Helen Vinson Filmography

The Thin Man Goes Home

Actors: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Lucile Watson, Gloria de Haven, Anne Revere, Harry Davenport

Synopsis: This fifth entry in MGM's off-and-on "Thin Man" series maintains the high production and story values of the first four. Per the title, retired private detective Nick Charles (William Powell) pays a visit to his home town of Sycamore Springs, with wife Nora (Myrna Loy) in tow. Poor Nick is Read More

Chip off the Old Block

Actors: Donald O'Connor, Peggy Ryan, Ann Blyth, Helen Vinson, Helen Broderick

Synopsis: A musical comedy star whose career is just starting to take off returns home from military school. En route, he meets a pretty girl whom he begins to woo. Unfortunately his hometown girl friend is waiting for him at the station and typical romantic mayhem ensues amidst many lively songs and Read More

Are These Our Parents?

Actors: Helen Vinson, Lyle Talbot, Ivan Lebedeff, Noel Neill, Richard Byron

Synopsis: This 1940s drama implies that children do indeed learn what they live as it tells the story of a teenage girl who runs away from her posh boarding school to be with her ne'er-do-well, blue-collar boy friend because she believes her wealthy parents do not care about her. Soon the idle kids are Read More

The Lady and the Monster

Actors: Vera Ralston, Richard Arlen, Mary Nash, Sidney Blackmer

Synopsis: Lady and the Monster was the first film version of the classic Curt Siodmak sci-fi/horror tale Donovan's Brain. The plot involves the brain of a famous but unscrupulous financier, recently deceased. The brain is kept alive artificially by overenthusiastic scientist Erich Von Stroheim, with the Read More

Nothing But the Truth

Actors: Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, Edward Arnold, Glenn Anders

Synopsis: In this version of the oft-filmed stage play by James Montgomery, Nothing But the Truth stars Bob Hope as an up and coming young stockbroker working in Florida. He makes a bet with his coworkers that he can tell nothing but the absolute truth for 24 hours, and the other bettors are determined to Read More

Torrid Zone

Actors: James Cagney, Ann Sheridan, Pat O'Brien, Andy Devine, Helen Vinson

Synopsis: Torrid Zone star James Cagney once described the film as "The Front Page among the bananas." Indeed, the screenplay diligently follows the Front Page plot device of a tough boss (Pat O'Brien) pulling every underhanded trick in the book to keep his top man (Cagney) from quitting. This time the Read More

Bowery Boy

Actors: Dennis O'Keefe, Louise Campbell, Jimmy Lydon, Helen Vinson, Roger Pryor

Synopsis: Unrelated to Monogram's series of "Bowery Boys" B pictures, Republic's Bowery Boy stars Dennis O'Keefe as a crusading slum doctor. Actually, O'Keefe doesn't play the title character: that honor goes to Jimmy Lydon, a tough street kid who tries to block the plans made by O'Keefe and nurse Louise Campbell Read More

Enemy Agent

Actors: Richard Cromwell, Helen Vinson, Robert Armstrong, Marjorie Reynolds, Jack Arnold

Synopsis: In this espionage adventure, a courageous millworker must prove himself innocent of treason charges after the title spies purloin valuable blueprints from his plant. He also tries to bring the spies to justice, but soon finds himself in deep trouble. Fortunately, the good-guy spies show up at the Read More

Married and in Love

Actors: Alan Marshal, Barbara Read, Patric Knowles, Helen Vinson, Hattie Noel

Synopsis: Festooned with flashbacks, Married and in Love is a minor domestic drama given Tiffany treatment by director John Farrow. Helen Vinson plays a vain, selfish woman, unhappily married to Patrick Knowles. Impulsively, Helen decides to kick over the traces an elope with college sweetheart Alan Read More

Curtain Call

Actors: Barbara Read, Alan Mowbray, Helen Vinson, Donald MacBride, John Archer

Synopsis: A Broadway producer and a director conspire to destroy the career of an aging star so they can tear up her contract and use fresher talent in this comedy drama. First they must choose an appropriately horrible script. They find one, "The End of Everything," written by a lovely female playwright. Read More

