David O. SelznickFilmography

The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind

Synopsis: This made-for-cable documentary traces the filming of the imperishable classic Gone with the Wind, from its inception to its triumphant Atlanta premiere in December of 1939. Filmmaker David Hinton interviews as many survivors of the experience as he's able to round up, but the main attraction of Read More

A Farewell to Arms

Crew: Producer

Actors: Rock Hudson, Jennifer Jones, Vittorio De Sica, Alberto Sordi, Kurt Kasznar, Mercedes McCambridge

Synopsis: Farewell to Arms is the second film version of Ernest Hemingway's World War One novel--and also the last film produced by David O. Selznick (Gone with the Wind). Rock Hudson plays an American serving in the Italian Army during the "War to End All Wars". Jennifer Jones is his lover, a Red cross Read More

Indiscretion of an American Wife

Crew: Producer

Actors: Jennifer Jones, Montgomery Clift, Gino Cervi, Richard Beymer

Synopsis: Legendary producer David O. Selznick teamed with Italian neorealist Vittorio De Sica (The Bicycle Thief) to bring audiences this heartfelt romantic drama concerning the pain of lost love and the difficulty of saying goodbye. When a beautiful but married American woman, Mary Forbes (Jennifer Read More

Terminal Station

Crew: Producer

Actors: Jennifer Jones, Montgomery Clift, Gino Cervi, Richard Beymer

Synopsis: Indiscretion of an American Wife began its life as a romantic drama entitled Terminal Station, directed with extraordinary skill and sensitivity by neorealist filmmaker Vittorio De Sica and starring Jennifer Jones and Montgomery Clift as a visiting American housewife and her Italian lover. Their Read More

The Wild Heart

Crew: Producer

Actors: Jennifer Jones, David Farrar, Cyril Cusack, Esmond Knight, Sybil Thorndike, Edward Chapman

Synopsis: The brooding British romantic drama Gone to Earth is better known by its American title The Wild Heart. Filmed in England and cofinanced by David O. Selznick and Alexander Korda, the film stars Jennifer Jones (Mrs. Selznick) as Hazel Woodus, a tempestuous Welsh gypsy maid who can't seem to stay Read More

The Third Man

Crew: Producer

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, Bernard Lee, Paul Hoerbiger

Synopsis: In this Cold War spy classic, Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), a third-rate American pulp novelist, arrives in postwar Vienna, where he has been promised a job by his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). Upon his arrival, Martins discovers that Lime has been killed in a traffic accident, and that Read More

Portrait of Jennie

Crew: Producer

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Jennifer Jones, Ethel Barrymore, David Wayne, Florence Bates, Lillian Gish, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: In Portrait of Jennie, Joseph Cotten plays an artist, Eben Adams, who is unable to bring any true feeling to his work. While painting in Central Park one morning, Eben makes the acquaintance of a schoolgirl named Jennie (Jennifer Jones), who prattles on about things that happened years ago. Read More

The Fallen Idol

Crew: Producer

Actors: Ralph Richardson, Michèle Morgan, Bobby Henrey, Sonia Dresdel, Jack Hawkins, Denis O'Dea

Synopsis: Adapted from the Graham Greene story The Basement Room, director Carol Reed's The Fallen Idol is told almost completely from a child's eye view-but it isn't a children's story. Young Bobby Henrey idolizes household butler Ralph Richardson. Therefore, when it seems as though Richardson might be Read More

The Paradine Case

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Gregory Peck, Ann Todd, Charles Laughton, Charles Coburn, Louis Jourdan, Ethel Barrymore

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Robert Hichens, The Paradine Case concerns Anna Paradine (Alida Valli), on trial for the murder of her wealthy husband. British barrister Anthony Keane (played by the aggressively American Gregory Peck) takes on the case-and in the process, falls in love with Anna, despite Read More

Duel in the Sun

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Griff Barnett, Jennifer Jones, Gregory Peck, Charles Bickford, Joseph Cotten, Sidney Blackmer, Lionel Barrymore, Harry Carey, Lillian Gish

