Ian KeithFilmography

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

Prince of Players

Actors: Richard Burton, Maggie McNamara, John Derek, Raymond Massey, Charles Bickford

Synopsis: Screenwriter Philip Dunne doubled as director on the elaborate filmed biography Prince of Players. Richard Burton stars as the eminent American tragedian Edwin Booth, whose life and career is thrown into turmoil after his younger brother John Wilkes Booth (John Derek) assassinates Abraham Lincoln. Read More

It Came from Beneath the Sea

Actors: Kenneth Tobey, Faith Domergue, Donald Curtis, Ian Keith, Dean Maddox, Jr.

Synopsis: It Came From Beneath the Sea was the first of several fruitful collaborations between producer Charles H. Schneer and special-effects wizard Ray Harryhausen. "It" is a giant, six-tentacled octopus, which is galvanized into action by an H-bomb test. Worse still, the monster is highly radioactive Read More

New York Confidential

Actors: Broderick Crawford, Richard Conte, Marilyn Maxwell, Anne Bancroft, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: New York Confidential is based on the Jack Lait-Lee Mortimer bestseller of the same name. Richard Conte plays Nick Magellan, a "torpedo" for Manhattan crime boss Charlie Lupo (Broderick Crawford). Pleased with Magellan's work, Charlie promotes him to the topmost rungs of the Syndicate. He regrets Read More

Duel on the Mississippi

Actors: Lex Barker, Patricia Medina, Warren Stevens, Craig Stevens, John Dehner

Synopsis: 19th century Louisiana is the setting for Duel on the Mississippi. Patricia Medina stars as Lili Scarlet, a vengeful Creole girl who masterminds a series of pirate raids on the local plantations. To cover up her perfidy, Lili operates a lavish gambling ship, and it is here that aristocratic Jules Read More

The Black Shield of Falworth

Actors: Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, David Farrar, Herbert Marshall

Synopsis: Tony Curtis always seemed a little uncomfortable in costume epics, but this trait serves him well in Black Shield of Falworth. Based on the robust novel Men of Iron by Howard Pyle, the film casts Curtis as Miles, the son of a disgraced knight. Through the sponsorship of the Earl of Mackworth Herbert Marshall Read More

The Three Musketeers

Actors: Gene Kelly, Lana Turner, June Allyson, Van Heflin, Angela Lansbury

Synopsis: The third talkie version of Dumas' The Three Musketeers, this splashy MGM adaptation is also the first version in Technicolor. Gene Kelly romps his way through the role of D'Artagnan, the upstart cadet who joins veteran Musketeers Athos (Van Heflin), Porthos (Gig Young) and Aramis (Robert Coote) Read More

Forever Amber

Actors: Jane Ball, Linda Darnell, Edmund Breon, Cornel Wilde, Leo G. Carroll, Richard Greene, George Sanders, Robert Coote, Jessica Tandy

Synopsis: They said it couldn't be done, but they did it: Kathleen Winsor's "notorious", bestselling bodice-ripper Forever Amber actually made it to the screen in 1947 with full censorial approval. Of course, it was necessary to tone down the more erotic passages of Winsor's novel, but the end result Read More

Nightmare Alley

Actors: Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker, Taylor Holmes, Ian Keith

Synopsis: Nightmare Alley is the sordid tale of a conniving young man who, in the words of one of the film's supporting characters, ends up low because he aimed so high. Drifter Tyrone Power sweet-talks his way into a job as barker for a rundown carnival. He is fascinated by an illegal side-show attraction Read More

Dick Tracy's Dilemma

Actors: Ralph Byrd, Lyle Latell, Kay Christopher, Jack Lambert, Ian Keith

Synopsis: Ralph Byrd returns to the character he had originated ten years earlier in the serial Dick Tracy. This time, Chester Gould's immortal comic strip hero is called in to handle a fur theft. The owner of Flawless Furs, Humphreys (Charles Marsh), has just signed on with the Honesty Insurance Company Read More

Border Feud

Actors: Lash LaRue, Al St. John, Bob Duncan, Kenneth Farrell

Synopsis: Despite the producer claiming Border Feud to be a "New PRC Picture," this Western is essentially the same old wheeze that the studio had been trotting out for years. The one where Marshal Cheyenne Davis (Lash LaRue) assumes the identity of a hired gun, The Tiger, whom nobody in town has actually Read More

