George ZuccoFilmography

David and Bathsheba

Actors: Gregory Peck, Susan Hayward, Raymond Massey, Kieron Moore, James Robertson Justice

Synopsis: David and Bathsheba is a respectable, slightly stodgy cinematic adaptation of the Old Testament story. King David (Gregory Peck), much beloved by his subjects and a war hero of long standing, falls victim to the sins of the flesh when he falls in love with Bathsheba (Susan Hayward), the wife of Read More

Flame of Stamboul

Actors: Richard Denning, Lisa Ferraday, Norman Lloyd, Nestor Paiva, George Zucco

Synopsis: Flame of Stamboul concerns dirty work at the Suez Canal, orchestrated by a master spy (George Zucco) known only as "The Voice." U.S. intelligence agent Larry Wilson (Richard Denning) is dispatched to Egypt to prevent the theft of top-secret defense papers. Here he is detained by exotic dancer Read More

The First Legion

Actors: Charles Boyer, William Demarest, Lyle Bettger, Leo G. Carroll

Synopsis: Since its lapse into public domain in 1978, First Legion has joined Love Affair and Algiers as the most readily available of Charles Boyer's films. Boyer plays Fr. Marc Arnoux, the head of St. Gregory's seminary, who can never quite shake the feeling that he shouldn't have given up his career as Read More

Let's Dance

Actors: Fred Astaire, Betty Hutton, Roland Young, Ruth Warrick, Lucile Watson, Gregory Moffett

Synopsis: Fred Astaire and Betty Hutton make a surprisingly copacetic screen team in Let's Dance. Hutton plays a more sedate role than usual as war widow Kitty McNeil. Not wishing to have her young son Richard (Gregory Moffatt) grow up in the stiff and stuffy environs of her Boston in-laws' mansion, Kitty Read More

Harbor of Missing Men

Actors: Richard Denning, Barbara Fuller, Steven Geray, Aline Towne, Percy Helton

Synopsis: Republic's Harbor of Missing Men stars Richard Denning as a two-fisted smuggler named Brooklyn. Double-crossed by his partners, Brooklyn is forced to go on the lam lest he be shot full of holes by his smooth-talking boss Danzinger (George Zucco). Hiding out in the home of a Greek fishing captain Read More

The Barkleys of Broadway

Actors: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Oscar Levant, Billie Burke, Gale Robbins

Synopsis: The Barkleys of Broadway became Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' "reunion" picture purely by accident. Originally conceived as a follow-up to the successful Astaire-Judy Garland vehicle Easter Parade, Barkleys was to have starred Fred and Judy as a successful musical comedy team that breaks up when Read More

Madame Bovary

Actors: Jennifer Jones, James Mason, Van Heflin, Louis Jourdan, Christopher [Alf] Kent

Synopsis: MGM circumvented the censorship that would otherwise have prevented a film version of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary by adding a prologue and epilogue that assured any and all bluenoses that the story was strictly a work of fiction. James Mason appears as Flaubert, defending his inflammatory 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

Secret Service Investigator

Actors: Lynne Roberts, Lloyd Bridges, George Zucco, June Storey

Synopsis: An especially good casts helps lift Republic's Secret Service Investigator well above the norm. Lloyd Bridges plays disillusioned ex-GI Steve Mallory, who falls in with a gang of wily crooks. Convincing Mallory that they're U.S. secret service agents, the villains persuade our hero to help them in Read More

Tarzan and the Mermaids

Actors: Johnny Weissmuller, Brenda Joyce, Linda Christian, John Laurenz, George Zucco, Fernando Wagner

Synopsis: The "mermaids" are really tribal pearl divers in this diverting Tarzan adventure. Their livelihood is threatened by an evil white trader (Fernando Wagner), who sets himself up as a "god." With the help of lovely diver Linda Christian (later Mrs. Tyrone Power), Tarzan defeats the wicked despot, but Read More

Joan of Arc

Actors: Ingrid Bergman, José Ferrer, Selena Royle, Ward Bond, Robert H. Barrat, Francis L. Sullivan, Jimmy Lydon, Cecil Kellaway, Rand Brooks

Synopsis: Director Victor Fleming's final film features Ingrid Bergman as a vivid and luminous Joan of Arc, the 15th-century French peasant girl who led the French in battle against the invading English, becoming a national hero. When she was captured, tortured, and ultimately executed by the English, she Read More

The Pirate

Actors: Lester Allen, Judy Garland, Jerry Bergen, Gene Kelly, Walter Slezak, Gladys Cooper, Jean Dean, Reginald Owen

Synopsis: When Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne appeared in S. N. Behrmann's The Pirate on Broadway, there were no musical numbers whatsoever. But with Gene Kelly and Judy Garland in the leading roles of the 1948 filmization of The Pirate, the MGM production staff would have been drawn and quartered had there Read More

The Haunted Mansion

Who Killed Doc Robbin?

