Deborah Kerr Filmography

The Assam Garden

Actors: Deborah Kerr, Madhur Jaffrey, Alec McCowen, Zia Mohyeddin, Anton Lesser

Synopsis: An embittered, lonely old widow reluctantly tends her late husband's garden and discovers that more than flowers can bloom there when she encounters her East Indian neighbor, a woman with an ailing husband. This touching drama chronicles their friendship. The story opens as the widow returns from Read More

Reunion at Fairborough

Actors: Robert Mitchum, Deborah Kerr, Red Buttons

Synopsis: Filmed in England, Reunion at Fairborough served as the fourth movie pairing of Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr. Mitchum plays a disgruntled American, who arrives in England for a reunion with his old wartime bombing squadron. Ms. Kerr plays the local woman whom Mitchum had seduced and left behind Read More

A Woman of Substance, Episode 1: Nest of Vipers

Synopsis: A Woman of Substance is a six-hour TV miniseries, based on the best-selling novel by Barbara Taylor Bradford. This story of a British servant girl who, through sheer force of will, becomes one of the world's most powerful women, stars Jenny Seagrove as Emma Hart from age 15 to 49, and Deborah Kerr Read More

A Woman of Substance, Episode 3: The Secret Is Revealed

Synopsis: The second chapter of the six-hour TV miniseries A Woman of Substance was subtitled "The Secret is Revealed" (see separate entry for episode one, A Woman of Substance: Nest of Vipers). After losing her job due to a romantic entanglement with her employer's son, Emma Hart (Jenny Seagrove) heads to Read More

A Woman of Substance, Episode 2: Fighting for the Dream

Synopsis: "Fighting for the Dream" was the third and final installment of the six-hour TV miniseries A Woman of Substance (see separate entries for information of episode one, "Nest of Vipers", and episode two "The Secret is Revealed."). Expanding her business activities beyond the small town of Leeds Read More

A Woman of Substance

Synopsis: The made-for-television adaptation of Barbara Taylor Bradford's A Woman of Substance stars Jenny Seagrove as Emma Harte, a character who grows from maid to internationally feared and respected businesswoman. The all-star cast includes Liam Neeson, Deborah Kerr, and Barry Bostwick. ~ Perry Seibert Read More

Witness for the Prosecution

Actors: Beau Bridges, Deborah Kerr, Ralph Richardson, Diana Rigg

Synopsis: From its humble beginnings as a four-character short story, Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution matriculated into a long-running London and Broadway stage hit, as well as a masterful 1957 film version directed by Billy Wilder. The 1982 TV version of Witness was overseen by Briton Norman Rosemont Read More

America at the Movies

Actors: Charlton Heston

Synopsis: The American Film Institute put together this movie of film clips from all eras of American filmmaking as a Bicentennial tribute to the country. Narrated by Charleton Heston, the 83 film clips included all relate to American history, or reflect on the character of Americans. The clips are grouped Read More

The Arrangement

Actors: Kirk Douglas, Faye Dunaway, Deborah Kerr, Richard Boone, Hume Cronyn

Synopsis: Kirk Douglas has an extreme case of mid-life crisis in Elia Kazan's turgid melodrama (adapted from his best-selling novel). Douglas plays successful advertising executive Eddie Anderson, who cracks under the strain of the morning rush hour in Los Angeles and plows his sports car into a truck. Read More

The Gypsy Moths

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Gene Hackman, Scott Wilson

Synopsis: John Frankenheimer directed this low-key drama about three men who stage a sky-diving thrill show and what happens when they roll into a small town in Kansas. Mike Rettig (Burt Lancaster) is the oldest of the group and more than a bit jaded; Joe Browdy (Gene Hackman) is the fast-talking MC who Read More

Prudence and the Pill

Actors: Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Robert Coote, Irina Demick, Judy Geeson, Vickery Turner

Synopsis: Prudence and the Pill gained minor notoriety in 1968 as the first film comedy dealing with the new birth-control pill. David Niven substitutes aspirin for his wife's (Deborah Kerr) birth control medicine, hoping that she will become pregnant by her lover (Keith Mitchell) -- thereby freeing him to Read More

Eye of the Devil

Actors: Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Donald Pleasence, Edward Mulhare, Flora Robson