Northwest Trail

Synopsis: Produced by Gower Gulch maverick Robert L. Lippert and filmed in not-so-glorious two-strip Cinecolor near Idyllwild, California, this Northwest Mounted melodrama starred the veteran Bob Steele as a rather surly mountie who, against his own better judgment, is persuaded to escort a patronizing Read More

Dick Tracy vs. Cueball

Actors: Morgan Conway, Anne Jeffreys, Lyle Latell, Rita Corday, Ian Keith

Synopsis: Morgan Conway made his final screen appearance as Chester Gould's granite-jawed detective Dick Tracy in this RKO Radio programmer. This time around, Tracy's nemesis is baldheaded jewel thief Cueball, played with blunt menace by Dick Wessel. Double-crossed by his gang, Cueball methodically bumps Read More

The Strange Woman

Actors: Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders, Louis Hayward, Gene Lockhart, Hillary Brooke

Synopsis: B-movie auteur Edgar G. Ulmer managed to direct a few A-pictures during his long career; he was personally selected by Hedy Lamarr to helm this big-budget thriller, a project she put together to change her image as a starlet whose sex appeal outweighed her acting abilities. Set in the early 19th Read More

Valley of the Zombies

Actors: Robert Livingston, Adrian Booth, Ian Keith, Charles Trowbridge

Synopsis: There's no "valley" in Valley of the Zombies, and only one "zombie," played with relish by Ian Keith. At large in a great metropolitan city, Ormand Murks (Keith), recently brought back from the dead, goes on the prowl for human blood, meaning that he's less of a zombie than a vampire (a phenomenon Read More

Mr. Hex

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Danny Beck, Billy Benedict, Sammy Cohen, Gabriel Dell

Synopsis: Mr. Hex was the first Bowery Boys epic in which the goofy Sach (Huntz Hall) is given superhuman powers. Hypnotized by a carnival magician (Ian Keith), Sach becomes a powerful boxer. Head Bowery boy Slip (Leo Gorcey) parlays this talent into a lucrative ring career for Sach, culminating in the Read More

Under Western Skies

Actors: Martha O'Driscoll, Leo Carrillo, Leon Errol, Irving Bacon

Synopsis: One of the last of Universal's "pocket" musicals, Under Western Skies packs a surplus of entertainment value into its brief 57 minutes. Martha O'Driscoll plays Katie, the daughter of travelling showman Willie (Leon Errol). While playing an engagement in a wild-and-wooly Arizona town, Katie runs Read More

Phantom of the Plains

Synopsis: In this western, Red Ryder and his young sidekick Little Beaver help prevent an impressionable duchess from being duped by a bogus British aristocrat. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

She Gets Her Man

Synopsis: Joan Davis, the daughter of a famed woman detective, has inherited none of her mother's deductive prowess. Nonetheless, Joan teams with patrolman Leon Errol to solve a series of blowgun murders. The two erstwhile Sherlocks track down the alleged murder weapon to a theatre, where it is being used Read More

Captain Kidd

Actors: Charles Laughton, Randolph Scott, Barbara Britton, John Carradine, Reginald Owen, Gilbert Roland

Synopsis: It's every man for himself when Charles Laughton bites into the role of infamous 17th century pirate captain William Kidd. Hoping to further increase his ill-gotten gains, Captain Kidd inveigles King William III (Henry Daniel) into appointing him the "patriotic" protector of a valuable treasure Read More

The Spanish Main

Actors: Paul Henreid, Maureen O'Hara, Walter Slezak, Binnie Barnes, John Emery

Synopsis: RKO Radio's first film in the three-color Technicolor process was the standard-issue swashbuckler The Spanish Main. Paul Henried is his usual stoic self as Laurent Van Horn, a Dutch sea captain shipwrecked on the coast of Cartagena, a Spanish-held island. Sentenced to be hanged, Van Horn and his Read More