Actors: Don Castle, George Zucco, Whitford Kane, Claire Du Brey

Synopsis: Producer Hal Roach's postwar attempt to create a new bunch of "Our Gang" kids resulted in two misfire Cinecolor comedies, the second of which was Who Killed Doc Robbin. Heading this unappealing new crop of youngsters is Jackie Cooper lookalike Larry Olsen as Curley, who enters the story when Read More

Lured

Actors: George Sanders, Lucille Ball, Charles Coburn, Alan Mowbray, Cedric Hardwicke

Synopsis: Lucille Ball is an American taxi-dancer living in London whose roommate has disappeared. The missing girl had left to answer a job offer in the "personal" column of the Times...just like several other women who've vanished without a trace. Scotland Yard detective George Zucco suggests that Ball Read More

Scared to Death

Actors: Bela Lugosi, Douglas Fowley, Joyce Compton, George Zucco, Nat Pendleton

Synopsis: Completed several years before its 1947 release, Scared to Death is historically important as Bela Lugosi's only color film (outside of his brief unbilled appearance in 1931's Fifty Million Frenchmen, which today exists only in black & white). Other than that, it's a dreary story of how a Read More

The Imperfect Lady

Actors: Ray Milland, Teresa Wright, Cedric Hardwicke, Virginia Field, Anthony Quinn

Synopsis: In this improbable romantic drama set in Gay Nineties London, a member of Parliament jeopardizes his career when he falls in love with a music hall dancer. When his stodgy older brother finds out about the affair, he sternly counsels the dancer to jilt her lover, lest she damage his political Read More

Moss Rose

Actors: Norman Ainsley, Peggy Cummins, Victor Mature, Harry Allen, Ethel Barrymore, Billy Bevan, Vincent Price, Margo Woode, Clifford Brooke

Synopsis: A woman trying to solve the mystery of a friend's murder finds that she may be the next victim in this suspense story set in turn-of-the-century London. Belle Adair (Peggy Cummins) is a struggling showgirl willing to use her charms to snare an eligible bachelor. When her roommate is murdered Read More

Desire Me

Actors: Greer Garson, Robert Mitchum, Richard Hart, George Zucco, Morris Ankrum, Cecil Humphreys

Synopsis: Marise Aubert (Greer Garson) has begun seeing a psychiatrist to treat her overwhelming guilt. It seems that Marise was married to Paul (Robert Mitchum), who was sent overseas in World War II. She loved Paul deeply and remained faithful to him. She then receives tragic news that Paul died in Read More

Captain from Castile

Actors: Tyrone Power, Jean Peters, Cesar Romero, Lee J. Cobb, Antonio Moreno, John Sutton

Synopsis: In this big-budget historical adventure, Tyrone Power stars as Pedro De Vargas, a young and impetuous nobleman in 16th Century Spain. Pedro helps to free a slave who belongs to Diego De Silva (John Sutton), but this proves to be a mistake, as Diego is one of the leaders of the Inquisition. Diego Read More

Curley & His Gang in the Haunted Mansion

Synopsis: A disappearing scientist and a spooky mansion get wrapped up together. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

Where There's Life

Actors: Bob Hope, Signe Hasso, William Bendix, George Coulouris, Vera Marshe

Synopsis: Bearing traces of such earlier hits as My Favorite Blonde and The Ghost Breakers, Where There's Life is one of the best of Bob Hope's postwar vehicles. The inimitable Mr. Hope is cast as New York radio personality Michael Valentine, who's poised to marry his long-time fiancee Hazel O'Brien (Vera Marshe Read More

The Flying Serpent

Actors: George Zucco, Ralph Lewis, Hope Kramer, Eddie Acuff, Wheaton Chambers

Synopsis: This threadbare PRC production plays like an Aztec variant on the studio's earlier Devil Bat, with PRC favorite George Zucco assaying the Bela Lugosi role. Zucco plays mad archaeologist Andrew Forbes, who stumbles upon the nest of a monstrous winged serpent -- the apparent source for the myth of Read More

One Exciting Night

Actors: William Gargan, Ann Savage, Leo Gorcey, Don Beddoe

Synopsis: In this drama, two competing reporters get involved in a mystery when they find a gangster's corpse in a wax museum. As no one has reported the death, the two rivals begin racing to get the scoop. Unfortunately the uncooperative corpse keeps disappearing. Also looking for the body is the killer Read More

