Henry KosterFilmography

Dear Brigitte

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: James Stewart, Fabian, Glynis Johns, Cindy Carol, Bill Mumy

Synopsis: This family comedy stars James Stewart as Dr. Robert Leaf, a college professor who dislikes science and tries to instill in his children a love of art and music. So Robert and his wife Vina (Glynis Johns) are dismayed to discover that their eight-year-old son Erasmus (Billy Mumy) is tone-deaf and Read More

Take Her, She's Mine

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: James Stewart, Sandra Dee, Audrey Meadows, Robert Morley, Philippe Forquet

Synopsis: In this generation gap movie of the early 1960s, Sandra Dee is Mollie Michaelson, a teenage rebel enamored with long-haired hippies and radical anti-nuclear political causes. Her involvement in such activities sends her ultra-conservative father Frank (James Stewart) into a tizzy. His reassuring Read More

Marilyn

Crew: Director

Actors: Rock Hudson

Synopsis: Rock Hudson narrates this documentary about the film career of Marilyn Monroe. The screen goddess is shown in the 1949 film "A Ticket To Tomahawk" her screen debut, and ends in 1962 with the incompleted "Something's Got To Give" which was under production at the time of her death. Viewers follow Read More

Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation

Crew: Director

Actors: James Stewart, Maureen O'Hara, Fabian, John Saxon, Reginald Gardiner, Marie Wilson

Synopsis: Screenwriter Nunnally Johnson adapted the novel by author Edward Streeter, whose work was also the basis of Father of the Bride (1950), into this domestic comedy. James Stewart and Maureen O'Hara star as Roger and Peggy Hobbs, a St. Louis couple with a large brood who desire a seaside vacation. Read More

Flower Drum Song

Crew: Director

Actors: Nancy Kwan, James Shigeta, Juanita Hall, Jack Soo, Miyoshi Umeki, Benson Fong

Synopsis: The only Rodgers and Hammerstein cinemadaptation to be produced by Universal Pictures, Flower Drum Song was, alas, also the only Rogers and Hammerstein film to lose money at the box office. It looks far better now than it did back in 1961, if only because of the paucity of musical films in the Read More

The Story of Ruth

Crew: Director

Actors: Stuart Whitman, Tom Tryon, Peggy Wood, Viveca Lindfors, Jeff Morrow

Synopsis: This Biblical epic stars Elana Eden as Ruth, who serves in the temple where the High Priestess (Viveca Lindfors) leads the worship of the Pagan idols of the people of Moab. When Ruth falls in love with Mahlon (Tom Tryon), a Hebrew, she must come to terms with his spiritual beliefs, but in time she Read More

The Naked Maja

Crew: Director

Actors: Ava Gardner, Anthony Franciosa, Amedeo Nazzari, Gino Cervi, Lea Padovani

Synopsis: The slow pacing of this fanciful tale about the life and one reputed love of the Spanish artist Francisco Goya makes for an uneven drama. Anthony Franciosa is the artist, and Ava Gardner plays his paramour, the Duchess of Alba. While the Prime Minister of Spain schemes to betray his country to Read More

Fraulein

Crew: Director

Actors: Dana Wynter, Mel Ferrer, Dolores Michaels, Maggie Hayes, Theodore Bikel

Synopsis: About the only perils that heroine Dana Wynter avoids in Fraulein are being tied to the buzzsaw and chased across the ice by bloodhouds. Wynter plays a German girl of genteel upbringing who is forced to wake up and smell the coffee when her family is killed in a WW2 air raid. She helps American Read More

My Man Godfrey

Crew: Director

Actors: June Allyson, David Niven, Jesse Royce Landis, Robert Keith, Eva Gabor

Synopsis: The Depression-New Deal subtext of the original 1936 My Man Godfrey was understandably dispensed with in this so-so 1957 remake. David Niven steps into the old William Powell role as hobo-turned-butler Godfrey, while June Allyson does her best in the Carole Lombard part as Irene Bullock, the Read More

The Power and the Prize

Crew: Director

Actors: Robert Taylor, Elisabeth Müller, Burl Ives, Charles Coburn, Cedric Hardwicke

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Howard Swiggert, The Power and the Prize sets up a premise that had far more relevance in 1956 than it does today. Robert Taylor stars as a American business executive working in England. Taylor wants to marry European refugee Elizabeth Mueller, but is warned by his boss (Burl Ives Read More

D-Day, the Sixth of June

Crew: Director

Actors: Robert Taylor, Richard Todd, Dana Wynter, Edmond O'Brien, John Williams

Synopsis: We don't see much of Omaha Beach in D-Day, the Sixth of June. Instead, the film concentrates on a romantic triangle involving American officer Robert Taylor, British officer Richard Todd and the lovely Dana Wynter. Taylor and Todd spend the last hours before D-Day reminiscing about Wynter. The Read More

