Donald Crisp Filmography

Greyfriars Bobby: The True Story of a Dog

Actors: Donald Crisp, Laurence Naismith, Alex Mackenzie, Kay Walsh, Andrew Cruickshank

Synopsis: Disney's Greyfriars Bobby is a remake of A Challenge to Lassie; both are based on the same novel by Eleanor Atkinson, and both feature Donald Crisp in a major role. A true story, set in Edinburgh around 1875, the Disney version stars Alex McKenzie as the shepherd Old Jock, the owner of a loyal Read More

Pollyanna

Actors: Jane Wyman, Hayley Mills, Richard Egan, Karl Malden, Nancy Olson, Adolphe Menjou

Synopsis: Eleanor H. Porter's story of Pollyanna, "The Glad Girl," was first filmed in 1920 by Mary Pickford. While entertaining, the Pickford version tended to reduce the supporting characters to stereotypes. Disney's 1960 remake of Pollyanna wisely offers three-dimensional characterizations, enhancing the Read More

A Dog of Flanders

Actors: David Ladd, Donald Crisp, Theodore Bikel, Max Croiset, Monique Ahrens

Synopsis: Based on a novel written in 1872, this charming tale of a young boy and his dog is leisurely and heart-warming. Nello (David Ladd) and his grandfather Daas (Donald Crisp) manage to make ends meet by delivering milk from the nearby farms to the city of Antwerp. Nello's most deeply felt ambition is Read More

The Last Hurrah

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Jeffrey Hunter, Dianne Foster, Pat O'Brien, Basil Rathbone, John Carradine

Synopsis: Spencer Tracy stars in John Ford's sentimental adaptation of Edwin O'Connor's novel about the final campaign of a big city mayor, loosely based upon the life of Boston politician James Curley. Tracy is Frank Skeffington, the political boss of an Eastern city dominated by Irish-Americans. Read More

Saddle the Wind

Actors: Robert Taylor, Julie London, John Cassavetes, Donald Crisp, Charles McGraw

Synopsis: Rod Serling's first original screenplay for the Big Screen was the psychological western Saddle the Wind. In one of his best performances, Robert Taylor plays Steve Sinclair, a world-weary gunslinger. Hoping to become a rancher, Sinclair is given a plot of land by patriarchal Dr. Deneen (Donald Crisp Read More

Drango

Actors: Jeff Chandler, John Lupton, Joanne Dru, Morris Ankrum, Ronald Howard

Synopsis: Union army major Drango (Jeff Chandler) is assigned to rebuild a ruined Georgian town in the aftermath of the Civil War. Despite his best intentions, Drango has trouble combatting the hatred and resentment of the townsfolk. In particular, Clay Allen (Ronald Howard), the hotheaded son of Judge Read More

The Man from Laramie

Actors: James Stewart, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Crisp, Cathy O'Donnell, Alex Nicol, Wallace Ford

Synopsis: Anthony Mann directed this brilliant psychological Western reminiscent of Shakespeare's King Lear. James Stewart plays Will Lockhart, who is obsessed with finding the man who sold automatic rifles to the Apaches, resulting in the death of his brother. Will enters the town of Coronado, NM, ruled by Read More

The Long Gray Line

Actors: Tyrone Power, Maureen O'Hara, Robert Francis, Ward Bond, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: The life story of West Point athletic director Marty Maher was the inspiration for John Ford's The Long Gray Line. Told in flashback, the film recalls the first days at the Point for Irish immigrant Maher (Tyrone Power), a pugnacious boy who can't seem to fit in with the institution's regimen of Read More

Prince Valiant

Actors: James Mason, Janet Leigh, Robert Wagner, Debra Paget, Sterling Hayden

Synopsis: Hal Foster's Sunday-comics saga of a young Viking prince in the service of King Arthur is brought to the screen in CinemaScope and Technicolor in Prince Valiant. Despite the fact that he sports a dutch bob that makes him look like actress Phyllis Kirk, Robert Wagner is quite virile and convincing Read More