Sudan

Actors: Maria Montez, Turhan Bey, Jon Hall, Andy Devine, George Zucco

Synopsis: In another of her series of romantic desert adventures, popular actress Maria Montez is this time Naila, the newly crowned queen of an ancient Egyptian land. Her father the king has just been assassinated and she intends to make those responsible pay for their crime. She sets out into the desert Read More

Weekend at the Waldorf

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon, Van Johnson, Edward Arnold

Synopsis: Weekend at the Waldorf is an unabashed remake of MGM's 1932 Oscar-winner Grand Hotel: in fact, at several points in the story, the cast makes pointed references to the earlier film. The posh Waldorf Hotel in the heart of New York is the setting for several plots and subplots. Ginger Rogers plays Read More

Hold That Blonde

Actors: Eddie Bracken, Veronica Lake, Albert Dekker, Willie Best, Frank Fenton

Synopsis: This curious mixture of comedy, romance and melodrama teams up comic actor Eddie Bracken and glamour girl Veronica Lake, two of Paramount's most popular stars of the mid-1940s. He plays Ogden Spencer Trulow III, a wealthy kleptomaniac; she plays Sally Martin, who may or may not provide the "cure" Read More

Having Wonderful Crime

Actors: Pat O'Brien, George Murphy, Carole Landis, Lenore Aubert, George Zucco

Synopsis: Having Wonderful Crime spotlights Michael J. Malone, the murder-solving attorney created by author Craig Rice. The film is also ostensibly based on a novel by Rice, though precious little of the original actually made it to the screen. The story begins as Malone (Pat O'Brien) brusquely informs his Read More

Watchtower Over Tomorrow

Actors: Lionel Stander, Grant Mitchell, Jonathan Hale, Miles Mander

Synopsis: Though running a mere 15 minutes, Watchtower Over Tomorrow boasts some very impressive credits. Written by Ben Hecht, this paean to the newly-formed United Nations does its best to explain the importance of the organization and the Dubarton Oaks Conference which preceded it. The film is in the Read More

Confidential Agent

Actors: Charles Boyer, Lauren Bacall, Wanda Hendrix, Peter Lorre, Katina Paxinou, Victor Francen, George Coulouris

Synopsis: A Graham Greene novel was the source of the Warner Bros. espionage thriller Confidential Agent. Charles Boyer stars as Denard, a former concert musician operating as anti-Fascist secret agent in the Spanish Civil War. While negotiating with the neutral British for some much needed fuel supplies Read More

Fog Island

Actors: George Zucco, Lionel Atwill, Jerome Cowan, Sharon Douglas, Veda Ann Borg

Synopsis: An early low-budget spin on Ten Little Indians, this cheap but entertaining PRC production features a wonderful cast of familiar B-movie faces, particularly George Zucco and Lionel Atwill. Zucco plays a man wrongfully imprisoned after being framed for his wife's murder by one of his colleagues. Read More

House of Frankenstein

Actors: Boris Karloff, J. Carrol Naish, Lon Chaney, Jr., John Carradine, Anne Gwynne, Lionel Atwill

Synopsis: In many ways the most endearing of Universal's B-grade "monster rallies" of the 1940s, House of Frankenstein manages within its 70-minute time span to make room for Frankenstein's monster (Glenn Strange), Dracula (John Carradine) the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.), and a couple of new recruits, mad Read More

The Mummy's Ghost

Actors: Lon Chaney, Jr., John Carradine, Ramsay Ames, Robert Lowery, Barton MacLane

Synopsis: The still very undead mummy experiences insane jealousy in this the third of Universal's Kharis thrillers. Although he was thought to have perished in a fire in The Mummy's Tomb (1942), Kharis (Lon Chaney Jr.) is once again wreaking havoc in the town of Mapleton, MA. Sent by the High Priest Read More

Matinee Double Feature, Part 5

Synopsis: Two monster movies from the '40s, Fog Island and Return of the Ape Man, appear on this single video release. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

Voodoo Man

Actors: Bela Lugosi, John Carradine, George Zucco, Michael Ames, Wanda McKay

Synopsis: Though no more expensive or ambitious than any of his earlier Sam Katzman-produced vehicles, Bela Lugosi's Voodoo Man is perhaps the best of the batch, if only because of its quirky supporting cast and casually offbeat dialogue. Lugosi plays Dr. Marlowe, a practioner of voodoo who kidnaps nubile Read More

Shadows in the Night

Actors: Warner Baxter, Nina Foch, George Zucco, Minor Watson, Lester Matthews

Synopsis: Shadows in the Night was the third entry in Columbia's Crime Doctor series, starring Warner Baxter as crook-turned-criminologist Dr. Robert Ordway. Nina Foch delivers a superb performance as Lois Garland, a beautiful young heiress being driven to insanity and possible suicide. Poor Lois resides in Read More

