Irving G. Thalberg Filmography

Born:: May 30, 1899 in Brooklyn, New York City, NY
Occupation:: Producer
Biography:: A sickly child, Irving Thalberg was brought through his many illnesses by his strong-willed mother. Forced to leave high school because of rheumatic fever, Thalberg read voraciously during his convalescence, mentally warehousing story ideas and standards of quality that would serve him well in his...Read More

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A Day at the Races

Crew: Producer

Actors: Marx Brothers, Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Allan Jones, Maureen O'Sullivan, Leonard Ceeley, Margaret Dumont

Synopsis: A Day at the Races was the Marx Brothers' follow-up to their incomparable A Night at the Opera. Groucho Marx is cast as Hugo Z. Hackenbush, a veterinarian who passes himself off as a human doctor when summoned by wealthy hypochondriac Emily Upjohn (Margaret Dumont) to take over the financially Read More

1937
The Good Earth

Crew: Producer

Actors: Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Walter Connolly, Tilly Losch, Charles Grapewin

Synopsis: Based on Donald Davis and Owen Davis' stage-adaptation of Pearl S. Buck's sprawling novel, Sidney Franklin's The Good Earth is the story of a Chinese farming couple whose lives are torn apart by poverty, greed, and nature. Paul Muni stars as Wang Lung a hardworking, but poor, farmer who weds Read More

1937
Romeo and Juliet

Crew: Producer

Actors: Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard, John Barrymore, Edna May Oliver, Basil Rathbone

Synopsis: Director George Cukor and producer Irving G. Thalberg's adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, a lavish production of Shakespeare's tale about two star-crossed lovers, is extremely well-produced and acted. In fact, it is so well-done, that it is easy to forget that Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer are too Read More

1936
Camille

Crew: Producer

Actors: Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan, Jessie Ralph

Synopsis: Greta Garbo enjoyed one of her greatest triumphs in this glossy adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' oft-filmed romantic tragedy. Here, Garbo stars as Marguerite Gauthier, who is born into humble circumstances but in time becomes Dame aux Camille, one of the most glamorous courtesans in Paris. Camille Read More

1936
Mutiny on the Bounty

Crew: Producer

Actors: Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, Franchot Tone, Dudley Digges, Herbert Mundin, Donald Crisp, Eddie Quillan

Synopsis: The 1932 publication of Charles Nordhoff and James Norton Hall's Mutiny on the Bounty sparked a revival of interest in the titular 1789 ship mutiny, and this 1935 MGM movie version won the Oscar for Best Picture. Clark Gable stars as Fletcher Christian, first mate of the infamous HMS Bounty Read More

1935
A Night at the Opera

Crew: Producer

Actors: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Kitty Carlisle, Walter Woolf King, Edward Keane, Sig Rumann, Allan Jones

Synopsis: Although some purists hold out for Duck Soup (1933), many Marx Brothers fans consider A Night at the Opera the team's best film. Immediately after the credits roll, we are introduced to Groucho Marx as penny-ante promoter Otis B. Driftwood. After a sumptuous dinner with a beautiful blonde at a Read More

1935
Riff Raff

Crew: Producer

Actors: Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy, Una Merkel, Joseph Calleia, Victor Kilian, Mickey Rooney

Synopsis: Riff-Raff begins riff-raffing when boastful fisherman Dutch (Spencer Tracy) marries down-to-earth cannery worker Hattie (Jean Harlow). Their happiness is marred by Dutch's egomania, which results in the loss of his job and the alienation of his friends. Eventually he deserts Hattie, but she Read More

1935
No More Ladies

Crew: Producer

Actors: Joan Crawford, Robert Montgomery, Charlie Ruggles, Franchot Tone, Edna May Oliver

Synopsis: MGM regularly churned out films in the 1930s that were all "star power" and very little plot. No More Ladies is a good example of this. Joan Crawford marries bon vivant Robert Montgomery, hoping to mend his wastrel ways. Montgomery refuses to assumes the proper responsibilities of a husband, so Read More

1935
Biography of a Bachelor Girl

Crew: Producer

Actors: Ann Harding, Robert Montgomery, Edward Everett Horton, Edward Arnold, Una Merkel

Synopsis: In this romantic drama a woman with a scandalous past tells all in an autobiography. It seems the woman, an artist, received special favors from a politician in exchange for a few favors from her. The pushy magazine editor who tries to convince her to write her memoirs, despises everything she Read More

1935
Rip Tide

Crew: Producer

Actors: Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Herbert Marshall, Mrs. Patrick Campbell