Home Town Story

Actors: Jeffrey Lynn, Donald Crisp, Marjorie Reynolds, Marilyn Monroe

Synopsis: Home Town Story was commissioned as a pro-Big Business tract by General Motors. The story revolves around Blake Washburn, a mildly leftist newspaperman, played by Jeffrey Lynn. Returning to his home town, Washburn turns his journalistic vitriol upon the local business interests. Only after his kid Read More

Bright Leaf

Actors: Gary Cooper, Lauren Bacall, Jack Carson, Patricia Neal, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: Bright Leaf, a sprawling saga of the tobacco industry in North Carolina, began as a novel by Foster Fitzsimmons, a native Carolinian who for many years taught at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's theatre department. The film version of Bright Leaf has been simplified and reshaped to Read More

Challenge to Lassie

Actors: Edmund Gwenn, Donald Crisp, Geraldine Brooks, Reginald Owen, Alan Webb

Synopsis: A "new" Lassie (once again, a male collie in drag) starred in A Challenge to Lassie, MGM's fourth entry in their series based on characters created by Eric Knight. This time, Lassie is plunked into the plotline of William Ludwig's novel Greyfriars Bobby (remade by Disney under its original title Read More

Hills of Home

Actors: Edmund Gwenn, Donald Crisp, Tom Drake, Janet Leigh, Rhys Williams

Synopsis: MGM's Lassie series was declining in popularity by 1948, so the studio decided to release its latest adventure of the famous collie as Hills of Home, so that non-Lassie fans might be inveigled into entering the theatre. Actually, Hills is one of the best entries in the series, due in no Read More

Whispering Smith

Actors: Alan Ladd, Brenda Marshall, Robert Preston, Donald Crisp, William Demarest

Synopsis: This fact -based western follows a soft-spoken railroad detective (Alan Ladd) as he brings a murderous ring of robbers to justice and rekindles an old flame. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Ramrod

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

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

The Valley of Decision

Actors: Greer Garson, Gregory Peck, Donald Crisp, Lionel Barrymore, Preston S. Foster

Synopsis: Based on Marcia Davenport's novel and set in 1870, Valley of Decision details the romance between a housemaid named Mary Rafferty (Greer Garson) and her employer's son, Paul Scott (Gregory Peck). Paul's father, William (Donald Crisp), owns a Pittsburgh steel mill where Mary's father, Pat (Lionel Barrymore Read More

Son of Lassie

Actors: Peter Lawford, Donald Crisp, June Lockhart, Nigel Bruce, William Severn, Nils Asther

Synopsis: Son of Lassie is about a courageous collie named Laddie, played by a dog named "Pal". A sequel to Lassie Come Home, the film stars Peter Lawford and June Lockhart as the grown-up counterparts of the characters played in the earlier film by Roddy McDowall and Elizabeth Taylor. When WW2 breaks out Read More

National Velvet

Actors: Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp, Anne Revere, Angela Lansbury

Synopsis: Although National Velvet was the first starring role for 11-year-old Elizabeth Taylor, the early part of the film belongs to Mickey Rooney in the showier role of Mike Taylor, a headstrong English ex-jockey. Soured on life by a serious accident, Mike plans to steal from the country family that has Read More

The Uninvited

Actors: Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Dorothy Stickney

Synopsis: The Uninvited is one of the rare Hollywood ghost stories that does not cop out with a "logical" ending. In fact, the film has more in common with British ghost tales of the period, in that the characters calmly accept spectral visitations as though they were everyday occurrences. Roderick Read More

The Adventures of Mark Twain

Actors: Fredric March, Alexis Smith, Donald Crisp, Alan Hale, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Dismissed by critics as corny and obvious in 1944, this overlong but sincere biopic looks pretty good when seen today, cliches notwithstanding. Fredric March, 47 at the time, convincingly plays American author Sam Clemens, aka Mark Twain, from his early 20s to his death at 75. In typical Read More

Forever and a Day

Actors: Brian Aherne, Merle Oberon, Ida Lupino, Gladys Cooper, C. Aubrey Smith, Claude Rains, Robert Cummings, Anna Neagle, Roland Young

