Elsa LanchesterFilmography

Turnabout: The Story of The Yale Puppeteers

Actors: Elsa Lanchester, Odette

Synopsis: In this labor of love, the filmmaker tells the unusual and fascinating story of some older relatives of his who toured the U.S. for nearly seven decades as the Yale Puppeteers, putting on satirical performances which lampooned the public figures of their day. Their claim to theatrical fame comes Read More

Die Laughing

Actors: Robby Benson, Linda Grovenor, Charles Durning, Elsa Lanchester, Bud Cort

Synopsis: In this black comedy, a humble cab driver spends his days daydreaming of becoming a rock-star. His blissful reverie is one day interrupted when ends up inadvertently blamed for the assassination of a world-renowned nuclear scientist. Soon afterward he finds that he has a stowaway, the late Read More

Murder by Death

Actors: Eileen Brennan, Truman Capote, James Coco, Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Maggie Smith

Synopsis: As penned by Neil Simon, this satire of movie mysteries is set in motion when several prominent detectives are invited to the mansion of the reclusive Lionel Twain (Truman Capote). In Ten Little Indians fashion, the gathered sleuths are locked into the forbidding mansion, and subject to various Read More

Terror in the Wax Museum

Synopsis: Murder abounds at a wax museum after the owner decides to sell it, and seemingly waxen figures come alive. By the way, are wax images normally supposed to breathe when being filmed? ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More

Arnold

Actors: Wanda Bailey

Synopsis: The Arnold of Arnold, like the Harry of The Trouble With Harry, is stone cold dead from the outset of this film. That doesn't stop Arnold's mistress Stella Stevens from marrying the corpse so as to come into his millions. The trick is to hide the fact that Arnold is indeed stiff as a mackerel. To Read More

Willard

Actors: Bruce Davison, Ernest Borgnine, Elsa Lanchester, Sondra Locke, Michael Dante

Synopsis: This film is based on the novel Ratman's Notebooks, by Stephen Gilbert. Bruce Davison is Willard Stiles, a 27-year-old mama's boy whose repressions are bottled up inside and come to the fore in his nervous nail-biting. As one character describes Willard, "Willard is basically an extrovert, but Read More

My Dog, the Thief

Synopsis: An air-traffic reporter discovers that his partner--a St. Bernard dog--has accidentally swiped a priceless necklace from a jewel-smuggling gang. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

In Name Only

Actors: Ruth Buzzi, Christopher Connelly, Bill Daily

Synopsis: This by-the-numbers TV movie features an all-star cast in a comedy of marital mix-ups and misunderstandings. Consultants Michael Callan and Ann Prentiss arrange the marriages of several couples, only to discover that all the unions are illegal. Among those affected are a cop (Christopher Connelly) Read More

Me, Natalie

Actors: Patty Duke, James Farentino, Martin Balsam, Elsa Lanchester, Salome Jens

Synopsis: Since she was a child, Natalie Miller (Patty Duke) has always thought she was an ugly ducking. When a boy called her "clown face", the six-year-old knocked out his front teeth with a shovel. Despite her mother's encouragement that she will grow up to be pretty, Natalie has never believed it will Read More

Rascal

Actors: Steve Forrest, Bill Mumy, Pamela Toll, Elsa Lanchester

Synopsis: Rascal, the Sterling North novel that has been a longtime fixture of Scholastic Magazine book clubs, was given Tiffany treatment by the Disney studios in 1969. Bill Mumy plays young Sterling North, whose Wisconsin childhood is enriched through his friendship with a stray raccoon. Though lacking Read More

Blackbeard's Ghost

Actors: Peter Ustinov, Dean Jones, Suzanne Pleshette, Elsa Lanchester, Joby Baker

Synopsis: Blackbeard's Ghost was one of the first Disney productions released after Walt's death. Peter Ustinov stars as the eponymous wraith, who returns to Earth to come to aid of his descendant, elderly Elsa Lanchester. The villains want to kick Lanchester and her friends out of their group home so that Read More

Easy Come, Easy Go

Actors: Elvis Presley, Dodie Marshall, Pat Priest, Pat Harrington, Jr., Elsa Lanchester, Skip Ward, Frank McHugh