Synopsis: In David O. Selznick's Duel in the Sun, Jennifer Jones stars as Pearl Chavez, whom everyone has tagged as a "bad girl" foredoomed to an unhappy end. She is taken into the home of wealthy, greedy rancher McCanles (Lionel Barrymore) and his kindly wife Laura Belle (Lillian Gish), who'd once been the Read More

Spellbound

Crew: Producer

Actors: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Jean Acker, Rhonda Fleming, Leo G. Carroll, Donald Curtis, Norman Lloyd, Regis Toomey

Synopsis: As Alfred Hitchcock's classic psychothriller opens, the staff of a posh mental asylum eagerly awaits the arrival of the new director. When the man in question shows up, it turns out to be handsome psychiatrist John Ballantine (Gregory Peck). But something's wrong, here: Ballantine seems much too Read More

Since You Went Away

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple, Monty Woolley, Agnes Moorehead

Synopsis: David O. Selznick's first production since 1940's Rebecca, Since You Went Away, based on Margaret Buell Wilder's bestselling novel, is a long but rewarding paean to the World War 2 "home front". Claudette Colbert plays the wife of a businessman who, though well past draft age, volunteered to serve Read More

Rebecca

Crew: Producer

Actors: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson, Nigel Bruce

Synopsis: Based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier, the classic psychological thriller Rebecca was Alfred Hitchcock's first American film. Joan Fontaine plays the unnamed narrator, a young woman who works as a companion to the well-to-do Mrs. Van Hopper (Florence Bates). She meets the wealthy widower Maxim Read More

Intermezzo

Crew: Producer

Actors: Leslie Howard, Ingrid Bergman, Edna Best, John Halliday, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: Gregory Ratoff directed David O. Selznick's richly produced American remake of the Swedish film directed by Gustav Molander and starring Ingrid Bergman, who re-creates her role here. The story -- based on the original screenplay by Molander and Gosta Stevens -- concerns a love affair played out Read More

Made for Each Other

Crew: Producer

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

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

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Crew: Producer

Actors: Tommy Kelly, Jackie Moran, Ann Gillis, May Robson, Walter Brennan

Synopsis: The 1938 version of Adventures of Tom Sawyer appears to be producer David O. Selznick's dry run for Gone with the Wind, what with its similarities in period, costumes, color scheme and production design (both films shared the services of the great Hollywood art director William Cameron Menzies). Read More

The Young in Heart

Crew: Producer

Actors: Janet Gaynor, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Paulette Goddard, Roland Young, Billie Burke

Synopsis: A comparatively little-known entry in the "screwball comedy" genre, David O. Selznick's The Young in Heart goes for quiet chuckles rather than bellylaughs. Adapted by Paul Osborn and Charles Bennett from a short story by I. R. Wylie, the film concentrates on a family of confidence tricksters. Read More

The Prisoner of Zenda

Crew: Producer

Actors: Ronald Colman, Madeleine Carroll, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Mary Astor, David Niven, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Ronald Colman stars in David O. Selznick's classic production of Anthony Hope's swashbuckling adventure. The film takes place in a mythical Central European kingdom with Colman in a dual role as King Rudolf V and Rudolph Rassendyl, a visitor from England who's a distant cousin to the prince. Read More

Nothing Sacred

Crew: Producer

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

A Star Is Born

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

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

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

The Garden of Allah

Crew: Producer

Actors: Marlene Dietrich, Charles Boyer, Basil Rathbone, C. Aubrey Smith, Joseph Schildkraut, Tilly Losch

Synopsis: Marlene Dietrich stars as the noble Domini Enfilden in this third film version of Robert Hichens' 1904 novel. After caring for her dying father, Domini is told by her Mother Superior (Lucille Watson) that she should go to the Algerian desert to rest and seek sanctuary. On her way to the town of Read More

Little Lord Fauntleroy

Crew: Producer

Actors: C. Aubrey Smith, Freddie Bartholomew, Dolores Costello, Guy Kibbee, Henry Stephenson