Synopsis: A fine cast distinguishes this unusual supernatural thriller. When London-based vintner Phillippe de Montfaucon (David Niven) receives the bad news that dry weather is expected to destroy crops in his vineyard in France for the third year in a row, he immediately leaves for his castle on the Read More

Casino Royale

Actors: Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress, David Niven, Orson Welles, Woody Allen, Joanna Pettet

Synopsis: Retired after years of international espionage, Agent 007 is lured back into action to battle the evil spy organization SMERSH in this notoriously incoherent parody of the James Bond films. David Niven portrays the aging Bond, who atypically rejects the advances of a variety of women, and agrees Read More

Marriage on the Rocks

Actors: Frank Sinatra, Deborah Kerr, Dean Martin, Cesar Romero, Hermione Baddeley

Synopsis: A couple's marriage is nearly destroyed by their attempts to save it in this farcical comedy. Dan and Valerie Edwards (Frank Sinatra and Deborah Kerr) are a couple who have been married for close to 20 years. Dan, a busy but successful advertising executive, believes they have a happy Read More

The Night of the Iguana

Actors: Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr, Sue Lyon, James Ward

Synopsis: Filmed on location in Mexico by John Huston, Night of the Iguana stars Richard Burton as Rev. Shannon, an alcoholic defrocked minister, who scratches out a living as a south-of-the-border tour guide. His latest customers are several American schoolteachers, and he guides their bus to a rundown Read More

The Chalk Garden

Actors: Deborah Kerr, Hayley Mills, John Mills, Edith Evans, Elizabeth Sellars

Synopsis: This film adaptation of Edith Bagnold's play stars Deborah Kerr as Miss Madrigal, the secretive new governess of British "problem child" Laurel (Hayley Mills). Both Madrigal and faithful butler Maitland (John Mills) are aware that Laurel's atrocious behavior stems from her belief that her Read More

The Grass Is Greener

Actors: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons, Moray Watson

Synopsis: A rousing chorus of Noël Coward's "Stately Homes of England" is heard as the opening titles of The Grass Is Greener fade into several stock shots of those stately homes. One of these mansions is owned by British earl Victor Rhyall (Cary Grant), who opens his home to American tourists in order to Read More

The Innocents

Actors: Deborah Kerr, Megs Jenkins, Pamela Franklin, Martin Stephens, Michael Redgrave, Peter Wyngarde

Synopsis: In this lugubrious but brilliantly realized adaptation of Henry James' classic novella The Turn of the Screw, 19th century British governess Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr) arrives at a bleak mansion to take care of Flora (Pamela Franklin) and Miles (Martin Stephens), the wealthy household's two Read More

The Naked Edge

Actors: Gary Cooper, Deborah Kerr, Eric Portman, Diane Cilento, Hermione Gingold

Synopsis: There is nothing like suspecting your husband of murder to add suspense to a marriage, at least that is the case in this standard whodunit with a compelling plot. George Radcliffe (Gary Cooper) testifies in court against a man suspected of murdering George's business partner, absconding with a lot Read More

The Sundowners

Actors: Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, Peter Ustinov, Glynis Johns, Dina Merrill

Synopsis: Director Fred Zinnemann was riding a crest in the '50s with movies like High Noon, From Here to Eternity, Oklahoma, and his success continues in this western-style drama set in Australia in the 1920s. Ida Carmody (Deborah Kerr) is married to Paddy (Robert Mitchum), a sheep drover whose nomadic Read More

The Journey

Actors: Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr, Jason Robards, Jr., Robert Morley, E.G. Marshall

Synopsis: The two romantic leads in this standard but well-acted political drama renew a famous pairing that began with The King and I in 1956. Deborah Kerr is Lady Diana Ashmore, caught at the wrong side of the Hungarian-Austrian border in 1956, and Yul Brynner is Major Surov, a Russian commander who works Read More

Beloved Infidel

Actors: Gregory Peck, Deborah Kerr, Eddie Albert, Philip Ober, Herbert Rudley

Synopsis: Gregory Peck stars as the great American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald in this film based on a memoir by Sheilah Graham, who was Fitzgerald's paramour during his final days. Graham (played by Deborah Kerr) was a gossip columnist and aspiring novelist who met Fitzgerald during his latter days as a Read More

Count Your Blessings

Actors: Deborah Kerr, Rossano Brazzi, Maurice Chevalier, Martin Stephens, Tom Helmore, Ronald Squire