Return of the Ape Man

Actors: Bela Lugosi, John Carradine, Frank Moran, Judith Gibson, Michael Ames

Synopsis: Campy Bela Lugosi plays a deranged scientist in this Monogram -produced horror movie. This time, Lugosi and his partner John Carradine accidentally discover a Neanderthal frozen in ice. Elated, they haul the iceman back to their lab and prepare to free him. Sure enough the beetle-browed fellow is Read More

The Seventh Cross

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Signe Hasso, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Agnes Moorehead

Synopsis: Fred Zinnemann directed this World War II drama, considered one of the best anti-Nazi dramas produced by Hollywood during the war years. The story concerns seven prisoners in a Nazi concentration camp who manage to elude the guards and the Gestapo. The commandant, in a rage over their escape Read More

Dead Men Walk

Actors: George Zucco, Mary Carlisle, Ned Young, Dwight Frye, Fern Emmett

Synopsis: This painfully cheap but wildly entertaining PRC production stars a hammy George Zucco in a dual role as the Clayton Twins -- both doctors, one good, one evil. Elwyn Clayton, a practitioner of the black arts, is murdered by his brother Lloyd and returns from the dead as a vampire to seek revenge Read More

Holy Matrimony

Actors: Monty Woolley, Gracie Fields, Laird Cregar, Una O'Connor, Alan Mowbray

Synopsis: A man trying to leave his fame behind discovers the perils of choosing to be the wrong unknown person in this farcical British comedy. Priam Farli (Monty Woolley) is an eccentric but famous and well-respected artist who prefers to work in total seclusion -- so much so that he's spent the last 20 Read More

The Black Raven

Actors: George Zucco, Wanda McKay, Noel Madison, Robert Randall, Byron Foulger

Synopsis: The Black Raven is one of a trio of PRC horror-melodramas starring George Zucco. The title refers to a remote country inn, presided over by the sinister Mr. Bradford (Zucco). During a dark and stormy night, the Black Raven becomes the gathering place for an escaped convict (I. Standford Jolley) Read More

The Mad Ghoul

Actors: David Bruce, Evelyn Ankers, George Zucco, Robert Armstrong, Turhan Bey

Synopsis: The Mad Ghoul may well be the definitive George Zucco horror melodrama. The star plays Dr. Alfred Morris, a distinguished scientist who obsession with an ancient Egyptian life-preserving process has tipped him over into madness. In love with young concert singer Isabel Lewis (Evelyn Ankers) Read More

Never a Dull Moment

Actors: Harry Ritz, Jimmy Ritz, Al Ritz, Frances Langford, Mary Beth Hughes, Jack LaRue, Stuart Crawford

Synopsis: In their last starring film, The Ritz Brothers play the Three Funny Bunnies, a trio of nightclub comedians. The plot contrives to have our heroes pose as tough Chicago gangsters, which gets them mixed up with genuine hoodlums Tony (George Zucco) and Joey (Jack LaRue), a sexy pickpocket named Flo Read More

Sherlock Holmes in Washington

Actors: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Marjorie Lord, Henry Daniell, George Zucco

Synopsis: One of the silliest and most unbelievable of the Universal Sherlock Holmes series, Sherlock Holmes in Washington is also undeniably one of the most enjoyable. The story gets under way when an Allied spy (an unbilled Gerald Hamer, one of this series' "regulars") smuggles a valuable piece of Read More

My Favorite Blonde

Actors: Bob Hope, Madeleine Carroll, Gale Sondergaard, George Zucco, Victor Varconi, Lionel Royce

Synopsis: Each of Bob Hope's "My Favorite" films (My Favorite Blonde, My Favorite Brunette, My Favorite Spy) was, by accident or design, a parody of a dead-serious movie genre. 1942's My Favorite Blonde, for example, was a takeoff of Alfred Hitchcock in general and Hitchcock's 39 Steps in particular. Read More

Dr. Renault's Secret

Actors: J. Carrol Naish, John Shepperd, Lynne Roberts, George Zucco, Bert Roach

Synopsis: A remake of the 1927 horror melodrama The Wizard (which, alas, no longer exists), 20th Century-Fox's Dr. Renault's Secrets packs a real wallop in its brisk 58-minute running time. The scene is a remote French village, where the murder of drunken tourist Austin (Jack Norton) coincides with the Read More

Half Way to Shanghai

Actors: Kent Taylor, Irene Hervey, Henry Stephenson, J. Edward Bromberg, George Zucco

Synopsis: Half Way to Shanghai is Burma, according to this Universal B-grade actioner. The film takes place almost in its entirety on a train bound from Lashio to Rangoon in the days just prior to the Japanese invasion. Passenger Alexander Barton (Kent Taylor) becomes the reluctant hero of the piece when he Read More