Synopsis: Elvis Presley hits the high seas in this musical comedy. Ted Jackson (Presley) is a former Navy frogman who divides his time between twin careers as a deep sea diver and nightclub singer. Ted discovers what he believes could be a fortune in Spanish gold aboard a sunken ship and sets out to rescue Read More

That Darn Cat

Actors: Hayley Mills, Dean Jones, Dorothy Provine, Roddy McDowall, Neville Brand

Synopsis: Though overlong even for a Hayley Mills vehicle, That Darn Cat is an expert blend of laughs and suspense. The eponymous feline is D.C., a Siamese belonging to sisters Hayley Mills and Dorothy Provine. One evening, D.C. comes flouncing home with a lady's wristwatch attached to her neck. The watch Read More

Pajama Party

Actors: Tommy Kirk, Annette Funicello, Elsa Lanchester, Jody McCrea, Jesse White, Buster Keaton, Harvey Lembeck

Synopsis: Out of the beaches and into the boudoirs go Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello and the rest of the gang in Pajama Party. Actually, the whole megillah is as innocent as a newborn babe, but there's plenty of smirking and snickering during a wild 'n' wacky girl's slumber party. Frankie Avalon has only Read More

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: The McGregor Affair

Actors: Andrew Duggan, Elsa Lanchester, Arthur Malet, Michael Pate, William Smith

Synopsis: The infamous story of 19th century grave robbers Burke and Hare is given a new slant in this episode, told from the point-of-view of dimwitted Scottish laborer John McGregor (Andrew Duggan). In order to provide gin money for his sodden wife, Aggie (Elsa Lanchester), McGregor takes a job hauling Read More

Honeymoon Hotel

Actors: Robert Goulet, Nancy Kwan, Robert Morse, Jill St. John, Keenan Wynn, Anne Helm, Elvia Allman

Synopsis: Intending to marry Cynthia (Anne Helm), Jay Menlow (Robert Morse) is stranded at the alter on the day of the blessed occasion. Left with a paid Honeymoon vacation in the Caribbean, Jay takes along best man Ross Kingsley (Robert Goulet) to the Boca Boca, a "honeymooners only" resort. Ross soon Read More

Bell, Book and Candle

Actors: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, Ernie Kovacs, Hermione Gingold, Elsa Lanchester

Synopsis: John Van Druten's stage comedy Bell Book and Candle starred Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer on Broadway. The 1958 filmed version stars James Stewart and Kim Novak, fresh from their successful teaming in Hitchcock's Vertigo. Novak plays Gillian Holroyd, a genuine, bonafide witch. Falling in love with Read More

Witness for the Prosecution

Actors: Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester, Una O'Connor

Synopsis: Having just recovered from a heart attack, fabled British barrister Sir Wilfred Robards (Charles Laughton) has been ordered by his doctor to give up everything he holds dear-brandy, cigars and especially courtroom cases. Robards' already shaky resolve to follow doctor's orders flies out the window Read More

I Love Lucy: Off to Florida

Actors: Elsa Lanchester, Strother Martin

Synopsis: In another "on the road" story arc, the Ricardos and the Mertzes prepare to vacation in Florida. When Lucy (Lucille Ball) loses two of the train tickets, she and Ethel (Vivian Vance) advertise for a traveling companion to help drive to Florida and pay expenses. The ad is answered by Mrs. Grundy (Elsa Lanchester Read More

Stranger in the Night

Synopsis: Stranger in the Night stars Joan Fontaine as a turn-of-the -century widow who moves into a somewhat foreboding seaside estate. Fontaine assumes that her only companion is her housekeeper Elsa Lanchester, but she's wrong: the house is also "inhabited" by the ghost of a handsome sea captain (Michael Wilding Read More

The Glass Slipper

Actors: Leslie Caron, Michael Wilding, Sr., Keenan Wynn, Estelle Winwood, Elsa Lanchester

Synopsis: The Glass Slipper is a charming retelling of the Cinderella story, eminently suitable for both kids and adults. Leslie Caron plays Ella, the plain-Jane stepsister of beautiful but mean-spirited Birdena (Amanda Blake) and Serafina (Lisa Daniels). While stepmother Widow Sonder (Elsa Lanchester) Read More