The Virgin Queen

Crew: Director

Actors: Bette Davis, Richard Todd, Joan Collins, Jay Robinson, Herbert Marshall, Dan O'Herlihy

Synopsis: Having previously portrayed England's Queen Elizabeth I in 1939's The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Bette Davis reprises the role in the Technicolor-and-Cinescope costumer The Virgin Queen. Harry Brown and Mindret Lord's screenplay proposes that Elizabeth's relationship with adventurer Sir Read More

Good Morning, Miss Dove

Crew: Director

Actors: Jerry Paris, Jennifer Jones, Robert Stack, Kipp Hamilton, Robert Douglas, Peggy Knudsen, Chuck Connors

Synopsis: This distaff variation of the Goodbye Mr. Chips theme is based on a novel by Frances Gray Patton. While confined to a sickbed, ageing New England schoolteacher Miss Dove (Jennifer Jones) recalls the many students who passed through her classroom. Among her now-grown-up prize pupils are surgeon Tom Read More

A Man Called Peter

Crew: Director

Actors: Richard Todd, Jean Peters, Marjorie Rambeau, Jill Esmond, Les Tremayne, Billy Chapin

Synopsis: A Man Called Peter is the story of Scottish-born Presbyterian minister and world-renowned author Peter Marshall, here played by Richard Todd. In his youth, Marshall moves to Washington DC, where he becomes pastor of the Church of the Presidents. His wisdom and conviction enables Marshall to Read More

Desiree

Crew: Director

Actors: Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Merle Oberon, Michael Rennie, Cameron Mitchell

Synopsis: Director Henry Koster and writer Daniel Taradash speculate mightily in this historical tableau charting the rise and fall of Napoleon (Marlon Brando), all due to his unrequited love for noblewoman Desiree (Jean Simmons). The film takes a chronological view of Napoleon's reign and posits Napoleon's Read More

The Robe

Crew: Director

Actors: Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, Victor Mature, Michael Rennie, Jay Robinson

Synopsis: Historically important as the first CinemaScope feature film, 20th Century-Fox's The Robe is fine dramatic entertainment in its own right. Based on the best-selling novel by Lloyd C. Douglas, the film stars Richard Burton as the wastrelly Roman tribune who is assigned by a weary Pontius Pilate (Richard Boone Read More

O. Henry's Full House

Crew: Director

Actors: Charles Laughton, Marilyn Monroe, David Wayne, Richard Widmark, Dale Robertson, Anne Baxter, Fred Allen

Synopsis: This anthology film assembles five respected directors and a top-notch cast to bring a handful of stories by the great American author O. Henry to the screen. In The Cop and the Anthem, a tramp named Soapy (Charles Laughton) tries to get arrested so that he can spend the winter in jail Read More

My Cousin Rachel

Crew: Director

Actors: Olivia de Havilland, Richard Burton, Audrey Dalton, Ronald Squire, George Dolenz

Synopsis: Olivia de Havilland and Richard Burton star in this adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's gothic novel. In a reversal of Jane Eyre, it is the hero who arrives at the home of a mysterious woman. Rachel (de Havilland) is the widow of a Cornish man of property (John Sutton), who died in suspicious Read More

Stars and Stripes Forever

Crew: Director

Actors: Clifton Webb, Debra Paget, Robert Wagner, Ruth Hussey, Finlay Currie

Synopsis: Stars and Stripes Forever is the highly fanciful filmed biography of "march king" John Philip Sousa. Clifton Webb does a fine job as Sousa, while Ruth Hussey is equally good in the less-demanding role of Sousa's wife. The problem faced by screenwriter Lamar Trotti (who adapted the film from Read More

Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell

Crew: Director

Actors: Clifton Webb, Joanne Dru, Hugh Marlowe, Zero Mostel, Billy Lynn

Synopsis: Robert E. McEnroe's whimsical Broadway play The Silver Whistle was adapted to suit the talents of Clifton Webb in Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell. It all begins when "super genius" Lynn Belvedere (Webb) briefly halts a lecture tour to bring some happiness into the lives of a gloomy senior citizens' Read More

No Highway in the Sky

Crew: Director

Actors: James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, Glynis Johns, Jack Hawkins, Ronald Squire

Synopsis: Henry Koster directs the 1951 aviation drama No Highway in the Sky, based on the novel by Nevil Shute. James Stewart stars as Theodore Honey, a widower and single parent to 11-year-old Elspeth (Janette Scott). He's also an absent-minded engineer who has formed a scientific theory about metal Read More

Elopement

Crew: Director

Actors: Clifton Webb, Anne Francis, Charles Bickford, William Lundigan, Reginald Gardiner