Synopsis: The 80-star cast of Forever and a Day would certainly not have been feasible had not most of the actors and production people turned over their salaries to British war relief -- a point driven home during the lengthy opening credits by an unseen narrator. The true star of the film is a stately old Read More

Lassie Come Home

Actors: Roddy McDowall, Donald Crisp, Dame May Whitty, Edmund Gwenn, Elsa Lanchester, Nigel Bruce

Synopsis: Female dogs tend to shed while in heat; this is why all the collies who've played doggy heroine Lassie in the movies have actually been well-disguised males. A magnificent animal named Pal was the screen's first Lassie in 1943's Lassie Come Home. Set in Yorkshire during the first World War, the Read More

The Battle of Midway

Synopsis: Highlights from World War II are documented in this award-winning film. ~ All Movie Guide 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

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner, Ian Hunter, Barton MacLane, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: 1941's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the second sound version of the Robert Louis Stevenson "doppelganger" tale. This time Spencer Tracy plays the benevolent Dr. Jekyll, whose experiments in releasing the evil impulses within himself transform him into the bestial Mr. Hyde. The problem here is that Read More

How Green Was My Valley

Actors: Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Donald Crisp, Roddy McDowall, Barry Fitzgerald, Anna Lee

Synopsis: Spanning 50 years, director John Ford's How Green Was My Valley revolves around the life of the Morgans, a Welsh mining family, as told through the eyes of its youngest child Huw (Roddy McDowall). Over the years, the family struggles to survive through unionization, strikes, and child abuse. As Read More

Shining Victory

Actors: James Stephenson, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Donald Crisp, Barbara O'Neil, Montagu Love

Synopsis: In this melodrama, a loyal research psychologist escapes from Budapest after the nature of his work is discovered. He resettles in Scotland and soon resumes his work. His benefactors provide him a female assistant, and at first the stubborn scientist is not pleased. Eventually the two fall in Read More

City for Conquest

Actors: James Cagney, Ann Sheridan, Frank Craven, Donald Crisp, Arthur Kennedy

Synopsis: There are three key characters in Anatole Litvak's filmization of Aben Kandel's novel City for Conquest, as opposed to the six or more in the book -- but the real star, to a large extent, is New York City and its entire population. For purposes of the movie, however, the dramatic arc is linked to James Cagney Read More

The Sea Hawk

Actors: Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Claude Rains, Flora Robson, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: In the 1580s, the Sea Hawks -- the name given to the bold privateers who prowl the oceans taking ships and treasure on behalf the British crown -- are the most dedicated defenders of British interests in the face of the expanding power of Philip of Spain. And Captain Geoffrey Thorpe (Errol Flynn) Read More

Brother Orchid

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, Donald Crisp, Ralph Bellamy

Synopsis: Edward G. Robinson plays orchid-loving gangster Little John Sarto, who aspires to "real class." During a power struggle with usurping mobster Jack Buck (Humphrey Bogart), Sarto is taken for a one-way ride, but he escapes his would-be assassins and hides out in a monastery overseen by Brother Read More

Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Ruth Gordon, Otto Kruger, Donald Crisp, Maria Ouspenskaya

Synopsis: Edward G. Robinson portrays real-life German medical researcher Paul Erlich, the man who discovered and perfected "Formula 606," the cure for syphilis. The world at large would prefer to treat the disease as though it does not exist, so Erlich spends most of his life underfunded and frustrated. A Read More

Knute Rockne, All American

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Gale Page, Ronald Reagan, Donald Crisp, Albert Basserman

Synopsis: Knute Rockne-All American was Pat O'Brien's finest hour: thanks to intensive rehearsals and numerous makeup applications, he so closely resembled the title character that, in the words of Rockne's widow, "I almost expected him to make love with me". The life of the legendary Notre Dame football Read More

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex

Actors: Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Vincent Price, Donald Crisp, Alan Hale

