. Lydon plays Donald Lewis, a low-paid clerk in a high-profile shipbuilding firm. When the company is robbed in broad daylight, Lewis gathers up $100,000 on his own and skeedaddles, figuring Read More

Who Killed Doc Robbin?

Actors: Don Castle, George Zucco, Whitford Kane, Claire Du Brey

Synopsis: Producer Hal Roach's postwar attempt to create a new bunch of "Our Gang" kids resulted in two misfire Cinecolor comedies, the second of which was Who Killed Doc Robbin. Heading this unappealing new crop of youngsters is Jackie Cooper lookalike Larry Olsen as Curley, who enters the story when Read More

Lightnin' in the Forest

Actors: Lynne Roberts, Warren Douglas, Adrian Booth, Lucien Littlefield

Synopsis: Lightnin' in the Forest is a rare Republic Studios foray into the comedy field, kept alive by the rapport between its stars. Lynne Roberts plays an Eastern gal who heads to the North Woods, looking for thrills. Vacationing psychiatrist Warren Douglas likewise journeys to the tall timbers, in Read More

French Leave

Actors: Jackie Cooper, Jackie Coogan, Ralph Sanford, Curt Bois, Renee Godfrey

Synopsis: Monogram's French Leave received an inordinate amount of press coverage because of its teaming of two former child stars. Jackie Cooper and Jackie Coogan play a couple of amorous merchant seamen on the loose in a small French village. Hoping to score with the local mademoiselles, the two Jackies Read More

The Bishop's Wife

Actors: Cary Grant, Loretta Young, David Niven, Monty Woolley, James Gleason, Gladys Cooper

Synopsis: When Episcopalian bishop Henry Brougham (David Niven) prays for divine guidance in his efforts to raise the necessary funds for a new cathedral, his prayers are answered in the form of a handsome, personable guardian angel named Dudley (Cary Grant). Establishing himself as a Yuletide guest in the Read More

The Homestretch

Actors: Cornel Wilde, Maureen O'Hara, Glenn Langan, Helen Walker, James Gleason

Synopsis: In this drama, a Bostonian socialite marries the owner of a racehorse and begins a life of globe-trotting from international track to track until her hubby runs out of money. In desperation, he borrows money from an ex-girlfriend who decides that she will not let him leave her again. Meanwhile Read More

Unconquered

Actors: Gary Cooper, Paulette Goddard, Howard Da Silva, Boris Karloff, Katherine de Mille, Ward Bond

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille's first postwar production, the $5 million Technicolor historical spectacular Unconquered lacks only the kitchen sink. The story begins in England in the 1760s, as Abigail Martha Hale (Paulette Goddard), unjustly accused of a crime against the Crown, is sentenced by the Lord Chief Read More

Bells of San Fernando

Actors: Donald Woods, Gloria Warren, Shirley O'Hara Krims, Byron Foulger, Paul Newlan

Synopsis: Bells of San Fernando was advertised as a romantic adventure, but it plays more like a Western. Donald Woods plays an Irish immigrant who teams with Mexican gal Gloria Warren to combat land baron Anthony Warde. Whenever the plot lags, Warren sings. Catch the name of "Renault Duncan" in the Read More

The Invisible Informer

Actors: Donia Bussey, Tristram Coffin, William Henry

Synopsis: Invisible Informer serves as a feature-length vehicle for Republic serial queen Linda Stirling. The story is set in motion by a missing necklace, worth $100,000. The insurance agency covering the necklace suspects that the "theft" is a fraud, and dispatches special operatives Eve Murray (Stirling) Read More

Don Ricardo Returns

Actors: Fred Colby

Synopsis: In this adventure, set in Old California, a Spanish nobleman journeys to California to claim an inheritance. He soon discovers that his greedy cousin has laid claim to the wealth by declaring the Spaniard legally dead. The resourceful nobleman decides to trap his wicked relative by posing as a Read More

Cloak and Dagger

Actors: Gary Cooper, Lilli Palmer, Robert Alda, Vladimir Sokoloff, J. Edward Bromberg, Marjorie Hoshelle

Synopsis: Inspired by actual events, Cloak and Dagger was first major "atomic power" melodrama of the postwar era. Gary Cooper stars as bookish physics professor Alvah Jesper, a character obviously based on A-bomb codeveloper J. Robert Oppenheimer. Pressed into service by the OSS in the last months of WW2 Read More

