Gibson Gowland Filmography

Born:: January 4, 1872 in Spennymoor, Durham, England, UK
Occupation:: Actor
Biography:: Bearlike, bushy-eyebrowed British actor Gibson Gowland began his stage career in England, where he was billed as T.E. Gowland. He came to America in the teens, almost immediately securing film work as a minor character actor. Director Erich Von Stroheim admired Gowland's naturalistic acting style...Read More

Sort By:
Title
Release Date

Gun Cargo

Synopsis: The official release date of Gun Cargo is 1949, but the cast and the quality of production suggests that it was filmed much, much earlier. A crooked shipowner gets rid of his able-bodied crew when they begin to complain about salary and working conditions. The crew's replacements consist of the Read More

1949
The Picture of Dorian Gray

Actors: George Sanders, Hurd Hatfield, Donna Reed, Angela Lansbury, Peter Lawford

Synopsis: The Picture of Dorian Gray was writer/director Albert E. Lewin's fascinating follow-up to his expressive-esoterica masterpiece The Moon and Sixpence. Hurd Hatfield essays the title character, a London aristocrat who would sell his soul to remain handsome and young--and, in a manner of speaking, he Read More

1945
Kitty

Actors: Paulette Goddard, Ray Milland, Patric Knowles, Reginald Owen, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: Kitty is the "Pygmalion" legend, 18th century style. London aristocrat Ray Milland takes it upon himself to make a lady of a guttersnipe (Paulette Goddard, complete with a cockney accent not to be believed). Milland and fellow conspirator Constance Collier aren't bothering with the girl out of the Read More

1945
Going My Way

Actors: Bing Crosby, Rise Stevens, Barry Fitzgerald, Gene Lockhart, Frank McHugh, James Brown

Synopsis: It took some doing to persuade the staunchly Catholic Bing Crosby to play a happy-go-lucky priest in Going My Way; luckily he acquiesced, winning an Academy Award in the process. Crosby is cast as Father Chuck O'Malley, newly arrived at rundown, heavily in debt St. Dominic's Church. Father Read More

1944
A Guy Named Joe

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne, Van Johnson, Ward Bond, Lionel Barrymore, James Gleason

Synopsis: Opening in England during the middle of World War II, A Guy Named Joe tells the story of Pete Sandidge (Spencer Tracy), a tough, devil-may-care bomber pilot who's amassed an enviable record in combat, mostly by taking chances that give his C.O. (James Gleason) the shakes, much as he and the top Read More

1944
Wilson

Actors: Alexander Knox, Charles Coburn, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Thomas Mitchell, Ruth Nelson, Cedric Hardwicke

Synopsis: Producer Darryl F. Zanuck had high hopes that Wilson would immortalize him in the manner that Gone With the Wind did for David O. Selznick. The notion of bringing the life story of Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the United States, to the big screen was a labor of love for Zanuck, and Read More

1944
Gaslight

Actors: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Dame May Whitty, Angela Lansbury

Synopsis: Ingrid Bergman won her first of three Oscars for this suspense thriller, crafted with surprising tautness by normally genteel "women's picture" director George Cukor. Bergman stars as Paula Alquist, a late 19th century English singer studying music in Italy. However, Paula abandons her studies Read More

1944
The Human Comedy

Actors: Mickey Rooney, Frank Morgan, Fay Bainter, James Craig, Marsha Hunt, Ray Collins, Van Johnson

Synopsis: Author William Saroyan's corn-shucking brand of sentimentality works wonders in this 1943 filmization of his novel. Narrator Ray Collins is dead before the film begins; thus he is able to provide an all-seeing overview of the tiny community of Ithaca, California. The principal character, played by Mickey Rooney Read More

1943
Crossroads

Actors: William Powell, Hedy Lamarr, Claire Trevor, Basil Rathbone, Margaret Wycherly, Felix Bressart

Synopsis: An innocent man is put on trial, but is he really as innocent as he claims? Diplomat David Talbot (William Powell) and his bride Lucienne (Hedy Lamarr) are enjoying a honeymoon in Paris when David is confronted by extortionists who demand money in exchange for not turning him in to the police. Read More

1942
How Green Was My Valley

Actors: Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Donald Crisp, Roddy McDowall, Barry Fitzgerald, Anna Lee

Synopsis: Spanning 50 years, director John Ford's How Green Was My Valley revolves around the life of the Morgans, a Welsh mining family, as told through the eyes of its youngest child Huw (Roddy McDowall). Over the years, the family struggles to survive through unionization, strikes, and child abuse. As Read More