Identity Unknown

Actors: Richard Arlen, Cheryl Walker, Roger Pryor, Bobby Driscoll, Lola Lane

Synopsis: Predating 20th Century-Fox's Somewhere in the Night by at least a year, Identity Unknown is one of the first (if not the first) 1940s melodramas centering around an amenisiac ex-GI. Richard Arlen plays Johnny March, who returns from WW2 with nary a clue as to his true identity or the details of Read More

Fog Island

Actors: George Zucco, Lionel Atwill, Jerome Cowan, Sharon Douglas, Veda Ann Borg

Synopsis: An early low-budget spin on Ten Little Indians, this cheap but entertaining PRC production features a wonderful cast of familiar B-movie faces, particularly George Zucco and Lionel Atwill. Zucco plays a man wrongfully imprisoned after being framed for his wife's murder by one of his colleagues. Read More

Song of Old Wyoming

Actors: Eddie Dean, Sarah Padden, Jennifer Holt, Emmett Lynn

Synopsis: Statehood for Wyoming became the weighty focal point in this very low-budget music Western from poverty row company PRC, which served to introduce Eddie Dean as the company's newest singing cowboy. Old Ma Conway (Sarah Padden) champions statehood for Wyoming, believing the measure would put an end Read More

The Chinese Cat

Actors: Sidney Toler, Joan Woodbury, Mantan Moreland

Synopsis: Charlie Chan's second mystery for Poverty Row company Monogram, The Chinese Cat is one of the inscrutable detective's better efforts. Director Phil Rosen keeps things moving at a reasonably expedient pace -- especially for a Monogram programmer -- and although the denouement is no big surprise Read More

Bowery Champs

Actors: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Billy Benedict, Jimmy Strand, Bobby Jordan

Synopsis: By the time Bowery Champs came out, the East Side Kids had become so domesticated that they actually had jobs. Muggs (Leo Gorcey), for example, works as a newspaper copy boy, and even aspires to be a crime reporter. He gets his chance when a wealthy man is murdered and the regular reporter isn't Read More

Arizona Whirlwind

Actors: Ken Maynard, Hoot Gibson, Bob Steele, Ian Keith, Myrna Dell

Synopsis: In their third and final "Trail Blazers" Western together, Ken Maynard, Hoot Gibson and Bob Steele witness what appears to be a gang of Indians raiding a stagecoach. Investigating, the three lawmen discover that the attackers are actually white bandits dressed as Indians and that their leader is Read More

Cowboy from Lonesome River

Synopsis: This western features a singing cowboy, a brave hero, and a bumbling sidekick who band together to defeat a ruthless range boss. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Casanova in Burlesque

Actors: Joe E. Brown, June Havoc, Dale Evans, Lucien Littlefield, Ian Keith

Synopsis: In this effervescent musical comedy, a stuffy college professor secretly works as a burlesque comedian during the summer. He, a professor of Shakespeare, manages to keep his secret, until a stripper shows up and threatens to blow his cover unless he gives her a starring role in his latest Read More

The Man from Thunder River

Synopsis: In this western, a cowboy and his pals must stop outlaws from stealing a cache of gold ore. Action ensues, and they succeed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Here Comes Kelly

Actors: Eddie Quillan, Joan Woodbury, "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom, Armida, Sidney Miller

Synopsis: Kelly (Eddie Quillan) is a tough little wiseacre who can't keep his fists to himself. As a result, he loses one job after another, much to the chagrin of his faithful girlfriend (Joan Woodbury) and loving mother (Mary Gordon). Finally, Kelly lands a job as a process server, leading to quite a Read More

The Sundown Kid

Actors: Don "Red" Barry, Ian Keith, Helen MacKellar, Linda Johnson, Emmett Lynn

Synopsis: Starring the engaging Donald Barry (nicknamed, for obvious reasons, "Red"), this average Republic Western was filmed on-location at the Iverson Ranch in Chatsworth, CA. Barry, a James Cagney look-alike, played a Pinkerton agent masquerading as a criminal in order to infiltrate a gang of Read More

That Nazty Nuisance

Actors: Bobby Watson, Joe Devlin, Johnny Arthur, Jean Porter, Ian Keith

Synopsis: A sequel to the Hal Roach "streamliner" The Devil with Hitler, That Nazty Nuisance is much funnier, albeit nearly as tasteless as the earlier film. Bobby Watson, Hollywood's foremost Adolf Hitler impersonator, plays Der Fuhrer as a pompous imbecile, and who's to say his interpretation wasn't Read More