The Secret of the Whistler

Synopsis: The Whistler, mysterious narrator of the radio series of the same name, "knows many things" for he "walks by night." This time the unseen whistler knows all about mentally disturbed artist Richard Dix, whose first wife died under mysterious circumstances. Wife Number Two (Leslie Brooks) begins to Read More

Dakota

Actors: John Wayne, Vera Ralston, Walter Brennan, Ward Bond, Mike Mazurki

Synopsis: According to Hollywood lore, both John Wayne and director Frank Borzage refused to work with Vera Hruba Ralston, the Czech-born inamorata (and future wife) of Republic Pictures owner Herbert I. Yates. Yates somehow managed to convince Wayne to change his mind, but Borzage was replaced by contract Read More

Rhapsody in Blue

Actors: Robert Alda, Joan Leslie, Alexis Smith, Charles Coburn, Julie Bishop, Oscar Levant

Synopsis: There's slightly more fancy than fact in this lavish film biography of legendary American composer George Gershwin, but oh! That music! Director Irving Rapper had wanted Tyrone Power to play Gershwin, but Power was still serving in the Marines, so Rapper had to settle for Robert Alda--who isn't Read More

A Song to Remember

Actors: Paul Muni, Merle Oberon, Cornel Wilde, Stephen Bekassy, George Coulouris, Nina Foch

Synopsis: One of the most successful filmed biographies of the 1940s, A Song to Remember alleges to be the true story of Polish composer Frederick Chopin. Actually, it has about as much relation to truth as a Heckle and Jeckle cartoon, but with such gorgeous creatures as Cornel Wilde and Merle Oberon in the Read More

Oh, What a Night

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Marjorie Rambeau, Jean Parker, Pierre Watkin, Alan Dinehart

Synopsis: Edmund Lowe was old enough to know better when he starred in the anachronistic Monogram crime comedy Oh, What a Night! Lowe plays Rand, a suave gentleman jewel thief who plans to divest clueless dowager Lil Vanderhoven (Marjorie Rambeau) of her diamonds. Complicating matters is the appearance of Read More

Dragon Seed

Actors: Katharine Hepburn, Walter Huston, Aline MacMahon, Akim Tamiroff, J. Carrol Naish, Turhan Bey

Synopsis: This lavish, 145-minute cinemadaptation of the Pearl Buck best-seller Dragon Seed was intended by MGM as a followup to the studio's successful film version of Buck's The Good Earth. In true Hollywood fashion, the Chinese protagonists are all played by Caucasian actors, with fascinating if not Read More

The Lights of Old Santa Fe

Actors: Roy Rogers, George "Gabby" Hayes, Dale Evans, Lloyd Corrigan

Synopsis: Roy Rogers saves Dale Evans from being hoodwinked by a rodeo competitor in this pleasant, and pleasantly tuneful, B-Western from Republic Pictures. Due to the mismanagement of old-timer Gabby Whittaker (George "Gabby" Hayes), The Brooks Rodeo is about to be gobbled up by competitor Frank Madden Read More

Heaven Can Wait

Actors: Don Ameche, Gene Tierney, Charles Coburn, Marjorie Main, Laird Cregar

Synopsis: On the day of his death in 1943, the spirit of Henry Van Cleave (Don Ameche) obligingly heads for the place where so many people had previously told him to go. The immaculately dressed septuagenarian arrives at the outer offices of Hades, where he is greeted by His Excellency (Laird Cregar), the Read More

Bells of Capistrano

Actors: Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, Virginia Grey, Lucien Littlefield, Morgan Conway

Synopsis: In his final film before entering war service, Gene Autry joins the World Wide Wild West Show, a faltering enterprise about to be taken over by the more powerful Johnson Bros. Rodeo, and his success as the Singing Bronco Buster allows the show to open at San Capistrano instead of the rival outfit. Read More

The Magnificent Dope

Actors: Henry Fonda, Don Ameche, Edward Everett Horton, George Barbier

Synopsis: In order to be permitted to appear in "prestige" items like Grapes of Wrath and The Ox-Bow Incident, Henry Fonda had to agree to appear in such inconsequential fluff as The Magnificent Dope. On its own terms, however, this gentle satire of the "Dale Carnegie" school of self-help is pretty funny. Read More

A Close Call for Ellery Queen

Actors: William Gargan, Margaret Lindsay, Charles Grapewin, Ralph Morgan, Kay Linaker

Synopsis: William Gargan takes over from Ralph Bellamy as the title character in Columbia's A Close Call for Ellery Queen. Unlike Bellamy, who played the role of Ellery Queen for laughs, Gargan adopts a more sober approach, much to the overall benefit of the film. The story takes place at the lavish country Read More

