George ArlissFilmography

Doctor Syn

Actors: George Arliss, Margaret Lockwood, John Loder, Roy Emerton, Graham Moffatt

Synopsis: Sixty-nine-year-old George Arliss at first seems an unlikely casting choice for Dr. Syn, the 18th-century clergyman-cum-pirate created by novelist Roger Thorndyke. But Arliss never backed down from an acting challenge in all his 50 years of stage and screen work; if he wanted to play a pirate Read More

Man of Affairs

Actors: George Arliss, Romilly Lunge, Renee Ray, Jessie Winter, John Ford

Synopsis: A British detective sets off to save his abducted twin, the British foreign secretary in this programmer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

His Lordship

Actors: George Arliss, Romilly Lunge, Renee Ray, Jessie Winter

Synopsis: Also released as A Man of Affairs, His Lordship was adapted from The Nelson Touch, a play by Neil Grant. George Arliss essays the dual role of British foreign secretary Lord Dunchester and his lordship's twin brother Richard, a private detective. Hoping to solve the murder of a foreign Emir, which Read More

East Meets West

Actors: George Arliss, Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle, Romney Brent, Ballard Berkeley

Synopsis: Winding up his Hollywood film career in 1935, venerable British stage star George Arliss returned to his homeland for his last movie assignments. In East Meets West, the 68-year-old Arliss dons turban and monocle to portray an Eastern sultan who is inordinately proud of his son. The young man bids Read More

Transatlantic Tunnel

Actors: Richard Dix, Leslie Banks, Madge Evans, Helen Vinson, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Transatlantic Tunnel is the English-language version of the 1932 French-German speculative drama The Tunnel. Set sometime in the future (complete with two-way televisions, art-deco airships and self-propelled automobiles), the film stars Richard Dix as McAllen, a visionary architect who devotes Read More

The Guv'nor

Actors: George Arliss, Gene Gerrard, Frank Cellier, Patric Knowles, Viola Keats

Synopsis: Eminent British stage star George Arliss is a most elegant tramp in The Guv'nor. Though shabby and indigent, Arliss seems to have a lot more financial savvy than most of London's established financiers. Through a fluke, Arliss is mistaken as a member of the Rothschild family (the actor did, after Read More

Cardinal Richelieu

Actors: George Arliss, Halliwell Hobbes, Edward Arnold, Katherine Alexander

Synopsis: Released generally as Cardinal Richelieu, this George Arliss vehicle was based on the popular 19th-century blank-verse play by Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Downplaying the more villainous aspects of the character, Arliss portrays Richelieu as a dry-witted foxy-grandpa type, manipulating the Read More

The House of Rothschild

Actors: George Arliss, Boris Karloff, Loretta Young, Robert Young, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: George Arliss plays Nathan Rothschild, the head of a family of celebrated 19th century Jewish bankers. Despite the anti-semitic efforts of a powerful politico (Boris Karloff), Rothschild moves in the best European social circles. He is ultimately knighted for his services to the English crown Read More

The Iron Duke

Actors: George Arliss, Ellaline Terriss, Gladys Cooper, A.E. Matthews, Allan Aynesworth

Synopsis: The Iron Duke is one of the best of the George Arliss biopics -- and one of the few that can claim near-total accuracy (with the usual glossovers and embellishments, of course). Arliss plays the Duke of Wellington, the brilliant and foresighted British diplomat -- warrior of the Napoleonic Era. 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

The King's Vacation

Actors: George Arliss, Florence Arliss, Marjorie Gateson, Dudley Digges, Dick Powell

Synopsis: One of George Arliss' "smaller" vehicles, The King's Vacation casts the eminent British stage star (always billed as "Mr. George Arliss") as an abdicating monarch. Seeking the simple life, he comes to America in search of the wife (Marjorie Gateson) he'd been forced to divorce years earlier in Read More

Voltaire

Actors: George Arliss, Doris Kenyon, Margaret Lindsay, Theodore Newton, Reginald Owen

Synopsis: The life and times of one of France's most influential authors and philosophers receives the romantic treatment from director John G. Adolphi. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Working Man

Actors: George Arliss, Bette Davis, Hardie Albright, John Farrell MacDonald, Theodore Newton

Synopsis: In this comedy drama, a wealthy shoe magnate is bored with his life. The trouble really begins when his chief rival dies. His company was on the brink of financial ruin and now the bored shoemaker finds himself without even the joy of competition to motivate him. The fellow decides to take a Read More

A Successful Calamity

Actors: George Arliss, Mary Astor, Evelyn Knapp, Grant Mitchell, David Torrence

Synopsis: Veteran stage and screen star George Arliss forsakes his biographical roles for domestic comedy in A Successful Calamity. Arliss plays an elderly millionaire saddled with a selfish young second wife (Mary Astor) and a pair of spoiled grown children (William Janney and Evelyn Knapp). To test his Read More

