Ian Hunter Filmography

Guns of Darkness

Actors: Leslie Caron, David Niven, James Robertson Justice, David Opatoshu, Eleanor Summerfield, Derek Godfrey

Synopsis: This drama by director Anthony Asquith, a noted lynchpin in British cinematic history, may wear too many hats to be identified as either an adventure, a treatise on non-violence, a psychological study, or whatever. It is all of these things as it starts out in the midst of a revolution in a Read More

Dr. Blood's Coffin

Actors: Kieron Moore, Hazel Court, Ian Hunter, Fred Johnson, Kenneth J. Warren

Synopsis: Between his internship in Canadian television and his A-feature work on The Ipcress File, Sidney J. Furie directed an old-fashioned horror flick called Doctor Blood's Coffin. Kieron Moore stars as research scientist Dr. Peter Blood, who's been experimenting with heart transplants. Thrown out of Read More

The Secret of Monte Cristo

Actors: Rory Calhoun, Patricia Bredin, John Gregson, Peter Arne, Sam Kydd

Synopsis: In this romantic adventure set in Italy around 1815, a courageous soldier endeavors to find a hidden treasure on the island of Monte Cristo. He then escorts the daughter of a murdered explorer on a quest to find the map they need to locate the loot. The daughter doesn't trust the soldier, but Read More

The Bulldog Breed

Actors: Norman Wisdom, Ian Hunter, David Lodge, Robert Urquhart, Edward Chapman

Synopsis: The weak story in The Bulldog Breed is an excuse to tie together a long series of funny episodes, slapstick incidents, and absurd situations. What does bring everything into a certain unity is the comic character type created by Norman Wisdom, an inept, likeable loser whose efforts to succeed Read More

Northwest Frontier

Actors: Kenneth More, Lauren Bacall, Herbert Lom, I.S. Johar

Synopsis: Northwest Frontier was the original British title for Flame Over India. When the Moslems attack a British fortress in colonial India, it is imperative that the local Maharaja's son be taken to safety. The man for the job is commander Kenneth More, who uses a rusty old train for that purpose. Among Read More

Mad Little Island

Actors: Jean Carson, Donald Sinden, Roland Culver, Catherine Lacey, Noel Purcell

Synopsis: The small but resourceful Scots island of Todday, introduced in the 1949 Ealing comedy Whisky Galore!, made a return visit to movie screens in 1958's Rockets Galore--released in the U.S. as Mad Little Island. In the first film, the good people of Todday faced up to the appalling dilemma of a Read More

She Played with Fire

Actors: Jack Hawkins, Arlene Dahl, Dennis Price, Violet Farebrother, Ian Hunter

Synopsis: In this complicated drama, an insurance detective uncovers a shifty art dealer's ingenious scheme, but is unable to do anything about it because the crook has married the investigator's ex-girlfriend and he fears that she may be involved. The crook's scam has him selling rare paintings to wealthy Read More

Pursuit of the Graf Spee

Actors: John Gregson, Anthony Quayle, Peter Finch, Ian Hunter, Jack Gwillim, Bernard Lee

Synopsis: Widely regarded as one of the best and most intelligent British war dramas of the 1950s, The Battle of River Plate is the story of Britain's first significant naval victory in WW2. John Gregson heads the cast as Captain Bell, skipper of the Exeter, one of several vessels engaged in pursuit of the Read More

The Queen's Guards

Actors: Daniel Massey, Raymond Massey, Robert Stephens, Jack Watson

Synopsis: Opening with elaborate preparations for the Queen of England's birthday, The Queen's Guards introduces the audience via voiceover to John Fellowes, a young captain overseeing the participation of the Grenadier Guards in the celebratory parade. A series of flashbacks follow, which fill the viewer Read More

Don't Blame the Stork

Synopsis: Veronica Hurst is the star of the 1954 British frivolity Don't Blame the Stork. Hurst plays an actress who will do anything for publicity. When an infant is abandoned on the doorstep of celebrated actor Ian Hunter, Hurst steps forth to claim that the baby is hers. Ever so many embarrassing Read More

Eight O'clock Walk

Actors: Richard Attenborough, Cathy O'Donnell, Ian Hunter, Derek Farr, Maurice Denham

Synopsis: The iniquities of circumstantial evidence are explored in the compact crime drama Eight O'Clock Walk. Because he was the last person to see her alive, and because his playful behavior could be misconstrued as harassment, London taxi driver Tom Manning (Richard Attenborough) is arrested for the Read More