The Gay Sisters

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Donald Crisp, Nancy Coleman

Synopsis: In this grim melodrama, Barbara Stanwyck plays the eldest of three wealthy sisters who become orphans when their father dies in France. Threatened with the danger of losing the opulent family home, Big Sister makes a grand sacrifice and secretly marries a real estate developer so she can inherit Read More

Juke Box Jenny

Actors: Ken Murray, Harriet Hilliard, Donald Douglas, Iris Adrian, Marjorie Gateson

Synopsis: Back in the 1940s, it was not uncommon for recording artists to cut records exclusively for the jukebox trade, and sometimes to perform musical numbers "live" to jukeboxes via telephone hookup. Perhaps it is necessary for one to know these things before viewing Jukebox Jenny, very much a product Read More

Now, Voyager

Actors: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Bonita Granville, Gladys Cooper, Ilka Chase

Synopsis: Olive Higgins Prouty's popular novel was transformed into nearly two hours of high-grade soap opera by several masters of the trade: Warner Bros., Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, director Irving Rapper, and screenwriter Casey Robinson. Davis plays repressed Charlotte Vale, dying on the vine thanks to Read More

Rise and Shine

Actors: Jack Oakie, George Murphy, Linda Darnell, Walter Brennan, Milton Berle

Synopsis: Jack Oakie is near the top of his form as Boley Bolenciecwcz, the best college football player to come down the pike in a generation. But Boley has two problems -- he likes to sleep a lot when he's not training, and he isn't terribly bright, and might just fail his examinations and become Read More

Private Nurse

Actors: Jane Darwell, Brenda Joyce, Sheldon Leonard, Robert Lowery, Ann E. Todd

Synopsis: Jane Darwell is the whole show in the 61-minute 20th Century-Fox programmer Private Nurse. The formidable Ms. Darwell is first scene at a birthday party, thrown in her honor by her favorite charge, little Ann Todd. The daughter of ex-gangster Sheldon Leonard, Todd has been raised to believe that Read More

The Shop Around the Corner

Actors: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Frank Morgan, Joseph Schildkraut, Sara Haden

Synopsis: The Shop Around the Corner is adapted from the Hungarian play by Nikolaus (Miklos) Laszlo. Budapest gift-shop clerk Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) and newly hired shopgirl Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) hate each other almost at first sight. Kralik would prefer the company of the woman with whom Read More

Brigham Young

Actors: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Dean Jagger, Brian Donlevy, Jane Darwell

Synopsis: Inspired by the true story of the leader of the Mormon Church, this film features Dean Jagger in the title role. The members of the Church of Latter Day Saints are subjected to religious persecution by the people of Nauvoo, Illinois, where they've settled; so under the leadership of Brigham Young Read More

High School

Actors: Jane Withers, Joe Brown, Jr., Lloyd Corrigan, Claire Du Brey, Lynne Roberts

Synopsis: Unlike Shirley Temple, Jane Withers was permitted to "grow up" in her 20th Century-Fox vehicles. Since Withers was 13 going on 14 in 1940, it was only natural that she should star in a film titled High School. Fresh from her family's Texas cattle ranch, rambunctious Jane Wallace (Wither) is sent Read More

All This and Heaven Too

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

The Blue Bird

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

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

Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise

Actors: Sidney Toler, Marjorie Weaver, Lionel Atwill, Robert Lowery

Synopsis: Though the 1931 Fox release Charlie Chan Carries On apparently no longer exists, modern viewers can get a general idea of the film's quality by taking a look at its 1940 remake, Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise. On the verge of revealing the identity of an international murderer, a Scotland Yard man Read More

Youth Will Be Served

Actors: Jane Withers, Jane Darwell, Roberl Conway, Elyse Knox, Joe Brown, Jr.

