Frank AlbertsonFilmography

The Andy Griffith Show: Gomer Pyle USMC

Actors: Frank Sutton, Frank Albertson, Eddie Ryder

Synopsis: This episode served as the pilot for Jim Nabors' starring series Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. When Gomer joins the Marine Corps, Andy tags along to make sure that all goes well during his pal's first day at boot camp. Of course, the situation rapidly deteriorates as the feckless Pyle drives his new Read More

Bye Bye Birdie

Actors: Janet Leigh, Dick Van Dyke, Ann-Margret, Maureen Stapleton, Bobby Rydell, Paul Lynde

Synopsis: George Sidney's adaptation of the satiric Broadway musical smash by Michael Stewart, Charles Strouse, and Lee Adams -- about an Elvis Presley-inspired rock star, who is drafted into the army and who creates a near-riot in a small Midwestern town when he stops there for one last publicity junket Read More

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Last Seen Wearing Blue Jeans

Actors: Michael Wilding, Sr., Anna Lee, Katherine Crawford, Randy Boone, James Anderson

Synopsis: While on a driving tour of America with her parents (Michael Wilding, Anna Lee), young English girl Loren Saunders (Katherine Crawford) heads to her folks' rented station wagon to take a nap. Unfortunately, she gets into the wrong car, and awakens somewhere in Mexico -- where she witnesses a Read More

Bonanza: A Passion for Justice

Actors: Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Jonathan Harris

Synopsis: Future Lost in Space bad guy Jonathan Harris stars in this Bonanza episode as celebrated British novelist Charles Dickens. When the Virginia City newspaper begins serializing Dickens' latest novel without his permission, the author arrives in town to register a protest-and gets arrested and fined Read More

Johnny Cool

Actors: Henry Silva, Elizabeth Montgomery, Marc Lawrence, Richard Anderson, Telly Savalas, Jim Backus, Joey Bishop

Synopsis: In this offbeat crime drama, Mafia boss Johnny Colini (Marc Lawrence) has run afoul of the law and is being deported back to his native Sicily. Colini is not at all happy about this, and after he saves the life of a young thug, Johnny Giordano (Henry Silva), he knows the perfect way for Giordano Read More

Don't Knock the Twist

Actors: Gene Chandler

Synopsis: One of an outcropping of "twist" dance craze movies to pop up like mushrooms after a rain, this standard musical drama by director Oscar Rudolph is actually a sequel to producer Sam Katzman's earlier success, Twist around the Clock. The plot on which the many twist dances hinge is the preparation Read More

Maverick: Epitaph for a Gambler

Synopsis: In yet another high-stakes poker game, Bart (Jack Kelly) wins part ownership of Diamond Jim Malone's gambling casino. Unfortunately, our hero also "wins" a certain Lucky Matt Elkins (Dan Haggerty), who has been blackmailing Diamond Jim (Robert J. Wilke) and doesn't intend to let up now that the Read More

Man-Trap

Actors: Jeffrey Hunter, David Janssen, Stella Stevens, Elaine Devry, Arthur Batanides

Synopsis: Edmond O'Brien became the latest actor to try his hand at directing in Man-Trap (he'd previous functioned as codirector on 1957's Shield for Murder). Jeffrey Hunter stars as an impressionable fellow whose old marine buddy (David Janssen) talks him into a questionable business venture. Hunter joins Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: You Can't Trust a Man

Synopsis: Nightclub singer Crystal Coe (Polly Bergen) is less than thrilled when her former husband, Tony (Joe Maross), shows up. It seems that Tony has served a lengthy prison sentence for a crime that Crystal had committed. Now Crystal must find a way to divest herself of Tony for good -- never suspecting Read More

Wanted: Dead or Alive: To the Victor

Synopsis: Taken from the popular television series, bounty hunter Josh Randall becomes involved in a potentially dangerous domestic squabble in "To the Victor." ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

Psycho

Actors: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam

Synopsis: In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock was already famous as the screen's master of suspense (and perhaps the best-known film director in the world) when he released Psycho and forever changed the shape and tone of the screen thriller. From its first scene, in which an unmarried couple balances pleasure and Read More

The Untouchables: The Frank Nitti Story

Synopsis: Although his bootlegging operation has been smashed up and his boss Al Capone is in Federal Prison, Frank Nitti (Bruce Gordon) still has plenty of crooked irons in the fire. One his most lucrative enterprises is a Hollywood-based extortion racket, designed to control exhibition prices for theater Read More

Leave It to Beaver: Wally's Test

Actors: Ken Osmond, Carol Sydes, Frank Bank, Frank Albertson

Synopsis: While Wally (Tony Dow) studies all weekend for a difficult history test, Eddie (Ken Osmond) and Lumpy (Frank Bank) scheme to use an easier (and less scrupulous) method, writing up crib sheets on the school's bathroom towel dispenser. Come the day of the test, and the "cheat sheets" are confiscated Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Prudent Prosecutor

Synopsis: Lt. Tragg (Ray Collins) can't believe his eyes: traditional courtroom rivals Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) and DA Hamilton Burger (William Talman) are working together to save a man from a murder charge! The man in question is Jeff Pike (J. Pat O'Malley), who years earlier had saved Burger's life. Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Out There--Darkness