Corregidor

Actors: Otto Kruger, Elissa Landi, Donald Woods, Frank Jenks, Rick Vallin

Synopsis: Outdistancing all competing studios, tiny PRC managed to register the title Corregidor for copyright within hours after the surrender of the Allied forces at the real-life Corregidor. PRC even ponied up the money to commission a poem specially written for the film by the great Alfred Noyes. The Read More

The Payoff

Actors: Lee Tracy, Tom Brown, Tina Thayer, Evelyn Brent, Jack LaRue

Synopsis: Lee Tracy once more plays a fast-talking, slightly amoral newspaper reporter in PRC's The Payoff. Tracy is cast as Brad McKay, who at present is investigating the murder of a special prosecutor. The dead man was on the verge of delivering damning evidence against racket boss John Angus (Jack Read More

I Escaped from the Gestapo

Actors: Dean Jagger, John Carradine, Mary Brian, Bill Henry, Sidney Blackmer

Synopsis: With a title like I Escaped from the Gestapo, it's a wonder that there's any suspense at all in this Monogram programmer. Dean Jagger stars as Lane, an imprisoned counterfeiter who is sprung from jail by a group of sinister-looking gentlemen. It soon develops that Lane is expected to apply his Read More

Wild Horse Stampede

Actors: Ken Maynard, Hoot Gibson, Betty Miles, Ian Keith, Donald Stewart

Synopsis: In a rather desperate attempt to duplicate the success of Republic Pictures' Three Mesqueteers B-Western series, Monogram producer Robert Emmett Tansey hired tired veterans Ken Maynard and Hoot Gibson to constitute the "Trail Blazers." Maynard and Gibson (playing themselves) are former lawmen Read More

Five Graves to Cairo

Actors: Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter, Erich Von Stroheim, Peter Van Eyck, Akim Tamiroff

Synopsis: Billy Wilder's Five Graves to Cairo is the third take on Lajos Biro's theatrical tale of romance and espionage, Hotel Imperial. This time, the action is transplanted from World War I Galicia to World War II Egypt as Rommel's Afrika Corps viciously forces the British Army to retreat towards Cairo. Read More

Remember Pearl Harbor

Actors: Don "Red" Barry, Alan Curtis, Fay McKenzie, Sig Rumann, Ian Keith

Synopsis: No sooner had the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 than Republic Pictures managed to register the title Remember Pearl Harbor for copyright, beating out all the "major" studios in the process. The title was far more dramatic than the film attached to it, which has something to do Read More

All This and Heaven Too

Actors: Bette Davis, Charles Boyer, Jeffrey Lynn, Barbara O'Neil, Virginia Weidler

Synopsis: An incredibly long but never dull adaptation of the Rachel Field best-seller, All This and Heaven Too was based on a once-notorious European scandal. Star Bette Davis, playing Henriette Deluzy-Desportes, is first seen as a French schoolteacher in a 19th century American seminary. When her Read More

The Sea Hawk

Actors: Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Claude Rains, Flora Robson, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: In the 1580s, the Sea Hawks -- the name given to the bold privateers who prowl the oceans taking ships and treasure on behalf the British crown -- are the most dedicated defenders of British interests in the face of the expanding power of Philip of Spain. And Captain Geoffrey Thorpe (Errol Flynn) Read More

Land of Liberty

Synopsis: Originally designed for exhibition at the 1939 World's Fair, Land of Liberty is a 137-minute compendium of filmclips from past American historical epics. The project was sponsored by the Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America, Inc. and supervised by Cecil B. DeMille, who also edited Read More

The Buccaneer

Actors: Fredric March, Franziska Gaal, Akim Tamiroff, Margot Grahame, Walter Brennan

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille's The Buccaneer stars Fredric March, complete with curly hair, pencil moustache and florid "Sacre Bleu!" French accent, as 18th century pirate Jean Lafitte. Operating out of a "buccaneer's haven" of the coast of New Orleans, Lafitte plunders all passing ships for their wealth, but 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

