H.B. WarnerFilmography

The Ten Commandments

Actors: James Coburn, Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, Edward G. Robinson, Yvonne De Carlo

Synopsis: Based on the Holy Scriptures, with additional dialogue by several other hands, The Ten Commandments was the last film directed by Cecil B. DeMille. The story relates the life of Moses, from the time he was discovered in the bullrushes as an infant by the pharoah's daughter, to his long, hard 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

Here Comes the Groom

Actors: Bing Crosby, Jane Wyman, Alexis Smith, Franchot Tone, James Barton

Synopsis: Here Comes the Groom was the second collaboration between director Frank Capra and star Bing Crosby. Though not as "socially relevant" as previous Capra productions, the film is a thoroughly likeable yarn about a happy-go-lucky newspaperman named Pete (Bing Crosby). In order to legally adopt a Read More

Savage Drums

Actors: Sabu, Lita Baron, H.B. Warner, Sid Melton, Steven Geray

Synopsis: Presumably, Savage Drums was an attempt by Lippert Studios to launch an adventure series along the lines of "Jungle Jim" and "Bomba the Jungle Boy". The inimitable Sabu stars as Tipo, a native of a tropical island who returns home after establishing himself as a boxer in the U.S. Tipo soon Read More

Journey into Light

Actors: Sterling Hayden, Viveca Lindfors, Thomas Mitchell, Ludwig Donath, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: Minister Sterling Hayden is able to tend to the needs of his flock, but can do nothing for his alcoholic wife. She kills herself, whereupon the anguished minister turns his back on his calling. He ends up a skid-row derelict and is thrown into the drunk tank. An elderly preacher (Ludwig Donath) Read More

Hellfire

Actors: William "Wild Bill" Elliott, Marie Windsor, Forrest Tucker, Jim Davis, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: Western star William Elliot always insisted that his idol was silent-film cowboy William S. Hart. Elliot's Hellfire, then, can be seen as his tribute to the 1916 Bill Hart classic Hell's Hinges. Elliot plays a hard-bitten frontier gambler whose life is saved by a preacher. When the preacher dies Read More

The Judge Steps Out

Actors: Alexander Knox, Ann Sothern, George Tobias, Sharyn Moffett, Florence Bates

Synopsis: The never-solved disappearance of Judge Crater in 1930 was the inspiration for RKO's The Judge Steps Out. Alexander Knox (who also co-scripted the film with director Boris Ingster) plays Bailey, a highly respected Boston magistrate who is fed up to the gills with his workload and his troublesome Read More

El Paso

Actors: John Payne, Gail Russell, Sterling Hayden, George "Gabby" Hayes, Dick Foran

Synopsis: Produced in garish Cinecolor, this aspiring "A" Western features John Payne as Clay Fletcher, an Eastern lawyer assigned to track down a judge whose signature is needed for some estate papers. Clay traces the judge, Henry Jeffers (Henry Hull), to El Paso, a lawless town ruthlessly run by saloon Read More

The Prince of Thieves

Actors: Jon Hall, Patricia Morison, Adele Jergens, Alan Mowbray, Michael Duane

Synopsis: The daring Robin Hood and his loyal Merry Men attempt to save Maid Marian and her brother from the evil clutches of the Sheriff of Nottingham in this adventure aimed at younger audiences. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Driftwood

Actors: James Bell, Walter Brennan, Dean Jagger, Natalie Wood, Hobart Cavanaugh, Howland Chamberlain

Synopsis: Allan Dwan directs the family-oriented drama Driftwood, starring nine-year-old Natalie Wood. Orphan Jenny Hollingsworth (Wood) is found in a rural small town in Nevada that is ravaged by Rocky Mountain fever. She meets the local doctor, Steve Webster (Dean Jagger), who is working on a research Read More

The High Wall

Actors: Robert Taylor, Audrey Totter, Herbert Marshall, Dorothy Patrick, H.B. Warner, Warner Anderson

Synopsis: Former army pilot Robert Taylor is accused, on the basis of strong circumstantial evidence, of his wife's murder. Suffering from periodic blackouts, Taylor isn't so certain of his innocence himself. When offered a brain operation, Taylor refuses, knowing that if he is proven sane he will be 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

Strange Impersonation

Synopsis: Nora Goodrich (Brenda Marshall) is a dedicated research scientist who is very close to a breakthrough in her field of anesthetics. She allows herself to be used as the subject of an experiment, and becomes the victim of sabotage by her jealous assistant (Hillary Brooke), who is her rival for the Read More

Gentleman Joe Palooka

Captain Tugboat Annie

Actors: Jane Darwell, Edgar Kennedy, Charles Gordon, Mantan Moreland, Pamela Blake

Synopsis: This tale of two tugboats focuses upon the rivalries between two operators competing to win a major shipping contract. Meanwhile a tugboat office secretary and an ex-con who wants to go straight, fall in love. Tugboat Annie is put in charge of a child violinist. When a waterfront fire breaks out Read More

Action in Arabia

Actors: George Sanders, Virginia Bruce, Lenore Aubert, Gene Lockhart, Robert Armstrong

Synopsis: Exiled from his own country during WW2, French filmmaker Leonide Moguy worked briefly in Hollywood, where he directed the patriotic thriller Action in Arabia. George Sanders stars as Gordon, an American newspaperman at large in Damascus. When a colleague is murdered, Sanders wants to find out why. Read More