Appointment in London

Actors: Dirk Bogarde, Ian Hunter, Dinah Sheridan, Bill Kerr, Bryan Forbes

Synopsis: Set in 1943, Appointment in London stars Dirk Bogarde as Wing Commander Tim Mason. It is Mason's hope to complete 90 bombing missions before his automatic rotation to a desk job. After the 89th mission, however, he is grounded and ordered to remain so by his superior officer. When a bomber pilot Read More

The Stranger in Between

Actors: Dirk Bogarde, Jon Whiteley, Elizabeth Sellars, Kay Walsh, Frederick Piper

Synopsis: If the plot of the 1993 Kevin Costner film A Perfect World seemed vaguely familiar, perhaps it's because it bears a more than passing resemblance to the British-made 1952 thriller The Hunted (U.S. title: Stranger in Between). Dirk Bogarde stars in this emotional melodrama as an escaped murderer Read More

It Started in Paradise

Actors: Martita Hunt, Jane Hylton, Muriel Pavlow, Ian Hunter, Brian Worth

Synopsis: ...And it ended in London. This backstage yarn stars Jane Hylton as a talented dress designer who lets nothing get in the way of her success. As she rises in the fashion world, she loses contact with her own humanity. She also forgets that you meet the same people on the way up as on the way down. Read More

Edward, My Son

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Deborah Kerr, Ian Hunter, James Donald, Mervyn Johns, Leucen MacGrath

Synopsis: Businessman Spencer Tracy is devoted beyond all reason to his son Edward. Tracy lies, cheats, steals, commits arson, and drives two people to suicide in order to smooth Edward's path in life. The boy repays this loyalty by becoming an ungrateful wastrel, who fathers a child out of wedlock and ends Read More

High Conquest

Actors: John Bleifer, Beulah Bondi, Maurice Cass, Warren Douglas

Synopsis: High Conquest was a good example of the sort of "prestige" fare that lowly Monogram Pictures hoped to turn out on a regular basis in the postwar years. Adapted from a novel by James Ramsey Ullman, the story centers on Hugo Lannier (Warren Douglas), an American youth who makes it his mission in Read More

The White Unicorn

Actors: Margaret Lockwood, Joan Greenwood

Synopsis: The White Unicorn would be worth watching if only for that lyrical title. The film itself, however, isn't quite so whimsical, not with disgruntled widow Lucy (Margaret Lockwood) and hard-bitten unwed mother Lottie (Joan Greenwood) at the forefront. Trying to find a purpose in life, Lucy takes a Read More

High Fury

Actors: Madeleine Carroll, Ian Hunter, Michael Rennie, Anne Marie Blanc, Michael McKeag

Synopsis: In this touching drama, set in the midst of the Swiss mountains, a philandering husband and his idealistic young wife battle it out for the rights to the White Cradle Inn, her familial estate. The man spends much of his time messing with a maid at the inn. His wife spends time helping the village Read More

Bedelia

Actors: Margaret Lockwood, Ian Hunter, Barry Barnes, Anne Crawford, Beatrice Varley

Synopsis: Margaret Lockwood is cast against type as a "black widow" in the British Bedelia. Wealthy but naïve Charlie Carrington (Ian Hunter) is swept off his feet by the beauteous Bedelia (Lockwood), whose three previous husbands, also wealthy, have died ostensibly of natural causes. While on their Read More

Forever and a Day

Actors: Brian Aherne, Merle Oberon, Ida Lupino, Gladys Cooper, C. Aubrey Smith, Claude Rains, Robert Cummings, Anna Neagle, Roland Young

Synopsis: The 80-star cast of Forever and a Day would certainly not have been feasible had not most of the actors and production people turned over their salaries to British war relief -- a point driven home during the lengthy opening credits by an unseen narrator. The true star of the film is a stately old Read More

It Comes up Love

Actors: Gloria Jean, Ian Hunter, Donald O'Connor, Frieda Inescort, Louise Allbritton

Synopsis: It Comes Up Love was typical of teenaged songstress Gloria Jean's Universal vehicles: good songs and a strong cast squandered on a low-budget B effort. Jean and Mary Lou Harrington play Victoria and Constance, the precocious daughters of big-city businessman Tom Peabody (Ian Hunter). Long Read More

A Yank at Eton

Actors: Mickey Rooney, Edmund Gwenn, Ian Hunter, Freddie Bartholomew, Marta Linden

Synopsis: MGM's A Yank at Eton follows the same basic formula as the 1938 Robert Taylor starrer A Yank at Oxford, with a wartime angle thrown in. This time it's Mickey Rooney as the cocky young American who is shipped off to England to complete his education. Upon his arrival in the hallowed halls of Eton Read More

