J.C. NugentFilmography

Give Me a Sailor

Actors: Martha Raye, Bob Hope, Betty Grable, Jack Whiting, J.C. Nugent

Synopsis: Bob Hope and Jack Whiting are amorous sailors. Martha Raye is the "ugly duckling" sister of beautiful Betty Grable. The complication? Everyone's in love with the wrong person: Martha pines for Jack who pines for Betty who pines for Bob, and so it goes. The casting seems to be mixed up as well. Read More

Midnight Intruder

Actors: Louis Hayward, Eric Linden, J.C. Nugent, Barbara Read, Irving Bacon

Synopsis: In this comedy, two racetrack gamblers lose all their dough by betting on a long shot. Now they must hitchhike to the next racetrack. En route they take cover in an apparently abandoned mansion. There they find some clothing, which they put on. Unfortunately, in that garb, they are mistaken by the Read More

This is My Affair

Actors: Robert Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, Victor McLaglen, Brian Donlevy, Sidney Blackmer

Synopsis: Based on fact, this turn-of-the-century crime drama stars Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck (husband and wife at the time). Taylor plays a seemingly disreputable young man who joins a gang of murderous bank robbers, headed by Victor McLaglen. Stanwyck is a beer-hall entertainer, who disapproves Read More

It's All Yours

Actors: Madeleine Carroll, Francis Lederer, Mischa Auer, Grace Bradley

Synopsis: In this romance, a secretary is awarded a legacy. Later she meets a male secretary who begins protecting her from an avaricious baron endeavoring to steal her money. The two rivals engage in fisticuffs, and the secretary loses. Fortunately, he wins the love of the girl. He then reveals that his Read More

Life Begins in College

Actors: The Ritz Brothers [Al, Jimmy, Harry], Joan Davis, Tony Martin, Gloria Stuart, Fred Stone

Synopsis: The Ritz Brothers play three goofballs working their way through college by putting in time at a tailor shop. The college football team's star player is Nat Pendleton, a wealthy Native American who has donated a large amount of money to the school. As long as Pendleton is able to play, the Read More

Stand-In

Actors: Leslie Howard, Joan Blondell, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Mowbray, Marla Shelton

Synopsis: Bookish bank employee Atterbury Dodd (Leslie Howard) is ordered to investigate the near-bankrupt Colossal Studios in Hollywood, to see if the firm is any sort of good risk. Dodd's first brush with Tinseltown's cuckoo atmosphere occurs when he takes a room in a boarding house for extras, where all Read More

A Star Is Born

Actors: Janet Gaynor, Fredric March, Adolphe Menjou, May Robson, Andy Devine

Synopsis: A Star is Born came into being when producer David O. Selznick decided to tell a "true behind-the-scenes" story of Hollywood. The truth, of course, was filtered a bit for box-office purposes, although Selznick and an army of screenwriters based much of their script on actual people and events. Janet Gaynor Read More

Love in Bloom

Actors: George Burns, Gracie Allen, Dixie Lee, Joe Morrison, J.C. Nugent

Synopsis: Love in Bloom ostensibly stars George Burns and Gracie Allen,but the team is actually comedy relief for the romantic leads, Joe Morrison and Dixie Lee. Burns and Allen are travelling carnival performers working in a rundown tent show for Lee's father. Lee tires of her nomad life and heads to New Read More

Men Without Names

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Madge Evans, Lynne Overman, David Holt, John Wray

Synopsis: The title refers to those special government agents who go undercover to flush out criminal gangs. In his second starring role, Fred MacMurray plays a government man who travels incognito as he trails a team of crooks from Brooklyn to Kansas. Lynne Overman is MacMurray's easygoing partner, who Read More

Many a Slip

Actors: Joan Bennett, Lew Ayres, George "Slim" Summerville, Ben Alexander, Virginia Sale

Synopsis: Young Joan Bennett and Lew Ayres make an attractive couple in the Universal programmer Many a Slip. Because of her imperious attitude, beautiful young debutante Pat Coster (Bennett) can't find a boy friend until Jerry Brooks (Ayres) comes along. Anxious not to lose Jerry, Pat leads him to believe Read More

The Virtuous Husband

Actors: Elliott Nugent, Jean Arthur, Betty Compson, Alison Skipworth, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: Virtuous Husband was adapted from Apron Strings, a play by Dorrance Davis. Though his mother has been dead several years, wealthy young Daniel Curtis (Elliot Nugent) has never been able to cut himself loose from her smothering influence. Even when he marries the lovely Barbara Otwell (Jean Read More

