Edmund Gwenn Filmography

Calabuch

Actors: Edmund Gwenn

Synopsis: The Spanish/Italian Rocket From Calabuch is significant only as the last film of beloved character actor Edmund Gwenn. The 78-year-old star plays a retired atomic scientist who settles in a peaceful Spanish village. But he can't remain sedentary for long, and soon he's off and about developing a Read More

It's a Dog's Life

Actors: Jeff Richards, Jarma Lewis, Edmund Gwenn, Dean Jagger, Willard Sage

Synopsis: The narrator of Herman Hoffman's film is a bull terrier named Wildfire, who rises from life in the slums to status as a pampered pet of a wealthy home. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

The Trouble with Harry

Actors: Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, Shirley MacLaine, Mildred Natwick, Mildred Dunnock, Jerry Mathers

Synopsis: The trouble with Harry is that he's dead. The scene is a autumnal Vermont village, where a pre-Leave It to Beaver Jerry Mathers stumbles upon Harry's corpse in the woods. Mathers alerts his mother Shirley MacLaine (making her film debut), who recognizes Harry as her ex-husband. Later on, retired Read More

Them!

Actors: James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon, James Arness, Onslow Stevens

Synopsis: A little girl is found wandering in the desert, in a state of complete shock. When she finally revives, she can scream out only one word: "Them!" Any aficionado of 1950s horror films can readily tell you that "Them" are giant ants, a byproduct of the radiation attending the atomic bomb tests of Read More

The Student Prince

Actors: Ann Blyth, Edmund Purdom, John Ericson, Louis Calhern, Edmund Gwenn

Synopsis: Edmund Purdom plays Prince Karl, but Mario Lanza sings the bold tunes coming out of Purdom's mouth, in this MGM remake of the 1927 Ernst Lubitsch silent picture based on the renowned 1924 operetta by Sigmund Romberg and Dorothy Donnelly, which itself was based on the novel and play by Wilhelm Read More

The Bigamist

Actors: Edmond O'Brien, Joan Fontaine, Ida Lupino, Edmund Gwenn, Jane Darwell

Synopsis: The title character is Edmond O'Brien, a lonely travelling salesman looking for love. He finds it by marrying an eligible young woman (Joan Fontaine)--and then by marrying another eligible young woman (Ida Lupino) in another city. When one of the wives becomes suspicious of O'Brien's frequent Read More

Mr. Scoutmaster

Actors: Clifton Webb, Edmund Gwenn, George Winslow, Frances Dee, Veda Ann Borg

Synopsis: Robert Jordan is a television star. Robert Jordan likes things orderly, on time and properly executed. In his world children are to be seen, not heard. So why would Mr. Jordan want to become the master of a rambunctious band of Boy Scouts? Ratings. His staff figures that if learns how to interact Read More

Mister Scoutmaster

Something for the Birds

Actors: Victor Mature, Patricia Neal, Edmund Gwenn, Larry Keating, Gladys Hurlbut

Synopsis: Something for the Birds is a toothless satire of Washington, filmed during the McCarthy era. For lack of a political target that wouldn't get them labeled as Communists, the producers decided to go after lobbyists. Patricia Neal comes to Washington on behalf of the preservation of the California Read More

Sally and Saint Anne

Actors: Ann Blyth, Edmund Gwenn, John McIntire, Hugh O'Brian

Synopsis: Young Sally Moyne (Ann Blyth) seldom makes a move in life without first consulting Saint Anne, patron saint of all young girls. Sally's faith in the efficacy of St. Anne has a salutary affect on all those in her orbit. It can also be said that Sally's tight relationship with her patron saint is of Read More

Les Miserables

Actors: Michael Rennie, Debra Paget, Robert Newton, Edmund Gwenn, Sylvia Sidney

Synopsis: Not up to the classic 1935 presentation, this is still an excellent adaptation of Victor Hugo's epic novel. The familiar characters of Valjean and Javert and the agonies of injustice are all portrayed convincingly against a backdrop of 18th century France. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