Hell's Half Acre

Actors: Wendell Corey, Evelyn Keyes, Nancy Gates, Elsa Lanchester, Marie Windsor

Synopsis: Hell's Half Acre was written directly for the screen by Steve Fisher, whose I Wake Up Screaming remains one of the definitive "film noirs". The scene is a rundown section of Honolulu, where there dwells a group of wannabes, hasbeens and never-weres. While trying to go straight in this environment Read More

Three Ring Circus

Actors: Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Joanne Dru, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Elsa Lanchester, Wallace Ford

Synopsis: According to some eyewitness reports, the feud between Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis was at its peak during the filming of Three Ring Circus. Other observers have noted that the boys behaved with thorough professionalism throughout the shoot. Whatever the case, the film offers a comparatively Read More

The Girls of Pleasure Island

Actors: Don Taylor, Leo Genn, Elsa Lanchester, Philip Ober, Joan Elan

Synopsis: Because of its misleadingly sensual title and the participation of screenwriter/director F. Hugh Herbert (author of the once-notorious "The Moon is Blue"), Girls of Pleasure Island was ballyhooed in 1953 as the ultimate in sex and sin. In truth, the film is an innocent, inconsequential WW II Read More

Dreamboat

Actors: Clifton Webb, Ginger Rogers, Anne Francis, Jeffrey Hunter, Elsa Lanchester

Synopsis: Dreamboat stars Clifton Webb as Thornton Sayre, the perfectionist professor of literature at a sedate Midwestern university. Widowed and with a pretty daughter (Anne Francis), Sayre has given no clue to his previous life before becoming a teacher. But thanks to television, everyone discovers that Read More

Androcles and the Lion

Actors: Jean Simmons, Alan Young, Victor Mature, Robert Newton, Maurice Evans

Synopsis: With George Bernard Shaw safely in his grave, RKO chief Howard Hughes had no qualms about twisting and bending Shaw's Androcles & the Lion to accommodate his own notions of entertainment. Happier, wiser heads prevailed before the Hughes-commissioned "Vestal Virgins" sequence, complete with 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

Frenchie

Actors: Joel McCrea, Shelley Winters, Paul Kelly, Elsa Lanchester, Marie Windsor

Synopsis: Though the title role of Frenchie goes to Shelley Winters, top billing in this period actioner is bestowed upon Joel McCrea as sheriff Tom Banning. Hoping to find her father's murderers, New Orleans gambling-house proprietress Frenchie Fontaine (Shelley Winters) sets up shop in the Wild West. With Read More

Buccaneer's Girl

Actors: Yvonne De Carlo, Phillip Friend, Robert Douglas, Elsa Lanchester, Andrea King

Synopsis: The Buccaneer's Girl of the title, played by Yvonne de Carlo, is Deborah McCoy, an entertainer who's been around a bit. While visiting New Orleans, Deborah falls in love with aristocratic Frederick Baptiste (Philip Friend), who turns out to be a pirate. Baptiste is basically a decent fellow: his Read More

Mystery Street

Actors: Ricardo Montalban, Sally Forrest, Bruce Bennett, Elsa Lanchester, Marshall Thompson

Synopsis: Blonde good-time girl Vivian Heldon (Jan Sterling), who lives in a cheap rooming house in a working-class section of Boston, run by the inquisitive and neurotic Mrs. Smerrling (Elsa Lanchester), goes out one night after a phone conversation with her boyfriend, proclaiming that she's got big plans Read More

The Petty Girl

Actors: Robert Cummings, Joan Caulfield, Elsa Lanchester, Melville Cooper, Audrey Long

Synopsis: Back in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, artist George Petty was famous for his "Petty Girl" illustrations; lovingly detailed renderings of ripe young damsels wearing next to nothing, and sometimes not even that. In The Petty Girl, George Petty is portrayed by Robert Cummings, while Joan Caulfield Read More

The Inspector General

Actors: Danny Kaye, Walter Slezak, Barbara Bates, Elsa Lanchester, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: The satirical bite of Gogol's play The Government Inspector is dispensed with in favor of traditional Danny Kaye buffoonery in The Inspector General. Kaye plays the illiterate stooge of two-bit medicine-show- entrepreneur Walter Slezak. Abandoned by Slezak, the starving Kaye wanders into a Read More