Synopsis: In this romance, an industrial designer is bitterly disappointed when he discovers that upon graduation his daughter decides to elope with her psychology professor rather than pursue a career. The professor's family is also not pleased by the union. Both families, who despise each other, try to Read More

Harvey

Crew: Director

Actors: James Stewart, Josephine Hull, Peggy Dow, Charles Drake, Cecil Kellaway, Victoria Horne

Synopsis: This whimsical fantasy about a local drunk's 6' 3 1/2" imaginary rabbit pal was a smash hit (and a Pulitzer Prize winner) on Broadway and was then adapted into this likeable farce that's also an allegory about tolerance. James Stewart stars as Elwood P. Dowd, a wealthy tippler whose sunny Read More

My Blue Heaven

Crew: Director

Actors: Betty Grable, Dan Dailey, David Wayne, Jane Wyatt, Mitzi Gaynor

Synopsis: In this musical comedy with dramatic touches, Jack and Molly Moran (Dan Dailey and Betty Grable) are a show business couple who, after hosting their own radio show, have just been given a deal to star in a TV series. They're also thrilled to discover that Molly is expecting a baby, but their joy Read More

Wabash Avenue

Crew: Director

Actors: Betty Grable, Victor Mature, Phil Harris, James Barton, Reginald Gardiner

Synopsis: Betty Grable's Wabash Avenue is an agreeable remake of Grable's 1943 hit Coney Island. The locale is changed from New York to Chicago, but the plot remains basically the same. Once again, the star is cast as a honky-tonk singer, Ruby Summers, who is groomed for classier show-business endeavors by Read More

Come to the Stable

Crew: Director

Actors: Loretta Young, Celeste Holm, Elsa Lanchester, Thomas Gomez

Synopsis: A Christmastime TV perennial, Come to the Stable is the gentle saga of two French nuns (Celeste Holm with accent, Loretta Young without) who come to America in hopes of raising funds for a children's hospital. Travelling to a small New England town presciently named Bethlehem, the nuns befriend Read More

The Inspector General

Crew: Director

Actors: Danny Kaye, Walter Slezak, Barbara Bates, Elsa Lanchester, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: The satirical bite of Gogol's play The Government Inspector is dispensed with in favor of traditional Danny Kaye buffoonery in The Inspector General. Kaye plays the illiterate stooge of two-bit medicine-show- entrepreneur Walter Slezak. Abandoned by Slezak, the starving Kaye wanders into a Read More

The Luck of the Irish

Crew: Director

Actors: Tyrone Power, Anne Baxter, Cecil Kellaway, Lee J. Cobb, James Todd

Synopsis: A semi-fantasy with sociological overtones, The Luck of the Irish stars Tyrone Power as an American journalist named Stephen Fitzgerald visiting the home of his ancestors in Ireland. Power encounters a jolly old man (Cecil Kellaway) who claims to be a leprechaun -- and proves it to the Read More

The Unfinished Dance

Crew: Director

Actors: Margaret O'Brien, Cyd Charisse, Karin [Katharine] Booth, Danny Thomas, Esther Dale

Synopsis: An aspiring ballerina begins following a prima ballerina hoping that she will become her replacement. Unfortunately, another dancer is chosen, causing the determined twinkle-toes to cause a little accident to destroy the usurper's career. It works and the hapless ballerina's career is destroyed. Read More

The Bishop's Wife

Crew: Director

Actors: Cary Grant, Loretta Young, David Niven, Monty Woolley, James Gleason, Gladys Cooper

Synopsis: When Episcopalian bishop Henry Brougham (David Niven) prays for divine guidance in his efforts to raise the necessary funds for a new cathedral, his prayers are answered in the form of a handsome, personable guardian angel named Dudley (Cary Grant). Establishing himself as a Yuletide guest in the Read More

Two Sisters from Boston

Crew: Director

Actors: Kathryn Grayson, June Allyson, Lauritz Melchior, Jimmy Durante, Peter Lawford

Synopsis: By 1946, MGM's musical output was in the hands of two men: the incisive, progressive Arthur Freed, and the sentimental, old-fashioned Joe Pasternak. It was Pasternak who held the reins on Two Sisters from Boston, a period piece set in New York. June Allyson and Kathryn Grayson arrive fresh from Read More

Music for Millions

Crew: Director

Actors: Margaret O'Brien, Jimmy Durante, June Allyson, Marsha Hunt

Synopsis: Musical producer Joe Pasternak moved from Universal to MGM in the early 1940s, taking his pet director Henry Koster (the two men had teamed to make a star of Deanna Durbin) with him. The Pasternak/Koster collaboration Music for Millions features child star Margaret O'Brien as a Durbin-like Miss Read More

Between Us Girls

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Diana Barrymore, Robert Cummings, Kay Francis, John Boles, Andy Devine