Synopsis: David O. Selznick's first independent production upheld the producer's tradition, established at Paramount, RKO and MGM, of bringing the "classics" to the screen. Adapted by Hugh Walpole from the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Little Lord Fauntleroy is set in the late 19th century. After Read More

Reckless

Crew: Producer

Actors: Jean Harlow, William Powell, Franchot Tone, May Robson, Rosalind Russell, Ted Healy, Mickey Rooney

Synopsis: Reckless is a delightfully breezy screwball comedy from the same director (Victor Fleming) and star (Jean Harlow) responsible for the celebratedBombshell (itself a film à clef loosely based on Clara Bow) -- with the added appeal of William Powell. One can readily see the chemistry between the two Read More

David Copperfield

Crew: Producer

Actors: W.C. Fields, Lionel Barrymore, Freddie Bartholomew, Maureen O'Sullivan, Madge Evans, Frank Lawton, Edna May Oliver

Synopsis: David Copperfield was MGM's major Christmas release for its 1934-1935 season and also the first of producer David O. Selznick's major "literary" films for that studio. While a great deal of editing and streamlining was necessary to distill Charles Dickens' massive novel into 133 minutes of screen Read More

Vanessa, Her Love Story

Crew: Producer

Actors: Helen Hayes, Robert Montgomery, Otto Kruger, May Robson, Lewis Stone

Synopsis: Adapted from the last of Hugh Walpole's "Herries Chronicles," Vanessa: Her Love Story is set in Victorian England. Vanessa (Helen Hayes) doesn't know it, but there's a strain of inherited insanity in the family of her husband Ellis (Otto Kruger). Disturbed by Ellis' bizarre behavior, poor Vanessa Read More

A Tale of Two Cities

Crew: Producer

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

Anna Karenina

Crew: Producer

Actors: Greta Garbo, Fredric March, Freddie Bartholomew, Basil Rathbone, Maureen O'Sullivan, May Robson

Synopsis: This second filmization of Leo Tolstoy's novel is widely regarded as the best version. Greta Garbo plays the title character, the sheltered wife of Czarist official Rathbone. Intending to dissuade Rathbone's brother (Reginald Owen) from a life of debauchery, Garbo is sidetracked by her own Read More

Viva Villa!

Crew: Producer

Actors: Wallace Beery, Leo Carrillo, Fay Wray, Donald Cook, Joseph Schildkraut, Stuart Erwin

Synopsis: A far from factual filmed biography of Mexican patriot Pancho Villa, Viva Villa! was written by lengendary screenwriter Ben Hecht. We first meet the young Villa when his father is beaten to death after protesting Diaz' seizure of the Mexican peons' land. Pancho exacts a temporary revenge by Read More

Manhattan Melodrama

Crew: Producer

Actors: Clark Gable, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Leo Carrillo, Nat Pendleton

Synopsis: Notorious as the movie that gangster John Dillinger attended on the night he was killed, Manhattan Melodrama has weathered the years as one of MGM's finest examples of pure storytelling. The pageant-like story begins in 1904, when the excursion steamer "General Slocum" blows up and burns in the Read More

Dancing Lady

Crew: Producer

Actors: Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, May Robson, Winnie Lightner, Fred Astaire

Synopsis: Virtually everybody except President Roosevelt was in the lavish MGM backstage musical Dancing Lady. Joan Crawford stars as Janie Barlow, an impoverished dancer reduced to working in a seedy Manhattan burlesque house. While on a slumming party with his society friend, wealthy young Tod Newton (Franchot Tone Read More

Meet the Baron

Crew: Producer

Actors: Jack Pearl, Jimmy Durante, ZaSu Pitts, Ted Healy, Edna May Oliver

Synopsis: In this comedy, a man masquerading as the notorious Baron Munchausen and his partner arrive from the African jungles and create quite a stir in New York. Eventually he ends up a women's college involved in a number of interesting musical production numbers. Look for an early appearance by the "The Read More