Synopsis: This routine drama is helped by good acting and well-known stars like Rossano Brazzi as an unfaithful French husband, Deborah Kerr as his faithful English wife, and Maurice Chevalier as the uncle who goes to bat for his nephew's loosely held views of marriage. What does not help the story is the Read More

Separate Tables

Actors: Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Wendy Hiller, Burt Lancaster

Synopsis: Based on Terence Rattigan's play, Separate Tables is about a number of characters and their adventures at a British seaside hotel. Among the guests are an alleged war hero (David Niven), a timid spinster (Deborah Kerr) and her domineering mother (Gladys Cooper), and a divorced couple (Burt Read More

Kiss Them for Me

Actors: Cary Grant, Suzy Parker, Jayne Mansfield, Leif Erickson, Ray Walston

Synopsis: Luther Davis' racy wartime comedy Kiss Them for Me was expurgated a bit for the 1957 film version. Cary Grant, Ray Walston and Larry Blyden portray three navy war heroes who've been booked on a morale-building "vacation" in San Francisco. Eluding their ulcerated public relations officer (Werner Klemperer Read More

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison

Actors: Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum

Synopsis: A two-person character study directed by John Huston, Heaven Knows Mr. Allison stars Robert Mitchum as a World War II Marine sergeant and Deborah Kerr as a Roman Catholic nun. Both nun and sergeant are marooned on a South Pacific island, hemmed in by surrounding Japanese troops. Mitchum does his Read More

Bonjour Tristesse

Actors: Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Jean Seberg, Mylène Demongeot, Geoffrey Horne, Jean Kent, Roland Culver

Synopsis: Francoise Sagan's bittersweet novel Bonjour Tristesse is given a sumptuous Riviera-filmed screen treatment. David Niven plays a wealthy playboy, the father of teenaged libertine-in-the-making Jean Seberg. Seberg tolerates most of her father's mistresses, but doesn't know what to make of the Read More

An Affair to Remember

Actors: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Richard Denning, Neva Patterson, Cathleen Nesbitt

Synopsis: An Affair to Remember, director Leo McCarey's scene-for-scene remake of his own 1939 film Love Affair, isn't really an improvement on the original, but it's equally as enjoyable. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, high-profile types both engaged to be married to other people, meet and fall in love Read More

The King and I

Actors: Deborah Kerr, Yul Brynner, Rita Moreno, Martin Benson, Terry Saunders, Rex Thompson, Carlos Rivas, Patrick Adiarte

Synopsis: The King and I, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's 1951Broadway musical hit, was based on Margaret Landon's book Anna and the King of Siam. Since 20th-Century-Fox had made a film version of the Landon book in 1946, that studio had first dibs on the movie adaptation of King and I. Deborah Kerr Read More

The Proud and Profane

Actors: William Holden, Deborah Kerr, Thelma Ritter, Dewey Martin, William Redfield

Synopsis: In this war romance, set during WW II, a widow falls for a Marine colonel. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Tea and Sympathy

Actors: Deborah Kerr, John Kerr, Leif Erickson, Edward Andrews, Darryl Hickman

Synopsis: 1956's Tea and Sympathy is a diluted filmization of Robert Anderson's Broadway play. The original production was considered quite daring in its attitudes towards homosexuality (both actual and alleged) and marital infidelity; the film softpedals these elements, as much by adding to the text as by Read More

The End of the Affair

Actors: Deborah Kerr, Van Johnson, John Mills, Peter Cushing, Stephen Murray, Michael Goodliffe

Synopsis: Recently freed from his MGM contract, Van Johnson headed to England to star in a series of pictures, the first of which was The End of the Affair. Adapted by Lenore Coffee from the novel by Graham Greene, the film casts Johnson as Maurice Bendrix, the clandestine lover of married Briton Sarah Read More

Thunder in the East

Actors: Alan Ladd, Deborah Kerr, Charles Boyer, Corinne Calvet, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: During the early days of East Indian independence in 1947, a native rebellion threatens a hotel full of Britishers, Europeans and Americans. Gunrunner Alan Ladd could care less about anything other than his own neck. Ladd runs up against the resistance of a pacifist Indian leader (Charles Boyer) Read More

Young Bess

Actors: Jean Simmons, Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, Charles Laughton, Kay Walsh