Rogues' Gallery

Actors: Frank Jenks, Robin Raymond, H.B. Warner, Ray Walker, Davison Clark

Synopsis: The second of two PRC vehicles for veteran featured player Frank Jenks (the first was Shake Hands with Murder), Rogues' Gallery casts Jenks as Eddie, a wisecracking photojournalist. Teaming up with intrepid girl reporter Patsy (Robin Raymond), Eddie sets out to get an exclusive interview with Read More

Faces in the Fog

Actors: Jane Withers, Paul Kelly, Lee Patrick, John Litel, Eric Sinclair

Synopsis: In this melodrama, two young lovers secretly elope after the woman is involved in a hit-and-run accident. The young groom takes the rap and is thrown out of school. The bride's enraged father shoots the boy. At the trial the bride lies on the stand to save her dad. Things work out, and the young Read More

Enemy of Women

Actors: Claudia Drake, Paul Andor, Donald Woods, H.B. Warner, Sigrid Gurie

Synopsis: Though the filmmakers claimed they were writing a biography of Nazi minister Dr. Joseph Goebbels, this film is actually highly fictionalized and filled with patriotic propaganda. The story attempts to explain Goebbels' madness, blaming it on a love affair gone awry when he was a young aspiring Read More

Boss of Big Town

Actors: John Litel, Florence Rice, H.B. Warner, Jean Brooks, John Miljan

Synopsis: Quality was seldom a consideration in the low-budget films of PRC Studios; still, the company was a welcome harbor for character actors who aspired to occasional leading roles. In Boss of Big Town, veteran supporting player John Litel is top-billed as crusading city market official Michael Lynn. Read More

Women in Bondage

Actors: Gail Patrick, Nancy Kelly, Gertrude Michael, Anne Nagel, Tala Birell

Synopsis: The luridly titled Women in Bondage was Monogram's "answer" to RKO Radio's wartime melodrama Hitler's Children. The plot concerns the nationalization and subjugation of Germany's women during the Third Reich. Expected to devote their every waking moment to the cause of Nazism -- and this includes Read More

A Yank in Libya

Actors: H.B. Warner, Walter Woolf King, Joan Woodbury, Parkyakarkus [Harry Einstein], Duncan Renaldo

Synopsis: PRC's A Yank in Libya is distinguished by some of the oldest, grainiest stock footage ever seen in a mid-1940s film. Once past this aesthetic obstacle, however, the film isn't too bad. Walter Woolf King heads the cast as American war correspondent Mike Malone, on assignment in a papier-mache Read More

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

Hitler's Children

Actors: Tim Holt, Bonita Granville, Kent Smith, Otto Kruger, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: This modestly produced film version of Gregor Ziemmer's book Education for Death surprised everyone at RKO--and in the film industry--by becoming one the biggest hits of 1943. The "children" invoked in the title are borne on behalf of Adolf Hitler; according to the film, it is standard operating Read More

South of Tahiti

Actors: Brian Donlevy, Broderick Crawford, Andy Devine, Maria Montez, Henry Wilcoxon

Synopsis: An entertaining amalgam of Universal contract players, leftover sets and stock footage, South of Tahiti stars Brian Donlevy, Broderick Crawford and Andy Devine as Bob, Chuck and Moose, three stooge-like sailors who land on a South Sea island. While Bob pitches woos at voluptuous native girl Melahi Read More

City of Missing Girls

Actors: H.B. Warner, Astrid Allwyn, John Archer, Sarah Padden, Philip Van Zandt

Synopsis: A girl reporter discovers that her own father runs a shady "school of fine arts" (read brothel) in this independently made potboiler directed by former silent screen actor Elmer Clifton. When several naive young girls turned "nightclub entertainers" end up dead, snoop sister Nora Page (Astrid Read More

Ellery Queen and the Perfect Crime

Actors: Ralph Bellamy, Margaret Lindsay, Charles Grapewin, Spring Byington, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: Ralph Bellamy makes the third of four appearances as "master detective" Ellery Queen in Columbia's Ellery Queen and the Perfect Crime. The principal villain is crooked stockbroker John Mathews (Douglass Dumbrille), whose Wall Street manipulations render Ray Jarden (H. B. Warner) penniless. Read More

The Corsican Brothers

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Ruth Warrick, Akim Tamiroff, J. Carrol Naish, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: The Corsican Brothers is based on theDumas novel about "psychic" twins--one feels the pain and experiences the thoughts of the other. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. plays both Mario and Lucien, siblings separated at birth because of a long-standing feud between various factions of their family. One twin is 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

The Devil and Daniel Webster

Actors: Edward Arnold, Walter Huston, James Craig, Jane Darwell, Simone Simon, Anne Shirley

Synopsis: This classic fantasy was based on a story by Stephen Vincent Benet. Jabez Stone (James Craig) is a simple New England farmer who has been suffering from a long run of bad luck. One day he mutters that he'd sell his soul for a little money and a decent crop. Moments later, who should appear but The 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

Bulldog Drummond's Secret Police

Actors: John Howard, Heather Angel, H.B. Warner, Elizabeth Patterson, Reginald Denny

Synopsis: The penultimate entry in Paramount's "Bulldog Drummond" series, Bulldog Drummond's Secret Police once more stars John Howard as the private-detective hero, Heather Angel as Bulldog's eternal fiancee Phyllis Clavering, and H. B. Warner as the good gray Inspector Neilsen of the Yard. This one finds Read More

Nurse Edith Cavell

Actors: Anna Neagle, Edna May Oliver, George Sanders, May Robson, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: Many of the "preparedness" films of the years just prior to World War II sidestepped censorship by depicting past outrages of the Germans. Such a film was British producer Herbert Wilcox's Hollywood production Nurse Edith Cavell, in which Wilcox's future wife Anna Neagle portrayed the titular Read More