Synopsis: In this musical comedy, a young woman is sent to a National Youth Administration camp after her father is arrested for making moonshine. While there, a local developer endeavors to buy up the camp. To save it, the young woman stages an elaborate camp show. The developer is enchanted and changes Read More

South of the Border

Actors: Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, June Storey, Lupita Tovar, Mary Lee

Synopsis: South of the Border, a western directered by George Sherman, features two United States government agents (Gene Autry) and (Smiley Burnette) and their trip to Mexico, where they hope to stop German agents from forming a revolution. This propagandist musical feature was released approximately two Read More

The Story of Alexander Graham Bell

Actors: Don Ameche, Loretta Young, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: This fictionalized biography of the famed American inventor's life provided actor Don Ameche with his signature role. For years after its release, people even referred to the telephone as "an Ameche." The story begins in 1873 Boston as Bell endeavors to teach deaf people to speak in the manner Read More

Tell No Tales

Actors: Melvyn Douglas, Louise Platt, Gene Lockhart, Douglas Dumbrille, Florence George

Synopsis: A model of precision and economy, the MGM "B" thriller Tell No Tales represented the feature-film directorial debut of former actor Leslie Fenton. Reportedly an expansion of a "Crime Does Not Pay" 2-reeler, the story follows editor Michael Cassidy (Melvyn Douglas) as he tries to save his newspaper Read More

The Strange Case of Dr. Meade

Actors: Jack Holt, Beverly Roberts, Paul Everton, Noah Beery, Jr., John Qualen

Synopsis: In this drama, a New York physician takes a much-needed vacation down South. Unfortunately, he encounters a nurse working in the backwoods and ends up helping her to combat an epidemic that rages through the mountain communities. The doctor she works for prefers traditional herbs to modern Read More

Jesse James

Actors: Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda, Nancy Kelly, Randolph Scott, Henry Hull, Brian Donlevy

Synopsis: The real Frank and Jesse James were murderous thugs, light years away from the Robin Hood image imposed on them by revisionist dime novelists. But in 1939, 20th Century-Fox wasn't about to build an expensive Technicolor feature around the exploits of a couple of low-lives, thus Jesse James upholds Read More

When Tomorrow Comes

Actors: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Barbara O'Neil, Onslow Stevens, Nydia Westman

Synopsis: Following up their successful film Love Affair, Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne team up again for the romantic melodrama When Tomorrow Comes, based on a story by James M. Cain. Philip (Boyer) is a concert pianist who stops into a restaurant for lunch and meets waitress Helen Lawrence (Dunne). He Read More

The Forgotten Woman

Actors: Eve Arden, William Lundigan, Donald Briggs, Donnie Dunagan

Synopsis: Sigrid Gurie, the Swede from Brooklyn who in 1938 was touted as Sam Goldwyn's answer to Garbo, was taking whatever work she could get in 1939. Forgotten Woman casts Gurie as a woman unjustly sent to prison. Four years go by before the DA unearths new evidence that proves her innocence. But first Read More

Little Miss Broadway

Actors: Shirley Temple, George Murphy, Jimmy Durante, Phyllis Brooks, Edna May Oliver

Synopsis: Child star Shirley Temple was getting a bit long in the tooth (at age 10!) by the time she made Little Miss Broadway. Facing the possibility that Temple's appeal was beginning to slip, the producers overstocked the film with top musical-comedy performers and character actors. The curly-topped Read More

Everybody's Baby

Actors: Jed Prouty, Shirley Deane, Spring Byington, Russell Gleason, Ken Howell

Synopsis: The Jones Family is at it again in Everybody's Baby, their first 1939 release (previewed in 1938). This time, the Joneses' lives are turned inside-out by the arrival in town of Dr. Pilicoff (Reginald Denny), a famous child-rearing expert. In attempting to put Pilicoff's theories into practice, the Read More

Men with Wings

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Ray Milland, Louise Campbell, Andy Devine, Lynne Overman

Synopsis: Brash and vigorous director William Wellman always had a place in his filmography for movies glorifying the early years of aviation -- from the start of his career (Wings), until the end (Lafayette Escadrille). But, perhaps, never has his devotion to aviation been made more vivid than in his 1938 Read More

That Certain Age

Actors: Deanna Durbin, Melvyn Douglas, Jackie Cooper, Irene Rich, Nancy Carroll

Synopsis: In this musical romantic comedy of 1938, Deanna Durbin plays Alice Fullerton, a young woman of a "certain age" who is prone to developing crushes against her best judgment. Her parents have taken in an intriguing house guest, Vincent Bullitt (Melvyn Douglas), a successful international news Read More

The Baroness and the Butler

Actors: William Powell, Annabella, Helen Westley, Henry Stephenson, Joseph Schildkraut

Synopsis: The Baroness, daughter of the Hungarian prime minister, is played by Annabella. The Butler, last of a long line of family retainers, is played by William Powell. The butler works for the baroness' father, and the relationship between baroness and butler is outwardly chilly but subliminally Read More

Mountain Justice

Actors: Josephine Hutchinson, George Brent, Guy Kibbee, Mona Barrie, Robert H. Barrat