Synopsis: Bette Davis guest stars in this episode, which was directed by her former Now, Voyager co-star Paul Henreid. Davis is cast as Miss Fox, a wealthy woman living in a luxury apartment. Taking a liking to elevator operator Eddie McMahon (James Congdon), Miss Fox hires him to walk her dog. Later on 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

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Disappearing Trick

Synopsis: Tennis player Walter Richmond (Robert Horton) finds a perfect doubles partner in the shapely form of attractive young widow Laura Gild (Betsy Von Furstenberg). As the two get to know each other better, the insatiably curious Walter begins asking questions about Laura's dear, departed husband. It Read More

The Enemy Below

Actors: Robert Mitchum, Curd Jürgens, Theodore Bikel, Russell Collins

Synopsis: The Enemy Below is a study of submarine warfare from the vantage point of both sides. Robert Mitchum plays the captain of an American destroyer, who despite having lost his family in the war endeavors to let his head rule his heart in combat. Curt Jurgens co-stars as a German U-boat commander Read More

Nightfall

Actors: Aldo Ray, Brian Keith, Anne Bancroft, Jocelyn Brando, James Gregory, Frank Albertson, Rudy Bond

Synopsis: Commercial artist James Vanning (Aldo Ray) and his friend, Dr. Edward Gurston (Frank Albertson), are on a hunting and fishing trip in Wyoming when they stop to help two men whose car has crashed. The pair, John (Brian Keith) and Red (Rudy Bond), turn out to be escaped bank robbers, on the run with Read More

Girl on the Run

Synopsis: Richard Coogan plays a newspaper reporter whose managing editor has been murdered. Accused of the crime, Coogan escapes in order to find the real killer. The trail of evidence leads to a carnival, where several of the performers seem to have strong connections to the town's biggest power brokers. Rosemary Pettit Read More

Studio One: Burden of Guilt

Shed No Tears

Actors: Wallace Ford, June Vincent, Robert Scott, Dick Hogan

Synopsis: In this crime drama, a loving husband listens to his wife and fakes his own death so that she can get her hands on his insurance policy. The whole situation rouses the suspicions of the man's son (by a different marriage) who ends up hiring an investigator to look into it. Unfortunately the PI is Read More

Killer Dill

Actors: Frank Albertson, Stanley Andrews, Stuart Erwin, Dorothy Granger, Anne Gwynne

Synopsis: Screen Guild's Killer Dill trods a comedy path previously taken by such films as Mr. Lemon of Orange and The Whole Town's Talking. Stuart Erwin stars as Johnny Dill, milquetoast door-to-door salesman who happens to be the exact double of a notorious Prohibition gangster. When the bad guy murders a 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

Ginger

Synopsis: Dog Ginger is a big part of her human family in this melodrama. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

They Made Me a Killer

Actors: Robert Lowery, Barbara Britton, Frank Albertson, Lola Lane, James Bush

Synopsis: This Pine-Thomas Production was scripted by Geoffrey Homes (aka Daniel Mainwaring), best known as the author of the novel upon which the "film noir" classic Out of the Past was based. Robert Lowery plays victim-of-circumstance Tom Durling, in the wrong place at the wrong time when a bank robbery Read More

Gay Blades

Actors: Allan Lane, Jean Rogers, Edward Ashley, Frank Albertson, Ann Gillis

Synopsis: The biggest surprise in Republic's Gay Blades is that the studio's resident skating star Vera Hruba Ralston doesn't appear. Allan Lane plays hockey star Andy Buell, whose prowess on the rink brings him to the attention of Hollywood leading lady Nancy Davis (played not by the real Nancy Davis Read More

How Do You Do?

Actors: Bert Gordon, Harry Von Zell, Cheryl Walker, Frank Albertson, Ella Mae Morse

Synopsis: How Dooo You Do? offers two refugees from radio's Eddie Cantor Show, Bert Gordon and Harry Von Zell, as an erstwhile comedy team. The film's title is a catchphrase of Gordon's, who gained famed in the 1940s as "The Mad Russian". Seeking refuge from their fans, Gordon and Von Zell head to Desert Read More

It's a Wonderful Life

Actors: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Travers

Synopsis: This is director Frank Capra's classic bittersweet comedy/drama about George Bailey (James Stewart), the eternally-in-debt guiding force of a bank in the typical American small town of Bedford Falls. As the film opens, it's Christmas Eve, 1946, and George, who has long considered himself a Read More

Arson Squad

Actors: Frank Albertson, Robert Armstrong, Grace Gillern, Byron Foulger, Chester Clute

Synopsis: PRC's Arson Squad stars Frank Albertson as an insurance investigator and Robert Armstrong as chief of the police department's arson troubleshooters. Albertson and Armstrong team up to solve a particularly vicious series of deliberate fires. A man has been killed in one conflagration, so the Read More

I Love a Soldier

Actors: Paulette Goddard, Sonny Tufts, Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Sande, Beulah Bondi, Ann Doran

Synopsis: Paulette Goddard and Sonny Tufts, two of the stars of director Mark Sandrich's wartime morale-booster So Proudly We Hail, were reunited in Sandrich's I Love a Soldiers. Looking gorgeous in bib overalls, Goddard plays defense-plant welder Eva Morgan, who avoids romance but gives generously of her Read More