The Mummy's Tomb

Actors: Lon Chaney, Jr., Dick Foran, Elyse Knox, Turhan Bey, John Hubbard, Mary Gordon

Synopsis: You cannot keep a good mummy down forever and Kharis is back in this sequel to The Mummy's Hand, which itself was something of a remake of the classic Boris Karloff thriller of 1935, The Mummy. Although assumed to have been killed by Stephen Banning (Dick Foran) in the previous film, Andoheb Read More

The Black Swan

Actors: Tyrone Power, Maureen O'Hara, Laird Cregar, Thomas Mitchell, George Sanders

Synopsis: Perhaps unintentionally, the 1942 Technicolor swashbuckler The Black Swan is a bondage fetishist's dream, with hero and heroine Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara taking turns being tied up and imprisoned throughout the film's brisk 85-minute running time. Very loosely adapted by Ben Hecht and Seton I. Miller Read More

The Mad Monster

Actors: Johnny Downs, George Zucco, Anne Nagel, Sarah Padden, Glenn Strange

Synopsis: Bland former child actor Johnny Downs earns top billing in this low-budget horror film, but the real star is that most psychotic of all the mad doctors George Zucco. The British-born character actor plays Dr. Lorenzo Cameron, a discredited -- and quite mad -- medico who has discovered a way to Read More

Ellery Queen and the Murder Ring

Actors: Ralph Bellamy, Margaret Lindsay, Charles Grapewin, Mona Barrie, Paul Hurst

Synopsis: Ralph Bellamy made his fourth and final appearance as literary sleuth Ellery Queen in Columbia's Ellery Queen and the Murder Ring. On this occasion, Ellery and his police-inspector father (Charley Grapewin) are summoned to a private hospital by its owner, philanthropist Mrs. Stack (Blanche Yurka). Read More

The Monster and the Girl

Actors: Ellen Drew, Robert Paige, Paul Lukas, Joseph Calleia, Onslow Stevens

Synopsis: One of the most schizophrenic films ever to come out of the Paramount "B" mill, The Monster and the Girl starts out as a white-slavery melodrama and ends up as a horror picture! Emerging from the fog, heroine Susan Webster (Ellen Drew) tells her woeful tale to the audience. A young innocent from Read More

International Lady

Actors: George Brent, Ilona Massey, Basil Rathbone, Gene Lockhart, George Zucco

Synopsis: Hungarian actress Ilona Massey stars as an operative for the Axis in this slightly tongue-in-cheek wartime melodrama. She spends her working hours signalling secret messages to enemy U-boats. George Brent is the U.S. counterspy sent to track down the security leak. Brent's job is made doubly Read More

A Woman's Face

Actors: Joan Crawford, Melvyn Douglas, Conrad Veidt, Osa Massen, Reginald Owen

Synopsis: A remake of the Swedish film of the same name (see entry 55092), MGM's A Woman's Face was reshaped into one of Joan Crawford's best vehicles. Told in flashback from the vantage point of a murder trial, the story concerns a female criminal whose face is disfigured by a hideous scar. The Read More

Topper Returns

Actors: Joan Blondell, Roland Young, Carole Landis, Billie Burke, Dennis O'Keefe

Synopsis: The third of producer Hal Roach's Topper films, Topper Returns eschews the frothy "screwball" format of the first two in favor of an "old dark house" comedy-mystery. Roland Young returns as banker Cosmo Topper, who gallantly offers a lift to pretty hitchhikers Gail Richards (Joan Blondell) and Ann Read More

Arise, My Love

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Ray Milland, Dennis O'Keefe, Dick Purcell, George Zucco

Synopsis: A serious journalist is sent to France and forced to write fashion fluff pieces. Tiring of this, she decides to sneak off to find an elusive notorious rebel and write a hard-new first-hand-account of the Spanish Civil War. This lively romantic comedy chronicles her adventures after she finds him Read More

The Mummy's Hand

Actors: Dick Foran, Peggy Moran, George Zucco, Cecil Kellaway, Wallace Ford

Synopsis: Egyptian mystic Andoheb (George Zucco) is ordered by his High Priest (Eduardo Ciannelli) to stand guard over the sacred mummy of Kharis (Tom Tyler), who thousands of years earlier was entombed alive for falling in love with Egyptian Princess Ananka. Kharis can be revived or neutralized at will Read More

New Moon

Actors: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Mary Boland, George Zucco, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1930 with Lawrence Tibbett and Grace Moore, the robust Sigmund Romberg operetta New Moon was given another airing in 1940 as Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald vehicle. Set in 18th century Louisiana, the story concerns the relationship between haughty plantation owner Marianne de Read More