Synopsis: Universal and producer/director Henry Koster had plans to make Diana Barrymore, the daughter of John Barrymore, into another Deanna Durbin with Between Us Girls, an ambitious sub-screwball comedy that undoubtedly owed some aspects of its existence to The Major And The Minor (in addition to Read More

It Started With Eve

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Deanna Durbin, Charles Laughton, Robert Cummings, Guy Kibbee, Margaret Tallichet

Synopsis: A man trying to make his dying father happy makes his love life very complicated indeed in this musical comedy starring Deanna Durbin. Jonathan Reynolds Jr. (Robert Cummings) is the playboy son of multi-millionaire business magnate Jonathan Reynolds, Sr. (Charles Laughton). Junior has told his Read More

Spring Parade

Crew: Director

Actors: Deanna Durbin, Robert Cummings, Mischa Auer, Henry Stephenson, S.Z. Sakall

Synopsis: In this light and lovely romantic musical, a Hungarian woman (Deanna Durbin) attends a fair in Austria and buys a card from a gypsy fortune teller. It says that she will meet someone important and is destined for a happy marriage. Afterward she gets a job as a baker's assistant. She then meets a Read More

First Love

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Deanna Durbin, Robert Stack, Eugene Pallette, Helen Parrish, Lewis Howard

Synopsis: Best remembered as the film in which 17-year-old Deanna Durbin receives her first screen kiss, First Love is a modernized variation of the Cinderella legend (there's even "six white mice" in the form of a sextet of motorcycle policemen!). The film casts Durbin as Constance Harding, the poor Read More

Three Smart Girls Grow Up

Crew: Director

Actors: Deanna Durbin, Charles Winninger, Nan Grey, Helen Parrish, Robert Cummings

Synopsis: In this sequel to 1936's Three Smart Girls, Deanna Durbin is back as the most precocious of a sister trio: the other girls are Nan Grey and Helen Parrish (replacing the first film's Barbara Read. Three Smart Girls dealt with the girls' efforts to reunite their parents. In the sequel, Durbin pokes Read More

The Rage of Paris

Crew: Director

Actors: Danielle Darrieux, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Mischa Auer, Louis Hayward, Helen Broderick

Synopsis: This late-30s gem is an engaging spoof that features the U.S. film debut of the French acting beauty Daniell Darrieux. She appears as a French model who's come to New York to find a job. Things go a little awry in her first interview when she applies for a nude modeling position and gets the Read More

Affairs of Maupassant

Crew: Director

Actors: Lili Darvas, Hans Jaray

Synopsis: Just before setting up shop at Hollywood's Universal studios, German-born director Henry Koster helmed a lavish Austrian-Italian historical romance titled Das Tagebush Die Geleten. Two years after its original 1936 release, the film was distributed in the U.S. under the title The Affairs of Read More

One Hundred Men and a Girl

Crew: Director

Actors: Deanna Durbin, Adolphe Menjou, Leopold Stokowski, Mischa Auer, Eugene Pallette, Alice Brady

Synopsis: The girl is teenaged singing sensation Deanna Durbin; the one hundred men are out-of-work musicians. Still in her "little miss fix-it" stage, Durbin connives to help the musicians crack the big time. The person Durbin is most concerned with is her father (Adolphe Menjou) the 100th and most Read More

Katharina, Die Letzte

Crew: Director

Three Smart Girls

Crew: Director

Actors: Deanna Durbin, Binnie Barnes, Alice Brady, Ray Milland, Charles Winninger, Mischa Auer

Synopsis: Deanna Durbin, the teenaged soprano who literally saved Universal Pictures from bankruptcy, made her feature-film debut in Three Smart Girls. Durbin, Nan Grey and Barbara Read play three wealthy young sisters, living with their divorced mother (Nella Walker) in Europe. The girls learn that their Read More

Peter

Crew: Director

Actors: Franziska Gaal, Hans Jaray, Felix Bressart, Otto Wallburg

Synopsis: Producer Joe Pasternak was making "Deanna Durbin pictures" long before he'd discovered Durbin -- and indeed, long before he'd left Hungary. Pasternak's 1935 musical Peter stars Franciska Gaal as Eva, a 17-year-old gamine who ekes out a living as a street singer. While wandering past an open Read More

Fünf von der Jazzband

Crew: Screenwriter

The Jazzband Five

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Jenny Jugo

Synopsis: The titular group is not a musical aggregation but a German acrobatic team. The lovely but unathletic Jenny Jugo is inadvertently signed on as one of the Jazzband Five. Failing miserably in rehearsals, she heads to a tavern for solace and liquid replenishment; here she meets handsome Theo Shall. Read More

Das Abenteuer Der Thea Roland

Crew: Director

Das Letzte Fort

Crew: Screenwriter