1941
The Wolf Man

Actors: Lon Chaney, Jr., Claude Rains, Warren William, Evelyn Ankers, Ralph Bellamy, Bela Lugosi, Maria Ouspenskaya, Patric Knowles

Synopsis: "Even a man who is pure at heart/And says his prayers by night/May become a wolf when the wolf-bane blooms/And the moon is full and bright." Upon first hearing these words, Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney) dismisses them as childish folderol. After all, this is the 20th Century; how can a human being Read More

1941
Northwest Passage

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Robert Young, Walter Brennan, Ruth Hussey, Nat Pendleton

Synopsis:
Kenneth Roberts' fact-based novel Northwest Passage would seem too raw and explicit a book to be considered for an MGM film adaptation-much less one in Technicolor. Amazingly, MGM retained many of the grim episodes from the Roberts' novel, though - thanks to the Hays Code - most are discussed Read More

1940
Raffles

Actors: David Niven, Olivia de Havilland, Dame May Whitty, Dudley Digges, Douglas Walton

Synopsis: The fourth cinematic version of the novel Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman by E.W. Hornung, this romantic caper is a virtual remake of the 1930 version. David Niven stars as A.J. Raffles, a famed cricket player of English society's upper crust. Secretly, however, Raffles is a skilled cat burglar Read More

1939
Hate in Paradise

Synopsis: In this drama, set in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), a pretty niece visits her uncle's plantation. There she finds the drunken sot on the brink of financial ruin by the crooks that are quietly victimizing him. Meanwhile the young woman falls in love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1938
Cotton Queen

Synopsis: The daughter of a mill-owner (Mary Lawson) is sent undercover to the mill of a rival, where she gets mixed up in romantic antics. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

1937
The Wife of General Ling

Actors: Griffith Jones, Valery Inkijinoff, Alan Napier, Anthony Eustrel

Synopsis: In this espionage drama, a Secret Service agent must discover who has been smuggling British arms into China. The prime suspect is a prosperous Chinese merchant-philanthropist and the agent thinks the merchant is working with the notorious Chinese guerrilla warlord General Ling. ~ Iotis Erlewine Read More

1937
King of the Damned

Actors: Conrad Veidt, Noah Beery, Sr., Helen Vinson, Cecil Ramage, Percy Walsh

Synopsis: Based on the stage melodrama by John Chancellor, King of the Damned takes place on a brutal prison colony that makes Devil's Island look like Disneyland. Cruel governor Courvin believes in strict discipline, and isn't above breaking a few backs to get what he wants. Finally the convicts, led by Read More

1936
Highland Fling

Synopsis: Charlie Naughton and Jimmy Gold play dimwitted detectives Smith and Smythe in the British farce Highland Fling. The story gets under way when Smith--or is it Smythe?--suggests that two of them go to Scotland, in search of a valuable will. Once they've arrived in a dank Scottish castle, Smythe--or Read More

1936
The Stoker

Synopsis: In this comedy, a railroad stoker and his best buddy, the train's conductor make friends with a young apprentice. the son of the railway chairman. It is they who save the rambunctious lad from the clutches of a greedy gold digger. The film was later retitled Shovel up a Bit More Coal. ~ Sandra Read More

1935
Phantom Ship

Actors: Bela Lugosi, Shirley Grey, Arthur Margetson, Edmund Willard, George Mozart

Synopsis: This chiller speculates upon a haunting real-life mystery that occurred off the English coast on December 5, 1872 where the American ship Marie Celeste was found drifting with her sails set at half-mast with absolutely no one on board. According to the film, the crewmen were murdered by Read More

1935
The Secret of the Loch

Synopsis: This fairly amusing British monster movie concerns a professor (Seymour Hicks) and a young reporter (Frederick Peisley) searching for the Loch Ness monster. There's romance between Peisley and the professor's charming daughter Maggie (Rosamund John), a good deal of comedy, and a final Read More

1934
The Private Life of Don Juan

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

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

1934
S.O.S. Iceberg

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Rod La Rocque, Leni Riefenstahl, Sepp Rist, Gibson Gowland

Synopsis: In the same year that she directed Victory of the Faith (1933), her first of several famous cinematic projects for the Nazi Party, German actress and filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl played a supporting role in this epic adventure, co-written and co-directed by her frequent "mountain film" collaborator Dr. Arnold Fanck Read More