And the Angels Sing

Actors: Dorothy Lamour, Fred MacMurray, Betty Hutton, Diana Lynn, Mimi Chandler

Synopsis: An unofficial remake of the 1935 Alice Faye-George Raft vehicle Every Night at Eight, And the Angels Sing stars Dorothy Lamour as Nancy Angel, unofficial leader of a struggling, Andrews-like singing sister act. Nancy is in love with saxophone player Happy Morgan (Fred MacMurray), self-appointed Read More

Rosie the Riveter

Actors: Jane Frazee, Frank Albertson, Vera Vague, Frank Jenks, Lloyd Corrigan

Synopsis: In this romantic wartime comedy, four female defense plant workers share a house with four male workers. The situation is on the up and up as the men and women work different shifts and they are only making due because there is a housing shortage. Unfortunately, they soon begin to fight about who Read More

Here Comes Elmer

Actors: Al Pearce, Dale Evans, Frank Albertson, Gloria Stuart, Wally Vernon

Synopsis: This musical comedy stars radio star Al Pearce has a double role playing himself and Elmer Blurt, the leader of a small-town band that struggles toward stardom in the big city. Their journey begins when Elmer decides to eject their female singer because she isn't really right. Unfortunately, her Read More

O, My Darling Clementine

Actors: Roy Acuff, Isabel Randolph, Frank Albertson, Lorna Gray

Synopsis: Country-western star Roy Acuff is top-billed in the Republic musical comedy O, My Darling Clementine. The story concerns a band of ragtag musicians, headed by Acuff, who blow into a hoity-toity town where the "right people" look down on pickin' and grinnin'. The town's social arbiter is Mrs. Read More

Mystery Broadcast

Actors: Ruth Terry, Frank Albertson, Nils Asther, Wynne Gibson, Paul Harvey

Synopsis: The wartime leading-man shortage obliged Republic Pictures to star draft-proof supporting player Frank Albertson in Mystery Broadcast. Albertson plays detective-fiction writer Michael Jerome, who carries on a friendly rivalry with radio scrivener Jan Cornell (Ruth Terry). Jan works for an Read More

Keep 'em Slugging

Actors: Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Gabriel Dell, Norman Abbott, Evelyn Ankers

Synopsis: Keep 'Em Slugging was the last of Universal's "Little Tough Guys" series-which, like Monogram's "East Side Kids", was an offshoot of Warner Bros.' "Dead End Kids" films. This time around, the kids decide to mend their troublemaking ways and get real jobs. Tommy (Bobby Jordan) is hired by the Read More

Silent Witness

Wake Island

Actors: Brian Donlevy, Robert Preston, MacDonald Carey, Albert Dekker, Barbara Britton

Synopsis: The winner of four Oscar nominations, Wake Island was one of the first major Hollywood films to deal with America's forced participation in World War II. The first two reels takes place in the weeks prior to Pearl Harbor, as Wake Island military commander Brian Donlevy carries on a friendly Read More

Underground Agent

Synopsis: In this espionage caper, a government spy must keep enemy agents from spying upon a defense plant. His work is made easier by his newest invention, a word scrambler which makes it difficult for the enemy agent. The good guy spy then hires a crack team to assist him; among them is the pretty young Read More

Man from Headquarters

Actors: Frank Albertson, Joan Woodbury, John Maxwell, Max Hoffman, Jr., Dick Elliott

Synopsis: This Monogram "special" stars Frank Albertson as the title character, a police reporter named Larry Doyle. Our hero solves a murder case in Chicago, then moves on to St. Louis-but not voluntarily, since he has been kidnapped by the minions of the Windy City gang leader (Max Hoffman Jr.) against Read More

Shepherd of the Ozarks

Actors: Leon Weaver, Frank Weaver, June Weaver, Marilyn Hare, Frank Albertson

Synopsis: In this comedy, a hapless army lieutenant is ejected from his plane during a training maneuver and ends up deep in the Ozarks. There he is taken in by the friendly Weaver family. A beautiful young girl becomes his special friend. Upon the Weaver's land are many valuable mineral deposits and the Read More

Junior G-Men of the Air [Serial]

Actors: Billy Halop, Gene Reynolds, Lionel Atwill, Frank Albertson, Kathryn Adams

Synopsis: The Dead End Kids take on a sinister gang of Japanese terrorists in this 12-chapter followup to the 1940 Universal serial Junior G-Men. When Eddie Holden (Gene Reynolds), the inventor brother of street-gang leader Billy Holden (Billy Halop), is kidnapped by minions of the Black Dragon society Read More

City of Silent Men

Actors: Frank Albertson, June Lang, Jan Wiley, Richard Clarke, William Gould

Synopsis: City of Silent Men comes so close to being a "model" "B" picture that it's a downright shame it just misses the mark. The plot revolves around a group of ex-convicts who try to start life anew by relocating in a small town under assumed names. The mayor of the town welcomes the former cons with Read More

Citadel of Crime

Actors: Robert Armstrong, Frank Albertson, Linda Hayes, Russell Simpson

Synopsis: Citadel of Crime was the original title of the Republic John Wayne vehicle which eventually emerged as A Man Betrayed (TV title: Wheel of Fortune). Never a studio to let anything go to waste, Republic redirected the cognomen Citadel of Crime to one of their minor but entertaining crime melodramas Read More

Burma Convoy

Actors: Charles Bickford, Evelyn Ankers, Frank Albertson, Cecil Kellaway, Willie Fung