Bulldog Drummond's Bride

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

Synopsis: Bulldog Drummond's Bride is the next-to-last entry in Paramount's series of "Drummond" B-pictures. It goes without saying that the oft-postponed wedding of Bulldog Drummond (John Howard) and Phyllis Clavering (Heather Angel) is interrupted yet one more time. The reason is a Parisian crime wave Read More

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Actors: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold, Thomas Mitchell, Guy Kibbee, Eugene Pallette, Beulah Bondi, Harry Carey

Synopsis: Frank Capra's classic comedy-drama established James Stewart as a lead actor in one of his finest (and most archetypal) roles. The film opens as a succession of reporters shout into telephones announcing the death of Senator Samuel Foley. Senator Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), the state's senior Read More

Let Freedom Ring

Actors: Nelson Eddy, Virginia Bruce, Victor McLaglen, Lionel Barrymore, Edward Arnold

Synopsis: Originally filmed in Sepiatone, Let Freedom Ring is a satisfying Nelson Eddy musical with patriotic overtones. Set in the years following the Civil War, the story focuses on the battle of wills between Harvard-educated idealist Steve Logan (Eddy) and bullying railroad magnate Jim Knox (Edward Arnold Read More

The Rains Came

Actors: Myrna Loy, Tyrone Power, George Brent, Brenda Joyce, Nigel Bruce

Synopsis: Myrna Loy stars in Clarence Brown's sumptuous and exotic romance, based upon the novel by Louis Bromfield. Loy plays Lady Edwina Esketh, the unhappily married wife of Lord Albert Esketh (Nigel Bruce), a dumpy middle-aged English businessman. Edwina escapes her loneliness by engaging in ephemeral Read More

The Gracie Allen Murder Case

Actors: Gracie Allen, Warren William, Ellen Drew, Kent Taylor, Jed Prouty

Synopsis: A longtime fan of comedians George Burns and Gracie Allen, "Philo Vance" creator S. S. Van Dyne wrote a tailor-made screenplay for the team, which emerged on-screen as The Gracie Allen Murder Case. The Paramount studio executives decided to dispense with the services of George Burns, leaving Read More

The Toy Wife

Actors: Luise Rainer, Melvyn Douglas, Robert Young, Barbara O'Neil, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: Directed by Richard Thorpe, this costume drama stars Luise Rainer as 16-year-old southern belle Gilberta, who, upon her return to Louisiana after a brief stay in France, discovers her sister Louise Barbara O'Neil) has recently gotten engaged. Gilberta (Rainer) quickly finds herself attracted to Read More

Kidnapped

Actors: Warner Baxter, Freddie Bartholomew, Arleen Whelan, C. Aubrey Smith, Reginald Owen

Synopsis: Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure tale of a young 18th century boy betrayed by his wicked uncle didn't need a romantic subplot, but that didn't stop 20th Century-Fox from including a female love interest (Arleen Whelan). Bypassing that plot point, Kidnapped stars Freddie Bartholomew as the heir Read More

The Girl of the Golden West

Actors: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Walter Pidgeon, Leo Carrillo, Buddy Ebsen

Synopsis: MGM's leading musical team of the 30's, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy are paired once again in this fourth film version of David Belasco's creaky melodrama, featuring music by Sigmund Romberg and Gus Kahn. Jeanette MacDonald is Mary Robbins, the owner of a bawdy, rough-house saloon in a 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

You Can't Take It with You

Actors: Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Edward Arnold, Mischa Auer, Ann Miller, Spring Byington

Synopsis: Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play You Can't Take It With You was transformed into a paean to populism by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin. This is the story of the zany Sycamore household, presided over by Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore Read More

The Adventures of Marco Polo

Actors: Gary Cooper, Sigrid Gurie, Basil Rathbone, George Barbier, Binnie Barnes

Synopsis: Gary Cooper stars in this lavish and often comic retelling of the life of the famed Italian explorer. Marco Polo (Cooper) crosses the sea in search of treasure and adventure, with the help of his loyal if cowardly sidekick Binguccio (Ernest Truex), and finds both in China, where as the nation's Read More

Army Girl

Actors: Madge Evans, Preston S. Foster, James Gleason, H.B. Warner, Ruth Donnelly

Synopsis: The trials faced by the US Army when it first attempted to trade horses for tanks provides the basis of this actioner. The tale centers upon the love affair between an Army post commander's daughter and a young tank specialist who is trying to prove that the new technology is better than horses. Read More

Bulldog Drummond in Africa

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

Synopsis: This typically wild-and-wooly entry in Paramount's "Bulldog Drummond" series gets under way when stiff-upper-lip Scotland Yard inspector Nielsen is kidnapped by master criminal Richard Lane (J. Carroll Naish). Ensconsed in his lavish jungle hideout somewhere in Africa, Lane wines and dines his Read More

Bulldog Drummond's Peril

Actors: John Barrymore, John Howard, Louise Campbell, Reginald Denny, E.E. Clive

Synopsis: Though John Barrymore is top-billed in Bulldog Drummond's Peril, the aging matinee idol is consigned to the supporting role of Inspector Nielsen. Drummond is portrayed by John Howard; once more, he is on the verge of marrying the ever-patient Phyllis Clavering (Louise Campbell). And yet again, the Read More

Along Came Love

Actors: Irene Hervey, Charles Starrett, Doris Kenyon, H.B. Warner, Irene Franklin