Synopsis: It is no secret that Bette Davis and Errol Flynn were at each other's throats throughout the filming of The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. Boiled down to essentials: Davis felt that Flynn was unprofessional, while Flynn thought that Davis took herself too damned seriously. Besides, Davis Read More

Elizabeth, the Queen

Daughters Courageous

Actors: John Garfield, Claude Rains, Fay Bainter, Donald Crisp, May Robson

Synopsis: This family drama features the same cast and crew from the highly successful Four Daughters, but it isn't actually a sequel. Whereas the first film was a chronicle of the Lemp family, this one centers on the Masters family. This film is also characterized by a much happier ending than its Read More

Wuthering Heights

Actors: Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Flora Robson, Geraldine Fitzgerald

Synopsis: William Wyler's Wuthering Heights is one of the earliest screen adaptations of the classic Emily Brontë novel. A traveler named Lockwood (Miles Mander) is caught in the snow and stays at the estate of Wuthering Heights, where the housekeeper, Ellen Dean (Flora Robson), sits down to tell him the Read More

The Old Maid

Actors: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, George Brent, Donald Crisp, Jane Bryan

Synopsis: When Zoë Akins' play The Old Maid (based on a novel by Edith Wharton) won the 1934-1935 Pulitzer Prize, the selection was roundly condemned by critics, who felt that Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour was more deserving, but had lost because of its lesbian theme. Certainly, Akins' story of the Read More

Sons of Liberty

Juarez

Actors: Paul Muni, Bette Davis, Brian Aherne, Claude Rains, John Garfield

Synopsis: Juarez was originally designed to concentrate almost exclusively on the tragedy of Hapsburg Emperor Maximillian, whose attempts to establish a puppet government in Mexico on behalf of Napoleon III ended in disaster and death. But when Paul Muni decided that he wanted to play Read More

The Oklahoma Kid

Actors: James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Rosemary Lane, Donald Crisp, Harvey Stephens

Synopsis: James Cagney stars in the humorous Western The Oklahoma Kid, set during the land rush of 1893. John Kincaid (Hugh Sothern) and his son, Ned (Harvey Stephens), try to settle on a plot of land, but they are met by the villainous Whip McCord (Humphrey Bogart) and his band of miscreants. McCord runs a Read More

Jezebel

Actors: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, George Brent, Margaret Lindsay, Donald Crisp, Fay Bainter

Synopsis: In 1938, Jezebel was widely regarded as Warner Bros.' "compensation" to Bette Davis for her losing the opportunity to play Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. Resemblances between the two properties are inescapable: Jezebel heroine Julie Marsden (Davis) is a headstrong Southern belle not unlike Read More

Comet over Broadway

Actors: Kay Francis, Ian Hunter, John Litel, Donald Crisp, Minna Gombell

Synopsis: Despite the presence of Busby Berkeley in the director's chair, Comet Over Broadway contains nary a single musical number. Instead, the film concentrates on the lachrymose private life of stage star Eve Appleton (Kay Francis). While appearing in amateur theatricals, Eve indirectly causes the death Read More

Beloved Brat

Actors: Bonita Granville, Donald Crisp, Dolores Costello

Synopsis: A troubled young girl vents her frustrations upon her poor butler in this sentimental drama. The teen is angry because her parents ignore her. Fortunately a kindly teacher is there to help her learn more productive ways of coping. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor, Humphrey Bogart, Allen Jenkins, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: Edward G. Robinson shines in a fine comic role as Dr. Clitterhouse, a brilliant psychiatrist doing research into the criminal mind. The good doctor wants to gain a clearer understanding of how a thief feels when he's in the midst of a robbery, so strictly for academic purposes he tries to crack a Read More

Sergeant Murphy

Actors: Ronald Reagan, Mary Maguire, Donald Crisp, Ben Hendricks, Jr.