Bonzo Goes to College

Actors: Maureen O'Sullivan, Charles Drake, Edmund Gwenn, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: Bonzo Goes to College is the one that Ronald Reagan isn't in. The focus, of course, is on brainy chimpanzee Bonzo, who escapes a seedy sideshow and hides out on a college campus. Here he is adopted by Betsy Drew (Gigi Perreau), the daughter of nonplused professor Malcolm Drew (Charles Drake). Read More

Peking Express

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Corinne Calvet, Edmund Gwenn, Marvin Miller, Benson Fong

Synopsis: Peking Express was the second remake of Josef vonSternberg's Shanghai Express. In the original film, a group of railroad passengers escaping war-torn China are overtaken by Chinese; in the first remake, Night Plane to Chungking, a plane is forced down in a jungle surrounded by Japanese troops. Read More

A Woman of Distinction

Actors: Ray Milland, Rosalind Russell, Edmund Gwenn, Janis Carter, Mary Jane Saunders

Synopsis: A Woman of Distinction serves as a tailor-made vehicle for Rosalind Russell. The star is cast as Susan Middlecott, a highly respected college dean. As can be expected, Susan is too busy for romance -- at least until handsome professor Alec Stevenson (Ray Milland) enters the picture. At first, the Read More

For Heaven's Sake

Actors: Clifton Webb, Joan Bennett, Robert Cummings, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: When the continual bickering of a married couple threatens to tear them apart, an angel is sent to help them get back together and start making babies in this fantasy. The husband is a busy producer for theatrical shows so the angel disguises himself as a wealthy Westerner looking to invest in a Read More

Pretty Baby

Actors: Dennis Morgan, Betsy Drake, Zachary Scott, Edmund Gwenn, William Frawley

Synopsis: Best known to posterity as the third wife of Cary Grant, Betsy Drake enjoyed a substantial film career during the postwar era. In Pretty Baby, Drake plays Patsy Douglas, an enterprising young lady who always assures herself a seat on the subway by carrying a doll wrapped in baby bunting. Through a Read More

Mister 880

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Dorothy McGuire, Edmund Gwenn, Millard Mitchell, Minor Watson

Synopsis: Based on a true story, Mister 880 is the whimsical tale of an elderly gentleman (Edmund Gwenn) who dabbles in counterfeiting. He makes only enough "funny money" to support himself, but the fact that his work is so amateurish (he can't even spell "Washington") arouses the indignation of the Read More

Louisa

Actors: Spring Byington, Ronald Reagan, Charles Coburn, Edmund Gwenn, Ruth Hussey

Synopsis: Never mind the top-billed Ronald W. Reagan; the real stars of Louisa are sprightly seniors Charles Coburn, Spring Byington and Edmund Gwenn. Spring plays Reagan's widowed mother, who is outwardly satisfied with her lot but inwardly lonely. Enter Coburn and Gwenn, who vie for Spring's attentions. 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

Apartment for Peggy

Actors: Edmund Gwenn, Jeanne Crain, William Holden, Gene Lockhart, Griff Barnett

Synopsis: Jason (William Holden) is a World War II veteran going to college on the GI Bill in the hope of bettering himself. He has recently married his sweetheart, Peggy (Jeanne Crain), who has learned that they're having a baby. However, money is tight for the young couple, and inexpensive housing is at a 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

Life With Father

Actors: William Powell, Irene Dunne, Monte Blue, ZaSu Pitts, Clara Blandick, Johnny Calkins, Emma Dunn, Edmund Gwenn, Elizabeth Taylor

Synopsis: The longest-running non-musical play in Broadway history, Life With Father was faithfully filmed by Warner Bros. in 1947. William Powell is a tower of comic strength as Clarence Day, the benevolent despot of his 1880s New York City household. Irene Dunne co-stars as Day's wife Vinnie, who Read More

Green Dolphin Street

Actors: Patrick Aherne, Lana Turner, Linda Christian, Van Heflin, Donna Reed, Gladys Cooper, Bernie Gozier, Richard Hart, Edmund Gwenn

Synopsis: The 161-minute costume drama Green Dolphin Street is set in 1840, on an island off the coast of Newfoundland, (or at least, the MGM backlot facsimile of same). Boiled down to essentials, it's the story of two sisters, blonde Marguerite Patourel (Donna Reed) and brunette
Marianne Patourel Read More