Synopsis: Veteran movie leading man Bert Lytell warmed the director's chair for Along Came Love. Irene Hervey plays a shopgirl, while western star Charles Starrett dons civvies in the role of a pediatrician. Through a series of bizarre but credible complications, Hervey's mother (Irene Franklin) is arrested Read More

Lost Horizon

Actors: Ronald Colman, Edward Everett Horton, H.B. Warner, Jane Wyatt, Sam Jaffe, John Howard, Margo

Synopsis: It took British author James Hilton six weeks to write his visionary novel Lost Horizon. It took director Frank Capra two years-and half of his home studio Columbia's annual budget-to bring it to the screen. After a lengthy preamble, inviting audiences to imagine their own ideas of Utopia, the Read More

Torpedoed

Actors: H.B. Warner, Robert Douglas, Richard Cromwell, Hazel Terry, Noah Beery, Sr.

Synopsis: A trio of American actors head the cast of the British naval drama Torpedoed. Noah Beery appears as the unnamed President of an equally unnamed South American banana republic. When a group of insurgents stage of revolt, His Majesty's Navy is dispatched to put down the uprising. Richard Cromwell Read More

Victoria the Great

Actors: Anna Neagle, Anton Walbrook, Walter Rilia, Mary Morris, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: Laurence Housman's 1935 stage play Victoria Regina, which has served as a showcase for actresses as varied as Helen Hayes and Julie Harris, was adapted for the screen in 1937 as Victoria the Great. Herbert Wilcox was the producer, so no one was surprised and everyone was satisfied when Wilcox cast Read More

Moonlight Murder

Actors: Chester Morris, Leo Carrillo, Frank McHugh, Benita Hume

Synopsis: Moonlight Murder takes place virtually in its entirety at the Hollywood Bowl. Despite dire warnings by a sinister mystic (Pedro de Cordoba), opera-star Gino D'Acosta (Leo Carrillo) insists that he will sing in the Bowl's current production of Il Trovatore. He gets no farther than the "Anvil Read More

The Garden Murder Case

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Virginia Bruce, Gene Lockhart, Benita Hume, Grant Mitchell, Nat Pendleton, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: Edmund Lowe made his only screen appearance as S. S. Van Dine's dilettante sleuth Philo Vance in The Garden Murder Case. The story wastes no time getting started, with Floyd Garden (Douglas Walton) being killed in the first reel from a fall in a steeplechase. It looks like an accident -- but then Read More

Rose of the Rancho

Actors: Gladys Swarthout, Charles Bickford, Willie Howard, Herb Williams

Synopsis: In her much vaunted screen debut, Metropolitan Opera star Gladys Swarthout takes on David Belasco's 30-year-old operetta about the female leader of a gang of vigilantes battling usurpers plotting to steal valuable land grants. The masked Don Carlos (aka Rosita Castro) uses her operatic voice as a Read More

Blackmailer

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Actors: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, George Bancroft, Lionel Stander, Douglas Dumbrille, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: When a car crash ends the life of a fabulously wealthy patron of the arts, the decedent's $20,000,000 fortune is inherited by one Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) of Mandrake Falls, Vermont. Already a reasonably successful local businessman, Deeds doesn't really feel the need for anything extra in Read More

Blackmailer

Actors: William Gargan, Florence Rice, H.B. Warner, Nana Bryant, George McKay

Synopsis: Amateur detective Peter Cornish (William Gargan) and dimwitted police inspector Killian (Paul Hurst) combine forces to track down a blackmailer. Cornish's interest in the case is more than professional: among those being blackmailed is pretty heiress Joan Rankin (Florence Rice). The case takes on Read More

A Tale of Two Cities

Actors: Ronald Colman, Elizabeth Allan, Edna May Oliver, Reginald Owen, Basil Rathbone

Synopsis: It is a tale known well, filmed many times over the years, but never better than this early black and white version from the MGM Studios, David O. Selznick producing. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"-- Charles Dickens juxtaposes England and France, George and Louis, tradition Read More

Born to Gamble

Actors: Onslow Stevens, H.B. Warner, Maxine Doyle, Eric Linden, Lois Wilson

Synopsis: Born to Gamble was one of the more palatable efforts of M.H. Hoffman's poverty-row Liberty Films. The four protagonists are brothers who are "cursed" by their family's gambling bug. All four try to overcome the urge to speculate: only one, the youngest, is successful. Onslow Stevens plays both the Read More

Night Alarm

Actors: Bruce Cabot, Judith Allen, H.B. Warner, Sam Hardy, Betty Blythe

Synopsis: In this newspaper drama, a reporter known for criticizing the top city official has his column taken over by the man's daughter. As a farewell, he writes a huge attack on the man, causing friction between him and the daughter. But he rescues her when she is trapped in a fire at her father's paper Read More

Behold My Wife

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Gene Raymond, Julie Compton, Laura Hope Crewes, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: A wealthy young heir rebels when his snooty parents refuse to allow him to marry a lovely young secretary. Deciding to teach them a lesson, he goes West where he falls in love and marries the daughter of a Native American chief. He brings her home to meet his parents, who are naturally appalled Read More

Sorrell and Son

Actors: H.B. Warner, Peter Penrose, Hugh Williams, Winifred Shotter, Margot Grahame

Synopsis: The venerable Warwick Deeping story Sorrell and Son was dusted off again for this 1934 screen incarnation. Repeating his role from the 1927 film version, H.B. Warner plays Captain Stephen Sorrell, a WW I hero reduced to scrubbing floors in a hotel. This he does for the sake of his beloved son Kit (Hugh Williams Read More