Come Live with Me

Actors: James Stewart, Hedy Lamarr, Ian Hunter, Veree Teasdale, Donald Meek

Synopsis: James Stewart's last Hollywood film before entering military service, Come Live with Me teams Stewart with the hauntingly beautiful Hedy Lamarr. Lamarr plays a wealthy Austrian emigree, in love with a married American publisher. The girl must quickly find an American husband or she'll be deported. Read More

Billy the Kid

Actors: Robert Taylor, Brian Donlevy, Ian Hunter, Mary Howard, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: The famous outlaw rides again in this fictionalized western that chronicles Billy's turn from criminal to fine upstanding citizen. The film received an Oscar nomination for its color cinematography. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Smilin' Through

Actors: Jeanette MacDonald, Brian Aherne, Gene Raymond, Ian Hunter, Frances Robinson

Synopsis: Adapted from the warhorse stage tearjerker by Jane Cowl and Jane Murfin, this 1941 film version of Smilin' Through is even hokier than two earlier movie adaptations, but it works beautifully thanks to the sensitive direction of Frank Borzage. Brian Aherne dominates the proceedings as the aged Sir Read More

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner, Ian Hunter, Barton MacLane, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: 1941's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the second sound version of the Robert Louis Stevenson "doppelganger" tale. This time Spencer Tracy plays the benevolent Dr. Jekyll, whose experiments in releasing the evil impulses within himself transform him into the bestial Mr. Hyde. The problem here is that Read More

Ziegfeld Girl

Actors: James Stewart, Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr, Lana Turner, Tony Martin

Synopsis: All that MGM's Ziegfeld Girl lacks is Technicolor; otherwise, the film has talent and "sock" entertainment value in abundance. The story focuses on three showbiz hopefuls-Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr and Lana Turner-and the efforts to attain the lofty status of "Ziegfeld Girl." Garland is compelled Read More

Andy Hardy's Private Secretary

Actors: Mickey Rooney, Fay Holden, Ann Rutherford, Sara Haden, Kathryn Grayson

Synopsis: Andy is ready to graduate from high school, and, trying to be a big man, he hires a pretty woman to be his social secretary. When he fails his finals, he gets help from a kindly faculty member. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

The Long Voyage Home

Actors: John Wayne, Thomas Mitchell, Ian Hunter, Barry Fitzgerald, Wilfred Lawson

Synopsis: John Ford welded four of Eugene O'Neill's one-act plays about the sea, Bound East for Cardiff, The Long Voyage Home, The Zone, and Moon of the Caribees, into this melancholy film about wayfaring seamen, changing the setting from the turn of the century to WWII. This was O'Neill's favorite of the Read More

Dulcy

Actors: Ann Sothern, Ian Hunter, Roland Young, Reginald Gardiner, Billie Burke

Synopsis: The 1922 George S. Kaufman-Marc Connelly play Dulcy was based on a delightful character created by columnist Franklin P. Adams: Archetypal "dumb wife" Dulcinea, who continually spouted cliches like "There's never a policeman around when you need one" and "Don't take any wooden nickels." Lynn Read More

Gallant Sons

Actors: Jackie Cooper, Leo Gorcey, Bonita Granville, Gene Reynolds, Gail Patrick, Ian Hunter

Synopsis: Though its title suggests a war picture of some sort, MGM's Gallant Sons actually concerns the efforts of a group of kids to solve a murder. Young Johnny Davis (Gene Reynolds) is beside himself when his gambler father (Ian Hunter) is arrested for murder. In truth, Davis' pop is shielding several Read More

Bitter Sweet

Actors: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, George Sanders, Ian Hunter, Felix Bressart

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1933, Noel Coward's sentimental operetta Bitter Sweet was transformed by MGM seven years later into a Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy vehicle, complete with Technicolor. Set in late 19th century Vienna, the story focuses on the romance between music teacher Carl Linden (Eddy) Read More

Broadway Melody of 1940

Actors: Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell, George Murphy, Frank Morgan, Ian Hunter

Synopsis: MGM's third follow-up to its landmark Broadway Melody is short on story, but that's okay, since the plot is merely a clothesline upon which to hang sleek and opulent musical production numbers by Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell -- particularly a breathless and eye-popping gloriously Read More

Strange Cargo

Actors: Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Ian Hunter, Peter Lorre, Paul Lukas

Synopsis: "Strange" is right: this mystical MGM melodrama has to be the oddest of the studio's Clark Gable-Joan Crawford vehicles. When eight prisoners escape from a New Guinea penal colony, they are picked up by a sloop commandeered by another escapee named Verne (Gable) and his trollop girl friend Julie Read More

Bad Little Angel

Actors: Virginia Weidler, Gene Reynolds, Guy Kibbee, Ian Hunter, Elizabeth Patterson

Synopsis: A plucky orphan girl runs away from the orphanage. Her only possession is her beloved Bible in which she has complete faith and this helps her cope with the often cruel realities of life on the run. Eventually the young fugitive teams up with a street-wise shoe-shine boy who takes her to a kindly Read More

Tarzan Finds a Son!