Synopsis: This action film is set in Asia during World War II and follows the exploits of a truck driver who must investigate the mysterious death of his younger brother. The trucker had been driving in convoys along the dangerous Burma Road between Rangoon and Chungking for a long time when he decided it Read More

City Limits

Man Made Monster

Actors: Lionel Atwill, Lon Chaney, Jr., Anne Nagel, Frank Albertson, Samuel S. Hinds

Synopsis: Originally slated as a Boris Karloff-Bela Lugosi vehicle, Man Made Monster emerged on screen as a tour de force for Lon Chaney Jr. (in his first horror-film starring role) and Lionel Atwill. Chaney plays Dynamo Dan the Electric Man, a sideshow performer whose talent for absorbing mass quantities Read More

Father Steps Out

Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery

Actors: Ralph Bellamy, Margaret Lindsay, Charles Grapewin, James Burke

Synopsis: Like the first entry in Columbia's "Ellery Queen" series, Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery depicts its amateur-criminologist hero as an oafish ignoramus. This time around, Chinese ventriloquist Gordon Cobb (Noel Madison), is murdered by a gang of jewel thieves. Baffled by the contradictory clues Read More

Louisiana Purchase

Actors: Bob Hope, Vera Zorina, Victor Moore, Irene Bordoni, Dona Drake

Synopsis: The Irving Berlin-Morrie Ryskind Broadway musical hit Louisiana Purchase came to the screen with surprisingly few emendations in 1941. Bob Hope replaces Broadway's William Gaxton in the role of innocent political flunkey Jim Taylor, set up to take the fall for wholesale graft by a group of corrupt Read More

Flying Cadets

Actors: William Gargan, Edmund Lowe, Frankie Thomas

Synopsis: Flying Cadets is basically a vehicle for William Gargan and Edmund Lowe, doing a Flagg-and-Quirt act as a pair of eternally bickering ex-WWI pilots. The "official" plot is carried along by Frank Albertson as Bob Ames, a young airplane fancier who hopes to create a school for aspiring aviators. He Read More

Dr. Christian Meets the Women

Actors: Jean Hersholt, Dorothy Lovett, Edgar Kennedy, Rod La Rocque, Frank Albertson

Synopsis: The third of six feature films based on radio's popular Dr. Christian series, Dr. Christian Meets the Women once more stars Jean Hersholt as the kindly eponymous medico. In this entry, the tiny community of River's End is invaded by Professor Kenneth Parker (Rod La Rocque), a charming charlatan Read More

When the Daltons Rode

Actors: Randolph Scott, Kay Francis, Brian Donlevy, George Bancroft, Broderick Crawford

Synopsis: When the Daltons Rode is the much-embellished tale of that celebrated outlaw family, the Daltons. Broderick Crawford, Brian Donlevy, Stu Erwin and Frank Albertson play the gunslinging brothers, with Mary Gordon on hand as Ma Dalton. In the tradition of the 1939 western Jesse James, the film Read More

Framed

Actors: Frank Albertson, Constance Moore, Jerome Cowan, Robert Armstrong, Sidney Blackmer

Synopsis: Reporter Albertson works to solve a murder case in order to clear his name and get a great story for his paper. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

The Ghost Comes Home

Actors: Frank Morgan, Billie Burke, Ann Rutherford, John Shelton, Reginald Owen

Synopsis: Frank Morgan and Billie Burke, who'd previously costarred in MGM's Wizard of Oz, head the cast of the minor but entertaining The Ghost Comes Home. Based on a play by George Kaiser, the story revolves around one Vern Adams (Morgan), who through a series of bizarre circumstances is declared legally Read More

Behind the News

Actors: Lloyd Nolan, Doris Davenport, Frank Albertson, Robert Armstrong, Paul Harvey

Synopsis: As suggested by its title, Behind the News was a "stop the presses!" yarn set in a big-city newsroom. Lloyd Nolan is top-billed as a cynical reporter with a penchant for sticking his neck out too far. Frank Albertson costars as a cub reporter fresh out of journalism school, whose presence is Read More

Bachelor Mother

Actors: Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Charles Coburn, Frank Albertson, E.E. Clive

Synopsis: Ginger Rogers slipped off her dancing shoes to play one of her best comic roles as Polly Parish, a salesgirl at a large department store. Single and with no steady beau, Polly leads a quiet life until she discovers a baby left at her doorstep. While puzzled by this development, Polly feels for the Read More

Room Service

Actors: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Lucille Ball, Ann Miller

Synopsis: Having paid $255,500 for the rights to John Murray and Allen Boretz' Broadway hit Room Service, RKO Radio then scouted about for a "perfect" cast. Thanks to the persistence of show-biz agent Zeppo Marx, RKO was able to secure the services of Zeppo's brothers Groucho, Harpo and Chico Marx for Read More

The Shining Hour

Actors: Joan Crawford, Margaret Sullavan, Robert Young, Melvyn Douglas, Fay Bainter

Synopsis: Frank Borzage directed this doomed romance starring Joan Crawford as Olivia Riley, the young bride of Henry Linden (Melvyn Douglas), an upper-crust conservative. Olivia is a show girl in a New York nightclub and when Henry brings her home to his family -- his brother David (Robert Young) and Read More

Spring Madness

Actors: Maureen O'Sullivan, Lew Ayres, Ruth Hussey, Burgess Meredith, Ann Morriss