Dark Streets of Cairo

Actors: Sigrid Gurie, Ralph Byrd, Eddie Quillan, George Zucco, Katherine de Mille

Synopsis: Those wily Egyptians are once again selfishly attempting to keep the treasures of the Pharaohs to themselves in this rough-and-tumble melodrama from Universal. The wiliest of them all is one Abbadi (George Zucco), who leaves no stone unturned in his quest for possession of the fabulous "seven Read More

The Magnificent Fraud

Actors: Akim Tamiroff, Lloyd Nolan, Mary Boland, Patricia Morison, Ralph Forbes

Synopsis: In this lively programmer a con man hires a character actor to masqueraded as the recently assassinated dictator of a tiny Latin American country so he can bilk an arriving American ambassador out of his fortune. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Captain Fury

Actors: Brian Aherne, Victor McLaglen, Paul Lukas, June Lang, John Carradine

Synopsis: This exciting adventure is set in the rugged Australian outback back when the continent was used as a giant penal colony for criminals of the British empire, and tells the story of a fugitive leader and his band who like Robin of old try to prevent a greedy governor from stealing rancher's land. Read More

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Actors: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Ida Lupino, Alan Marshal, E.E. Clive, Terry Kilburn

Synopsis: Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce make their second screen appearances as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Ostensibly based on the stage play by William Gillette, the film owes nothing to the play beyond the characters of Holmes, Watson, Billy the page boy and Read More

The Cat and the Canary

Actors: Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, John Beal, Douglass Montgomery, Gale Sondergaard

Synopsis: The classic "old dark house" motif is given sterling treatment in this second filmed version of the hit play. Bob Hope's status as a star was assured with his role as Wallie Campbell, the cowardly protector of Joyce Norman (Paulette Goddard), who must spend one night in the eerie mansion of her Read More

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Actors: Charles Laughton, Cedric Hardwicke, Maureen O'Hara, Thomas Mitchell, Edmond O'Brien

Synopsis: Few will argue with the contention that RKO Radio's 1939 adaptation of Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame was the best of the many screen versions of the Hugo classic. We say this even allowing for certain liberties taken with the source material-liberties calculated by scenarists Sonya Levien Read More

Here I Am a Stranger

Actors: Richard Greene, Richard Dix, Brenda Joyce, Roland Young, Gladys George

Synopsis: In this drama, a miserable wife takes her son and leaves her alcoholic spouse. She ends up traveling to England to begin her new life. There she meets a wealthy Englishman whom she weds. Time passes. The boy grows up and want to return to the States to go to his father's alma mater. Because his Read More

Rosalie

Actors: Nelson Eddy, Eleanor Powell, Frank Morgan, Edna May Oliver, Ray Bolger

Synopsis: More burdened with leaden production numbers than plot, Rosalie took Sigmund Romberg and George Gershwin's 1928 Broadway hit, threw out most of the songs, including "How Long Has This Been Going On?," but retained the spindly story of the incognito Princess Rosalie of Romanza (Eleanor Powell), who Read More

Arsene Lupin Returns

Actors: Melvyn Douglas, Virginia Bruce, Warren William, John Halliday, Nat Pendleton

Synopsis: This follow-up to MGM's 1932 John Barrymore vehicle Arsene Lupin stars the ineluctable Melvyn Douglas. Reported to be dead, suave gentleman jewel thief Arsene Lupin (Douglas) resurfaces under the assumed name of Rene Farrand. Intending to follow the straight and narrow path, Lupin/Farrand reverts Read More

Charlie Chan in Honolulu

Actors: Sidney Toler, Phyllis Brooks, Eddie Collins

Synopsis: Sidney Toler made his first appearance as aphorism-spouting oriental sleuth Charlie Chan in 1938's Charlie Chan in Honolulu, while Victor Sen Yung likewise makes his series debut as Charlie's Number Two Son Jimmy. While awaiting the birth of his first grandchild, Chan endeavors to solve a Read More

Three Comrades

Actors: Robert Taylor, Margaret Sullavan, Franchot Tone, Robert Young, Guy Kibbee, Lionel Atwill

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, Three Comrades represented one of the few successful screenwriting efforts of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in Germany in the years just following World War I, the film stars Robert Taylor, Franchot Tone and Robert Young as three battle-weary, thoroughly Read More

Marie Antoinette

Actors: Norma Shearer, Tyrone Power, John Barrymore, Robert Morley, Anita Louise, Joseph Schildkraut

Synopsis: M.G.M.'s opulent costume drama Marie Antoinette marked a return to the screen after a two-year absence for reigning Queen of M.G.M. Norma Shearer. Shearer plays the title role of an Austrian princess who is married off to Louis Auguste (Robert Morley), the Dauphin of France. Marie, by becoming the Read More