Synopsis: In this depressing drama, even though she is an adult, the eldest daughter of a hillbilly clan headed by a brutal patriarch still must endure his vicious beatings. Finally her mother and other friends counsel her to leave the hills. She does and ends up in New York where she enrolls in nursing Read More

Wife, Doctor and Nurse

Actors: Loretta Young, Warner Baxter, Virginia Bruce, Jane Darwell, Sidney Blackmer

Synopsis: Loretta Young is the wife, Warner Baxter the doctor and Virginia Bruce the nurse in this 20th Century-Fox trifle. Society gal Young marries Park Avenue medico Baxter, little guessing that humble nursie Bruce also loves the doc. Young raises vociferous objections, compelling Bruce to leave. Read More

Nothing Sacred

Actors: Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Charles Winninger, Walter Connolly, Sig Rumann

Synopsis: "This is New York, Skyscraper Champion of the World...Where the Slickers and Know-It-Alls peddle gold bricks to each other...And where Truth, crushed to earth, rises again more phony than a glass eye..." With this jaundiced opening title, scripter Ben Hecht introduces his classic comedy Nothing Sacred Read More

Ramona

Actors: Loretta Young, Don Ameche

Synopsis: First filmed in 1910, the venerable Helen Hunt Jackson novel Ramona was remade in 1936 in full Technicolor (20th Century-Fox's first such production). Loretta Young plays Ramona, a half-Indian girl raised by a white family in Spanish California. She falls in love with the young man of the Read More

The Devil Doll

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Frank Lawton, Robert Greig, Lucy Beaumont

Synopsis: Falsely convicted Lionel Barrymore escapes from Devil's Island with fellow prisoner H.B. Walthall. A brilliant scientist, Walthall reveals to Barrymore that he has developed a process to shrink human beings. Upon Walthall's death, Barrymore makes his way back to the old scientist's lab, intending Read More

Life Begins at 40

Actors: Will Rogers, Rochelle Hudson, Richard Cromwell, George Barbier, Jane Darwell

Synopsis: A best-selling nonfictional book of the 1920s provided the title for this Will Rogers vehicle. Rogers plays a small town newspaper editor who prints all the news that fits his own homespun view of the world. Against the wishes of the town higher-ups, Rogers tries to clear the name of Richard Cromwell Read More

Shadows of Sing Sing

Actors: Mary Brian, Bruce Cabot, Grant Mitchell, Harry Woods, Claire Du Brey

Synopsis: Assistant DA Bob Martel (Bruce Cabot) is in love with sweet Muriel (Mary Brian). This in itself is not earth-shattering, except that Muriel is the sister of gangster boss Rossi (Harry Woods). The latter frames Martel for murder, but the police forensics lab provides a surprising solution to his Read More

Among the Missing

Actors: Ivan Simpson, Ben Taggart, Wade Boteler, Harry C. Bradley, Claire Du Brey

Synopsis: In this drama, an old woman gets disgusted by her relatives and runs away from home. She then begins working as a cook in the home of a prominent antique dealer who works as a jewel thief on the side. As the chef, she gradually meets all of his gang members and takes a special liking to one young Read More

This Side of Heaven

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Fay Bainter, Mae Clarke, Tom Brown, Una Merkel

Synopsis: This Side of Heaven is an early, muted example of what would refine itself into the "screwball comedy" genre. Lionel Barrymore plays an accountant, who's also the head of a large family consisting principally of dizzy buffoons. Not only that, but the Barrymore clan is selfish, totally Read More

Jane Eyre

Actors: Virginia Bruce, Colin Clive, Beryl Mercer, Jameson Thomas, Aileen Pringle

Synopsis: This version of the Charlotte Bronte classic is the first to use sound. The story closely follows the book as it chronicles the romantic travails of a troubled orphan girl who grows up to be a governess in love with her employer who returns her affections. She has finally found happiness. Alas Read More

Gabriel Over the White House

Actors: Walter Huston, Karen Morley, Franchot Tone, Arthur Byron, Dickie Moore

Synopsis: In 1933, at the height of the bleakness and desperation of the Depression, MGM released this genuine curiosity piece -- directed by comedy (!) director Gregory La Cava -- concerning a Warren G. Harding-like partisan hand-shaker President of the United States who, after seeing a vision, revokes the Read More