Beyond Tomorrow

Actors: Harry Carey, C. Aubrey Smith, Charles Winninger, Alex Melesh, Maria Ouspenskaya

Synopsis: Harry Carey Sr., C. Aubrey Smith and Charles Winninger play three wealthy bachelors who have spent their lives wrapped up in themselves. Left all alone on Christmas eve, the elderly trio invite a couple of strangers to dinner: misplaced cowpoke Richard Carlson and pretty, but aimless, Jean Parker. Read More

In Name Only

Actors: Carole Lombard, Cary Grant, Kay Francis, Charles Coburn, Katherine Alexander, Helen Vinson

Synopsis: Based on Memory of Love, a novel by Bessie Breuer, In Name Only is soap opera par excellence, blessed with a peerless cast. Carole Lombard plays widow Julie Eden, who meets and falls in love with unhappily married Alec Walker (Cary Grant). Having married Alec solely for his wealth and family Read More

Live, Love and Learn

Actors: Robert Montgomery, Rosalind Russell, Robert Benchley, Helen Vinson, Mickey Rooney

Synopsis: Starving artist Robert Montgomery could care less if his paintings sell, so long as he's happy. Montgomery falls in love with Rosalind Russell, an heiress who's gone "slumming" in Greenwich Village. Russell becomes Montgomery's patroness as well as his wife, urging him to make his paintings more Read More

Vogues of 1938

Actors: Warner Baxter, Joan Bennett, Helen Vinson, Mischa Auer, Alan Mowbray

Synopsis: An early Technicolor musical that concentrates on the fashions of the late 1930s, this film was reissued under the title All This and Glamour Too. The top models of the era, including several who are advertising household products, are in the cast. The plot centers around a chic boutique, whose Read More

Reunion

Actors: Jean Hersholt, Rochelle Hudson, Helen Vinson, George "Slim" Summerville, Robert Kent

Synopsis: This second of 20th Century-Fox's Dionne Quintuplets vehicles brings back Jean Hersholt as kindly Canadian obstetrician Dr. Dafoe. The good doctor faces none of the professional crises that plagued him in the first Dionne picture The Country Doctor. Instead, a testimonial dinner is arranged for Read More

Love in Exile

Actors: Clive Brook, Helen Vinson, Mary Carlisle, Ronald Squire, Cecil Ramage

Synopsis: When a king suddenly abdicates, his subjects are lead to believe that it is for the love of a foreigner in this romance. In reality, he is stepping down so avaricious businessmen can crown their own man king. The deposed monarch spends his exile on the Riviera, while the woman, filled with guilt Read More

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

Private Worlds

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Charles Boyer, Joan Bennett, Joel McCrea, Helen Vinson

Synopsis: The first major film about psychiatry, Private Worlds stars Claudette Colbert as a psychiatrist with more than a few problems of her own. Colbert's appointment to a top mental hospital is frowned upon by head doctor Charles Boyer, who doesn't have much confidence in woman doctors of any kind. A Read More

A Notorious Gentleman

Actors: Charles Bickford, Sidney Blackmer, Helen Vinson, Onslow Stevens, Dudley Digges

Synopsis: Commenting upon the many relatives on the payroll of Carl Laemmle's Universal Pictures, poet Ogden Nash once wrote "Uncle Carl Laemmle/Has a large faemmlee." One member of that faemmle was Edward Laemmle, director of the courtroom melodrama A Notorious Gentleman. Charles Bickford plays the Read More

Transatlantic Tunnel

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

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

The Wedding Night

Actors: Gary Cooper, Anna Sten, Helen Vinson, Ralph Bellamy, Sig Rumann

Synopsis: In this Samuel Goldwyn production directed by King Vidor, the studio's intent was to make Russian-born Anna Sten a star, but it didn't succeed. Sten plays Manya Nowak, a Polish farm girl attracted to Tony Barrett (Gary Cooper), a novelist with writer's block who has retreated to a Connecticut Read More

