Ivan LebedeffFilmography

California Conquest

Actors: Cornel Wilde, Teresa Wright, Alfonso Bedoya, Lisa Ferraday, Eugene Iglesias

Synopsis: California Conquest is set in the early 19th century, when California was fighting for its independence from Mexico--and as such was up for grabs so far as several other nations were concerned. Wealthy landowner Fredo Brios (John Dehner) feverishly opposes all efforts by Californians seeking to Read More

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Actors: Gregory Peck, Susan Hayward, Ava Gardner, Hildegarde Neff, Leo G. Carroll

Synopsis: Ernest Hemingway could never come to terms with Hollywood's preoccupation with The Happy Ending: he accepted the money for the screen rights to his short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro, but he could never bring himself to watch it. Gregory Peck plays a character based, in decidedly unflattering Read More

Heartbeat

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Adolphe Menjou, Melville Cooper, Mikhail Rasumny, Basil Rathbone

Synopsis: A remake of the 1939 French film Battement de Couer, Heartbeat reunites star Ginger Rogers with her Kitty Foyle director Sam Wood. Ms. Rogers plays Arlette, a reform school alumnus who is recruited by Faginlike Professor Aristide, headmaster at a school for pickpockets. Before long, Arlette Read More

Rhapsody in Blue

Actors: Robert Alda, Joan Leslie, Alexis Smith, Charles Coburn, Oscar Levant, Julie Bishop

Synopsis: There's slightly more fancy than fact in this lavish film biography of legendary American composer George Gershwin, but oh! That music! Director Irving Rapper had wanted Tyrone Power to play Gershwin, but Power was still serving in the Marines, so Rapper had to settle for Robert Alda--who isn't 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

Oh, What a Night

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Marjorie Rambeau, Jean Parker, Pierre Watkin, Alan Dinehart

Synopsis: Edmund Lowe was old enough to know better when he starred in the anachronistic Monogram crime comedy Oh, What a Night! Lowe plays Rand, a suave gentleman jewel thief who plans to divest clueless dowager Lil Vanderhoven (Marjorie Rambeau) of her diamonds. Complicating matters is the appearance of Read More

Mission to Moscow

Actors: Walter Huston, Ann Harding, Oscar Homolka, Gene Lockhart, George Tobias, Eleanor Parker

Synopsis: More so than most wartime films, Mission to Moscow must be viewed within the context of its times. Requested by President Roosevelt to make a film supportive of America's Russian allies, Warner Bros. turned to the memoirs of Ambassador Joseph H. Davies, who spent several years prior to WWII in the Read More

Foreign Agent

Actors: John Shelton, Gale Storm, Ivan Lebedeff, Hans Schumm, William Halligan

Synopsis: Director William "One Take" Beaudine slapped together Foreign Agent in a week or so, enabling Monogram to ship the picture to theaters before its subject matter grew stale. Set in a Hollywood movie studio (sure looks like the cramped Monogram headquarters), the story concerns a gang of Nazi agents Read More

Lure of the Islands

Synopsis: Billed as "The Girl who Stopped a Thousand Shows" and "The Poor Man's Garbo," burlesque dancer Margie Hart made her feature film debut in this ultra low-budget World War II romance. In an attempt to determine whether fifth columnists are persuading the natives to work for the Japanese, American Read More

The Shanghai Gesture

Actors: Gene Tierney, Victor Mature, Ona Munson, Walter Huston, Phyllis Brooks

Synopsis: Josef von Sternberg made his first return to exotic Shanghai since 1932's Shanghai Express in this baroque conflagration, based on a 1925 play by John Colton that required 30 revisions before it was sufficiently sanitized to pass muster with Hays Office censors. The film takes place in the Read More

Blue, White, and Perfect

Actors: Lloyd Nolan, Mary Beth Hughes, Helene Reynolds, George Reeves, Steven Geray, Ivan Lebedeff

Synopsis: The high batting average of 20th Century-Fox's Michael Shayne detective series remained intact with Blue, White and Perfect. Having prevented his sweetheart Merle Garland (Mary Beth Hughes) from marrying a bigamous fortune-hunter (Ivan Lebedeff), Mike Shayne (Lloyd Nolan) offers to marry the girl Read More

Passport to Alcatraz

Actors: Jack Holt, Noah Beery, Jr., Cecilia Callejo, "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom

Synopsis: Another of Columbia's myriad of Jack Holt actioners, Passport to Alcatraz casts the star as supposed enemy saboteur George Hollister. In truth, Hollister is on "our side", merely posing as a foreign spy to get the goods on a sabotage ring. The story reaches its peak in an explosives factory which Read More