Synopsis: This costume drama was based on the historical fiction of Margaret Irwin, which embellishes the facts of the early years of England's eventual Queen Elizabeth I. It's told in flashback style, starting with the horrible day when King Henry VIII (Charles Laughton) sends away the future queen, young Read More

Julius Caesar

Actors: Marlon Brando, James Mason, John Gielgud, Louis Calhern, Greer Garson, Edmond O'Brien, Deborah Kerr

Synopsis: Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed this exquisite version of William Shakespeare's play. Louis Calhern is Julius Caesar, whose conquests have enabled him to rise to the status of Roman dictator. But his ascent to almost God-like status has given pause to influential members of the Roman Senate. Chief Read More

From Here to Eternity

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed, Frank Sinatra

Synopsis: The scene is Schofield Army Barracks in Honolulu, in the languid days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, where James Jones' acclaimed war novel From Here to Eternity brought the aspirations and frustrations of several people sharply into focus. Sergeant Milt Warden (Burt Lancaster) enters into an Read More

Dream Wife

Actors: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Walter Pidgeon, Betta St. John, Eduard Franz

Synopsis: Clemson Reade (Cary Grant) is the kind of man who wants to marry an old-fashioned girl, one who will stay home and take care of her husband. However, he's fallen in love with Priscilla "Effie" Effington (Deborah Kerr), who has an exciting career with the State Department that she has no intention Read More

The Prisoner of Zenda

Actors: Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, James Mason, Louis Calhern, Jane Greer, Lewis Stone

Synopsis: Mistaken identity and underhanded dealings set the stage for this adventure story based on Anthony Hope's classic novel. Rudolph Rassendyll (Stewart Granger) is a British tourist visiting the nation of Ruritania in the Balkans. A number of people comment upon Rassendyll's remarkable resemblance to Read More

Quo Vadis?

Actors: Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Leo Genn, Peter Ustinov, Patricia Laffan

Synopsis: Originally advertised as "Colossal Quo Vadis," this opulent MGM production is far and away the most elaborate of the many versions of Henryk Sienkiewicz' novel. The plot, as always, concerns the romance between a beautiful early Christian woman (Deborah Kerr) and the initially agnostic Roman Read More

Please Believe Me

Actors: Deborah Kerr, Robert Walker, Peter Lawford, Mark Stevens, James Whitmore

Synopsis: Producer Val Lewton abandoned the "psychological horror" efforts of his RKO days when he moved to MGM in 1950. Lewton's Please Believe Me is a simple, sometimes simplistic romantic comedy, designed principally as a showcase for Deborah Kerr. The star plays Alison Kirbe, an English girl who Read More

King Solomon's Mines

Actors: Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, Richard Carlson, Hugo Haas, Lowell Gilmore

Synopsis: MGM's expensive remake of the 1937 British adventure film King Solomon's Mines stars Stewart Granger as fearless-explorer Alan Quartermaine, and Deborah Kerr as the spunky Irish lass who hires him on to locate her husband. Kerr's spouse has disappeared somewhere in Africa while attempting to Read More

Edward, My Son

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Deborah Kerr, Ian Hunter, James Donald, Mervyn Johns, Leucen MacGrath

Synopsis: Businessman Spencer Tracy is devoted beyond all reason to his son Edward. Tracy lies, cheats, steals, commits arson, and drives two people to suicide in order to smooth Edward's path in life. The boy repays this loyalty by becoming an ungrateful wastrel, who fathers a child out of wedlock and ends Read More

Black Narcissus

Actors: Deborah Kerr, Sabu, David Farrar, Kathleen Byron, Esmond Knight, Flora Robson, Jean Simmons

Synopsis: British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger once again deliberately courted controversy and censorship with their 1947 adaptation of Rumer Godden's novel. Deborah Kerr and Kathleen Byron play the head nuns at an Anglican hospital/school high in the Himalayas. The nuns' well-ordered Read More

If Winter Comes

Actors: John Abbott, Walter Pidgeon, Deborah Kerr, Angela Lansbury, Hugh French, Binnie Barnes, Halliwell Hobbes, Janet Leigh

Synopsis: In this drama, set in England, an honorable textbook writer in a village becomes friends with a pregnant girl. The friendship costs him his marriage. Later, the girl dies, and the authorities wonder if it is murder. A coroner's inquest is held, and for a while the writer's social and professional Read More