1933
Land of Wanted Men

Actors: Gibson Gowland, Jack Richardson, Frank Lackteen, James Marcus

Synopsis: White-Stetsoned cowboy hero Bill Cody is appointed sheriff by default of a rough-and-tumble cattle-ranch community. The locals suspect that Cody is a fugitive from justice, but he does his job so well that no questions are asked. Eventually he proves his true worth during a cattlemen vs. sheepmen Read More

1932
The Doomed Battalion

Actors: Tala Birell, Luis Trenker, Victor Varconi, Albert Conti, Gustav von Seyffertitz

Synopsis: This war drama, set in a snow covered Tyrolean pass during WW I, chronicles a strange situation between an Austrian battalion assigned to guard the snowbound pass and the Italians that plan to blow their position up. The Austrian leader is well aware that the enemy has been digging a tunnel Read More

1932
Without Honors

Actors: Harry Carey

Synopsis: Though well past 50, Harry Carey could still play a virile and convincing cowboy hero in such inexpensive westerns as Without Honors. Carey is cast as Jack Marian, a gambler with an unsavory past. Suspected of being an outlaw, Carey plays along with this misconception, the better to infiltrate a Read More

1932
The Sea Bat

Actors: Charles Bickford, Raquel Torres, Nils Asther, George F. Marion, John Miljan

Synopsis: "Sea Bat" is another name for the poisonous sting rays that trouble swimmers in warmer ocean climes. The story is set upon a tropical island and centers on the sister of a reef diver who was attacked under water by another diver and left to be eaten by an enormous sea bat (in reality the rays eat Read More

1930
Hell Harbor

Actors: Lupe Velez, Jean Hersholt, John Holland, Gibson Gowland

Synopsis: Even allowing for the comparative freedom of the pre-Production Code years, 1930's Hell Harbor was pretty strong meat for its time. The story is set on a remote Caribbean island, entirely populated by descendants of Sir Henry Morgan's pirate crew. Morgan's brutish great-great-grandson Henry Morgan Read More

1930
The Mysterious Island

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Jane Daly, Lloyd Hughes, Montagu Love, Harry Gribbon

Synopsis: Jules Verne's fantastic 19th century novel Mysterious Island provided the title and little else for this spectacular filmization. Lionel Barrymore plays an altruistic scientist who has built an underground city, hoping to use the modernistic devices he has installed to bring about world peace. But Read More

1929
Rose-Marie

Actors: James Murray, Joan Crawford, House Peters, Creighton Hale

Synopsis: This first version of the Rudolf Friml operetta Rose-Marie had no music, but it did have Joan Crawford in the title role. More faithful to its source than the 1936 Nelson Eddy-Jeanette McDonald remake, the 1928 film finds the heroine torn between her love for Mountie House Peters and her loyalty Read More

1928
Tired Business Man

Actors: Raymond Hitchcock, Farina Hoskins, Blanche Mehaffey, Joe Cobb, Jackie Condon, Mack Swain, Jay R. Smith, Charles Delaney, Margaret Quimby, Bobby Young

Synopsis: Charlie Oelze, the Hal Roach Studio's special effects and "gadget" maestro, was given co-director credit on the silent, two-reel Our Gang comedy Tired Business Men. New kid in town Joe Cobb is initiated into the gang's new "Manhattan Club," a social center dedicated to the relaxation of youngsters Read More

1927
Sunrise

Actors: George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston, Bodil Rosing, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: Considered by many to be the finest silent film ever made by a Hollywood studio, F.W. Murnau's Sunrise represents the art of the wordless cinema at its zenith. Based on the Hermann Sudermann novel A Trip to Tilsit, this "Song of Two Humans" takes place in a colorful farming community, where people Read More

1927
The Land Beyond the Law

Actors: Ken Maynard, Dorothy Dwan, Tom Santschi, Noah Young, Gibson Gowland

Synopsis: Deputy Marshal Ken Maynard heads off to Oklahoma where a gang of nasty cattle rustlers is terrorizing the local ranchers. After a bit of detective work -- greatly aided by a motley group of would-be outlaws deputized for the occasion -- Maynard can unmask supposedly upstanding citizen Tom Santschi Read More

1927
The Isle of Forgotten Women

Actors: Conway Tearle, Dorothy Sebastian, Alice Calhoun, Gibson Gowland, William Welch

Synopsis: The pretty former showgirl Dorothy Sebastian improbably plays a South Pacific native girl in this silent clinker. She encounters a bank cashier (Conway Tearle) who is escaping an unjust accusal of embezzlement. He has fled the country in favor of the tropics. He finds the native girl, in her Read More