Synopsis: In this collegiate romance, the love affair between two seniors is threatened by their different graduation plans. The fellow and his roommate are planning a two-year trek through Europe after the ceremony. This doesn't set well with the young woman who uses all her feminine wiles to convince him Read More

Mother Carey's Chickens

Actors: Anne Shirley, Ruby Keeler, James Ellison, Fay Bainter, Walter Brennan

Synopsis: Katharine Hepburn's association with RKO Radio Pictures came to an abrupt end when she refused to star in the studio's adaptation of Kate Douglas Wiggins' sentimental novel Mother Carey's Chickens. Hepburn was replaced by musical-comedy favorite Ruby Keeler, who though woefully miscast did her Read More

Hold That Kiss

Actors: Maureen O'Sullivan, Dennis O'Keefe, Mickey Rooney, George Barbier, Jessie Ralph

Synopsis: Hold That Kiss is a cute story cutely played by the irresistably cute Maureen O'Sullivan. She plays working girl June Evans, who meets handsome Tommy Bradford (Dennis O'Keefe) at a society wedding. June assumes that Tommy is wealthy, and Tommy assumes same about June. Both keep up the artifice Read More

Fugitives for a Night

Actors: Frank Albertson, Eleanor Lynn, Allan Lane, Bradley Page, Adrienne Ames

Synopsis: The RKO Radio backlot gets quite a workout in the peppy "B" comedy-mystery Fugitives for a Night. When movie executive Maurice Tenwright (Russell Hicks) is murdered, the prime suspect is would-be actor Matt Ryan (Frank Albertson). As stooge and "gopher" for arrogant rising star Poole (Bradley Read More

Father Steps Out

Synopsis: "Father" is British blowhard George Carney, a well-to-do cheese manufacturer. Despite his business savvy, Carney falls victim to the machinations of a team of swindlers. Coming to the rescue is Carney's quick-witted chauffeur Bruce Seton. Everything in the garden is lovely by fade-out time, as Read More

The Plainsman

Actors: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, James Ellison, Charles Bickford, Helen Burgess

Synopsis: One is immediately aware that The Plainsman is a Cecil B. DeMille production in the opening scene, wherein President Abraham Lincoln (Frank McGlynn Sr.), on the verge of signing crucial legislation which will determine the future of the American West, is dragged away from his Cabinet by a scolding Read More

Navy Blue and Gold

Actors: Robert Young, James Stewart, Florence Rice, Billie Burke, Lionel Barrymore

Synopsis: MGM's Navy Blue and Gold prettily dresses up some of the oldest cliches in the "military cadet" movie genre. The film charts the progress of three Annapolis "plebes," all played by actors in the age range of 24 to 30. Wisecracking Roger Ash (Robert Young) is a cynic, wide-eyed Richard Gates Jr. (Tom Brown Read More

Fury

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Sylvia Sidney, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis

Synopsis: Fritz Lang's first American film is a vigorous and perceptive indictment of mob law, starring Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sidney. Katherine (Sidney) leaves her boyfriend, Joe Wilson (Tracy), behind in their Midwestern hometown when she takes a job in another city. Joe is a decent, hard-working soul Read More

The Farmer in the Dell

Actors: Fred Stone, Jean Parker, Esther Dale, Moroni Olsen, Frank Albertson

Synopsis: In this homespun comedy, a farm family in Iowa lead a pastoral existence until old Ma decides that they must pull up stakes and head for Hollywood so their daughter can become a movie star. As it turns out, it is Pa who becomes the movie star, while the domineering stage Ma almost destroys her Read More

Ah, Wilderness!

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Eric Linden, Aline MacMahon, Cecilia Parker, Mickey Rooney

Synopsis: Playwright Eugene O'Neill's only comedy, Ah, Wilderness! was filmed by MGM in 1935. Impressionable turn-of-the-century lad Eric Linden, whose knowledge of the ways of the world has come from French novels, is anxious to taste life to the fullest. Linden's father Lionel Barrymore sternly advises Read More

House of Menace

Synopsis: When MGM remade its 1935 film Kind Lady in 1951, the earlier picture was retitled House of Menace to avoid confusion. The 1935 version stars Aline MacMahon, previously cast as wisecracking golddiggers, as a wealthy unmarried Londoner who befriends a charming but untalented artist (Basil Rathbone). Read More

Doubting Thomas

Actors: Will Rogers, Billie Burke, Alison Skipworth, Sterling Holloway, Andrew Tombes

Synopsis: Doubting Thomas is the 1935 film version of George Kelly's satirical comedy The Torch Bearers, tailored for the talents of Will Rogers. Billie Burke, Will's wife, becomes so involved in a local amateur theatre group that she has no time for her husband. In retaliation, Will pretends to "go Read More

Waterfront Lady

Actors: Ann Rutherford, Frank Albertson, John Farrell MacDonald, Barbara Pepper, Grant Withers

Synopsis: In her first starring role, 18-year-old Ann Rutherford plays Joan, a singer in a cheap waterfront café. Gambling-ship proprietor Ronny (Frank Albertson), on the lam from the police after accidentally shooting a treacherous underling (Grant Withers), falls in love with Joan, and he with her. Under Read More

Personal Maid's Secret

Actors: Ruth Donnelly, Warren Hull, Margaret Lindsay, Anita Louise, Frank Albertson