Come to the Stable

Actors: Loretta Young, Celeste Holm, Elsa Lanchester, Thomas Gomez

Synopsis: A Christmastime TV perennial, Come to the Stable is the gentle saga of two French nuns (Celeste Holm with accent, Loretta Young without) who come to America in hopes of raising funds for a children's hospital. Travelling to a small New England town presciently named Bethlehem, the nuns befriend Read More

The Secret Garden

Actors: Margaret O'Brien, Herbert Marshall, Dean Stockwell, Brian Roper, Gladys Cooper, Elsa Lanchester

Synopsis: The oft-filmed Frances Hodgson Burnett novel The Secret Garden was given the usual plush MGM treatment in 1949. Tempestuous orphan girl Mary Lennox (Margaret O'Brien) is sent to live with her reclusive, long-widowed uncle Archibald Craven (Herbert Marshall). The embittered Craven has an invalid Read More

The Big Clock

Actors: Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Sullivan, George Macready, Elsa Lanchester, Rita Johnson

Synopsis: John Farrow's movie adaptation of Kenneth Fearing's The Big Clock, based on a screenplay by Jonathan Latimer (and produced by future James Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum), is a near-perfect match for the book, telling in generally superb visual style a tale set against the backdrop of upscale Read More

Northwest Outpost

Actors: Nelson Eddy, Ilona Massey, Joseph Schildkraut, Elsa Lanchester

Synopsis: Backed by the "American GI Chorus", Nelson Eddy made his final screen appearance in the unusually elaborate Republic musical Northwest Outpost. The story is set in the 1830s, when a good portion of California was owned by Russia. US cavalry officer James Laurence (Nelson Eddy) arrives at one of Read More

The Bishop's Wife

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

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

The Spiral Staircase

Actors: Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, Ethel Barrymore, Kent Smith, Rhonda Fleming

Synopsis: The wonderfully suspenseful psychological drama Spiral Staircase is the prototype of the "old dark house, lady in distress" thriller, full of dark corners, flickering candles and featuring a mysterious, menacing killer whose true identity remains hidden until the end. Helen Capel (Dorothy Read More

The Razor's Edge

Actors: Demetrius Alexis, Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Walter Bonn, Anne Baxter, Eugene Borden, Clifton Webb

Synopsis: After several years' service with the Marines in World War II, Tyrone Power made his much anticipated return to the screen in The Razor's Edge. Power is appropriately cast as disillusioned World War I vet Larry Darrell, who returns from hostilities questioning his old values. To find himself Read More

Passport to Destiny

Actors: Elsa Lanchester, Gordon Oliver, Lenore Aubert, Lionel Royce, Fritz Feld

Synopsis: Originally titled Passport to Destiny, RKO's Passport to Adventure manages to be both whimsical and melodramatic all at once. Elsa Lanchester stars as a Cockney charwoman who sneaks into wartime Berlin, fully intending to kill Adolf Hitler. Lanchester is convinced that a snake-eyed charm left to 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

Thumbs Up

Actors: Brenda Joyce, Richard Fraser, Elsa Lanchester, Arthur Margetson, J. Pat O'Malley

Synopsis: In this wartime musical, a feisty singer working in a London dive swears that she will become a star. She gets a job in an airplane plant when she learns that her fiance, a producer, and his partner are looking for new talent at the war factories. While working there, the woman meets a handsome Read More

Tales of Manhattan

Actors: Charles Boyer, Rita Hayworth, Ginger Rogers, Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton

Synopsis: Tales of Manhattan is a sumptuous multipart film centered around a formal tailcoat. The coat is specially designed for stage actor Charles Boyer, who wears it during a rendezvous with his lady friend (Rita Hayworth). The lady's husband (Thomas Mitchell) shoots Boyer, thus the tailcoat is damaged Read More

Son of Fury

Actors: Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, George Sanders, Frances Farmer, Roddy McDowall

Synopsis: This period swashbuckler film is based on the adventure novel Benjamin Blake by Edison Marshall, who also wrote The Vikings (1958). When his brother dies, scheming Arthur Blake (George Sanders) kidnaps his own nephew, Benjamin (played as a youth by Roddy McDowall and as an adult by Tyrone Power). Read More

Ladies in Retirement

Actors: Ida Lupino, Louis Hayward, Evelyn Keyes, Elsa Lanchester, Edith Barrett

Synopsis: In this taut, creepy melodrama, a housemaid works as the companion of an aging, retired British actress. One day the maid (Ida Lupino) is visited by her two looney half sisters. The actress finds the slightly mad sisters intolerable and demands that they leave. Unfortunately, the maid realizes Read More