Scarlet River

Crew: Producer

Actors: Billy Butts, Betty Furness, Tom Keene

Synopsis: In Scarlet River, Tom Keene plays "himself," a cowboy movie star, on location in the Wide Open Spaces for his latest epic. The locals chortle and guffaw at these picture people posing as genuine Westerners, but Keene proves his worth by rescuing Dorothy Wilson from villainous ranch foreman Read More

Sweepings

Crew: Producer

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Alan Dinehart, Eric Linden, William Gargan, Gloria Stuart

Synopsis: Lionel Barrymore plays a Marshall Field-like Chicago businessman who emerges from the wreckage of the 1871 fire to build a department-store empire. Barrymore is aided by his Jewish manager Gregory Ratoff, who despite his business acumen is never made a full partner. The store magnate's four Read More

Dinner at Eight

Crew: Producer

Actors: Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore, Billie Burke

Synopsis: Based on the Broadway hit by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, Dinner at Eight is a near-flawless comedy/drama with an all-star cast at the peak of their talents. Social butterfly Mrs. Oliver Jordan (Billie Burke) arranges a dinner party that will benefit the busines of her husband (Lionel Barrymore Read More

Our Betters

Crew: Producer

Actors: Constance Bennett, Gilbert Roland, Charles Starrett, Anita Louise, Grant Mitchell

Synopsis: Our Betters is adapted from Somerset Maugham's play about the shallowness and hypocrisy of the idle rich. American heiress Constance Bennett snares a titled British husband (Alan Mobray), but when she discovers that he is merely marrying her for her money, she decides to carry on a few affairs of Read More

Lucky Devils

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: William "Hopalong" Boyd, William Gargan, Bruce Cabot, William Bakewell, Creighton Chaney, Dorothy Wilson

Synopsis: Though the story isn't much, this actioner does offer a neat behind-the-scenes look at the travails of Hollywood stuntmen as it chronicles the romance between a stunt man and an extra. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Night Flight

Crew: Producer

Actors: John Barrymore, Helen Hayes, Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore, Robert Montgomery

Synopsis: This suspense drama was based on a novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Riviere (John Barrymore), who operates an air delivery service, is fanatical in his dedication to service, putting prompt delivery before the safety of his men or his fleet after receiving a contract to help transport the mail. Read More

No Other Woman

Crew: Producer

Actors: Irene Dunne, Charles Bickford, Gwili Andre, Eric Linden, Buster Miles, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: The melodramatic No Other Woman is a remake of the 1925 silent film Just a Woman which was based on the play of the same name by Eugene Walter. Early in her career, Irene Dunn stars as ambitious housewife Anna Stanley, who pressures her steelworker husband, Jim (Charles Bickford), into a business Read More

Topaze

Crew: Producer

Actors: John Barrymore, Myrna Loy, Albert Conti, Luis Alberni, Reginald Mason

Synopsis: Producer David O. Selznick's adaptation of Marcel Pagnol's satirical play Topaze stars John Barrymore, delivering a peerless comedy performance a full year before Howard Hawks allegedly "discovered" Barrymore's comic potential in Twentieth Century. Barrymore plays a French science teacher who is Read More

Cross Fire

Crew: Producer

Actors: Tom Keene, Betty Furness, Edgar Kennedy, Edward Phillips, Lafe [Lafayette] McKee

Synopsis: Gangsters and cowboys don't mix as a recently returned World War I veteran soon discovers in this drama. The trouble is set in the hometown of Tom Allen, the returned G.I. He returns to find that one of his friend's has been murdered and that another friend has been framed for it. The real killer Read More

King Kong

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot, Frank Reicher, Sam Hardy, Noble Johnson

Synopsis: "How would you like to star opposite the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood?" Enticed by these words, brunette leading lady Fay Wray dyed her hair blonde and accepted the role of Ann Darrow in King Kong -- and stayed with the project even after learning that her "leading man" was a 50-foot Read More

Christopher Strong

Crew: Producer

Actors: Katharine Hepburn, Colin Clive, Billie Burke, Helen Chandler, Ralph Forbes