Synopsis: This cozy little Warner Bros. drama was based on a Saturday Evening Post story by Lillian Day. Ruth Donnelly stars as Lizzie, a personal maid who after serving several of New York's "best" families, elects to work in the middle-class home of insurance salesman Tom Smith (Warren Hull) and his wife (Margaret Lindsay Read More

Alice Adams

Actors: Katharine Hepburn, Fred MacMurray, Fred Stone, Evelyn Venable, Frank Albertson

Synopsis: Katharine Hepburn stars as Booth Tarkington's would-be society belle Alice Adams. The product of a family of modest means, Alice nonetheless dreams of being accepted by the "better people." Luck of luck, she meets well-to-do young Fred MacMurray at a social gathering; he is charmed by her pathetic Read More

Enter Madame

Actors: Elissa Landi, Cary Grant, Lynne Overman, Sharon Lynne, Frank Albertson

Synopsis: Elissa Landi plays an opera star (she's dubbed by Nina Koshetz) who marries arrogant millionaire Cary Grant (dubbed by himself). Grant's dreams of connubial bliss are shattered when he's forced to trail along while Landi tours the world with a huge entourage; he's also not happy with his wife's Read More

Kind Lady

Actors: Aline MacMahon, Basil Rathbone, Mary Carlisle, Frank Albertson, Dudley Digges

Synopsis: Though habitually unlucky in love, wealthy London recluse Mary Herries (Aline MacMahon) succumbs to the charms of handsome artist Henry Abbott (Basil Rathbone). She is persuaded to invite Abbott into her home, only to discover that he has a sinister ulterior motive. With the help of his Read More

Bachelor of Arts

Actors: Tom Brown, Anita Louise, Henry B. Walthall, Mae Marsh

Synopsis: This tuneful melodrama is set upon a college campus and follows the attempts of a pretty young woman who slyly helps her wealthy, free-wheeling freshman boy friend learn about responsibility. She contacts his father and together they convince the boy that his inheritance has been lost. Now he must Read More

East of Java

Actors: Charles Bickford, Elisabeth Young, Frank Albertson, Leslie Fenton

Synopsis: A diverse group of ship passengers end up marooned on an isolated South Pacific island. Unfortunately, the contents of the hold, a number of potentially dangerous wild animals, also survived the wreck. Among the survivors is a criminal who proves to be just as big a threat as the lions and tigers. Read More

The Life of Vergie Winters

Actors: Ann Harding, John Boles, Betty Furness, Helen Vinson, Frank Albertson

Synopsis: In this tear-jerking adaptation of Louis Bromfield's novel A Good Woman, the title character stands tall in the face of small town gossip in order to stay with her already married lover who makes promises to her he does not intend to keep. Matters get complicated when Vergie gets pregnant. At the Read More

Tripping Through the Tropics

Actors: Billy Gilbert, Sam M. Lewis, Frank Albertson, Lois January, Gertie Green

Synopsis: This two-reeler from Columbia's recently formed shorts department features a very funny Billy Gilbert, who all but steals the show away from the overdone romantic story line of two young people who avidly dislike each other but somehow manage to wind up together by the fade out. Gilbert plays the Read More

The Last Gentleman

Actors: George Arliss, Edna May Oliver, Janet Beecher, Charlotte Henry, Ralph Morgan

Synopsis: Dying New England millionaire Cabot Barr (George Arliss) doesn't trust any of his relatives as they flock to his bedside, and not without justification. Barr realizes that there's a few roses among the thorns, notably his good-hearted granddaughter (Charlotte Henry) and his likeable adopted nephew Read More

Hollywood Mystery

Actors: June Clyde, Frank Albertson, José Crespo, John Davidson

Synopsis: Action expert "Breezy" Eason called the shots on this quickie comedy-melodrama. Frank Albertson stars as the publicity man for a Poverty Row studio. Thrown off the lot because of his drunken insolence, the PR man plans a comeback by convincing a foreign director (John Davidson) to film the life Read More

King for a Night

Actors: Chester Morris, Alice White, Helen Twelvetrees, John Miljan, Grant Mitchell

Synopsis: In this boxing drama/murder mystery, an aspiring small-town prizefighter ignores the objections of his pacifistic father, a paraplegic minister, and decides to go for the championship middleweight title in New York city. There the young lad begins experimenting with a variety of vices as he rises Read More

Ever in My Heart

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Otto Kruger, Ralph Bellamy, Ruth Donnelly, Frank Albertson

Synopsis: An espionage drama set in the early 20th century, Ever in My Heart stars Barbara Stanwyck as a New England naif who marries a German citizen (Otto Kruger). In 1915, Stanwyck and her husband suffer a brace of blows: The death of their son, and the sinking of the Lusitania, the latter Read More

Ann Carver's Profession

Actors: Fay Wray, Gene Raymond, Claire Dodd, Arthur Pierson

Synopsis: In this melodrama a superb female lawyer finds that her success has emasculated her husband, a rather average architect, who runs away from home and career to become a nightclub singer and save some shred of manly dignity. While working at the club, he falls in love with an alcoholic Read More

Rainbow Over Broadway

Actors: Joan Marsh, Frank Albertson, Lucien Littlefield, Grace Hayes, Gladys Blake