Public Deb No. 1

Actors: George Murphy, Brenda Joyce, Elsa Maxwell, Mischa Auer, Charlie Ruggles

Synopsis: Communism-the American variety-is given a hilarious going-over in 20th Century-Fox's Public Deb No. 1. Spoiled society girl Penny Cooper (Brenda Joyce) impulsively lends her voice to a Communist rally, which earns her a public spanking by 100% All-American waiter Alan Blake (George Murphy). Read More

You Can't Cheat an Honest Man

Actors: Ivan Lebedeff, W.C. Fields, Edgar Bergen, Constance Moore

Synopsis: In his starring film for Universal Pictures, W.C. Fields plays circus manager and all-around flim flam man Larson E. Whipsnade. When he's not trying to fleece the customers or elude the sheriff, Whipsnade busys himself trying to break up the romance between his daughter Vicky (Constance Moore) and Read More

Hotel for Women

Actors: Ann Sothern, Linda Darnell, James Ellison, Jean Rogers, Lynn Bari

Synopsis: In this romance, a young woman journeys from Syracuse to New York to see her sweetheart, a prominent architect. She is bitterly disappointed to discover that he has lost interest in her. The residents of the women's hotel at which she stays offer the heartbroken lass words of encouragement. They Read More

The Mystery of Mr. Wong

Actors: Boris Karloff, Grant Withers, Dorothy Tree, Lotus Long, Morgan Wallace

Synopsis: The second film in the mystery series about a Chinese sleuth, this one concerns the theft of the "Eye of the Daughter of the Moon," the largest star sapphire in the world, which is stolen from China and turns up in the possession of an unscrupulous gem collector, who receives a death threat Read More

Trapped in the Sky

Actors: Jack Holt, Ralph Morgan, Paul Everton, C. Henry Gordon

Synopsis: In this exciting spy drama, enemy agents endeavor to steal the plans for a top secret silent aircraft. The plane's inventor wants to sell his invention to other countries but his government will only allow it if the test flights fail. The prototype is sabotaged and crashes on the first test Read More

Straight, Place and Show

Actors: The Ritz Brothers [Al, Jimmy, Harry], Richard Arlen, Ethel Merman, Phyllis Brooks, George Barbier

Synopsis: In this musical comedy, the Ritz Brothers inherit a racehorse but are unable to make money from him because they cannot come up with the $1,000 needed to enter him in the big race. The two get involved with the race anyway when they overhear a group of Russian jockeys conspiring to ruin the race. Read More

Atlantic Flight

Actors: Dick Merrill, Paula Stone, Weldon Heyburn, Ivan Lebedeff

Synopsis: Atlantic Flight was designed as a vehicle for Dick Merrill, a real-life pilot then very much in the news because of his record-breaking flights. Merrill is cast as flyboy Dick Bennett, the best friend of aspiring aircraft designer Bill (Weldon Heyburn). Entering a national air meet, Dick is Read More

Fair Warning

Actors: J. Edward Bromberg, Betty Furness, John Payne, Victor Kilian, Billy Burrud

Synopsis: Chunky character actor J. Edward Bromberg carries the weight of Fair Warning on his burly shoulders. Bromberg is cast as Matthew Jerico, a sheriff in the Death Valley region of California, at present assigned to solve the murder of a wealthy miner. The killing took place at a swank tourist resort Read More

History is Made at Night

Actors: Charles Boyer, Jean Arthur, Leo Carrillo, Colin Clive, Ivan Lebedeff

Synopsis: History is Made at Night has been described as a romantic tragedy, which it indeed is, up to a point. The film begins deceptively in screwball-comedy fashion with socialite Jean Arthur and handsome head waiter Charles Boyer "meeting cute." But there's nothing cute about Arthur's estranged husband Read More

Maytime

Actors: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, John Barrymore, Herman Bing, Tom Brown

Synopsis: The third of MGM's profitable Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy songfests, Maytime opens in the early 20th century, with a young girl arguing with her boyfriend over her wishes to become an opera singer. The girl's neighbor, a lonely old woman whom we gradually recognize as a convincingly "aged" Read More

Mama Steps Out

Actors: Guy Kibbee, Alice Brady, Betty Furness, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: Even the mighty MGM had to keep the home fires burning with B pictures. The studio's Mama Steps Out is a harmless confection built around the considerable talents of Alice Brady. She plays her standard empty-headed flibbertygibbet, this time vacationing on the Riviera after inheriting a fortune. Read More

Angel

Actors: Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, Melvyn Douglas, Edward Everett Horton, Herbert Mundin