The Man Who Played God

Actors: George Arliss, Violet Heming, Ivan Simpson, Louise Closser Hale, Bette Davis

Synopsis: George Arliss is a world-renowned pianist, engaged to a young woman (Bette Davis) much younger than himself. An explosion renders Arliss completely deaf, but he soon becomes an expert lip-reader. To practice this skill, he looks out his window through binoculars, reading the lips of those who pass Read More

Alexander Hamilton

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: George Arliss, Doris Kenyon, Dudley Digges, Alan Mowbray, Ralf Harolde

Synopsis: Alexander Hamilton was not precisely the life story of America's first secretary of the treasury--in fact, it doesn't even depict the most portentous moment of Hamilton's life, his fatal duel with Aaron Burr. Instead, Alexander Hamilton concentrates on Hamilton's efforts to pass the "Assumption Read More

The Millionaire

Actors: George Arliss, Evelyn Knapp, David Manners, Florence Arliss, Noah Beery, Sr., James Cagney

Synopsis: George Arliss is the millionaire of the title, a retired auto tycoon who's been ordered by his doctor to rest and avoid exercise. Arliss is shaken out of his sedentary existence by an insurance salesman who advises him to pick himself up and enjoy life. The old man heads to California, where he Read More

Old English

Actors: George Arliss, Leon Janney, Doris Lloyd, Betty Lawford, Ivan Simpson

Synopsis: British actor George Arliss spent the bulk of his movie career in adaptations of his stage successes. Based on a play by John Galsworthy, Old English stars Arliss as an aging shipbuilder, who dotes on the children of his deceased son. Arliss' sister (Ethyl Gryffies) disapproves because the old Read More

The Green Goddess

Actors: George Arliss, H.B. Warner, Ralph Forbes, Alice Joyce

Synopsis: In this British adventure, a plane crash results in the capture of the survivors by a despotic Rajah who hates the British. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Disraeli

Actors: George Arliss, Joan Bennett, Florence Arliss, Anthony Bushell, David Torrence

Synopsis: In the early days of sound film, one of Warner Bros.' big box-office draws was the aging stage actor George Arliss and, in Disraeli, Arliss scored his biggest box-office hit. He is at his best as the foxy British prime minister (in a role he created on-stage and re-created earlier in a 1921 silent Read More

20 Dollars a Week

$20 a Week

Actors: George Arliss, Taylor Holmes, Edith Roberts

Synopsis: The role of American millionaire turned office clerk was quite a turnaround from playing an Indian rajah in The Green Goddess. Even so, character actor George Arliss was able to make just about any part uniquely his own, and in spite of his queer looks, became an incredibly popular film star. Read More

Green Goddess

Actors: Harry T. Morey, Dave Powell, Jetta Goudal

Synopsis: Engine trouble forces an airplane to land with a trio of passengers in the mythical kingdom of Rukh. Major Crespin (Harry T. Morley), his wife Lucille (Alice Joyce), and Dr. Basil Traherne (David Powell) are taken to the Rajah (George Arliss), the educated and satirical ruler of Rukh. The three Read More

The Ruling Passion

Actors: George Arliss, Doris Kenyon, Edmund Burns, Ida Darling, J.W. Johnston

Synopsis: Although United Artists was primarily formed to release films from its founders -- Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith -- the firm almost immediately began releasing pictures from other sources. This comedy-drama, based on a Saturday Evening Post story by Earl Derr Read More

The Man Who Played God

Actors: George Arliss, Ann Forrest, Ivan Simpson, Edward Earle, Effie Shannon

Synopsis: Esteemed stage actor George Arliss became the screen's unlikeliest star at the ripe age of 53 in 1921. But the odd-looking, very mature Arliss had a rare talent and charisma, and younger, more attractive stars had to work extra hard to make their presence known next to him. In this drama, which Read More

Disraeli

Actors: George Arliss, E.J. Ratcliffe, Frank Losee, Margaret Dale, Henry Carvill

Synopsis: Photos reveal that stage and film luminary George Arliss made a perfect Benjamin Disreli -- this silent was the filmed version of the Louis N. Parker play in which he had starred. The backdrop of this story reveals the prejudice surrounding the Jewish, middle-class Disraeli when he becomes prime Read More

Devil

Actors: George Arliss, Sylvia Breamer, Lucy Cotton, Edmund Lowe

Synopsis: Stage star George Arliss had been a huge success in the 1906 stage play on which this film was based. Other versions had already been filmed, but nothing could compare to Arliss when he decided to reprise his role on screen. His character, Dr. Mueller, is the devil incarnate, determined to ruin Read More