Grand Canary

Actors: Warner Baxter, H.B. Warner, Madge Evans, Julie Compton, Zita Johann

Synopsis: This drama, an adaptation of a novel by A.J. Cronin, chronicles the exploits of an alcoholic doctor whose career is in shambles as he embarks upon a cruise to the Canary Islands. The deeply despondent physician spends much of the journey hiding in his stateroom staring at the walls and woefully Read More

In Old Santa Fe

Actors: Ken Maynard, Evelyn Knapp, H.B. Warner, Ken Thomson, Wheeler Oakman

Synopsis: Having recently left Universal Pictures in a huff, mercurial cowboy star Ken Maynard stopped briefly at Mascot Studios for a brace of films. The first was In Old Santa Fe, a modern story set at a dude ranch where Maynard (playing himself) is employed. The villain is dude sharpshooter Chandler (Kenneth Thomson Read More

Viva Villa!

Actors: Wallace Beery, Leo Carrillo, Fay Wray, Donald Cook, Joseph Schildkraut, Stuart Erwin

Synopsis: A far from factual filmed biography of Mexican patriot Pancho Villa, Viva Villa! was written by lengendary screenwriter Ben Hecht. We first meet the young Villa when his father is beaten to death after protesting Diaz' seizure of the Mexican peons' land. Pancho exacts a temporary revenge by Read More

Justice Takes a Holiday

Actors: H.B. Warner, Huntly Gordon, Audrey Ferris, Robert W. Frazer

Synopsis: In this syrupy tear-jerker a young girl is adopted by the judge who sent her daddy to prison. The father agreed to this relationship and soon the aging judge becomes very fond of his new charge. Unfortunately, his love for her blinds him to mounting evidence attesting to her real father's Read More

Jennie Gerhardt

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Donald Cook, Mary Astor, Edward Arnold, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: This turn-of-the-century tragedy chronicles the sorrowful travails of a woman who endures a series of devastating losses. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Supernatural

Actors: Carole Lombard, Alan Dinehart, Vivienne Osborne, Randolph Scott, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: This atmospheric suspense film from the makers of White Zombie marked an unusual turn for glamorous Carole Lombard as heiress Roma Courtenay, who is approached by phony psychic Paul Bavian (Alan Dinehart), who claims to bear an important message from her recently deceased brother. After attending Read More

Christopher Bean

Actors: Marie Dressler, Lionel Barrymore, Beulah Bondi, Helen Shipman, Helen Mack

Synopsis: Based on the play by Sidney Howard (of Gone with the Wind and Dead End fame), Christopher Bean is a showcase for the magnificent Marie Dressler. She plays Abby, the poor but proud housekeeper of a small-town doctor (Lionel Barrymore), his wife (Beulah Bondi), and their children. Years before the Read More

The Menace

The Son-Daughter

Actors: Ramon Novarro, Helen Hayes, Warner Oland, Ralph Morgan

Synopsis: San Francisco's Chinatown provides the setting of this dramatic romance set in 1911. At this time in China, a major uprising has occurred and the rulers of the Ch'ing dynasty have been overthrown and a new president, Sun Yat-Sen, has risen to power. In order to aide the anti-royalist Read More

The Phantom of Crestwood

Actors: Karen Morley, Ricardo Cortez, H.B. Warner, Pauline Frederick, Robert McWade

Synopsis: Gary Curtis, aka Farnsbarns (Richardo Cortez), is really a former hoodlum hired to retrieve some compromising letters from gold digger Jenny Wren (Karen Morley). She, in turn, announces her retirement, but not before cajoling noted banker Priem Andes (H. B. Warner) into hosting a farewell party at Read More

A Woman Commands

Actors: Pola Negri, Roland Young, Basil Rathbone, H.B. Warner, Anthony Bushell

Synopsis: A Woman Commands is often cited as silent screen star Pola Negri's first talking picture. Actually, it was her first American talkie and almost her last, posting a $265,000 loss for RKO Radio. Ordered to marry Serbian king Alexander (Roland Young), noblewoman Maria Draga (Negri) does what Read More

Charlie Chan's Chance

Actors: Warner Oland, Alexander Kirkland, H.B. Warner, Marian Nixon, Ralph Morgan

Synopsis: Warner Oland's third appearance as humble oriental sleuth Charlie Chan was in the 1932 release Charlie Chan's Chance. This time, our hero has a personal reason to solve the murder at hand; he himself was the intended victim, but another man was killed by mistake. Keeping one step ahead of both the Read More

Unholy Love

Actors: H.B. Warner, Lila Lee, Beryl Mercer, Joyce Compton, Lyle Talbot

Synopsis: It took nerve for low-budget producer M.H. Hoffman to update Gustave Flaubert's 19th century novel Madame Bovary and relocate the story to Rye, New York. It was equally nervy to retitle the film as Unholy Love and to cast Joyce Compton, usually cast as a dumb blonde, in the central role. Compton Read More

Tom Brown of Culver

Actors: Tom Brown, H.B. Warner, George "Slim" Summerville, Richard Cromwell, Ben Alexander

Synopsis: William Wyler directed this melodramatic story about a boy who, after growing up in the shadow of his father, learns the old man wasn't all he claimed to be. Tom Brown (played, as coincidence would have it, by an actor named Tom Brown) is a boy who has been struggling to help his mother keep body Read More