Age of Indiscretion

Actors: Paul Lukas, Madge Evans, Helen Vinson, May Robson, David Holt

Synopsis: Critics in 1935 recognized immediately that Age of Indiscretion drew its inspiration from the well-publicized Gloria Vanderbilt custody battle. Paul Lukas plays publisher Robert Lenhart, a man of conservative tastes who is unfortunately saddled with a footloose socialite wife named Eve (Helen Vinson Read More

As Husbands Go

Actors: Warner Baxter, Helen Vinson, Warner Oland, Catherine Doucet, Eleanor Lynn

Synopsis: Adapted by Sonya Levien and Sam (S. N.) Berhman from a play by Rachel Crothers, As Husbands Go charts the romantic misadventures of Lucille Lingard (Helen Vinson). Slightly bored by her marriage to businessman Charles Lingard (Warner Baxter), Lucille vacations in London, where she nearly has an Read More

The Captain Hates the Sea

Actors: Victor McLaglen, Helen Vinson, John Gilbert, Alison Skipworth, Wynne Gibson

Synopsis: It's Grand Hotel on the high seas, with a remarkable cast -- particularly for the usually parsimonious Columbia Pictures. As irascible captain Helquist (Walter Connolly) pilots his boat along the Atlantic, an assortment of subplots involving a vast array of characters play themselves out. Among Read More

Broadway Bill

Actors: Warner Baxter, Myrna Loy, Walter Connolly, Helen Vinson, Douglas Dumbrille

Synopsis: Just after completing It Happened One Night, director Frank Capra churned out a bread-and-butter picture titled Broadway Bill. Warner Baxter plays the carefree scion of a wealthy, highly-respected family. Baxter's cold but socially correct wife Helen Vinson forces her husband into the family Read More

Let's Try Again

Actors: Clive Brook, Diana Wynyard, Irene Hervey, Helen Vinson, Theodore Newton

Synopsis: In this drama, a doctor and his wife find themselves dreaming of others and thinking about divorce. The wife decides to sow a few oats when she meets a handsome young man. When the doctor finds out about the affair, he is surprised to discover that after 10 years of marriage, he could care less. Read More

Gift of Gab

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Gloria Stuart, Ruth Etting, Phil Baker

Synopsis: In this musical, a radio-announcer is fired after giving a false interview. For consolation he begins to drink heavily. It is his girlfriend who helps him sober up when she provides him with a major scoop--a missing airplane. He enthusiastically sets out after it and eventually finds it. As a Read More

The Life of Vergie Winters

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

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

Second Hand Wife

Actors: Sally Eilers, Ralph Bellamy, Helen Vinson, Clay Clement

Synopsis: Sally Eilers plays Sandra, a secretary who falls for her boss in this passable marital drama from Fox. The attraction is mutual and when Carter Cavendish (Ralph Bellamy) learns that his wife, Betty (Helen Vinson), is having an affair, he divorces her and marries Sandra. But Betty wants sole Read More

Grand Slam

Actors: Paul Lukas, Loretta Young, Frank McHugh, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson

Synopsis: Paul Lukas plays a nightclub headwaiter who rises to fame as a bridge expert. He marries hat check girl Loretta Young, likewise a card fanatic. Lukas and Young find themselves vying for the national bridge championship, which results in the expected frictions. All is forgiven in the climactic Read More

The Little Giant

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Mary Astor, Helen Vinson, Ken Thomson, Shirley Grey

Synopsis: The end of prohibition spells the end of business as usual for Chicago gangster Bugs Ahearn (Edward G. Robinson in this delightful spoof of mob melodramas from Warner Bros. Paying off their latest moll, Edith (Shirley Grey, Bugs and chief lieutenant Al Daniels (Russell Hopton) grab their Read More

The Power and the Glory

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Colleen Moore, Ralph Morgan, Helen Vinson, Clifford Jones