Wallaby Jim of the Islands

Synopsis: Set in the land Down Under but filmed at Sunland, CA, and on Catalina Island, this low-budget action-adventure stars one of the more forgotten of the singing cowboys, baritone George Houston. Fisherman Wallaby Jim has discovered a rich pearl bed, but his constant brawling gets him in trouble with Read More

The Preview Murder Mystery

Actors: Reginald Denny, Frances Drake, Gail Patrick, Ian Keith

Synopsis: It's a black night in Hollywood when matinee idol Neil DuBeck (Rod LaRoque) is murdered at the preview of his latest film. Director E. Gordon Smith (Ian Keith), who has long harbored a deep hatred for DuBeck, is the main suspect -- until he too is killed, along with a movie-studio watchman (Spencer Charters Read More

The White Legion

Actors: Ian Keith, Tala Birell, Ferdinand Gottschalk, Rollo Lloyd, Lionel Pape

Synopsis: As the Panama Canal is under construction, a group of doctors try to find a cure for yellow fever, or "Yellow Jack," a deadly disease taking its toll on the canal workers. A pet monkey accidentally frees disease-bearing mosquitoes, resulting in the death of Dr. Fontaine (Ferdinand Gottschalk). Read More

Don't Gamble with Love

Actors: Ann Sothern, Bruce Cabot, Irving Pichel, Ian Keith, Thurston Hall

Synopsis: In this drama, an honest gambler tries to go straight. Although the gambling house he runs is illegal, the man insists that all house games be on the up-and-up. Trouble ensues when his wife demands he shut down the house to protect the good name of their newborn baby. He gives in and sells the Read More

Mary of Scotland

Actors: Katharine Hepburn, Fredric March, Florence Eldridge, Douglas Walton, John Carradine

Synopsis: Maxwell Anderson's blank-verse play Mary of Scotland was adapted for the screen by Dudley Nichols and directed with a surprising paucity of verve by John Ford. Katharine Hepburn, in one of the "icy" roles that would later earn her the onus of "box office poison", stars as Mary Stuart, who serves Read More

The Three Musketeers

Actors: Walter Abel, Paul Lukas, Margot Grahame, Heather Angel, Ian Keith

Synopsis: This first talkie version of Dumas' The Three Musketeers had been planned by RKO Radio as a John Ford production, with Francis Lederer as D'Artagnan. By the time the film emerged on screen, Rowland V. Lee was in the director's chair, with the talented but uncharismatic Walter Abel in the Read More

Dangerous Corner

Actors: Virginia Bruce, Conrad Nagel, Melvyn Douglas, Erin O'Brien-Moore, Ian Keith

Synopsis: Adapted from a typically tricky J. B. Priestley stage play, Dangerous Corner is a cautionary fable about the damage caused by telling the unvarnished truth. A burned-out radio tube is the catalyst for a series of painful and potentially dangerous revelations during a weekend party. The upshot of Read More

The Crusades

Actors: Loretta Young, Henry Wilcoxon, Ian Keith, C. Aubrey Smith, Katherine de Mille

Synopsis: The Holy Wars are given the usual overblown Cecil B. DeMille treatment in The Crusades. It all begins in the 12th-century AD, when Jerusalem falls into the hands of the Saracens, and the Christians are slaughtered or sold into slavery. A holy man known as The Hermit (C. Aubrey Smith) rallies the Read More

Cleopatra

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Warren William, Henry Wilcoxon, Gertrude Michael, Joseph Schildkraut

Synopsis: Film historian William K. Everson once observed that the secret to the success of Cecil B. DeMille's 1934 Cleopatra is that DeMille subtly reshaped the known historical events into a contemporary "gold-digger makes good" scenario. Exhibiting the same determination with which Barbara Stanwyck Read More

Queen Christina

Actors: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith, Lewis Stone, Elisabeth Young

Synopsis: If Queen Christina is not the best of Greta Garbo's films (as many Garbo fanatics insist), it is certainly the most luxuriously romantic of her talkie features. The star is cast as 17th-century Swedish queen Christina, who feels that she can best function in a male-dominated world by adopting Read More