The Crusader

Actors: Evelyn Brent, H.B. Warner, Lew Cody, Ned Sparks, Walter Byron

Synopsis: The Crusader was one of the earliest efforts from Majestic Pictures, for many years the most ambitious of the independent production firms. H.B. Warner plays the title character, incorruptible district attorney Phillip Brandon. Hoping to silence Brandon, a gang of crooks uncover some unsavory Read More

Cross Examination

Actors: H.B. Warner, Edmund Breese, William V. Mong

Synopsis: Such were the ways of Hollywood that the dignified H.B. Warner, who played Jesus in 1927's King of Kings, found himself in such low-budget fare as Cross-Examination a scant five years later. Warner makes the best of the situation in the role of Gerald Waring, defense attorney in a sensational Read More

The Reckless Hour

Actors: Dorothy Mackaill, Conrad Nagel, Walter Byron, H.B. Warner, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: In this drama, a hard-working New York model abandons her family values for the love of a suave, handsome man who offers her the moon, but ends up leaving her with a baby and a very bitter aftertaste. She then becomes cynical, and angry at all men until a sensitive, gentle artist helps her through Read More

Expensive Women

Actors: Dolores Costello, Anthony Bushell, Joe Donahue, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: Dolores Costello spent the twilight months of her Warner Bros. contract in such trifles as Expensive Women. The star is cast as wealthy society girl Constance Newton, a "girl of whims" who flits from one man to the next like a butterfly. After a couple of desultory affairs with Bobby Brandon (Joe Donahue Read More

Five Star Final

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Marian Marsh, H.B. Warner, Anthony Bushell, George E. Stone

Synopsis: Adapted from the stage play by former newspaperman Louis Weitzenkorn, Five Star Final is an uncompromising look at the consequences of journalistic irresponsibility. Hounded by his publishers to pep up circulation with a sensational story, newspaper editor Edward G. Robinson decides to revive Read More

A Woman of Experience

Actors: Helen Twelvetrees, William Bakewell, Lew Cody, ZaSu Pitts, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: In this dramatic adventure a shady lady becomes a spy for the Austrian intelligence agency and ends up involved with a man suspected of being a German spy. She only pretends to love him to discover the truth. The man she really loves is a young naval officer, but in order to serve her country, she Read More

Liliom

Actors: Charles Farrell, Rose Hobart, H.B. Warner, Estelle Taylor, Lee Tracy

Synopsis: This first film version of Ferenc Molnar's poignant fantasy Liliom was supposed to have reunited the director Frank Borzage and stars Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor of Fox's 1927 box-office smash Seventh Heaven. But Gaynor was enmeshed in one of her periodic contract disputes with the studio, so Read More

The Second Floor Mystery

Actors: Grant Withers, Loretta Young, H.B. Warner, Claire McDowell, Sidney Bracey

Synopsis: In this mystery, a man and woman have been corresponding through a "personal" column under the names Lord Strawberries and Lady Grapefruit. When the man's neighbor is found dead upstairs, he and the lady are the prime suspects of a police inspector, who has his own very good reason for blaming 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

On Your Back

Actors: Marion Shilling, H.B. Warner, Irene Rich, Raymond Hackett, Ilka Chase

Synopsis: In this drama, a New York dressmaker struggles to make it big so she can provide a good life for her beloved son. As her son enters college, she opens a Fifth Avenue boutique. When her son falls in love with a chorus girl, the mother is appalled. Later, the girl finds herself a wealthy benefactor Read More

Tiger Rose

Actors: Monte Blue, Lupe Velez, H.B. Warner, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: In this romantic adventure, a feisty young woman (Velez) toys with the affections of a railroad worker (Withers) and a Mountie (Blue). She ends up with Withers and decides to accompany him to the city. Unfortunately, the other workers around her do not want her to go. As the lovers try to flee 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

The Princess and the Plumber

Actors: Charles Farrell, Maureen O'Sullivan

Synopsis: In this comedy, a plumbing magnate's son, who has started on the bottom rung of his father's business, is hired to fix the pipes in an old European castle. The castle is being let by a destitute prince and his daughter. In order to restore his fortune and prestige, the prince wants her daughter to Read More

The Furies

Actors: Lois Wilson, Montagu Love, H.B. Warner, Theodore Von Eltz

Synopsis: The plays of Zoe Akins were so stilted and mannered that one critic referred to watching them as "the curse of an Akins heart." The film versions of Akins's efforts were slightly better, as proven by The Furies. Lois Wilson stars as attractive Mrs. Sands, who despite her married status is ardently Read More

Wedding Rings

Actors: H.B. Warner, Lois Wilson, Olive Borden, Hallam Cooley, James Ford

Synopsis: In this romance, two sisters fall in love with the same man. He in turn, falls for and marries the most sophisticated of the two. This sister is a gad-fly and social climber whereas her sibling is more earthy. Though she is the more glamorous girl, the husband soon tires of her and begins to fall Read More

Show of Shows

Synopsis: Basically a filmed vaudeville presentation, The Show of Shows was Warner Bros.' entry in the "all star, all talking, all singing and all dancing" sweepstakes of 1929. Though slightly better than MGM's Hollywood Revue of 1929, the Warners entry pales in comparison to Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 Read More

Conquest

Actors: Monte Blue, H.B. Warner, Lois Wilson, Tully Marshall, Edmund Breese

Synopsis: H.B. Warner, so convincing as Jesus Christ in DeMille's The King of Kings, does a complete about-face in the early talkie Conquest. Warner plays James Farnham, a no-good rat who deserts his best friend during an expedition to the South Pole. He then accepts military honors for bravery that should Read More