Broadway to Hollywood

Actors: Alice Brady, Frank Morgan, Madge Evans, Russell Hardie, Jackie Cooper

Synopsis: Broadway to Hollywood is a through-the-years saga about a show business family. Frank Morgan and Alice Brady play vaudeville headliners of the 1880s whose fame is eclipsed by their son (played as a youth by Jackie Cooper, then as an adult by Russell Hardie). Morgan and Brady are reduced to bit Read More

Sin of Nora Moran

Actors: Zita Johann, Alan Dinehart, Paul Cavanagh, John Miljan, Claire Du Brey

Synopsis: Having confessed to murder, Nora Moran (Zita Johann) sits sadly on death row, waiting her date with the electric chair. In flashback, the audience is apprised of the events leading up to this present sorry state. It turns out that Nora is innocent; she has taken the blame to shield her lover Read More

Ever in My Heart

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Otto Kruger, Ralph Bellamy, Ruth Donnelly, Frank Albertson

Synopsis: An espionage drama set in the early 20th century, Ever in My Heart stars Barbara Stanwyck as a New England naif who marries a German citizen (Otto Kruger). In 1915, Stanwyck and her husband suffer a brace of blows: The death of their son, and the sinking of the Lusitania, the latter Read More

For the Love O'Lil

Actors: Jack Mulhall, Elliott Nugent, Sally Starr, Margaret Livingston, Charles Sellon

Synopsis: Lawyer Wyn Huntley (Jack Mulhall) is a lion in the courtroom, but a lamb when it comes to women. In love with the beautiful but financially irresponsible Lil (Sally Starr), Wyn is advised that the way to Lil's heart is to indulge her every extravagance. Unfortunately, the man offering this advice Read More

Two Sisters

Actors: Viola Dana, Rex Lease, Claire Du Brey, Boris Karloff

Synopsis: Viola Dana plays both of the title characters in Rayart's Two Sisters. One of the heroines is a daring female bandit, while the other is her sweet, virtuous sister. A murder is committed, and both girls fall under suspicion. With precisely no help from intrusive comedy-relief character Irving Bacon Read More

Devil Dancer

Actors: Gilda Gray, Clive Brook, Michael Vavitch

Synopsis: Hip-swinging danseuse Gilda Gray, the girl who created the late-'20s dance craze "The Shimmy," plays the provocatively underdressed title character in The Devil Dancer. Written by Alice Duer Miller, this the story of Takia (Gray), a white girl brought up in a remote oriental Lamasery. English Read More

Miss Nobody

Actors: Anna Q. Nilsson, Louise Fazenda, Walter Pidgeon, Arthur Stone

Synopsis: In this romantic silent adventure, a beautiful heiress goes to California for a visit and while there learns that her New York-dwelling father has died and left her penniless. Now desperately poor, she takes up with a rich, handsome cad and escorts him to a masquerade ball where she dresses as a Read More

The Exquisite Sinner

Actors: Conrad Nagel, Renée Adorée, Paulette Duval, Frank Currier, George K. Arthur

Synopsis: Josef von Sternberg had been the original director of Exquisite Sinner, but MGM was dissatisfied with the picture and refused to release it. When the film finally surfaced in 1926 (a full year after its completion), it had been radically altered by staff director Phil Rosen. Adapted by Alice Duer Miller Read More

Drusilla with a Million

Actors: Mary Carr, Priscilla Bonner, Kenneth Harlan, Henry Barrows, William Humphreys

Synopsis: Mary Carr (the charming old woman from Over the Hill to the Poorhouse) plays Drusilla Doane, a charity case at an old ladies' home. When Elias Arnold (Henry Barrows) gets upset with his son, Collin (Kenneth Harlan), he wills his fortune to Drusilla instead. Upon his death, the old lady finds Read More

The Sea Hawk

Actors: Milton Sills, Enid Bennett, Lloyd Hughes, Wallace MacDonald, Marc MacDermott

Synopsis: This 12-reel silent adaptation of The Sea Hawk is far more faithful to the Rafael Sabatini original than the 1940 Errol Flynn version. Milton Sills stars as Sir Oliver Tressilien, a wealthy English baronet who is framed for the murder of his fiancée's brother. The instigator of this outrage is Sir Read More

Infatuation

Actors: Corinne Griffith, Percy Marmont, Malcolm McGregor, Warner Oland, Clarissa Selwynne

Synopsis: Not a remake of the 1915 Margarita Fischer vehicle of the same name, Infatuation is based on Caesar's Wife, a story by Somerset Maugham. The dazzlingly beautiful Corinne Griffith plays British socialite Viola Morgan, who falls madly in love with professional soldier Sir Arthur Little (Percy Marmont Read More