The Sign of the Cross

Actors: Fredric March, Claudette Colbert, Elissa Landi, Charles Laughton, Ian Keith

Synopsis: Director Cecil B. DeMille returned to Paramount Pictures for this typically epic production, which became his first box office hit after the close of the silent era. Fredric March stars as Roman Prefect Marcus Superbus, a noble military leader of the year 64 A.D. Emperor Nero (Charles Laughton) Read More

The Phantom of Paris

Actors: John Gilbert, Leila Hyams, Jean Hersholt, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: In this melodrama, a magician finds himself accused of murdering his lover's father. He flees and the lover marries her other boyfriend--the real killer. When her husband dies, the magician gets plastic surgery until he resembles the killer and assumes his former position as husband to the girl. Read More

The Deceiver

Actors: Lloyd Hughes, Dorothy Sebastian, Ian Keith, Natalie Moorhead, Richard Tucker

Synopsis: Most of The Deceiver takes place in the Broadway theater where matinee idol Thorpe (Ian Keith) is starring in a production of Othello. A rat with women, Thorpe has scattered broken female hearts all along the Great White Way, giving lots of people plenty of incentive to murder him. Sure enough, he Read More

The Sin Ship

Actors: Louis Wolheim, Mary Astor, Ian Keith, Hugh Herbert, Russell Powell

Synopsis: Talking pictures made a star out of veteran movie villain Louis Wolheim, perhaps because his voice revealed a heart and soul otherwise obscured by his ugly countenance. In Sin Ship, Wolheim plays a schooner captain who is forced to protect reluctant passenger Mary Astor from his sex-starved crew. Read More

A Tailor Made Man

Actors: William Haines, Dorothy Jordan, Joseph Cawthorn, Marjorie Rambeau, William Austin

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1922, the 1917 stage farce The Impostor was reheated in 1931 as the William Haines vehicle A Tailor Made Man. Essaying his usual brash wisecracker, Haines plays John Paul Bart, a pants-presser who tries to crash High Society by borrowing the dress suit owned by millionaire Read More

Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise

Actors: Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Jean Hersholt, John Miljan, Alan Hale

Synopsis: It was once theorized by critic Andrew Sarris that this 1931 Greta Garbo vehicle was subtitled "Her Fall & Rise" rather than the expected "Rise & Fall," because Hollywood--and by extension, the public--could not tolerate a failure. Whatever the case, modern audiences will latch onto Susan Lennox Read More

Abraham Lincoln

Actors: Walter Huston, Una Merkel, Kay Hammond, Jason Robards, Sr., Ian Keith

Synopsis: To date, this D.W. Griffith epic is the only talking-picture effort to encapsulate the entire life of Abraham Lincoln, from cradle to grave. The script, credited to Stephen Vincent Benet, manages to include all the familiar high points, including Lincoln's tragic romance with Ann Rutledge (Una Merkel Read More

The Big Trail

Actors: John Wayne, Marguerite Churchill, El Brendel, Tully Marshall, Tyrone Power, Sr.

Synopsis: The first "epic" western of the talkie era, The Big Trail is motivated by a hero's search for the murderer of his father. Twenty-three-year-old John Wayne, hitherto limited to bit parts, was thrust into the difficult leading role, a young mountaineer put in charge of a huge California-bound wagon Read More

The Boudoir Diplomat

Actors: Betty Compson, Ian Keith, Mary Duncan, Jeanette Loff, Lionel Belmore

Synopsis: "Boudoir Diplomat" was, of course, a 1930s euphemism for a wealthy man who slept around. Ian Keith plays Baron Valmi, who uses his charms to rise to the top of the aristocracy ladder. The Baron is required to romance a series of eligible high-born ladies, but he's careful never to become Read More

Prince of Diamonds

Actors: Aileen Pringle, Ian Keith, Fritzi Ridgeway, Tyrell Davis, Claude King

Synopsis: The title character, played by Ian Keith, is wealthy diamond merchant Rupert Endon. Falling in love with gorgeous Eve Marlay (Aileen Pringle), Endon battles over her affections with far-from-wealthy squire Lord Adrian (Tyrrell Davis). Though Eve is fond of his lordship, she allows her head to be Read More