Synopsis: A prize-winning aviator (Katharine Hepburn) falls for the title character (Colin Clive), a British politician who is happily married. Both fall into a tempestuous affair, but are able to resist their urges. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

Young Bride

Crew: Producer

Actors: Helen Twelvetrees, Eric Linden, Arline Judge, Cliff Edwards, Roscoe Ates

Synopsis: Based on Veneer, a 1929 Broadway flop by Hugh Stange, this sentimental domestic drama came to the screens in early 1932, first as Love Starved, then under the less inflammatory title of Young Bride. The love-starved young bride is Allie Smith (Helen Twelvetrees), who, after a whirlwind romance Read More

Symphony of Six Million

Crew: Producer

Actors: Irene Dunne, Ricardo Cortez, Gregory Ratoff, Anna Appel, Lita Chevret

Synopsis: In this misleadingly-titled 1932 medical (not musical) drama, the resolve of a young surgeon is severely tested. Dr. Felix Klauber (Ricardo Cortez), is a selfless Jewish physician who has grown up in the segregated slums of New York City. Through hard work, he becomes a wealthy Park Avenue doctor. Read More

What Price Hollywood?

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Constance Bennett, Lowell Sherman, Neil Hamilton, Gregory Ratoff, Brooks Benedict

Synopsis: What Price Hollywood is often mistakenly referred to as the "first" version of the oft-filmed A Star is Born. While there are strong resemblances between the two properties, Hollywood is in many respects a wholly separate entity. Constance Bennett plays a star-struck waitress who manages to Read More

The Penguin Pool Murder

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Edna May Oliver, James Gleason, Mae Clarke, Robert Armstrong

Synopsis: Edna May Oliver makes the first of three appearances as Hildegarde Withers, the schoolteacher/sleuth created by mystery writer Stuart Palmer. While conducting her students on a tour of the Battery Park Aquarium, Hildegarde spots a dead body in the penguin pool. Police inspector Piper (James Gleason Read More

Thirteen Women

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Irene Dunne, Myrna Loy, Ricardo Cortez, Jill Esmond, Florence Eldridge

Synopsis: In this suspenseful drama, an embittered woman exacts revenge upon the 12 women who wronged her in college. The trouble began when the woman, who was of Japanese and Indian heritage, was ejected from a college sorority because she wasn't white. Still angry, the woman hires an astrologer to create Read More

Westward Passage

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Laurence Olivier, Ann Harding, ZaSu Pitts, Julie Compton, Irving Pichel

Synopsis: A starry-eyed girl marries an impoverished but talented young writer. Though easily frustrated and given to temperamental outbursts, the wife's presence soothes him and their marriage is happy. Then she gives birth to their daughter. The child grows up to be a mischief maker and this causes the Read More

The Phantom of Crestwood

Crew: Producer

Actors: Karen Morley, Ricardo Cortez, H.B. Warner, Pauline Frederick, Robert McWade

Synopsis: Gary Curtis, aka Farnsbarns (Richardo Cortez), is really a former hoodlum hired to retrieve some compromising letters from gold digger Jenny Wren (Karen Morley). She, in turn, announces her retirement, but not before cajoling noted banker Priem Andes (H. B. Warner) into hosting a farewell party at Read More

Rockabye

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Constance Bennett, Joel McCrea, Paul Lukas, Walter Pidgeon, Jobyna Howland

Synopsis: Despite a troubled production that witnessed the exits of both leading man (Phillips Holmes) and director (George Fitzmaurice), this tearjerker was a winner at the box office in November of 1932. Constance Bennett plays Broadway diva Judy Carroll who loses custody of a wee orphan after testifying Read More

The Conquerors

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Richard Dix, Ann Harding, Edna May Oliver, Guy Kibbee, Julie Haydon

Synopsis: This Depression-era morale-booster looks at the ups and downs of a banking family from the 1870s to the 1930s (and borrows plentifully from the previous year's hit Cimarron, another empire-building saga that also starred Dix). Following the financial collapse of 1873, Roger Standish (Richard Dix) Read More