Voice from the Minaret

Actors: Norma Talmadge, Eugene O'Brien, Edwin Stevens, Winter Hall, Carl Gerard

Synopsis: This picture, based on the novel and play by Robert Hichens, was typical melodramatic fare for star Norma Talmadge. Lord Carlyle (Edwin Stevens) governs a province in India. Although he weds the beautiful Adrienne (Talmadge), he can't make her love him. And no wonder -- he's not only cruel, he's Read More

To Have and to Hold

Actors: Betty Compson, Bert Lytell, Theodore Kosloff, W.J. Ferguson, Raymond Hatton

Synopsis: This epic historical romance, based on the novel by Mary Johnston, was one of Paramount's big releases for 1922, and it featured some of the studio's best talent. King James I (Raymond Hatton) gives his consent to the marriage between Lord Carnal (Theodore Kosloff) and Lady Jocelyn Leigh (Betty Read More

Only a Shop Girl

Actors: Estelle Taylor, William Scott, Mae Busch, James Morrison, Josephine Adair

Synopsis: While no one could ever call the cast to this melodrama "all star," it certainly features some of the best second-stringers and character actors who were around in 1923. James Watkins (Willard Louis), who owns a department store, is even more wicked than your average womanizer. He has Danny Mulvey Read More

The Ordeal

Actors: Agnes Ayres, Clarence Burton, Conrad Nagel, Edna Murphy

Synopsis: W. Somerset Maugham's first original story for the screen proves one thing -- Maugham could not translate his inspiration to film on his own. All he could come up with was this hackneyed drama. Agnes Ayres plays Sybil Bruce, one of those long-suffering maidens found by the dozens in silent Read More

The Hole in the Wall

Actors: Alice Lake, Allan Forrest, Frank Brownlee, Charles Clary, William de Vaull

Synopsis: Alice Lake stars in this clever crime drama, which had a script written by June Mathis. When spiritualist Madame Mysteria is killed in a train wreck, her three associates decide to replace her instead of declaring her dead. One of them, the Fox (Charles Clary), calls on Jean Oliver (Lake), who he Read More

I Am Guilty

Actors: Louise Glaum, Mahlon Hamilton, Claire Du Brey, Joseph Kilgour, Ruth Stonehouse

Synopsis: Connie (Louise Glaum) is married to attorney Robert MacNair (Mahlon Hamilton). When he leaves town on a business trip, her friend from the old days, Molly May (May Hopkins), invites her to a party. Connie, who misses her old life, decides to go under an assumed name. Teddy Garrick, the host (Joseph Kilgour Read More

The Bronze Bell

Synopsis: A major -- and rare -- failure from legendary producer Thomas H. Ince, The Bronze Bell starred British-born stage idol Courtenay Foote as a Long Island socialite doubling as an Far Eastern revolutionary. As the title indicated, the story hinged upon a huge bell, the possession of which could shake Read More

My Lady's Latchkey

Actors: Katherine MacDonald, Edmund Lowe, Claire Du Brey

Synopsis: Annesley Grayle (Katherine MacDonald) answers an ad for a traveling companion to an elderly matron to escape the boredom of living with her aunt. When she goes to meet the lady at the Savoy Hotel, an obviously panicky Nelson Smith (Edmund Lowe) asks her to pose as his wife to escape some impending Read More

The Green Flame

Synopsis: The Green Flame is the precious jewel which motivates the plot of this hectic mellerdrammer. J. Warren Kerrigan is his usual stalwart self as a private detective, employed by the Jewelers Protective Association. The PI goes undercover to retrieve the titular gem, which has been stolen by thieves Read More

The Old Maid's Baby

Synopsis: Baby Marie Osborne was the Shirley Temple of the 1910s. Here she plays Christine, the daughter of a couple of circus performers. Her mother (Marion Werner) is a lady balloonist and her father (Jack Richardson) is a clown. When the circus reaches the mother's home town, she is snubbed by her Read More

The Sawdust Doll

Synopsis: Baby Marie Osborne -- the 1910s' version of Shirley Temple -- saves the day in this drama. Jim Davis (Jack Connolly) is a young widower who works as a blacksmith in a small town. He gives his little daughter, Sally Lou (Baby Marie), a sawdust doll which she adores and pretends is her mother. A Read More

The Devil's Trail

Synopsis: In a post located in the far reaches of the frozen North, whiskey runner Dubec (Fred M. Malatesa) murders the wife of commander Sergeant Delisle and kidnaps his eighteen-year-old daughter. Over the next twelve years, the Sergeant's younger daughter Julie (Betty Compson) grows up and, as he is Read More