The Gamblers

Actors: H.B. Warner, Lois Wilson, Jason Robards, Sr., George Fawcett, Johnny Arthur

Synopsis: The 1929 Wall Street crash was still two months in the future when Warner Bros.' Gamblers was released in the late summer of 1929. Jason Robards Sr. and George Fawcett play Carvel Emerson Jr. and Emerson Sr., father-and-son stock manipulators who "gamble" their firm's assets on a risky Read More

The Trial of Mary Dugan

Actors: Norma Shearer, H.B. Warner, Raymond Hackett, Lilyan Tashman

Synopsis: In this well-executed courtroom drama, a Broadway chorine is accused of stabbing her wealthy boy friend to death. The girl is defended by her good friend. During the trial, the lawyer refrains from cross-examining the witnesses. This enrages the dancer's younger brother, who has just passed the Read More

The Argyle Case

Actors: Thomas Meighan, H.B. Warner, Lila Lee, John Darrow, ZaSu Pitts

Synopsis: Despite what you might think by glancing at the title, The Argyle Case has nothing to do with socks. The film's plot is set in motion when the head of the house of Argyle is murdered. In one of his few talking-picture appearances, silent star Thomas Meighan is the detective on the case. Meighan Read More

The Doctor's Secret

Actors: Ruth Chatterton, H.B. Warner, John Loder, Robert Edeson, Wilfred Noy

Synopsis: The Doctor's Secret was adapted by director William C. DeMille from James M. Barrie's play Half an Hour. After marrying wealthy Richard Garson (H.B. Warner) for his money and prestige, Lillian Garson (Ruth Chatterton) grows weary of her stuffed-shirt husband and decides to run off with another Read More

The Divine Lady

Actors: Corinne Griffith, Victor Varconi, H.B. Warner, Ian Keith, Marie Dressler

Synopsis: Frank Lloyd both produced and directed The Divine Lady, a Hollywood slant on the 19th century romance of Lord Horatio Nelson and Lady Emma Hamilton. American film star Corinne Griffith, decked out in a blonde wig, is decorative but otherwise unconvincing as Lady Emma, while Hungarian-born Victor Varconi Read More

Stark Mad

Actors: H.B. Warner, Louise Fazenda, Jacqueline Logan, Henry B. Walthall

Synopsis: In this adventure set in South America, the captain of a yacht moored there is really a fugitive criminal. The passengers are too busy trying to find the missing son of the boat's owner to pay the captain much mind. Later the hapless passengers find themselves having to deal with angry natives and Read More

Romance of a Rogue

Actors: H.B. Warner, Anita Stewart, Charles Gerrard, Fred Esmelton

Synopsis: In a departure from his usual fare of Richard Talmadge action melodramas, low-budget entrepreneur A. Carlos produced this low-key silent drama of a man seeking vengeance on the villain whose lies sent him to prison on the night of his wedding. The emaciated H.B. Warner, the Christ of Cecil B. Read More

Man-Made Women

Actors: Leatrice Joy, H.B. Warner, Seena Owen

Synopsis: The piquant Leatrice Joy starred in this frothy marital comedy about a wife who leaves her boring husband (John Boles) to be the companion of a kept woman (Seena Owen). The latter, however, leaves in a huff when she suspects that her gentleman friend (H.B. Warner) may be paying a bit too much Read More

Naughty Duchess

Actors: H.B. Warner, Eve Southern, Gertrude Astor, Martha Mattox

Synopsis: The Naughty Duchess was the come-on title affixed to this filmization of the novel Indiscretion of a Duchess (apparently "naughty" was easier to spell). Eve Southern plays a woman with a shady history who tries to elude the Law by boarding a train. Here she begs handsome fellow-passenger H.B. Warner Read More

Sorrell and Son

Actors: H.B. Warner, Anna Q. Nilsson, Carmel Myers, Norman Trevor

Synopsis: Sorrell and Son, the best-selling (and frequently filmed) British novel by Warwick Deeping, was afforded its first screen treatment in 1927. Upon returning from WWI, courageous Captain Sorrell (H.B. Warner) returns home to find that his wife (Anna Q. Nilsson) has left him for another. Though his Read More

The King of Kings

Actors: H.B. Warner, Dorothy Cumming, Ernest Torrence, Joseph Schildkraut, James Neill

Synopsis: Having scored big-time box office with his first Biblical epic, The Ten Commandments (1923), Cecil B. DeMille hoped to top this success with his 1927 The King of Kings. Inasmuch as he was now dealing with the life of Christ, DeMille had to be careful to serve up equal amounts of showmanship and Read More

French Dressing

Actors: H.B. Warner, Clive Brook, Lois Wilson, Lilyan Tashman

Synopsis: The same year H.B. Warner portrayed Jesus Christ in The King of Kings, he let down his hair in the drawing-room comedy French Dressing. Warner plays a husband who is wrongly suspected of infidelity by his young wife Lois Wilson. She runs off to Paris, determined to avenge herself on her Read More

Whispering Smith

Actors: H.B. Warner, Lillian Rich, John Bowers, Lilyan Tashman, Will R. Walling

Synopsis: Gaunt, aristocratic-looking character-actor H.B. Warner was slightly miscast as author Frank Hamilton Spearman's popular railroad detective Whispering Smith. The detective had earlier been played by J.P. McGowan in a 1916 serial version starring McGowan's wife Helen Holmes which was itself remade Read More

Silence

Actors: Vera Reynolds, H.B. Warner, Raymond Hatton, Rockliffe Fellowes, Jack Mulhall

Synopsis: Produced by Cecil B. DeMille -- but directed by Rupert Julian -- Silence affords new DeMille contractee Vera Reynolds the opportunity to play a dual role. Told in flashback, the story endeavors to explain why Jim Warren (H.B. Warner) is about to be hanged for a murder he didn't commit. A petty Read More

Is Love Everything?