The Great Divide

Actors: Dorothy Mackaill, Ian Keith, Lucien Littlefield, Ben Hendricks, Jr., Myrna Loy

Synopsis: In this early musical western, Stephen Ghent (Ian Keith) is a businessman who, after the death of his partner, has been helping to support Ruth Jordan (Dorothy Mackaill), the late man's college-age daughter. While visiting a town near the Mexican border on business, Ghent is shocked to discover Read More

Prisoners

Actors: Corinne Griffith, James Ford, Bela Lugosi, Ian Keith, Julanne Johnston

Synopsis: In this early talkie that contains very little talking, an Austrian showgirl working in a cabaret moonlights as a thief. When she is caught in the act, a young lawyer offers to defend her. Unfortunately, he isn't very good and loses the case, causing her to spend several months in jail. Read More

Light Fingers

Actors: Ian Keith, Dorothy Revier, Carroll Nye

Synopsis: "Light Fingers" is both the name and the physical description of this film's hero, a dapper petty thief played by Ian Keith. Falling in love with virtuous Dorothy Madison (Dorothy Revier), Light Fingers promises to give up his life of crime if only she will marry him. He tries hard to keep his 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

Street of Illusion

Actors: Virginia Valli, Harry Meyers, Ian Keith

Synopsis: Street of Illusion was based on a story by once-popular playwright Channing Pollock. Ian Keith is well-cast as a pompous ham actor who is jealous of his rival Kenneth Thompson's success. Feeling persecuted, Keith begins to harbor thoughts of eliminating Thompson through the most drastic means Read More

Look out Girl

Actors: Jacqueline Logan, Ian Keith, William H. Tooker, Broderick O'Farrell, Lee Moran

Synopsis: 1922 WAMPAS Baby Star Jacqueline Logan starred in this mystery drama as Dixie Mowbray, a young girl fleeing from a mysterious pursuer. When her canoe overturns in the lake, Dixie is rescued by Dean Richardson (Ian Keith), a young doctor. During her recuperation, they fall in love, and she agrees Read More

The Love of Sunya

Actors: Anders Randolph, Gloria Swanson, John Boles, Raymond Hackett, Robert Schable, Flobelle Fairbanks, Ivan Lebedeff

Synopsis: Also known as The Loves of Sunya, this Gloria Swanson picture is a remake of the 1919 Clara Kimball Young vehicle The Eyes of Youth (itself based on a play by Charles Guernon and Max Marcin). Unable to choose among her many suitors, heroine Swanson consults a crystal ball. Here she is given a Read More

Convoy

Actors: Lowell Sherman, Dorothy Mackaill, William Collier, Jr., Lawrence Gray, Ian Keith

Synopsis: The budget-minded "spectacular" Convoy was based on Song of the Dragon, a novel by John Taintor Foote. Lowell Sherman stars as a slick German spy during World War 1. Sherman matches wits with-and pitches woo to-American secret agent Dorothy Mackaill. Most of the footage is cosumed by newsreel and Read More

What Every Girl Should Know

Actors: Patsy Ruth Miller

Synopsis: In this instance at least, What Every Girl Should Know doesn't come in a plain brown wrapper. Patsy Ruth Miller stars as 17-year-old Mary Sullivan, who is shipped off to an orphanage with her kid brother Bobby (Mickey McBan) when their older brother-guardian Dave (Carroll Nye) is framed on a Read More

Man's Past

Actors: Conrad Veidt, Barbara Bedford, Ian Keith, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Charles Puffy

Synopsis: Popular German leading man Conrad Veidt made his Hollywood film debut (through the auspices of his friend John Barrymore) in Universal's A Man's Past. Veidt is cast as Paul La Roche, a doctor who is falsely accused of murder and sentenced to a brutal penal colony. During a medical crisis, La Roche Read More

Lily

Actors: Barry Norton, Richard Tucker, John St. Polis, Ian Keith

Synopsis: Belle Bennett stars as Odette, who early in life is forced to give up all dreams of love so that she can look after her irresponsible father (John St. Polis). Despite her "old maid" status, Odette lives her life vicariously through her younger sister Christiane (Reata Hoyt). Unfortunately Read More