A Man in the Open

Synopsis: Dauntless Dustin Farnum stars in the rugged western Man in the Open. A retired sailor, Farnum heads to the wide open spaces, where he becomes a federal ranger. When not busy battling the villains, Our Hero dallies with such saloon-hall lovelies as Claire DuBrey and such sweetness 'n' light types Read More

Brace Up

Synopsis: The motivating factor of the Universal five-reeler Brace Up was the then-new science of Psychology -- or, as it was labelled here, "Mental Inspiration." Hero Henry Court (Herbert Rawlinson) is very much his parents' child, having inherited the predominant character traits of both his go-getting Read More

Prisoner of the Pines

Synopsis: Hillaire Latour (J. Warren Kerrigan) is a French Canadian trapper who decides to become a lumberman when he sees the amounts of money they earn. He marries his sweetheart Rosalie (Lois Wilson) and heads off to make enough money so that they can set up housekeeping. While he is away, Rosalie has a Read More

The Risky Road

Synopsis: Stenographer Marjorie Helmer (Dorothy Phillips) embarks upon the "risky road" when she agrees to be the kept woman of her former employer Melville Kingston (William Stowell). Curiously, Majorie's "protector" adopts a strictly hands-off policy, but try telling that to the girl's hometown beau Bob Read More

Madame Spy

Synopsis: Jack Mulhall stars as the ne'er-do-well son of a US admiral. When Mulhall discovers that his dad's butler is really a German spy, he is handed a golden opportunity to make good. Upon the arrival of "Madame Spy" (Claire DuBrey), Mulhall waylays the lady and assumes her identity-evening gown Read More

The Almost Good Man

Piper's Price

Synopsis: In the Dark Ages of the silent era, when female movie characters were expecting, their pregnancies never, ever showed -- the baby just miraculously appeared one day. While this seems ludicrous now, somehow audiences of the day were able to suspend disbelief, which is why they didn't laugh at this Read More

Anything Once

Actors: Franklin Farnum, Claire Du Brey, Marjory Lawrence, Mary St. John, Sam de Grasse

Synopsis: Playboy Franklyn Farnum inherits a Western ranch on the condition that he shall run it properly for 6 months. A villain (none other than Lon Chaney) makes an attempt to distract him from reaching the goal, but Farnum, no longer the wastrel of yore, persists and becomes full owner of the property. Read More

Triumph

Synopsis: Triumph was adapted from a story by Samuel Hopkins Adams, originally serialized in the pages of Collier's magazine. Arriving in New York in hopes of becoming an actress, country girl Nell Baxter (Dorothy Phillips) immediately catches the eye of rapacious theater manager Paul Nelhoff (Lon Chaney Read More

Winged Mystery

Actors: Franklin Farnum

Synopsis: The Winged Mystery was supposed to have been taken seriously, but audiences and critics alike regarded the film as a laugh riot. Most of the story takes place in a grim country mansion, which serves as an "airstrip" for a collection of carrier pigeons. Each time one of the pigeons takes flight Read More

Pay Me

Synopsis: After several years of lending support to "bigger" Universal contract players, Lon Chaney Sr. was at last afforded star billing in Pay Me. Typically, however, Chaney's character, shiftless wanderer Joe Lawson, was secondary to the film's "official" star, Dorothy Phillips. The story concentrates on Read More

Red Saunders Plays Cupid

The Rescue

Synopsis: The successful star-director team of Dorothy Phillips and Ida May Park served up another box-office winner with The Rescue. Though she despises her ex-husband Kent (William Stowell), Anne Wetherell (Phillips) agrees to marry him again. The reason? Anne wants to spare Kent's latest sweetheart Nell Read More

Civilization

Actors: Howard Hickman, Enid Markey, Herschel Mayall, George Fisher, Frank J. Burke

Synopsis: With American opinion divided over the European war in 1915, no fewer than three major motion pictures were conceived with anti-war messages in mind: J. Stuart Blackton's The Battle Cry of Peace, D.W. Griffith's Intolerance and Thomas Ince's Civilization. Set in the mythical kingdom of Wredpryd Read More

Peggy

Synopsis: Billie Burke, the wonderfully giddy Broadway star and the wife of impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, made her film debut in the tailor-made vehicle Peggy. The heroine, Peggy Cameron, is a high-society debutante with a mind of her own. After making a public spectacle of herself once too often, Peggy is Read More