Synopsis: Generally considered one of director Ernst Lubitsch's lesser works, Angel stars Marlene Dietrich as Maria, the neglected wife of Sir Frederick Barker (Herbert Marshall), a British diplomat who travels often and seems little concerned with his spouse. Maria has nearly reached her breaking point Read More

Conquest

Actors: Greta Garbo, Charles Boyer, Reginald Owen, Alan Marshal, Henry Stephenson

Synopsis: Conquest was released in England as Marie Waleska, the name of the real-life historical personage portrayed by Greta Garbo. The film begins in 1807, when Marie, a Polish countess, is dispatched by her country to meet with Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (Charles Boyer). Marie has been encouraged to Read More

Wise Girl

Actors: Miriam Hopkins, Ray Milland, Walter Abel, Henry Stephenson, Alec Craig

Synopsis: Wise Girl is a medium-level screwball comedy with faintly serious undertones. Miriam Hopkins plays an heiress whose millions can't help her gain custody of her two nieces from their stubborn widowed father (Ray Milland), an impoverished Greenwich Village artist. Hoping to win the widower over Read More

The Golden Arrow

Actors: Bette Davis, George Brent, Eugene Pallette, Dick Foran, Carolyn Hughes

Synopsis: Bette Davis plays a facial cream heiress in this middling comedy, which Warner Bros. filmed partially in Florida. Mistaking George Brent for a fellow socialite, Bette quickly marries him only to discover that he is a penniless reporter searching for peace and quiet to finish the great American Read More

Love on the Run

Actors: Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, Reginald Owen, Mona Barrie

Synopsis: Having turned down the opportunity to produce Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934), MGM's Louis B. Mayer had second thoughts when the Capra film swept the 1935 Oscars ceremony. Mayer hastily commissioned an It Happened One Night wannabe titled Love on the Run, tailored for the talents of Joan Crawford Read More

Pepper

Actors: Jane Withers, Irvin S. Cobb, George "Slim" Summerville, Dean Jagger, Ivan Lebedeff

Synopsis: Jane Withers plays "little Miss Fixit" in Pepper with a minimum of sentimental goo and a maximum of laughs. Though she's been warned not to do so, Pepper Jolly (Withers) intrudes upon the solitude of grouchy old millionaire John Wilkes (Irvin S. Cobb). Her unbridled good spirits virtually Read More

Goin' to Town

Actors: Mae West, Paul Cavanagh, Gilbert Emery, Ivan Lebedeff, Tito Coral, Marjorie Gateson

Synopsis: Mae West is Goin' to Town in this elegant post-Production Code vehicle. West plays Cleo Borden, a nouveau riche cattle rancher who hopes to crash into high society. Though she is willing to subject herself to "refinement" lessons, she still has a high old time puncturing the pretensions of those Read More

China Seas

Actors: Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Rosalind Russell, Lewis Stone

Synopsis: China Seas proved that the recently imposed Hollywood production code had little if any effect on the popularity of MGM sex symbols Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. Gable plays the captain of a tramp steamer chugging between Singapore and Hong Kong. Harlow is Gable's ex-main squeeze, a "woman of the Read More

She Couldn't Take It

Actors: George Raft, Joan Bennett, Walter Connolly, Billie Burke, Lloyd Nolan

Synopsis: When he's shipped off to prison on a tax-evasion charge, millionaire Van Dyke (Walter Connolly) breathes a sigh of relief: at least he'll be free of his dizzy, spendthrift wife (Billie Burke) and spoiled-rotten daughter Carol (Joan Bennett). Once behind bars, Van Dyke strikes up a friendship with Read More

Strange Wives

Actors: Roger Pryor, June Clayworth, Esther Ralston, Hugh O'Connell, Ralph Forbes

Synopsis: In this romantic comedy, a man marries his Russian lover and discovers that she has a large extended family. He is utterly overwhelmed and decides that the only way he will be able to free himself of their burden will be to make them famous. Along the way, he keeps running into the bold lover of Read More

Sweepstake Annie

Actors: Tom Brown, Marian Nixon, Wera Engels, Inez Courtney, Ivan Lebedeff

Synopsis: In this drama, a studio script girl works very hard to support her no-account family. One day she wins a lottery, gives her family some of the winnings and moves in with her best friend. She had a boy friend, but he became disgusted with her loyalty to her lazy family and abandoned her. Soon after Read More

Moulin Rouge

Actors: Constance Bennett, Franchot Tone, Tullio Carminatti, Helen Westley, Andrew Tombes