Actors: Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'Sullivan, Johnny Sheffield, Ian Hunter, Laraine Day, Henry Stephenson

Synopsis: Tarzan Finds a Son was to have been Maureen O'Sullivan's final Tarzan film, with Jane getting killed in the final reel. But Edgar Rice Burroughs refused to allow MGM to kill his character, so MGM had to increase her salary a substantial amount to do a few more Tarzan adventures. Tarzan Finds a Son Read More

The Tower of London

Actors: Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Barbara O'Neil, Ian Hunter

Synopsis: Basil Rathbone's real-life son, John Rodion, has his head chopped off early on in this historical melodrama often mistakenly referred to as a horror film. Yes, a second-billed Boris Karloff does stomp about on a club-foot as the Duke of Glouchester's chief executioner, Mord, but Karloff's presence Read More

Broadway Serenade

Actors: Jeanette MacDonald, Lew Ayres, Ian Hunter, Frank Morgan, Wally Vernon

Synopsis: Jeanette MacDonald and Lew Ayres make strange bedfellows in the overproduced MGM musical Broadway Serenade. She plays aspiring singer Mary Hale, and he plays her husband, struggling songwriter James Geoffrey Seymour. The couple's vaudeville act breaks up when Mary is hired for a big-time Broadway Read More

Yes, My Darling Daughter

Actors: Priscilla Lane, Jeffrey Lynn, Roland Young, Fay Bainter, May Robson

Synopsis: In this comedy, a young woman is determined to spend a weekend with her lover before he takes off to Europe for his new job. Her mother, a devout feminist, disapproves of her daughter's plan. When her daughter learns that her mother had a similar youthful affair with a poet years before, she uses Read More

The Little Princess

Actors: Shirley Temple, Richard Greene, Anita Louise, Ian Hunter, Cesar Romero

Synopsis: Shirley Temple's first Technicolor feature, The Little Princess was inspired by the oft-filmed novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Set in turn-of-the-century England, the film finds Temple being enrolled in a boarding school by her wealthy widowed father (Ian Hunter), who must head off to fight in Read More

Maisie

Actors: Robert Young, Ann Sothern, Ruth Hussey, Ian Hunter, Cliff Edwards

Synopsis: Maisie stars Ann Sothern as a worldly showgirl stranded in Wyoming when her show fails. She accepts a job at a carnival shooting gallery, where she meets the handsome foreman (Robert Young) of a lavish ranch -- and is promptly accused of picking the man's pocket. Despite this rocky beginning Read More

Always Goodbye

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Cesar Romero

Synopsis: Former doctor Jim Howard (Herbert Marshall) helps desperate Margot Weston (Barbara Stanwyck), pregnant and unmarried; when her son is born, Jim helps her place the baby with Phil Marshall (Ian Hunter) and his wife, on the condition that neither the Marshalls nor the child ever know Margot is his Read More

Secrets of an Actress

Actors: Kay Francis, George Brent, Ian Hunter, Gloria Dickson, Isabel Jeans

Synopsis: Kay Francis fights off tears, deprivations and a mediocre script in Warner Bros.' Secrets of an Actress. La Francis plays Fay Carter, a popular Broadway star romantically involved with architect Dick Orr (George Brent), who has put up the money for her latest production. Problem is, Dick is Read More

Comet over Broadway

Actors: Kay Francis, Ian Hunter, John Litel, Donald Crisp, Minna Gombell

Synopsis: Despite the presence of Busby Berkeley in the director's chair, Comet Over Broadway contains nary a single musical number. Instead, the film concentrates on the lachrymose private life of stage star Eve Appleton (Kay Francis). While appearing in amateur theatricals, Eve indirectly causes the death Read More

The Sisters

Actors: Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, Anita Louise, Ian Hunter, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: The 1938 filmization of Myron Brinig's novel The Sisters stars Bette Davis, Jane Bryan and Anita Louise as Louise, Grace and Helen Elliot. The daughters of turn-of-the-century druggist Henry Travers and his wife Beulah Bondi, the Elliot girls all meet their future husbands at a 1904 ball in honor Read More