The Millionaire

Actors: George Arliss, Evelyn Knapp, David Manners, Florence Arliss, Noah Beery, Sr., James Cagney

Synopsis: George Arliss is the millionaire of the title, a retired auto tycoon who's been ordered by his doctor to rest and avoid exercise. Arliss is shaken out of his sedentary existence by an insurance salesman who advises him to pick himself up and enjoy life. The old man heads to California, where he Read More

Local Boy Makes Good

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Joe E. Brown, Dorothy Lee, Ruth Hall, Edward Woods, Eddie Nugent

Synopsis: Local Boy Makes Good was based on the J.C. and Elliot Nugent stage farce The Poor Nut, which had starred Elliot Nugent on Broadway and Jack Mulhall in the 1928 film version. This time Joe E. Brown stars as John Miller, a meek-and-mild college botany student who worships beauty-contest winner Julia Read More

Sins of the Children

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Robert Montgomery, Elliott Nugent, Leila Hyams, Clara Blandick

Synopsis: This touching drama follows the exploits of a big-hearted businessman. The financier is just about to close a major deal when he is forced to move to the desert to help his tubercular son recover. It takes two years, and during that time, the businessman's partner has written him off as a business Read More

They Learned About Women

Synopsis: Based loosely on Waite Hoyt and Mickey Cochrane, major league baseball players moonlighting as vaudeville entertainers, this early musical comedy starred Gus Van and Joe Schenck, genuine vaudeville headliners famous for their humorous ethnic ballads. On their way to winter practice, Jack Glennon Read More

Wise Girls

Crew: Play Author, Screenwriter

Synopsis: In this comedy, a plumber does a job for a fellow and ends up conned into marrying his daughter. The daughter only agrees to the absurd union to make her real lover jealous. When the plumber learns of her motives, he has the marriage annulled and ends up marrying her honest younger sister. The Read More

Remote Control

Actors: William Haines, Mary Doran, John Miljan, Polly Moran

Synopsis: In this comedy, a radio announcer works at the same station as a bogus psychic who while ostensibly answering fan letters on the air, is actually sending encoded messages to his gang concerning upcoming bank robberies. The clairvoyant is a real slick fellow and wins the love of the girl, the Read More

The Unholy Three

Crew: Screenwriter

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

The Big House

Actors: Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, Robert Montgomery, Leila Hyams, Lewis Stone

Synopsis: Not the first of the prison pictures, but the one that truly put the genre on the map. Playboy Kent (Robert Montgomery), driving drunk, kills a couple of pedestrians and is sentenced to a 10-year manslaughter term. His cellmate is forger Morgan (Chester Morris), a tough but essentially decent con; Read More

Love in the Rough

Actors: Robert Montgomery, Dorothy Jordan, Benny Rubin, J.C. Nugent

Synopsis: A remake of the 1927 William Haines comedy Spring Fever, Love in the Rough was designed as a musical, though virtually all the songs were cut from the final release print (we see a chorus of secretaries typing rhythmically in the opening scene, yet this obvious song cue is cut short with nary a Read More

Navy Blues

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: William Haines, Anita Page, Karl Dane, J.C. Nugent, Wade Boteler

Synopsis: MGM house director Clarence Brown's first all-talkie, this pleasantly innocuous comedy drama stars William Haines as Jack Kelly, a carefree sailor picking up innocent Alice Brown (Anita Page) at a Ladies' Uplift Society Dance. Their whirlwind romance, however, ends abruptly when the girl's mother (Edythe Chapman Read More

Alibi

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Chester Morris, Harry Stubbs, Mae Busch, Eleanor Griffith, Irma Harrison

Synopsis: Director Roland West was a moody and mysterious Hollywood character, who insisted upon making his pictures in utter secrecy and filming only at night. This may explain the overall foreboding atmosphere of Alibi, West's first talking picture. Chester Morris portrays a ruthless gangster who must Read More

Poor Nut

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Jack Mulhall, Charlie Murray, Jean Arthur, Jane Winton, Glenn Tryon

Synopsis: The Poor Nut was based on a stage comedy by the father-and-son team of J. C. and Elliot Nugent. Jack Mulhall assumes the role played by Elliot Nugent on Broadway, that of wimpish college student John Miller. Suffering from an inferiority complex, Miller worships beauty-contest winner Julia (Jane Winton Read More