Actors: Alma Rubens, Frank Mayo, H.B. Warner, Walter McGrail, Lilyan Tashman

Synopsis: Virginia Carter (Alma Rubens) has two suitors -- the carefree Robert Whitney (Frank Mayo) and the more restrained, but far wealthier Jordan Southwick (H.B. Warner). Because her family is having financial difficulties, Mrs. Carter (Marie Shaffer) encourages her daughter to choose Southwick. After Read More

Zaza

Actors: Gloria Swanson, H.B. Warner, Ferdinand Gottschalk, Lucille La Verne, Mary Thurman

Synopsis: As a play, Zaza had been around for some 30 years and had already been filmed once before when Allan Dwan updated it and made it into a star vehicle for Gloria Swanson. His direction brought out Swanson's spontaneous side and although her performance was a bit uneven, she liked working with him so Read More

When We Were Twenty-One

Synopsis: Stage star William Elliot (no relation to cowboy hero William "Wild Bill" Elliott starred in this first movie version of the Broadway hit When We Were Twenty-One. The story concerns a college romance, with the undergrad hero wooing the professor's daughter. The film comes to a rugged climax during Read More

Tropical Love

Uncharted Channels

Synopsis: The conservative, political sentiments of Americans in the 1920s were decidedly anti-communist, and this comedy-drama lends a mocking, satiric touch to the Bolshevists that it portrays. Because he is an idler, Timothy Webb, Jr. (H.B. Warner) is disinherited by his father. Instead, his uncle Roger (Percy Challenger Read More

Haunting Shadows

Synopsis: This mystery comedy was based on the novel, House of a Thousand Candles by Meredith Nicholsorf (the book was also made into a film several times under its own name). H.B. Warner stars as John Glenarm, heir to his uncle's estate. The only catch is that he must live in the Indiana mansion for a Read More

White Dove

Synopsis: This drama was based on the novel by William J. Locke. Physician Sylvester Lanyon (H.B. Warner) has such high ideals when it comes to humanity that he looks down on everyone else. He's especially hard on women, and only his memories of his dead wife and mother live up to his beliefs. But while he Read More

Dice of Destiny

Synopsis: When Jimmy Doyle (H.B. Warner) is released after serving yet another prison term, his dying pal, jewel thief Bill Preston (J.P. Lockney) asks him to take care of his daughter Nancy (Lillian Rich). Jimmy plans to go straight, and tries to sequester Nancy, who was never a part of her father's Read More

One Hour Before Dawn

Synopsis: Author George Clayton (H.B. Warner) is a skeptic when it comes to hypnotism. Nevertheless, he allows mesmerist Norman Osgood to put him under. The next day, Harrison Kirke (Howard Davies) is found murdered, and Clayton is the prime suspect because Osgood -- who had a grudge against the victim Read More

Felix O'day

Synopsis: Irishman Felix O'Day (H.B. Warner) sees his life crumble when his so-called friend Austin Bennett (Ray Ripley) convinces his father to stake his estate for a money scheme. The scheme fails, and the old man dies of a broken heart. On top of that, Bennett runs off with Felix's faithless wife Read More

The Man Who Turned White

Synopsis: This Arabian tale starring H.B. Warner (returning to the screen after an extended Broadway performance) may seem racist today, but in the days of silent cinema it was about par for the course. Captain Beverly (Wedgewood Nowell) becomes involved with a colonel's wife. Because Beverly had saved his Read More

Fugitive from Matrimony

Synopsis: H.B. Warner takes a break from his usual heavy dramas to star in this light comedy. Stephan Van Courtlandt (Warner) belongs to the most exclusive of society circles and is the most eligible bachelor in New York. He is also the most elusive, having traveled all over Europe in an attempt to keep any Read More

The Market of Vain Desire

Synopsis: The usual Thomas H. Ince talent lineup -- including director Reginald Gardiner and writer C. Gardner Sullivan -- collaborated on the sublimely constructed Market of Vain Desire. H.B.Warner stars as John Armstrong, a small-town clergyman who discovers that one of his flock, Helen Badgely (Clara Williams Read More

Wife's Sacrifice

Actors: Robert B. Mantell

Synopsis: A pair of con artists, Gorgone (Genevieve Hamper) and Peppo (Stuart Holmes) wreak havoc in the life of Count de Mornay (Robert B. Mantell). The scammers have entered society by obtaining a 20 million franc inheritance that doesn't belong to them, and Peppo discovers that the Count's wife (Genevieve Blinn Read More

Beggar of Cawnpore

Synopsis: Popular scenarist C. Gardner Sullivan uses India's Sepoy Rebellion as a backdrop for this tale of drug addiction and recovery. Dr. Robert Lowndes (H.B. Warner) works for the British East India service, and when he contracts an illness, he becomes a slave to morphine. Because of this, he loses not Read More

The Ghost Breaker

Synopsis: This first film version of Paul Dickey and Charles Goddard's theatrical comedy-melodrama The Ghost Breaker was also the only version that adhered to the original with absolute fidelity. H.B. Warner stars as Warren Jarvis, an aristocratic Kentuckian who heads to Spain in hopes of escaping a family Read More