Greater Glory

Actors: Conway Tearle, Anna Q. Nilsson, May Allison, Ian Keith, Lucy Beaumont

Synopsis: The Greater Glory was adapted by June Mathis from The Viennese Medley, a novel by Edith O'Shaughnessy. Set during WWI, the film focuses on the changes wrought by the war upon a "typical" European family. Specifically, the story zeroes in on the two prettiest family members, Fanny (Anna Q. Nilsson) Read More

The Truthful Sex

Actors: Huntly Gordon, Mae Busch, Ian Keith, John Roche, Rosemary Theby

Synopsis: Husband Huntley Gordon has convinced himself that he's the head of the household, but the viewer knows full well that wifey Mae Busch is the true power behind the throne. When the couple has a baby, Gordon soon realizes who's boss as his wife runs the house like an armed camp, ordering her husband Read More

Prince of Tempters

Actors: Lois Moran, Ben Lyon, Lya de Putti, Ian Keith, Mary Brian

Synopsis: Prince of Tempters was adapted from The Ex-Duke a story by prolific author E. Phillips Oppenheim. The story focuses on two Benedictine monks, the virtuous Francis (Ben Lyon) and the wavering Mario (Ian Keith). With papal dispensation, Francis is voluntarily released from his vows to assume the Read More

My Son

Actors: Alla Nazimova, Jack Pickford, Hobart Bosworth, Ian Keith

Synopsis: Alla Nazimova, an ethereal Russian actress who preferred to bill herself as just plain Nazimova, tops the cast of My Son. The "son" in this instance is Portuguese youth Jack Pickford, who lives and works in a New England fishing town with his devoted mother (Nazimova). Pickford courts disaster Read More

Enticement

Actors: Mary Astor, Ian Keith, Clive Brook, Louise Dresser

Synopsis: While it seems extremely tame now, Clive Arden's novel was considered quite racy in its day. While doing relief work in Belgium, Leonore Bewlay, a little American girl (Mary Astor), meets Richard Valyran, an opera singer (Ian Keith). After the war's end, they meet again in Switzerland. Leonore, or Read More

Talker

Actors: Anna Q. Nilsson, Lewis Stone, Shirley Mason, Ian Keith, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: This drama, based on the play by Marion Fairfax, concerns a woman who talks big, but does not practice what she preaches. Kate Lennox (Anna Q. Nilsson) is bored with suburban life and her husband, Harry (Lewis S. Stone). Their next-door neighbors, the hen-pecked Henry Fells (Tully Marshall) and Read More

The Tower of Lies

Actors: Norma Shearer, Lon Chaney, Ian Keith, Claire McDowell, William Haines

Synopsis: Director Victor Sjostrom and stars Lon Chaney and Norma Shearer made an impressive team on He Who Gets Slapped. They came together again for this dour and less interesting film, based on the novel The Emperor of Portugallia by the Swedish author Selma Lagerlof. Jan (Chaney) is a farmer whose hard Read More

Christine of the Hungry Heart

Actors: Florence Vidor, Warner Baxter, Clive Brook, Ian Keith, Walter Hiers

Synopsis: This adaptation of Kathleen Norris' best-selling novel came out just weeks before its producer, Thomas Ince, mysteriously died while on a cruise on William Randolph Hearst's yacht, the Oneida. The drama was a tour de force for Florence Vidor, who played the title character, Christine Read More

Manhandled

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Tom Moore, Frank Morgan, Lilyan Tashman, Ian Keith, Paul McAllister

Synopsis: Although an executive at Paramount came up with the racy title for this comedy-drama, the plot came from a Saturday Evening Post story by Arthur Stringer. Tessie McGuire (Gloria Swanson) is a department store clerk. When her sweetheart, auto mechanic Johnny Hogan (Tom Moore) goes to Detroit with a Read More

Her Love Story

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Ian Keith, George Fawcett, Mario Majeroni

Synopsis: Gloria Swanson was near the peak of her career when she made this film, and while it isn't one of her best -- a Graustarkian tale by Mary Roberts Rinehart wasn't really up her alley -- it certainly had a lot of spectacular touches. Swanson wears a 100,000-dollar bridal outfit (that was more than Read More