Synopsis: A few unique touches aside -- notably the opening costume-party scene, in which the revellers are dressed as insects -- Rip Tide is a standard-issue Norma Shearer soap opera. Shearer plays Mary, a footloose and fancy-free American heiress who weds British nobleman Lord Rexford (Herbert Marshall). Read More

1934
The Merry Widow

Crew: Producer

Actors: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Edward Everett Horton, Una Merkel, George Barbier

Synopsis: Ernst Lubitsch directs the 1934 musical comedy The Merry Widow, based on the 1905 operetta by Franz Lehar. In 1885, King Achmed (George Barbier) strives to protect the financial interests of his small, poor kingdom of Marshovia in Central Europe. When the kingdom's wealthiest widow, Sonia (Jeanette MacDonald Read More

1934
The Barretts of Wimpole Street

Crew: Producer

Actors: Norma Shearer, Fredric March, Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Sullivan, Katherine Alexander

Synopsis: Based on a successful stage drama, this historical romance stars Norma Shearer as Elizabeth Barrett, an invalid largely confined to her bed. Elizabeth has little company beyond her dog and her obsessively protective father, Edward Moulton Barrett (Charles Laughton). Her one great passion and means Read More

1934
Strange Interlude

Crew: Producer

Actors: Norma Shearer, Clark Gable, Alexander Kirkland, Ralph Morgan, Robert Young

Synopsis: A remarkably smooth 110-minute adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's marathon eight-hour play, Strange Interlude was advertised as "the picture in which you hear the characters think," a nod to O'Neill's technique of having the characters speak their innermost thoughts out loud between dialogue passages Read More

1932
Tarzan, the Ape Man

Crew: Producer

Actors: Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'Sullivan, C. Aubrey Smith, Doris Lloyd, Forrester Harvey

Synopsis: Tarzan, The Ape Man was not only MGM's inaugural "Tarzan" film, but also the first to star former Olympic swimming champ Johnny Weissmuller as The Lord of the Jungle (strange but true: one of the pre-Weissmuller "Tarzan" candidates was Clark Gable!) Utilizing scads of stock footage from MGM's Trader Horn Read More

1932
Smilin' Through

Crew: Producer

Actors: Norma Shearer, Fredric March, Leslie Howard, O.P. Heggie, Ralph Forbes

Synopsis: Director Sidney Franklin originally adapted Jane Murfin and Jane Cowl's play Smilin' Through for the silver screen in a 1922 silent film starring Norma Talmadge and (the other) Harrison Ford. Remaking his own film, Franklin directed Norma Shearer in this 1932 talkie. Leslie Howard plays John Read More

1932
Grand Hotel

Crew: Producer

Actors: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore

Synopsis: Based on Vicki Baum's novel and produced by Irving Thalberg, this film is about the lavish Grand Hotel in Berlin, a place where "nothing ever happens." That statement proves to be false, however, as the story follows an intertwining cast of characters over the course of one tumultuous day. Greta Garbo Read More

1932
Mata Hari

Crew: Producer

Actors: Greta Garbo, Ramon Novarro, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, C. Henry Gordon

Synopsis: "So much for Carlotta" muses the head of German Espionage (Lewis Stone), shortly after secret agent Karen Morley is put to death. Morley's successor is exotic dancer Mata Hari (Greta Garbo), an enigmatic woman of Javanese-Dutch ancestry who seldom thinks twice about luring some poor swain to his Read More

1932
The Mask of Fu Manchu

Crew: Producer

Actors: Boris Karloff, Lewis Stone, Karen Morley, Charles Starrett, Myrna Loy

Synopsis: Boris Karloff stars as the villainous Dr. Fu Manchu in this wild and wooly -- and wildly racist -- adventure yarn, based on Sax Rohmer's fiction about the personification of the "yellow peril." Sir Nayland Smith (Lewis Stone) of the British Secret Service recruits Sir Lionel Barton (Lawrence Read More

1932
Trader Horn

Crew: Producer

Actors: Harry Carey, Edwina Booth, Duncan Renaldo, Mutia Omoolu, Olive Fuller Golden

Synopsis: A major undertaking for M-G-M and the first non-documentary production to be filmed in Africa, Trader Horn starred the veteran Harry Carey in the title-role, Aloysius "Trader" Horn, a white explorer in Darkest Africa. Travelling up a heretofore undiscovered river, Horn and his young companion Peru Read More

1931
The Guardsman

Crew: Producer

Actors: Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Roland Young, ZaSu Pitts, Maude Eburne

Synopsis: The legendary theatrical team of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne made their only starring screen appearance in this 1931 adaptation of Ferenc Molnar's The Guardsman. The Lunts are appropriately cast as a famous husband-and-wife acting duo, the husband of which suspects the wife of infidelity. To Read More