Synopsis: In this musical, a Kansas City family despises their stepmother who selfishly moves them to New York so she can make her theatrical comeback. There she again begins singing; the a brother and sister are terribly angry until their songs are turned into hits by a band leader who has fallen in love Read More

Midshipman Jack

Actors: Bruce Cabot, Betty Furness, Frank Albertson, Arthur Lake, Purnell Pratt

Synopsis: In this romance, an enrollee at the US Naval Academy finds it difficulty adjusting to the unending rules and regulations. Then he falls in lover with the commandant's daughter and almost loses his chance for a commission. Fortunately, he turns it all around, does well, and becomes an instructor Read More

The Cohens and Kellys in Trouble

Actors: George Sidney

Synopsis: This comedy is last entry in the five-movie series "The Cohens and Kellys." In this episode, Sidney and Murray are competing tugboat captains. They fight over the ownership of the waterways. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Air Mail

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Ralph Bellamy, Russell Hopton, George "Slim" Summerville, Gloria Stuart

Synopsis: The air-mail pilots who fly from a small airport in the Rocky Mountains are determined but not paid well, and there are occasional fatal crashes. It's a tradition of long standing that when this happens, chief pilot Mike Miller (Ralph Bellamy) makes the next flight himself. Daredevil Duke Talbot (Pat O'Brien Read More

The Lost Special

Synopsis: Ostensibly based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, this action serial was actually closer in spirit to the blood-and-thunder days of silent "railroad queen" Helen Holmes. The story, in fact -- a train vanishing into thin air -- bore a strong resemblance to Holmes' 1917 effort The Lost Express. Jack Read More

The Cohens and Kellys in Hollywood

Actors: George Sidney, Charlie Murray, June Clyde, Norman Foster, Emma Dunn

Synopsis: This was the next-to-last entry of the Cohens and Kellys series, which were becoming increasingly more tiresome with each picture. Once again, Charlie Murray and George Sidney reprise their roles as Kelly and Cohen, respectively, but instead of Kate Price and Vera Gordon as their wives, they have Esther Howard Read More

The Billion Dollar Scandal

Actors: Robert Armstrong, Constance Cummings, Frank Morgan, James Gleason

Synopsis: In this comedy, a convict uses his skills as a masseur and a fight manager to get out of prison and become the private gym coach for a powerful oil magnate. When the instructor's little brother gets involved with his employer's daughter and they learn that the oil baron is trying to pull off Read More

Racing Youth

Actors: Frank Albertson, June Clyde, Louise Fazenda, George "Slim" Summerville, Arthur Stuart Hull

Synopsis: Amelia Cruikshank (June Clyde) doesn't know what real trouble is until she inherits her dad's auto-manufacturing business. Hoping to destroy the company for his own financial gain, Amelia's duplicitous business manager Brown (Arthur Stuart Hull) does everything he can to ruin her chances of Read More

The Huddle

Actors: Ramon Novarro, Madge Evans, Una Merkel, Ralph Graves, John Arledge

Synopsis: In this football drama, a tough steelworker's son wins a scholarship to Yale and attempts to use his talent on the football field to become popular. His ploy doesn't work. He cannot even con the girl of his dreams into going out with him. After four years, he finally grows up and his future begins Read More

Way Back Home

Actors: Mrs. Phillips Lord, Effie L. Palmer, Bennett Kilpack, Raymond Hunter

Synopsis: The bucolic tearjerker Way Back Home is a spin-off of the popular radio series Seth Parker, with Phillips H. Lord, creator-star of the radio original, repeating his role as backwoods philosopher Parker. The plot centers on the romantic tribulations of Mary Lucy (Bette Davis, who received the Read More

A Connecticut Yankee

Actors: Will Rogers, William Farnum, Myrna Loy, Maureen O'Sullivan, Frank Albertson

Synopsis: This Mark Twain adaptation affords a rare opportunity to enjoy a "collaboration" between two of America's greatest humorists. Will Rogers plays the operator of a tiny radio repair shop, who is called to an old mansion to replace a battery on a dark and stormy night. Here Will meets a scientist (William Farnum Read More

Big Business Girl

Actors: Loretta Young, Frank Albertson, Ricardo Cortez, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: Loretta Young briefly contemplates using her sexual allure to get ahead in business in this sometimes frank but ultimately old-fashioned comedy-drama from Warner Bros. Packing her new husband, bandleader Johnny Saunders (Frank Albertson), off to Paris, Claire McIntyre (Young) sets her sight on her Read More

Traveling Husbands

Actors: Evelyn Brent, Frank Albertson, Constance Cummings, Hugh Herbert, Carl Miller

Synopsis: The peripatetic spouses referred to in the title are all travelling salesmen, scooting to and from their wives via train. In Detroit on business, young unmarried salesman Barry (Frank Albertson) finds himself at a wild party where his fellow drummers, husbands all, are being entertained by a bevy Read More

So This Is London

Actors: Will Rogers, Irene Rich, Frank Albertson, Maureen O'Sullivan, Lumsden Hare

Synopsis: Will Rogers' second starring talkie feature was a spiritual twin of the first, They Had to See Paris, albeit with a significant change of locale. Although newly rich Texas mill owner Hiram Draper (Rogers) intensely despises all things British (dismissing the country as the land of "marmalade Read More

Son of the Gods

Actors: Richard Barthelmess, Constance Bennett, Mildred van Dorn, King Ho Chang, Geneva Mitchell