Synopsis: A remake of the silent film Her Sister From Paris, Moulin Rouge stars Constance Bennett in a dual role as twin French entertainers. One is married to a songwriter (Franchot Tone), who doesn't want his wife to return to the stage. In order to hide the fact that she's gotten a job in a musical, the Read More

Kansas City Princess

Actors: Joan Blondell, Glenda Farrell, Robert Armstrong, Hugh Herbert, Osgood Perkins

Synopsis: Kansas City Princess came at the tail end of the "gold-digger" movie cycle. The inevitable Joan Blondell plays Rosie, a saucy-eyed manicurist who takes it on the lam when she loses a diamond entrusted to her by her gangster boyfriend Dynamite (Robert Armstrong). With nary a dime between them Read More

The Merry Frinks

Actors: Aline MacMahon, Guy Kibbee, Hugh Herbert, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: In this odd-ball comedy, a self-sacrificing but eccentric mother attempts to guide her equally eccentric family. She has two sons and a daughter. One son is a communist and the other is a struggling prizefighter. Her daughter is trying to snag a married booking agent to help her break into radio. Read More

Bombshell

Actors: Jean Harlow, Lee Tracy, Frank Morgan, Franchot Tone, Pat O'Brien, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Jean Harlow is the "bombshell" of the title, a popular movie actress named Lola. Though she seemingly has everything a girl could possibly want, Lola is fed up with her sponging relatives, her "work til you drop" studio, and the nonsensical publicity campaigns conducted by press agent Lee Tracy. Read More

Sweepings

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Alan Dinehart, Eric Linden, William Gargan, Gloria Stuart

Synopsis: Lionel Barrymore plays a Marshall Field-like Chicago businessman who emerges from the wreckage of the 1871 fire to build a department-store empire. Barrymore is aided by his Jewish manager Gregory Ratoff, who despite his business acumen is never made a full partner. The store magnate's four Read More

Made on Broadway

Actors: Robert Montgomery, Sally Eilers, Madge Evans, Eugene Pallette, C. Henry Gordon

Synopsis: Heroine Mona (Sally Eilers) is "made" in more ways than one in this free-wheeling spoof of the press-agent business. A would-be suicide, Mona is rescued by public-relations whiz Jeff (Robert Montgomery), who decides to turn the girl into a celebrity -- and line his own pockets in the process. But Read More

Laughing at Life

Actors: Victor McLaglen, Conchita Montenegro, Lois Wilson, Henry B. Walthall

Synopsis: At first concentrating exclusively on westerns and serials, up-and-coming Mascot Pictures began branching out in the early 1930s with such lavish star vehicles as Laughing at Life. Victor McLaglen is in his element as a devil-may-care globetrotting adventurer named McHale. After risking his neck Read More

Unholy Love

Actors: H.B. Warner, Lila Lee, Beryl Mercer, Joyce Compton, Lyle Talbot

Synopsis: It took nerve for low-budget producer M.H. Hoffman to update Gustave Flaubert's 19th century novel Madame Bovary and relocate the story to Rye, New York. It was equally nervy to retitle the film as Unholy Love and to cast Joyce Compton, usually cast as a dumb blonde, in the central role. Compton Read More

Woman Pursued

The Gay Diplomat

Actors: Ivan Lebedeff, Genevieve Tobin, Betty Compson, Ilka Chase, Purnell Pratt

Synopsis: The Gay Diplomat was an attempt by RKO Radio to make a movie star out of Ivan Lebedeff, a Russian actor better suited to supporting roles as gigolos and stuffed shirts. Lebedeff plays a Russian military officer sent to Rumania to dispose of a beautiful female spy. Genevieve Tobin plays the Read More

The Lady Refuses

Synopsis: In this melodrama, a British aristocrat befriends a woman and hires her to begin distracting his son away from a conniving golddigger. She does, but finds herself falling in love with her titled boss instead. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Bachelor Apartment

Actors: Lowell Sherman, Irene Dunne, Mae Murray, Norman Kerry, Claudia Dell

Synopsis: A typical pre-code era comedy, Bachelor Apartment was the creation of its leading man, silent screen matinee-idol Lowell Sherman. He plays Wayne Carter, a Park Avenue roué, whose dalliances with a series of women are beginning to catch up with him. Enter a brunette and rather drab Irene Dunne Read More

The Cuckoos

Actors: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, June Clyde, Hugh Trevor, Dorothy Lee, Ivan Lebedeff

Synopsis: The Cuckoos began life as The Ramblers, a Broadway musical vehicle for the comedy team of Clark and McCullough. By the time the property reached the screen, it had been retailored to the talents of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey -- and the improvement was enormous. The scene is a fancy Mexican Read More