Vacation from Love

Actors: Dennis O'Keefe, Florence Rice, Reginald Owen, June Knight, Edward S. Brophy

Synopsis: Nobody really takes a Vacation from Love in this MGM programmer, though it's not from lack of trying. Dennis O'Keefe and Florence Rice star as young marrieds Bill and Patricia Blair. Have left her family's wealth behind to struggle along on Bill's salary, Patricia comes to regret her decision when Read More

Arrest Bulldog Drummond

Actors: John Howard, Heather Angel, H.B. Warner, Reginald Denny, E.E. Clive

Synopsis: Arrest Bulldog Drummond was the last of Paramount's "B" film series based on Sapper's two-fisted soldier of fortune, and also the final appearance by John Howard as Drummond. In this one, Drummond's honeymoon with his beloved Phyllis (Heather Angel) is postponed for the umpteenth time when Read More

Suez

Actors: Tyrone Power, Loretta Young, Annabella, J. Edward Bromberg, Joseph Schildkraut

Synopsis: This is an epic Darryl F. Zanuck production that plays fast and loose with historical facts regarding early 19th century French politics and the building of the Suez Canal. Tyrone Power stars as Ferdinand de Lesseps, an engineer and son of a French nobleman (Harry Stephenson). At the start of the Read More

Fast Company

Actors: Melvyn Douglas, Florence Rice, Claire Dodd, Shepperd Strudwick, Louis Calhern

Synopsis: Fast Company was another attempt by MGM to match the success of its "Thin Man" films. Melvyn Douglas and Florence Rice star as Joel and Garda Sloane, the funloving rare-book dealers created by Harry Kurnitz. Try as they might, the Sloanes can't help getting involved in crime and murder. This time Read More

Lord Jeff

Actors: Freddie Bartholomew, Mickey Rooney, Charles Coburn, Herbert Mundin, Gale Sondergaard, Terry Kilburn, Peter Lawford

Synopsis: Director Sam Wood always seemed most comfortable with cozy family-oriented films like Lord Jeff. Freddie Bartholomew plays Geoffrey Braemer, a basically good kid who falls in with bad company. The orphaned Geoffrey is being used as part of jewel-theft scheme masterminded by his so-called aunt Read More

The Bride Wore Red

Actors: Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone, Robert Young, Billie Burke, Reginald Owen

Synopsis: Based on The Bride from Trieste by Ferenc Molnar, The Bride Wore Red stars Joan Crawford as the eponymous heroine. A singer in a seedy Budapest dive, Anni (Crawford) is mistaken for a socialite thanks to a practical joke perpetrated by the cynical Count Armalia (George Zucco). Though a bit Read More

Souls at Sea

Actors: Gary Cooper, George Raft, Frances Dee, Henry Wilcoxon, Harry Carey

Synopsis: Paramount's answer to Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) also involved mutiny and romance on the high seas. Gary Cooper stars as Nuggin Taylor, first mate on a slave ship in 1842. Ironically, Nuggin is an abolitionist. When a mutiny overthrows the ship's skipper and leaves him in charge, he frees his Read More

The Firefly

Actors: Jeanette MacDonald, Allan Jones, Warren William, Billy Gilbert, Henry Daniell

Synopsis: In this adaptation of the operetta by Rudolf Friml, secret agent Nina Maria Azara (Jeannette MacDonald) is working undercover for the King of Spain as a singer known as the "Mosca del Fuego" or "Firefly." Her mission is to uncover Napoleon's plot to invade Spain before it is too late. This film Read More

London by Night

Actors: George Murphy, Rita Johnson, Virginia Field, Leo G. Carroll, George Zucco

Synopsis: London by Night was filmed entirely on the MGM back lot, which admittedly looked more like England than England. Adapted from Will Scott's play The Umbrella Man, this atmospheric thriller concerns the a series of murders committed in foggy Sundial Square by an elusive gentleman known variously as Read More

Saratoga

Actors: Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore, Frank Morgan, Walter Pidgeon

Synopsis: Jean Harlow offers her final screen performance in this witty and -- in retrospect -- quite moving racetrack comedy-drama co-starring Clark Gable and Walter Pidgeon. When her father dies shortly after losing his horse farm to Duke Bradley (Gable), Carol Clayton (Harlow) refuses the handsome Read More

Conquest

Actors: Greta Garbo, Charles Boyer, Reginald Owen, Alan Marshal, Henry Stephenson

Synopsis: Conquest was released in England as Marie Waleska, the name of the real-life historical personage portrayed by Greta Garbo. The film begins in 1807, when Marie, a Polish countess, is dispatched by her country to meet with Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (Charles Boyer). Marie has been encouraged to Read More