Bob, Son of Battle

Actors: Harry Allen, James Finlayson, Peggy Ann Garner, Edmund Gwenn

Synopsis: Often mistakenly identified as a sequel to My Friend Flicka, Thunder in the Valley actually has more in common with the Lassie saga. Lon McAllister plays the son of truculent Scottish sheepherder Edmund Gwenn. Though he has no time for people, Gwenn is quite fond of his collie dog. Partly as a Read More

Miracle on 34th Street

Actors: Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Edmund Gwenn, Natalie Wood, Harry Antrim, Jerome Cowan, William Forrest, Herbert Heyes, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: Edmund Gwenn plays Kris Kringle, a bearded old gent who is the living image of Santa Claus. Serving as a last-minute replacement for the drunken Santa who was to have led Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, Kringle is offered a job as a Macy's toy-department Santa. Supervisor Maureen O'Hara soon begins Read More

Of Human Bondage

Actors: Eleanor Parker, Paul Henreid, Alexis Smith, Edmund Gwenn, Janis Paige

Synopsis: This second film version of Somerset Maugham's classic novel stars Paul Henreid as a clubfooted, introverted medical student--an Englishman in the novel, but not in the hands of the mittel-European Mr. Henried. Eleanor Parker is featured as Mildred, the vulgar, brassy cockney waitress in whom Read More

Undercurrent

Actors: Katharine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, Robert Mitchum, Edmund Gwenn, Marjorie Main

Synopsis: A change of pace for both director Vincente Minnelli and star Katharine Hepburn, this taut drama features the latter as Ann Hamilton, the daughter of a scientist (Edmund Gwenn), who after a whirlwind romance marries handsome but slightly mysterious inventor turned businessman Alan Garroway (Robert Read More

She Went to the Races

Actors: James Craig, Frances Gifford, Ava Gardner, Edmund Gwenn, Sig Rumann

Synopsis: MGM's newest romantic team of James Craig and Frances Gifford head the cast of the glossy "B"-picture She Went to the Races. Gifford plays beautiful professor Ann Wotters, who develops a scientific method of picking winners at the race track. Craig portrays horsetrainer Steve Confield, who thinks Read More

Dangerous Partners

Actors: James Craig, Signe Hasso, Edmund Gwenn, Audrey Totter, Mabel Paige

Synopsis: In this a briefcase containing four wills is found next to the unconscious body of a man. He lies beside a plane crash. Each of the wills is made out to the man. Meanwhile a recent widow and a man work together to get the money her husband died for. They almost get it when they are accosted by the Read More

Bewitched

Actors: Phyllis Thaxter, Edmund Gwenn, Henry Daniels, Jr., Horace McNally, Addison Richards, Kathleen Lockhart, Minor Watson

Synopsis: Radio legend and 3-D pioneer Arch Oboler brings his story, Alter Ego, to the screen in a low-budget yarn that benefits from a strong cast and direction. Joan Ellis (Phyllis Thaxter) hears a voice in her head (in flashbacks) shortly before she is to be married. She flees to another city and even Read More

The Keys of the Kingdom

Actors: Gregory Peck, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price, Rosa Stradner, Roddy McDowall, Edmund Gwenn

Synopsis: Based on the novel by A.J. Cronin, The Keys of the Kingdom was the first big-budget effort of movie-newcomer Gregory Peck. This is the 137-minute chronicle of a Scottish priest (Peck), who is assigned a mission in China. Never very focused in his life or work, the priest finds plenty to keep his Read More

Between Two Worlds

Actors: John Garfield, Paul Henreid, Sydney Greenstreet, Eleanor Parker, Edmund Gwenn

Synopsis: In this remake of Outward Bound, which updated the story to include topical refences to the war still raging in Europe, Henry (Paul Henreid) and Ann (Eleanor Parker) are a couple from Austria hoping to escape Nazi bombings. They are en route to a ship leaving Europe when an explosion throws them Read More

Forever and a Day

Actors: Brian Aherne, Merle Oberon, Gladys Cooper, Ida Lupino, 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

The Meanest Man in the World

Actors: Jack Benny, Priscilla Lane, Edmund Gwenn, Matt Briggs

Synopsis: The old George M. Cohan theatrical chestnut The Meanest Man in the World was retailored for the screen to accommodate the talents of Jack Benny and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson. Benny plays small-town lawyer Richard Clark, whose soft-heartedness and sense of justice loses him case after case. 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