The Adventures of Robin Hood

Actors: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Patric Knowles

Synopsis: In order to avoid the material copyrighted by Douglas Fairbanks Sr. for his 1922 Robin Hood, the scripters of this Flynn version relied on several legendary episodes that had never before been filmed, notably the battle between Robin and Little John (Alan Hale Sr., who played this part three times Read More

Call It a Day

Actors: Olivia de Havilland, Ian Hunter, Anita Louise, Alice Brady, Roland Young

Synopsis: Call It a Day is a Warner Bros. attempt at British light comedy. Nothing much happens of any consequence in this story of a day in the life of a typical middle-class London family, headed by accountant Ian Hunter. The husband is tempted by a seductress (Marcia Ralston), the wife (Freda Inescourt) Read More

Confession

Actors: Kay Francis, Ian Hunter, Basil Rathbone, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: German director Joe May brought a decidedly Teutonic ambience to his American film Confession--no surprise, since the film was based on the 1935 German production Mazurka. Kay Francis plays a onetime singer who confesses to the murder of her pianist, Basil Rathbone. In flashback, we learn that Read More

Stolen Holiday

Actors: Kay Francis, Claude Rains, Ian Hunter, Alison Skipworth, Alex D'Arcy

Synopsis: The "Stavisky Affair," a high-level swindling scandal which all but destroyed the French government in the early 1930s, was the unofficial inspiration for Stolen Holiday. Claude Rains plays a suave confidence artist who has wormed his way into top European social and financial circles. When faced Read More

That Certain Woman

Actors: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, Ian Hunter, Anita Louise, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: Edmund Goulding directed this remake of his own 1929 The Trespasser, which starred Gloria Swanson. Here Bette Davis assumes the lead role of Mary Donnell, a young innocent married to a bootlegger. When her husband is killed, she decides to pursue a better life and gets a job as a secretary to Read More

Another Dawn

Actors: Kay Francis, Errol Flynn, Ian Hunter, Frieda Inescort, Herbert Mundin

Synopsis: The title of this Errol Flynn vehicle sprang from an "inside" joke at Warner Bros. Whenever the studio depicted a marquee or poster of a fictional film in one of their productions, the film's title was inevitably Another Dawn. When time came to shoot this Flynn epic, the studio, stuck for Read More

52nd Street

Actors: Ian Hunter, Leo Carrillo, Pat Paterson, Ella Logan, ZaSu Pitts

Synopsis: This musical chronicles 15 years in the life of a New York City Street. In 1912, 52nd Street is a peaceful residential neighborhood and by 1937 it has become a bawdy red-light district. As the street changes, so do the lives of a brother and his two sisters who become estranged when he marries an Read More

The White Angel

Actors: Kay Francis, Ian Hunter, Donald Woods, Nigel Bruce, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: Briefly breaking away from her high-gloss modern soap operas, Kay Francis stars as Florence Nightingale in this reverent Warner Bros. biopic. The screenplay concentrates on Nightingale's humanitarian activities during the Crimean War of 1854-55. Defiant in the face of military bureaucracy and the Read More

To Mary - with Love

Actors: Warner Baxter, Myrna Loy, Ian Hunter, Claire Trevor, Jean Dixon

Synopsis: Warner Baxter and Myrna Loy star as a husband and wife who've been married ten years...but they might not make it to eleven. The husband is a businessman who has rebuilt his fortune after the 1929 crash. The wife has stood by her man through thick and thin, rich and poor. Now it's 1935, and the Read More

The Devil Is a Sissy

Actors: Freddie Bartholomew, Jackie Cooper, Mickey Rooney, Ian Hunter, Peggy Conklin

Synopsis: The Devil Is a Sissy deserves an historical footnote as the only film to team three of the biggest child stars of the 1930s: Mickey Rooney, Jackie Cooper and Freddie Bartholomew. Bartholomew is a wealthy young English boy attending a New York "magnet" school, whose students are drawn from all Read More

Jalina

Synopsis: The title might not mean much now, but in 1935 Jalna was familiar to readers everywhere as the best-selling first novel by Mazo de La Roche. Set in Canada, the story concerns the many members of the Whiteoak family, with special emphasis on Eden Whiteoak (David Manners). Eden is a writer, who Read More

The Morals of Marcus

Actors: Lupe Velez, Ian Hunter, Adrianne Allen, Noel Madison

Synopsis: In this racy comedy, a harem girl desiring to escape her life, stows away on the boat of a wealthy archaeologist as it sails for England where the young nobleman is slated to receive a large inheritance. He soon finds her, and she pleads with him to let her go on to England where she has a few Read More