Madame X

Actors: Gladys George, John Beal, Warren William, Reginald Owen, William Henry

Synopsis: Sam Wood directed this fourth version of the Alexandre Bisson weeper, buffed to a high gloss by shimmering M.G.M. production values. Gladys George plays Jacqueline Fleuriot this time around, the wife of a diplomat who has an affair and is compelled to leave her husband and son. After abandoning 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

The Man Who Could Work Miracles

Actors: Roland Young, Joan Gardner, Ralph Richardson, Ernst Thesiger, Robert Cochran

Synopsis: As a result of a discussion between a trio of gods over the true worthiness of Earth, a retiring British shop assistant is granted miraculous powers in this fantasy based on an H.G. Wells story. Roland Young stars as George McWhirter Fotheringay, whose new powers are virtually limitless; choosing Read More

Sinner Take All

Actors: Bruce Cabot, Margaret Lindsay, Joseph Calleia, Stanley Ridges, Vivienne Osborne

Synopsis: Sinner Takes All shines with the production gloss only MGM could create; the prettiness of the images helps to hide the plot holes in this modest murder mystery. The members of an aristocratic family are murdered one by one, in retribution for the misdeeds of the family's black sheep. Margaret Lindsay Read More

After the Thin Man

Actors: William Powell, Myrna Loy, James Stewart, Elissa Landi, Joseph Calleia

Synopsis: This second of MGM's Thin Man films reteams William Powell and Myrna Loy as, respectively, bibulous private detective Nick Charles and his socialite wife Nora. The Charleses are sucked into another murder case via Nick's lovely cousin Elissa Landi, whose husband Alan Marshall has vanished. Hubby Read More

It's a Bet

Actors: Helen Chandler, Gene Gerrard

Synopsis: In this drama, a reporter loses his job after he writes a story criticizing the police department for their inefficiency in locating missing people. He then takes a wager from a rival reporter who claims that he cannot stay in hiding for a month. If he wins, he will have a new job at a rival Read More

What Happened Then?

Synopsis: In this mystery, a sculptor is convicted of murder after the body of his guardian is discovered. The artist's fiancee doesn't believe he is guilty and begins investigating. She goes to the deceased's nephew for help. He says he will, but only if she will marry him. Later she learns that he has Read More

The Roof

Synopsis: In this murder mystery, a detective investigates the death of a prominent millionaire and finds that the dead man's family jewels are missing. Later the detective proves that the purloiner of the precious stones is none other than the millionaire's own lawyer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Good Companions

Actors: Jessie Matthews, Edmund Gwenn, John Gielgud, Mary Glynne, Max Miller, Percy Parsons

Synopsis: Based on a novel by J. B. Priestley, this British musical-comedy follows an unlikely trio as they try to revive the fortunes of a floundering touring theatrical troupe. Inigo Jolifant (John Gielgud) is a schoolteacher with a talent for songwriting, and Jess Oakroyd (Edmund Gwenn) is a man with Read More

The Man from Toronto

Actors: Frederick Kerr, Ian Hunter, Margaret Yarde, Lawrence Hanray

Synopsis: In this romance, two people who have never met will inherit a million dollars if they marry each other. Neither is thrilled with the prospect, and the woman, to meet him, impersonates his new maid. Soon they fall in love for real. A lawyer mediates. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Autumn Crocus

Actors: Ivor Novello, Fay Compton, Muriel Aked, Esme Church

Synopsis: British matinee idol Ivor Novello carries the weight of Autumn Crocus on his handsome shoulders. Novello plays an alpine innkeeper, happily married and the father of a cute little daughter. He seriously considers kicking over the traces when he meets beautiful British schoolteacher Fay Compton Read More

There Goes the Bride

Actors: Jessie Matthews, Owen Nares, Carol Goodner, Charles Carson, Jerry Verno, Barbara Everest

Synopsis: In this comedy, a young woman rebels against her betrothal and runs away to Paris. While on the train she meets and falls for a handsome man. It is a tumultuous courtship, but in the end, romantic bliss ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Midshipmaid

Actors: Jessie Matthews, Frederick Kerr

Synopsis: When economy expert Kerr works to cut the costs of the fleet in Malta, his lovely daughter, Matthews, is courted by the crew members on board. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

The Dreyfus Case

Actors: Cedric Hardwicke, Beatrix Thomson, Charles Carson, George Merritt, Sam Livesey

Synopsis: The British-filmed The Dreyfus Case has long been overshadowed by the more elaborate The Life of Emile Zola (1937), but, judged on its own merits, the earlier film weaves a pretty lucid account of an unfortunate chapter in French history. In 1894, army captain Alfred Dreyfus (Cedric Hardwicke) is Read More