Random Harvest

Actors: Ronald Colman, Greer Garson, Philip Dorn, Susan Peters, Henry Travers

Synopsis: At the close of World War I, shell-shocked amnesia victim Ronald Colman is sequestered in a London sanitarium; with no identity and no next of kin, he has nowhere else to go. Unable to stand the loneliness, Colman wanders into the streets, then stumbles into a music hall, where he is befriended by Read More

A Yank at Eton

Actors: Mickey Rooney, Edmund Gwenn, Ian Hunter, Freddie Bartholomew, Marta Linden

Synopsis: MGM's A Yank at Eton follows the same basic formula as the 1938 Robert Taylor starrer A Yank at Oxford, with a wartime angle thrown in. This time it's Mickey Rooney as the cocky young American who is shipped off to England to complete his education. Upon his arrival in the hallowed halls of Eton Read More

Cheers for Miss Bishop

Actors: Martha Scott, William Gargan, Edmund Gwenn, Sterling Holloway, Sidney Blackmer

Synopsis: Something of a distaff Mr. Chips, schoolteacher Ella Bishop (Martha Scott) devotes her life to her work, ageing 50 years (from 19 to 69) in the course of the film. At a testimonial dinner on the occasion of her retirement, Miss Bishop's former students wonder why their beloved teacher never Read More

One Night in Lisbon

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Madeleine Carroll, Patricia Morison, Billie Burke, John Loder

Synopsis: One Night in Lisbon is one of several pre-1942 films which used the screwball-comedy form to comment upon the raging war in Europe. While transporting American warplanes to the beleagured RAF, Texas flyboy Dwight Houston (Fred MacMurray) is caught in a London air raid. Scurrying to a shelter Read More

Scotland Yard

Actors: Nancy Kelly, Edmund Gwenn, John Loder, Henry Wilcoxon, Melville Cooper

Synopsis: In this remake of the 1930 film of the same name, a bank robber suffers a war wound and undergoes plastic surgery. Upon his recovery, he discovers that he is the exact double of a banker (who is trapped in a German POW camp). Being an opportunist, the fellow then assumes the banker's identity and Read More

Charley's Aunt

Actors: Jack Benny, Kay Francis, Anne Baxter, Edmund Gwenn, Richard Haydn, James Ellison

Synopsis: Jack Benny brings his own distinctive touch to Brandon Thomas' venerable (and oft-filmed) stage farce Charley's Aunt. Utilizing a gloriously unconvincing broad-A English accent, Benny is cast as Lord Fancourt Babberly, a somewhat overaged undergraduate at Oxford University. Babbs' roommates Jack Read More

The Devil and Miss Jones

Actors: Jean Arthur, Charles Coburn, Robert Cummings, Edmund Gwenn, S.Z. Sakall, Spring Byington

Synopsis: The Devil and Miss Jones is a social comedy with left-wing undertones. John P. Merrick (Charles Coburn), the world's richest man, gets word that someone is trying to unionize a department store that he owns. To thwart this blatant act of democracy, Merrick changes his name and takes a menial job Read More

Foreign Correspondent

Actors: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders, Albert Basserman

Synopsis: Fourteen scriptwriters spent five years toiling over a movie adaptation of war correspondent Vincent Sheehan's Personal History before producer Walter Wanger brought the property to the screen as Foreign Correspondent. What emerged was approximately 2 parts Sheehan and 8 parts director Alfred Hitchcock Read More

Pride and Prejudice

Actors: Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Mary Boland, Edna May Oliver, Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O'Sullivan

Synopsis: Long before 19th-century novelist Jane Austen became a hot property in Hollywood, MGM produced this opulent and entertaining adaptation of one of Austen's best-known novels. The elegant and slyly satirical comedy of manners gets under way when socially conscious Mrs. Bennet (Mary Boland), with the Read More

The Earl of Chicago

Actors: Robert Montgomery, Edward Arnold, Reginald Owen, Edmund Gwenn, E.E. Clive