1927
Topsy and Eva

Actors: Vivian Duncan, Gibson Gowland, Noble Johnson, Marjorie Daw

Synopsis: Perhaps it's just as well that Topsy and Eva is available only for archival showings. The film was based on a popular play by Catherine Chisholm Cushing, itself "inspired" by characters and events in Harriet Beecher Stowe's controversial Uncle Tom's Cabin. The venerable vaudeville duo of Rosetta Read More

1927
The Broken Gate

Actors: Dorothy Phillips, William Collier, Jr., Jean Arthur, Phillips Smalley, Florence Turner

Synopsis: The Broken Gate was based on a novel by Emerson Hough, of Covered Wagon fame. Dorothy Phillips stars as Aurora Lane, who has never acknowledged the existence of her illegitimate son. Aurora's past catches up with her when her now-grown son (William Collier Jr.) is arrested and falsely charged with Read More

1927
The Night of Love

Actors: Ronald Colman, Vilma Banky, Montagu Love, Natalie Kingston, Laska Winter

Synopsis: Based on a story by 17th-century Spanish playwright Calderon de la Barca, A Night of Love is based on the ancient (and historically suspect) tradition of droit du seigneur. Ronald Colman stars as gypsy prince Montero, whose wedding night is rudely interrupted by the despotic Duke de la Garda (Montague Love Read More

1927
First Auto

Actors: Barney Oldfield, Patsy Ruth Miller, Russell Simpson, Frank Campeau, William Demarest

Synopsis: Legendary racecar driver Barney Oldfield plays himself in the engaging little period piece The First Auto. Russell Simpson plays livery-stable owner Hank Armstrong, who is appalled beyond words when his son Bob (Charles E. Mack) comes home with one of those newfangled "horseless carriages." Read More

1927
The Outsider

Actors: Jacqueline Logan, Lou Tellegen, Walter Pidgeon, Charles Lane, Joan Standing

Synopsis: While studying dance in Hungary, British ballerina Leonide Sturdee (Jacqueline Logan) suffers a crippling accident. Enter faith healer Anton Ragatzy (Lou Tellegan), who assures Leonide that she'll walk again if only she places herself in his hands. But Leonide considers Ragatzy to be a fraud and Read More

1926
Don Juan

Actors: John Barrymore, Mary Astor, Willard Louis, Estelle Taylor, Warner Oland, Montagu Love

Synopsis: Historically important as the first film to carry a Vitaphone sound track (consisting of music and sound effects, but no dialogue) Don Juan is a first-rate production by any standards, and would have been just as good with or without musical accompaniment. John Barrymore plays the legendary lover Read More

1926
College Days

Actors: Marceline Day, Charles Delaney, Jimmy Harrison, Duane Thompson, Brooks Benedict

Synopsis: Unlike most "collegiate" films of the 1920s, College Days paints a fairly realistic portrait of campus life. To be sure, the characters are seen in raccoon coats and flapper skirts. Yes, they do take an occasional swing from their hip flasks while partying at the local roadhouse. And, true, they Read More

1926
The Phantom of the Opera

Actors: Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Gibson Gowland

Synopsis: Lon Chaney stars as Erik, the Phantom, in what is probably his most famous and certainly his most horrifying role. Produced by Universal, the film shot in 1923 and shelved for nearly two years, and was subjected to intensive studio tinkering. While many expected a disaster, the film turned out to Read More

9/8/25
The Prairie Wife

Actors: Dorothy Devore, Herbert Rawlinson, Gibson Gowland

Synopsis: Silent screen comedienne Dorothy Devore left comedy producer Al Christie with hopes of going dramatic. She succeeded -- at least for a while -- and The Prairie Wife was probably her finest hour. Devore plays an impoverished society girl who marries a wealthy rancher (Herbert Rawlinson) for his Read More

1925
Greed

Actors: Gibson Gowland, ZaSu Pitts, Jean Hersholt, Chester Conklin, Sylvia Ashton

Synopsis: Frank Norris' powerful Zola-esque novel McTeague was first filmed in 1915. While filmmaker Erich Von Stroheim would insist that he'd been enthralled by the book since it first came out in 1902, it is more likely that he didn't make the novel's acquaintance until seeing that 1915 film. Whatever the Read More

1924
Love and Glory

Actors: Charles de Roche, Wallace MacDonald, Madge Bellamy, Ford Sterling, Gibson Gowland