Synopsis: In this wartime drama, cavalry private Dennis Murphy purchases a nervous horse, Sergeant, after it is deemed unfit for military service. With patience and love, Murphy trains his horse into a champion and later proves his worth by sneaking the steed into England where he enters him in the Grand Read More

The Dawn Patrol

Actors: Errol Flynn, David Niven, Basil Rathbone, Donald Crisp, Melville Cooper

Synopsis: This 1938 remake of Howard Hawks' 1930 film The Dawn Patrol is faithful to the original's basic plotline. The story is set during World War I; the scene is the French headquarters of the British Royal Flying Corps, 59th division. The corps is suffering heavy losses, a fact that ace pilot Courtney (Errol Flynn Read More

Valley of the Giants

Actors: Wayne Morris, Claire Trevor, Frank McHugh, Alan Hale, Donald Crisp, Charles Bickford

Synopsis: This third film version of Peter B. Kyne's Valley of the Giants benefits from the breahtaking Technicolor location photography of Sol Polito. Hero Bill Cardigan (Wayne Morris) is a lifetime resident of California's Tall Timber country. When evil land-despoiler Howard Fallon (Charles Bickford) Read More

The Sisters

Actors: Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, Anita Louise, Ian Hunter, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: The 1938 filmization of Myron Brinig's novel The Sisters stars Bette Davis, Jane Bryan and Anita Louise as Louise, Grace and Helen Elliot. The daughters of turn-of-the-century druggist Henry Travers and his wife Beulah Bondi, the Elliot girls all meet their future husbands at a 1904 ball in honor Read More

Confession

Actors: Kay Francis, Ian Hunter, Basil Rathbone, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: German director Joe May brought a decidedly Teutonic ambience to his American film Confession--no surprise, since the film was based on the 1935 German production Mazurka. Kay Francis plays a onetime singer who confesses to the murder of her pianist, Basil Rathbone. In flashback, we learn that Read More

The Great O'Malley

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Sybil Jason, Humphrey Bogart, Frieda Inescort, Ann Sheridan

Synopsis: In this drama, Pat O'Brien plays James O'Malley, a tough, by-the-book policeman who is so unbending on any minor infraction of the law that he even gives his own mother a ticket for jaywalking. When newspaper reporter Pinky Holden (Hobart Cavanaugh) writes an article making fun of O'Malley's Read More

Parnell

Actors: Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Edna May Oliver, Edmund Gwenn, Alan Marshal

Synopsis: The true story of one of Ireland's leading political figures of the late 19th Century inspired this biographical drama. Charles Stewart Parnell (Clark Gable) is a politician and activist whose tireless work towards the cause of Irish independence has earned him the nickname "the Uncrowned King of Read More

That Certain Woman

Actors: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, Ian Hunter, Anita Louise, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: Edmund Goulding directed this remake of his own 1929 The Trespasser, which starred Gloria Swanson. Here Bette Davis assumes the lead role of Mary Donnell, a young innocent married to a bootlegger. When her husband is killed, she decides to pursue a better life and gets a job as a secretary to Read More

The Life of Emile Zola

Actors: Paul Muni, Gloria Holden, Gale Sondergaard, Joseph Schildkraut, Robert Warwick, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: The second of Paul Muni's biographical films for Warner Bros., the Oscar-winning The Life of Emile Zola is by far the best, even allowing for the dramatic license taken with the material. When first we meet French novelist and essayist Zola, he is starving in a Parisian garret with his painter Read More

The White Angel

Actors: Kay Francis, Ian Hunter, Donald Woods, Nigel Bruce, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: Briefly breaking away from her high-gloss modern soap operas, Kay Francis stars as Florence Nightingale in this reverent Warner Bros. biopic. The screenplay concentrates on Nightingale's humanitarian activities during the Crimean War of 1854-55. Defiant in the face of military bureaucracy and the Read More

Beloved Enemy

Actors: Merle Oberon, Brian Aherne, Karen Morley, Jerome Cowan, David Niven

Synopsis: This lavishly appointed Sam Goldwyn soap opera is set in Ireland during "the troubles." Irish rebel leader Dennis Reardon (Brian Aherne) falls in love with Lady Helen Drummond (Merle Oberon), the aristocratic daughter of British diplomat Lord Athleigh (Henry Stephenson). Reardon's underground Read More

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Actors: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Patric Knowles, Henry Stephenson,