Conspiracy

Actors: Bessie Love, Ned Sparks, Hugh Trevor, Rita La Roy

Synopsis: The "conspiracy" of the title refers not only to a deadly narcotics ring, but also the combined efforts by the good guys to capture the villains. Margaret Holt (Bessie Love) and her brother Victor (Bert Morehouse) team up to destroy the drug peddlers responsible for their father's death. They are Read More

Midnight Mystery

Actors: Betty Compson, Hugh Trevor, Lowell Sherman

Synopsis: Several able silent-screen veterans converge in RKO Radio's Midnight Mystery. Sally (Betty Compson), Tim (Lowell Sherman), Mischa (Ivan Lebedeff) and Paul (Raymond Hatton) are among the shady types whom wealthy Gregory (Hugh Trevor) invites to his isolated island mansion off the coast of Maine. Read More

They Had to See Paris

Actors: Will Rogers, Irene Rich, Marguerite Churchill

Synopsis: Will Rogers' first all-talking feature casts the beloved humorist as Pike Peters, owner of an auto repair shop in Claremore, OK (Rogers' real-life home town). Living in genteel but contented poverty, Pike and his family suddenly find themselves millionaires when an oil well in which he is Read More

Street Girl

Actors: John Harron, Ned Sparks, Jack Oakie, Guy Buccola, Betty Compson, Ivan Lebedeff

Synopsis: The first official release from RKO Productions (previous films from this company had been produced by RKO antecedent FBO Pictures), Street Girl afforded Betty Compson to exhibit her considerable skills as a violinist. Compson is cast as Frederika "Freddy" Joyzelle, manager and principal Read More

One Woman Idea

Actors: Rod La Rocque, Marceline Day, Sharon Lynn, Sally Phipps

Synopsis: Marceline Day plays two women in the late-silent Fox release One-Woman Idea. The actress is cast as haughty aristocrat Lady Alicia Douglas, and as alluring half-caste dancing girl Alizar. Honorable Prince Ahmed (Rod La Rocque) harbors a platonic love for the prim-and-proper Lady Alicia, while her Read More

Let 'er Go Gallegher

Actors: Harrison Ford, Elinor Fair

Synopsis: Long before Richard Harding Davis' "Gallegher" stories were serialized for television by Walt Disney, popular silent-screen juvenile actor Frank Coghlan Jr. played the title role in Let 'Er Go Gallegher. A street urchin who aspires to be a detective, Gallegher (Coghlan) gets more than he bargained Read More

The Veiled Woman

Actors: Paul Vincent

Synopsis: Emmett J. Flynn had directed everyone from William S. Hart to Laurel and Hardy by the time he wielded the megaphone for his first talkie, The Veiled Woman. The title character is Nanon (Lia Tora) who, in flashback, cautions a virginal young woman (Lupita Tovar) from trodding the primrose path in Read More

The Forbidden Woman

Actors: Jetta Goudal, Ivan Lebedeff, Josephine Norman, Victor Varconi

Synopsis: Forbidden Woman was the first production by PDC Pictures to be released after the defection of the company's founder Cecil B. DeMille (though DeMille's brother William upheld family tradition by supervising the picture). Threatened by the imperialistic inventions of the French army, an Arab sultan 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

The Angel of Broadway

Actors: Leatrice Joy, Victor Varconi, May Robson, Alice Lake, Elsie Bartlett

Synopsis: Glamorous Broadway actress Babe (Leatrice Joy) is cast as a Salvation Army lass in her latest musical. For research purposes, she pays a visit to a Lower East Side S. A. Mission, dons a uniform, and goes to work on a street corner, complete with tambourine and contribution pot. This upsets her Read More

The Sorrows of Satan

Actors: Adolphe Menjou, Ricardo Cortez, Carol Dempster, Lya de Putti, Ivan Lebedeff

Synopsis: Though D.W. Griffith had given up his independent-filmmaker status by joining Paramount Pictures in 1926, he had lost none of his artistry, if this film is any indication. Based on a mystical novel by Marie Correlli, Adolphe Menjou stars as the elegant, sartorially splendid Prince Lucio de Read More

Walking Back

Actors: Jane Keckley, Arthur Rankin, Sue Carol, Richard Walling

Synopsis: This lively outing chronicles the adventures of a daring young buck who defies his father, who grounded the lad for getting bad grades, and swipes his neighbor's car so he can take his girl to the dance. Afterward, he and his buddies begin playing "chicken" and the lad destroys his neighbor's rig. Read More