Synopsis: The novel We Are French by Percy Poore Sheehan and Robert Davis was filmed in 1916 as The Bugler of Algiers. Rupert Julian was both director and star. Here, eight years later, he directs it again, but Charles De Roche takes over the role he played, that of Pierre Dupont. Dupont and Anatole Picard (Wallace MacDonald Read More

1924
Border Legion

Actors: Antonio Moreno, Helene Chadwick, Rockliffe Fellowes, Gibson Gowland, Charles Ogle

Synopsis: The second of four versions of Zane Grey's story of a dispirited ranch hand who joins a gang of outlaws, this silent western benefitted by the presence of veteran Vitagraph star Antonio Moreno. Moreno plays Jim Cleve, who heads West after being jilted by his girlfriend. He works for a while as a Read More

1924
Red Lily

Actors: Enid Bennett, Ramon Novarro, Wallace Beery, Frank Currier, Rosemary Thebv

Synopsis: After the death of her father, Marise La Noue (Enid Bennett) can find no safe haven, so she runs off to Paris with Jean Leonnec, the mayor's son (Ramon Novarro). Before they can be married, however, they are separated. Marise sinks from working as a waitress to toiling as scrubwoman to the Read More

1924
Harbor Lights

Actors: Tom Moore, Isobel Elsom, Annette Benson, Gordon Begg, Gibson Gowland

Synopsis: This seaside melodrama was filmed in England, with star Tom Moore the only American in the cast. Although the scenery was picturesque and authentic, the story was cliché and uninteresting. When he returns from sea, Lieutenant David Kingsley, a naval officer (Moore), becomes engaged to Dora Nelson Read More

1923
Hutch Stirs 'em Up

Synopsis: The Pittsburgh-born star of low-budget serials such as Wolves of Kultur (1918) and Hurricane Hutch (1921), Charles Hutchison moved his operations to Great Britain in the mid-1920s. Playing a cowboy who crosses paths with a mad nobleman (Greed's Gibson Gowland), Hutchison attempted to transfer his Read More

1923
Ladies Must Live

Actors: Betty Compson, Robert Ellis, Mahlon Hamilton, Leatrice Joy, Hardee Kirkland

Synopsis: This drama was director George Loane Tucker's last film; in fact his health was failing as he completed it. Too bad the maker of 1919's The Miracle Man didn't leave a better picture than this mediocrity as his final legacy. Christine (Betty Compson) and Barbara (Leatrice Joy) are two women who Read More

1921
Behind the Door

Synopsis: America has just entered World War I, and because of his name, German-American Oscar Krug (Hobart Bosworth) is thought to be an enemy sympathizer. He fights his foes to prove that they're wrong, then immediately enlists and is assigned to the merchant marines. The night before boarding, he marries Read More

1920
Fighting Shepherdess

Synopsis: Pretty Anita Stewart stars in this rough tale of the West, based on the novel by Caroline Lockart. Kate Prentice (Stewart) grows up amidst the sordid atmosphere of a roadhouse run by her mother. When she is assaulted by the vicious Pete Mullendore (the ever-so villainous Walter Long), Mormon Joe Read More

1920
Right of Way

Synopsis: This film was adapted from a well-known novel by Sir Gilbert Parker. Charley Steele (Bert Lytell) is a hard-drinking lawyer who is unhappily married. His brilliant oratory skills save the life Jo Portugais (Gibson Gowland), but when Jo tries to thank him, he replies, "Out of my sight. You're Read More

1920
Blind Husbands

Actors: Sam de Grasse, Francelia Billington, Erich Von Stroheim, Gibson Gowland

Synopsis: Because of his portrayals of villainous Prussians in pictures such as Hearts of the World and The Heart of Humanity, Erich von Stroheim was already famous as "the man you love to hate." But Stroheim had also been quite busy behind the camera over the years, as an assistant director to D.W. Griffith Read More

1919
Breakers Ahead

Synopsis: Viola Dana stars in this Metro five-reeler. While Captain Jabez Scudd (Russell Simpson) is away on a ship, his sweetheart, Agnes Bowman (Helen Jerome Eddy), gives birth to a little girl. When the girl is ten, Agnes dies, and since her family refuses to have anything to do with a nameless child Read More

1918
The Birth of a Nation

Actors: Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper, Mae Marsh, Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Ralph Lewis

Synopsis: The most successful and artistically advanced film of its time, The Birth of a Nation has also sparked protests, riots, and divisiveness since its first release. The film tells the story of the Civil War and its aftermath, as seen through the eyes of two families. The Stonemans hail from the Read More

1915

Movie data provided by

Add this Person to Favorites

Need Help?

E-mail