The Animal Kingdom

Crew: Producer

Actors: Ann Harding, Leslie Howard, Myrna Loy, William Gargan, Neil Hamilton

Synopsis: The first film version of Philip Barry's Broadway play The Animal Kingdom stars Ann Harding, Leslie Howard and Myrna Loy. Howard plays a wealthy publisher who decides to marry the socially prominent Loy, leaving his mistress Harding in the lurch. In comically convoluted fashion, Loy behaves like a Read More

The Age of Consent

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Dorothy Wilson, Richard Cromwell, Eric Linden, Arline Judge, John Halliday

Synopsis: Dorothy Wilson, who'd previously been a stenographer at RKO Radio studios, plays the lead in RKO's Age of Consent. Wilson and co-star Richard Cromwell play a couple of green-as-grass college coeds, whose puppy love blossoms into genuine romance. But with love comes responsibilities, and soon it Read More

Hold 'em Jail

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Edna May Oliver, Roscoe Ates, Edgar Kennedy

Synopsis: The most intriguing aspect of the 1932 Bert Wheeler-Robert Woolsey romp Hold 'Em Jail was that it was co-scripted by legendary humorist and frequent Marx Bros. contributor S. J. Perelman. The film bears a slight resemblance to the like-vintage Marx/Perelman collaboration Horse Feathers, in that Read More

A Bill of Divorcement

Crew: Producer

Actors: John Barrymore, Billie Burke, Katharine Hepburn, David Manners, Bramwell Fletcher

Synopsis: Katharine Hepburn made her auspicious film debut in the otherwise undistinguished A Bill of Divorcement. Based on a play by Clemence Dane, the film is set on the day that Hepburn's mother, Billie Burke, is to divorce her insane and long-institutionalized husband John Barrymore. But Barrymore Read More

The Lost Squadron

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Richard Dix, Mary Astor, Erich Von Stroheim, Dorothy Jordan, Joel McCrea, Robert Armstrong

Synopsis: Unable to find steady work after WWI, three former flying aces -- Gibson (Richard Dix), Woody (Robert Armstrong) and Red (Joel McCrea) -- hire themselves out as stunt flyers for the movies. They find themselves employed by tyrannical director Von Furst (Erich Von Stroheim, playing what amounts to Read More

Is My Face Red?

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Helen Twelvetrees, Ricardo Cortez, Jill Esmond, Robert Armstrong, Arline Judge

Synopsis: Ricardo Cortez plays a newspaper gossip columnist based on real-life journalist Walter Winchell (the film's title was in fact a Winchell catchphrase). Merrily dishing up innuendoes and destroying reputations, Cortez enjoys hobnobbing with the rich and powerful, including several disreputable Read More

The Most Dangerous Game

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Leslie Banks, Robert Armstrong, Steve Clemente

Synopsis: The first of many official and unofficial screen versions of Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game was put together by producer Willis O'Brien and directors Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel in 1932. Leslie Banks stars as loony Russian count Zaroff, a renowned big-game hunter who tires of Read More

Bird of Paradise

Crew: Producer

Actors: Dolores Del Rio, Joel McCrea, John Halliday, Lon Chaney, Jr., Richard "Skeets" Gallagher

Synopsis: Having inherited the warhorse stage piece Bird of Paradise from his predecessor William LeBaron, RKO Radio production chief David O. Selznick opted to do the property up brown, hoping to transform the Richard Walton Tully original into RKO's "prestige" offering of 1932. Joel McCrea stars as a Read More

Girl Crazy

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Eddie Quillan, Dorothy Lee, Mitzi Green

Synopsis: The 1930 George & Ira Gershwin musical smash Girl Crazy was refashioned for the screen in 1932 as a vehicle for comedians Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey. Most of the original play's romantic plotline has been jettisoned, shifting the emphasis to cabdriver Jimmy Deegan (Wheeler) and his larcenous Read More

The Half-Naked Truth

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Lupe Velez, Lee Tracy, Eugene Pallette, Frank Morgan, Bob McKenzie