Sullivan's Travels

Actors: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn, Robert Warwick, Porter Hall

Synopsis: In Preston Sturges' classic comedy of Depression-era America, filmmaker John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), fed up with directing profitable comedies like "Ants in Your Plants of 1939," is consumed with the desire to make a serious social statement in his upcoming film, "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" Read More

The Beachcomber

Actors: Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester, Tyrone Guthrie, Robert Newton, Dolly Mollinger

Synopsis: Based on a story by Somerset Maugham, The Beachcomber was originally released in Great Britain as Vessel of Wrath. This English version was much franker--and much more fun--than the abbreviated, watered-down US release prints. Even the American version, however, is successful in capturing the Read More

Rembrandt

Actors: Charles Laughton, Gertrude Lawrence, Elsa Lanchester, John Bryning, Edward Chapman, Walter Hudd, Richard Gofe

Synopsis: Lightning steadfastly refused to strike twice for the director/actor team of Alexander Korda and Charles Laughton. Though the pair had scored an international success with the 1933 quasi-biopic The Private Life of Henry VIII, they couldn't make the magic happen again with 1936's Rembrandt. Laughton Read More

The Ghost Goes West

Actors: Robert Donat, Jean Parker, Eugene Pallette, Everley Gregg, Elsa Lanchester, Ralph Bunker

Synopsis: Wealthy American Joe Martin (Eugene Pallette) purchases an ancient Scottish castle and then has it dismantled and transferred to his Florida estate where he plans to reconstruct the castle brick by brick. Martin is unaware that his new acquisition comes equipped with an 18th-century ghost, played Read More

Naughty Marietta

Actors: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Frank Morgan, Elsa Lanchester, Douglas Dumbrille

Synopsis: The first of MGM's phenomenally profitable Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy musicals, Naughty Marietta takes several beneficial liberties with the libretto of the original Victor Herbert operetta. MacDonald plays an 18th-century French princess who escapes an arranged marriage by posing as a "cake Read More

The Bride of Frankenstein

Actors: Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Valerie Hobson, Elsa Lanchester, Ernst Thesiger, Dwight Frye

Synopsis: This greatest of all Frankenstein movies begins during a raging thunderstorm. Warm and cozy inside their palatial villa, Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon), Percy Shelley (Douglas Walton), and Shelley's wife Mary (Elsa Lanchester) engage in morbidly sparkling conversation. The wicked Byron mockingly Read More

David Copperfield

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

The Private Life of Don Juan

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks, Merle Oberon, Binnie Barnes, Joan Gardner, Benita Hume

Synopsis: Producer and director (Alexander Korda) followed up The Private Life of Henry VIII (one of the first internationally successful British films) with this historical comedy. After years in exile, the great lover Don Juan (Douglas Fairbanks) returns to Seville, the city of his salad days. However Read More

The Private Life of Henry VIII

Actors: Charles Laughton, Binnie Barnes, Merle Oberon, Elsa Lanchester, Everley Gregg

Synopsis: Charles Laughton became an international star by chewing both mutton and scenes in his Oscar-winning turn as King Henry VIII. Alexander Korda's British super-production also put the British cinema on the map, which, until this film, received precious little respect in the international film Read More

The Officer's Mess

Synopsis: In this British comedy, a young actor begins impersonating a Navy officer's wife in order to make her lover jealous. Unfortunately, trouble ensues when her jewels disappear. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Stronger Sex

Synopsis: In this drama, a man gives up his own life to keep his philandering wife's lover from being killed in a mining accident. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Potiphar's Wife

Synopsis: A spiteful, young noblewoman, married to a prominent lord attempts to ruin the life of the highly-principled chauffeur who spurned her philandering advances. This is one of Sir Laurence Olivier's film appearances. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Love Habit

Actors: Seymour Hicks, Margot Grahame, Edmund Breon, Ursula Jeans, Elsa Lanchester

Synopsis: In this drama, one of the earlier British films, a man attempts to be near the woman he loves. Unfortunately, she is married. To get closer to her, the fellow becomes her husband's valet. Soon he blackmails the husband into to promoting him to private secretary. Throughout it all, he makes Read More

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