Synopsis: Adapted from a story by Rex Beach, Son of the Gods stars Richard Barthelmess as Sam Lee, a young Chinese-American, anxious to distance himself from his oriental heredity. While travelling throughout the world, Sam falls in love with wealthy white girl Allana (Constance Bennett). He chooses not to Read More

Men Without Women

Actors: Kenneth MacKenna, Frank Albertson, Paul Page, Warren Hymer, Walter McGrail

Synopsis: John Ford directed this undersea adventure from the early days of the sound era; it features talking sequences along silent passages with intertitles. After a brief shore leave in Singapore, where sailors have the opportunity to slake their thirsts for both liquor and women, the crew of a U.S. Read More

The Big Party

Actors: Sue Carol, Dixie Lee, Walter Catlett, Frank Albertson, Richard Keene

Synopsis: Shortly before retiring from films to become an actor's agent (and, incidentally, Mrs. Alan Ladd), the ebullient Sue Carol starred in The Big Party. Carol and Dixie Lee (Mrs. Bing Crosby) play a couple of funloving gals who take jobs as dress models. They are invited to the eponymous party by Read More

Born Reckless

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Catherine Dale Owen, Lee Tracy, Marguerite Churchill, Warren Hymer

Synopsis: This drama is set during the mid Twenties when gangsters were a bit more genteel than their 1930s counterparts. Based on a true story, it profiles the experiences of a young gangster who, after getting caught during a robbery is given a choice: he can either go to prison or join the military and Read More

Happy Days

Synopsis: Filmed in "Fox Grandeur," an early widescreen process, Happy Days was the immediate follow-up to Fox Studios' Movietone Follies of 1929. Most of the film takes place on the showboat of Mississippi entrepreneur Colonel Billy Batcher (Charles E. Evans). When the Colonel faces foreclosure after Read More

Wild Company

Actors: Frank Albertson, H.B. Warner, Joyce Compton, Claire McDowell

Synopsis: This drama is set during Prohibition and follows the exploits of a spoiled brat with overly permissive parents. He soaks them for as much money has he can get and then squanders the money in an illicit speak-easy where he has fallen for the lovely singer. Unfortunately, she is a gangster's moll. Read More

Just Imagine

Actors: El Brendel, Maureen O'Sullivan, John Garrick, Marjorie White, Frank Albertson

Synopsis: Made in 1930, this well-known sci-fi musical chronicles the adventures of a lightning-struck man who awakens to find himself in futuristic New York City, circa 1980. He finds it a strange new world where fantastically attired people are ascribed numbers rather than names and all marriages must be Read More

Spring Is Here

Synopsis: In this frothy musical, a lovely young woman is wooed by two men. One of them meets her father's approval so it is only natural that she attempt to elope with the other. Fortunately the good guy catches up with them before it is too late. Songs include: "Spring Is Here in Person," "I Married an Read More

Brat

Actors: Betty Balfour, Alf Goddard, Frank Albertson, John Stuart, Anne Grey

Synopsis: Based on the oft-filmed French play La Mome, The Brat stars pert Betty Balfour in the title role. Our orphaned heroine drifts from one disaster to another, finally landing a job as a singer in a seedy dive. A slick safecracker talks her into helping him "knock over" a joint, but Balfour changes Read More

Words and Music

Actors: John Wayne, Lois Moran, Tom Patricola, David Percy, Helen Twelvetrees, Frank Albertson

Synopsis: In this college campus musical comedy from director James Tinling, the first film in which John Wayne received billing (though it's as Duke Morrison), Lois Moran stars as Mary, a pretty young singer who is sought after by two competing composers. Wayne plays Phil, one of the two rival songwriters Read More

Blue Skies

Actors: Helen Twelvetrees, Frank Albertson

Synopsis: Better known for her work in talkie "weepers," Helen Twelvetrees made a few preliminary appearances in such late silent films as Fox's Blue Skies. The audience was expected to believe that the twentysomething Twelvetrees and Frank Albertson are teenagers living together platonically in an orphan Read More

Salute

Actors: George O'Brien, William Janney, Frank Albertson, Ward Bond, Helen Chandler, Joyce Compton

Synopsis: One of the few pre-1930 John Ford films currently available, the part-talkie Salute was co-directed by Ford and David Butler. George O'Brien is cast as cadet John Randall, star player for the Army college football team. His principal gridiron opponent is Navy player Paul Randall (William Janney) Read More

Prep and Pep

Actors: David Rollins, Nancy Drexel, John Darrow, Frank Albertson

Synopsis: Much of Fox's Prep and Pep was filmed on location at Culver Military Academy in Indiana. David Rollins plays Cyril Reade, the ne'er-do-well son of a former Culver star athlete. Struggling to live up to his dad's reputation, Cyril fails miserably and is practically razzed out of the academy. He Read More

The Farmer's Daughter

Actors: Marjorie Beebe, Arthur Stone, Jimmie Adams, Lincoln Stedman

Synopsis: Marjorie Beebe, leading lady of many a Mack Sennett comedy 2-reelers, plays the title character in the slapstick feature The Farmer's Daughter. Gormless Arthur Stone plays Beebe's hometown sweetie, a would-be inventor. When Stone's latest creation, a cheese-making machine, falls apart at the Read More