Synopsis: The schizophrenic screenplay of The Earl of Chicago is rendered even more bizarre by the uneven performance by Robert Montgomery. He plays Silky Kilmont, a Runyonesque American gangster who inherits a British title (Earl of Gorley) and mansion. Taking charge of his new estate, Silky has an amusing Read More

The Doctor Takes a Wife

Actors: Loretta Young, Ray Milland, Reginald Gardiner, Gail Patrick, Edmund Gwenn

Synopsis: Fiercely independent authoress June Cameron (Loretta Young) has no time for men in her life. Chauvinistic medical college professor Timothy Sterling (Ray Milland) has no use for women. So guess who is mistaken for June's husband, and guess who is forced by circumstances to pretend that she's Read More

Mad Men of Europe

Actors: Edmund Gwenn, Mary Maguire, Geoffrey Toone, Richard Ainley

Synopsis: In this British wartime propaganda film, a Nazi spy creeps into England and is taken in by a kindly family who have no idea who he really is. He repays their kindness by using their home as a radio base for his communiqués to other Nazis regarding the location of British targets for German planes Read More

Cheer Boys Cheer

Synopsis: Cheer Boys Cheer is a provincial British comedy with slight Romeo and Juliet undertones. Edmund Gwenn and Moore Marriott play rival brewery owners who detest the sight of one another. Not so their children--the son of one man, the daughter of the other--who fall in love. One glance at the film's Read More

Penny Paradise

Synopsis: In this early film from director Sir Carol Reed, Edmund Gwenn stars as Joe Higgins, a hardworking tugboat captain who is ecstatic when he learns that he has won a lucrative soccer pool. To celebrate, Higgins quits his job and invites all his pals to the local tavern for a wingding. But during the Read More

A Yank at Oxford

Actors: Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Vivien Leigh, Edmund Gwenn

Synopsis: A Yank at Oxford was filmed in England at MGM's "sister studio", Elstree. Robert Taylor plays Lee Sheridan, an arrogant young American scholar/athlete who intends to show the "Brits" a thing or two while attending Oxford University. His abrasive attitude grates against the Oxonian students, who Read More

South Riding

Actors: Edna Best, Ralph Richardson, Edmund Gwenn, Ann Todd, John Clements, Milton Rosmer, Marie Lohr

Synopsis: Set in England in the early 1900s, South Riding is a political and personal drama about a nearly bankrupt estate owner who is trying to keep himself solvent by buying into a real estate plan which he doesn't realize is morally suspect. The original British cut of South Riding ran 90 minutes, but 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

Anthony Adverse

Actors: Fredric March, Olivia de Havilland, Edmund Gwenn, Claude Rains, Anita Louise

Synopsis: When David O. Selznick produced the film version of the 1000-plus page novel Gone with the Wind, he declared he could not make a film running any less than 222 minutes. When Warner Bros. adapted the even longer Hervey Allen best-seller Anthony Adverse, the studio managed to pack everything--except Read More

The Walking Dead

Actors: Boris Karloff, Ricardo Cortez, Edmund Gwenn, Marguerite Churchill, Warren Hull, Barton MacLane

Synopsis: In one of his most successful portrayals of a "living dead" man, Boris Karloff plays John Ellman, an ex-convict who is framed by the mob for the murder of the judge who first put him away. Evidence proving Ellman's innocence arrives seconds after he is electrocuted. Officials allow Dr. Evan Read More

All-American Chump

Actors: Stuart Erwin, Robert Armstrong, Betty Furness, Edmund Gwenn, Harvey Stephens

Synopsis: Bucolic Elmer Lamb (Stuart Erwin), who only wants to raise dairy cattle, is a mathematical prodigy; he's even a whiz at playing bridge. Circus pitchman Bill (Robert Armstrong) and circus owner Jeffrey Crane (Edmund Gwenn) want to make money off Elmer, but Jeff's daughter Kitty (Betty Furness) Read More

Mad Holiday

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Elissa Landi, ZaSu Pitts, Ted Healy, Edmund Gwenn

Synopsis: The overlong but absorbing MGM "B" melodrama Mad Holiday stars Edmund Lowe as vacationing movie idol Philip Trent. Tired of starring in murder mysteries, Trent discovers he can't escape typecasting even on an ocean voyage: one of the passengers is murdered in our hero's cabin. The killing is tied Read More