1931
The Unholy Three

Crew: Producer

Actors: Lila Lee, Elliott Nugent, Harry Earles, John Miljan

Synopsis: A remake of the 1925 Lon Chaney melodrama of the same name, 1930's The Unholy Three makes several concessions to the newly strengthened Hollywood censors, but is still quite entertaining in a macabre sort of way. Chaney reprises his role as Professor Echo, a sideshow ventriloquist who moonlights Read More

1930
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney

Crew: Producer

Actors: Norma Shearer, Basil Rathbone, George Barraud, Herbert Bunston, Hedda Hopper

Synopsis: This early talkie was based on Frederick Lonsdale's successful Broadway play. Fay Cheyney (Norma Shearer) is a cunning jewel thief who impersonates a wealthy widow as she travels to Monte Carlo, planning on stealing a fortune in pearls from one Mrs. Webley (Maude Turner Gordon); Fay's henchmen Read More

1929
Where East Is East

Crew: Producer

Actors: Lon Chaney, Lupe Velez, Lloyd Hughes, Louis Stern

Synopsis: Star Lon Chaney Sr. and director Tod Browning bade adieu to the silent-movie era with 1929's Where East is East. His face covered with hideous scars (convincingly applied with nonflexible collodion), Chaney is cast as weather-beaten animal trapper Tiger Haynes, at present living and working in Read More

1929
The Crowd

Crew: Producer

Actors: Eleanor Boardman, James Murray, Bert Roach, Daniel G. Tomlinson, Dell Henderson

Synopsis: As was the case with every film project that he cared deeply about, filmmaker King Vidor had to fight long and hard with his studio bosses to get The Crowd produced. Though Vidor's parent studio MGM was certain that this simple story of everyday people would take a bath at the box-office, the film Read More

1928
West of Zanzibar

Crew: Producer

Actors: Lon Chaney, Lionel Barrymore, Warner Baxter, Mary Nolan, Jacqueline Gadsdon

Synopsis: In this lurid Tod Browning melodrama, boasting a thoroughly creepy performance by Lon Chaney, Chaney plays Phroso, a limehouse magician who is thoroughly in love with his wife Anna (Jacquelin Gadsdon). Also in love with Phroso's wife is ivory-trader Crane (Lionel Barrymore). After a performance Read More

1928
London After Midnight

Crew: Producer

Actors: Lon Chaney, Marceline Day, Henry B. Walthall, Percy Williams, Conrad Nagel

Synopsis: The most tantalizing of the "lost" Tod Browning films, London After Midnight has gained a near-legendary status in recent years, especially since so many critics of the 1930s considered the film as vastly superior to its 1935 remake, Mark of the Vampire. Clearly inspired by the stage version of Read More

1927
The Road to Mandalay

Crew: Producer

Actors: Lon Chaney, Lois Moran, Owen Moore, Henry B. Walthall

Synopsis: Having nothing whatever to do with the Rudyard Kipling poem, The Road to Mandalay is a typically bizarre collaboration between star Lon Chaney Sr. and director Tod Browning. Chaney plays Singapore Joe, the one-eyed proprietor of a Mandalay bordello. Joe's convent-bred daughter Rosemary (Lois Read More

1926
The Tower of Lies

Crew: Producer

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

1925
The Big Parade

Crew: Producer

Actors: John Gilbert, Renée Adorée, Hobart Bosworth, Claire McDowell, Claire Adams

Synopsis: The Big Parade was designed as a modest programmer concerning one young man's disillusionment in the face of war. When the MGM executives took a look at the projection-room rushes, they gave director King Vidor the go-ahead to film an all-out "spectacular", which ended up running 13 reels and Read More

1925
The Merry-Go-Round

Crew: Producer

Actors: Norman Kerry, Mary Philbin, Cesare Gravina, Edith Yorke, George Hackathorne

Synopsis: Best known today as the film which cost director Erich Von Stroheim his job at Universal Studios, Merry Go Round contains enough Von Stroheim touches to suggest that "official" director Rupert Julian merely tied together the film's loose ends. The titular merry-go-round is owned by the unspeakable George Siegmann Read More

1923
The Trap

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Lon Chaney, Alan Hale, Dagmar Godowsky, Stanley Goethals, Irene Rich

Synopsis: When he made this film, Lon Chaney's fame was already established, but he was only inches away from superstardom -- a few months later he would portray the title character in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Trapper Gaspard (Chaney) is a French-Canadian innocent; all this changes, however, when he Read More

1922