Synopsis: Frequently cited as the precursor to Citizen Kane, Power and the Glory is the first major Hollywood film to extensively utilize narrated flashbacks to tell its story. At the funeral of a powerful railroad executive (Spencer Tracy), the exec's best friend (Ralph Morgan) recalls the dead man's Read More

The Kennel Murder Case

Actors: William Powell, Mary Astor, Eugene Pallette, Ralph Morgan, Helen Vinson

Synopsis: Often (and accurately) described as a model of the whodunit genre, The Kennel Murder Case stars William Powell, making his fourth screen appearance as S. S. Van Dine's dilettante detective Philo Vance. This time the story involves intrigue at the Long Island kennel club. The murder victim is Robert H. Barrat Read More

Midnight Club

Actors: Clive Brook, George Raft, Helen Vinson, Alison Skipworth, Guy Standing

Synopsis: Everybody in The Midnight Club is seeing double, and it's all the handiwork of slick London criminal mastermind Colin Grant (Clive Brook). Anyone who wants to commit a crime and get away with it had better get in touch with Grant, who obligingly provides exact doubles of the criminals so as to Read More

Lawyer Man

Actors: William Powell, Joan Blondell, Helen Vinson, Alan Dinehart, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: William Powell is a poor East Side lawyer who works his way up the ladder to assistant prosecutor. He isn't too particular how he uses and misuses the law, much to the dismay of his faithful secretary (Joan Blondell). Powell's downfall comes when he falls for a shady lady (Claire Dodd) who Read More

I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang

Actors: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson, Noel Francis, Preston S. Foster, Edward McNamara

Synopsis: Warner Bros.' hard-hitting chain-gang movie was a faithful adaptation of the similarly titled autobiography of Robert Elliot Burns. Paul Muni plays World War I veteran James Allen, whose plans of becoming a master architect evaporate in the cold light of economic realities. Flat broke, Allen is Read More

The Crash

Actors: Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, Paul Cavanagh, Barbara Leonard, Henry Kolker

Synopsis: In this drama, set in 1929 when the stock market crashed, a selfish, money-grubbing wife ruins her husband, an accountant after she feeds him a fake stock market tip. Prior to that, she had been having an affair with a wealthy fellow. She destroys her husband because she is bored with her lover Read More

Under Cover Man

Actors: George Raft, Nancy Carroll, Roscoe Karns, Gregory Ratoff, Lew Cody

Synopsis: In his first starring role, George Raft plays Nick Darrow, a fence convinced by the police to go undercover after his father is killed in a Wall Street heist. Teaming up with Lora Madigan (Nancy Carroll), yet another victim of the gang, Nick gets close to the gang boss, Mason (Lew Cody), and his Read More

Jewel Robbery

Actors: William Powell, Kay Francis, Helen Vinson, Hardie Albright, Alan Mowbray

Synopsis: This imitation-Lubitsch romantic comedy stars William Powell as an elegant jewel thief plying his trade in Vienna. Powell's latest victim is bored baroness Kay Francis, who is much taken by the gentleman crook's handsomeness and poise. Since Francis is casting about for a new lover and newer Read More

They Call It Sin

Actors: Loretta Young, George Brent, David Manners, Louis Calhern, Una Merkel

Synopsis: Though only 19, Loretta Young was an established Hollywood star in 1932, appearing in six films in that year alone. In They Call It Sin, Young plays Marion, a church organist in a picturesque Kansas village. She falls in love with visiting city slicker Jimmy (David Manners) -- who, worse luck, is Read More

Two Against the World

Actors: Constance Bennett, Neil Hamilton, Helen Vinson, Allen Vincent, Gavin Gordon

Synopsis: Constance Bennett suffers nobly in this outdated but fairly engrossing melodrama in which a seemingly hardened debutante takes the blame for the mistakes of her siblings. When her sister Corinne (Helen Vinson) gets in trouble with a married man (Gavin Gordon), Ardell Hamilton (Bennett) accepts Read More

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