Synopsis: A broad lampoon of celebrity worship, The Half-Naked Truth stars Lee Tracy as a carnival huckster and Lupe Velez as a "kootch" dancer. Reaching for the moon, Tracy passes Lupe off as an exotic foreign princess--and manages to pull the wool over the eyes of all Manhattan. Now "famous for being Read More

Hell's Highway

Crew: Producer

Actors: Richard Dix, Tom Brown, Louise Carter, Rochelle Hudson, C. Henry Gordon

Synopsis: Often referred to as an imitation of Warner's legendary prison drama I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932), RKO's stirring Hell's Highway was actually released a few months earlier. The two films were in production at the same time, but RKO was determined to beat the competition (which also Read More

State's Attorney

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: John Barrymore, Helen Twelvetrees, Jill Esmond, Mary Duncan

Synopsis: John Barrymore is the "State's Attorney" in the RKO picture of the same name. A brilliant criminal lawyer, Barrymore counts on his underworld connections to climb the ladder of success to the Governor's chair. "Humanized" by his girlfriend Helen Twelvetrees, a former streetwalker, Barrymore Read More

Street of Chance

Crew: Producer

Actors: William Powell, Jean Arthur, Kay Francis, Regis Toomey, Stanley Fields

Synopsis: This fact-based drama chronicles the events that led to the murder of a notorious gambler. The story begins when a young cardsharp goes to see his brother, whom he believes is a stockbroker. In reality, the brother is a famed gambler who is trying to quit and try to rebuild his marriage. When the Read More

Betrayal

Crew: Associate Producer

Actors: Emil Jannings, Esther Ralston, Gary Cooper, Douglas Haig

Synopsis: Director Lewis Milestone presided over The Betrayal, a part-talkie which represented the only screen teaming of Hollywood's Gary Cooper and Germany's Emil Jannings. Second-billed Esther Ralston stars as Swiss peasant girl Vroni, who enjoys a blissful summertime romance with vacationing Viennese Read More

The Man I Love

Crew: Associate Producer

Actors: Richard Arlen, Mary Brian, Olga Baclanova, Leslie Fenton, Pat O'Malley

Synopsis: Bearing no relation to the popular torch song of the same name, The Man I Love is a prizefight picture, courtesy of Paramount production exec David O. Selznick. Richard Arlen stars as Dum-Dum Brooks, a tank-town boxer who journeys to New York in hopes of cracking the Big Time. Along for the ride Read More

The Dance of Life

Crew: Associate Producer

Actors: Nancy Carroll, Hal Skelly, Dorothy Revier

Synopsis: A vaudevillian working in a third-rate burlesque show suffers marital turmoil when success swells his head in this silent back-stage melodrama. He celebrates his stardom with a few drinks. Unfortunately, this leads to alcoholism and carousing with other women causing his wife to eventually leave Read More

Chinatown Nights

Crew: Producer

Actors: Wallace Beery, Florence Vidor, Warner Oland, Jack McHugh, Jack Oakie

Synopsis: Despite the creative input of producer David O. Selznick and director William A. Wellman, Chinatown Nights was just so much chop suey. In her first (and last) talking-picture appearance, silent screen queen Florence Vidor plays Joan Fry, a San Francisco socialite who ruins her reputation when she Read More

The Four Feathers

Crew: Associate Producer

Actors: Richard Arlen, Fay Wray, Clive Brook, William Powell, Theodore Von Eltz

Synopsis: This was the third screen version of A.E.W. Mason's oft-filmed novel about one soldier's triumph over cowardice and was the last rendering during the silent era. Here, Richard Arlen stars as Harry Faversham, the British officer who resigns rather than fight against rebels in Egypt. When four of Read More

Forgotten Faces

Crew: Editor

Actors: Clive Brook, Mary Brian, Olga Baclanova, William Powell, Fred Kohler

Synopsis: A criminal with a conscience will go to any lengths to give his daughter a better life in this silent drama. "Heliotrope Harry" Harlow (Clive Brook) is a stick-up man who, after robbing a gambling den with his partner Froggy (William Powell), returns home to discover his wife Lily (Olga Baclanova) Read More