The Hucksters

Actors: Edward Arnold, Clark Gable, Lillian Bronson, Deborah Kerr, Sydney Greenstreet, Ralph Bunker, Kathryn Card, Adolphe Menjou, Jimmy Conlin, Ava Gardner

Synopsis: When he was first offered the film version of the best-selling Frederick Wakeman novel The Hucksters, Clark Gable turned it down, characterizing the book as "filthy and not entertainment." He finally agreed to star in the film after screenwriter Luther Davis' extensive laundering job. Gable plays Read More

I See a Dark Stranger

Actors: Deborah Kerr, Trevor Howard, Raymond Huntley, Garry Marsh, Tom Macauley

Synopsis: I See a Dark Stranger manages to be both an absorbing espionage yarn and a slyly amusing send-up of the entire genre. Deborah Kerr is terrific as Irish colleen Bridie Quilty, raised from childhood to despise the British and everything they stand for. Bridie's anglophobia proves useful to Nazi spy Read More

Vacation From Marriage

Actors: Robert Donat, Deborah Kerr, Glynis Johns, Ann Todd, Roland Culver

Synopsis: A couple's wartime separation provides an unexpected tonic for their romance in this drama. Robert and Catherine Wilson (Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr) are a married couple whose relationship has hit a dry patch; neither of them have much enthusiasm for each other, and when Robert is drafted into Read More

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

Actors: Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Anton Walbrook, Roland Culver, Albert Lieven, Spencer Trevor, James McKechnie

Synopsis:
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's much-lauded epic Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, which satirizes British traditionalism, stirred up impassioned hostilities and indignations among the Brits when released in 1943. It so infuriated Winston Churchill, in fact, that he refused to allow its Read More

The Day Will Dawn

Actors: Ralph Richardson, Deborah Kerr, Hugh Williams, Griffith Jones, Francis L. Sullivan

Synopsis: Also known as The Avengers, the British The Day Will Dawn is set in Norway at the outbreak of WW2. British foreign correspondent Lockwood (Ralph Richardson), forced out of Norway by the Nazi invasion, returns to the occupied Scandanavian country at the request of the War Office. Lockwood's Read More

Major Barbara

Actors: Wendy Hiller, Rex Harrison, Robert Morley, Robert Newton, Emlyn Williams

Synopsis: George Bernard Shaw's satiric comedy about wealth and poverty is brought to the screen with wonderful performances by Rex Harrison and Wendy Hiller. Hiller plays Major Barbara Undershaft, a major in the Salvation Army who is also a socialist and stridently attacks capitalists -- in particular her Read More

Love on the Dole

Actors: Deborah Kerr, Clifford Evans, Geoffrey Hibbert, Mary Merrall, George Carney

Synopsis: Filmed in the North Country of England, this is a film noir set in the 1930s as a family struggles with poverty and unemployment. Depressing and realistic, it portrays the lengths to which a family can go in order to survive., though there is some humor interlaced to keep the bleakness under Read More

The Courageous Mr. Penn

Actors: Clifford Evans, Deborah Kerr, Dennis Arundell, Aubrey Mallalieu, D.J. Williams

Synopsis: Penn of Pennsylvania was the original British title of the economical biopic The Courageous Mr. Penn. Clifford Evans stars as Quaker leader William Penn, who leaves the comfort of his family estate to fight for the rights of his religious brethren. Penn's crusade for spiritual freedom leads him to Read More

Hatter's Castle

Actors: Robert Newton, Deborah Kerr, James Mason, Emlyn Williams, Henry Oscar

Synopsis: Paramount Pictures' British division was responsible for this adaptation of A.J. Cronin's novel Hatter's Castle. Robert Newton is appropriately mean-spirited as an 1890s hatter, James Brodie, who is anxious to claw his way up from poverty. Desperate to make himself socially acceptable as his Read More

Contraband

Actors: Conrad Veidt, Valerie Hobson, Hay Petrie, Joss Ambler, Raymond Lovell, Esmond Knight

Synopsis: The Danish freighter Helvig approaches English waters in early 1940 and, in keeping with the needs of British security, it is boarded by customs and naval officials in search of contraband cargo. Her skipper, Captain Anderson (Conrad Veidt), is compelled to as