Jack BennyFilmography

Red Skelton: A Comedy Scrapbook

Synopsis: Here's a look back at a bunch of the funniest scenes that appeared in the long-running Red Skelton Hour series. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Best of 50's Comedy

Entertaining the Troops: American Entertainers in World War II

Synopsis: Entertainment history. Uses film clips and contemporary interviews to show what Hollywood did during World War II in raising money for the war and entertaining the troops. Shows entertainer Bob Hope and his performing troupe today. Other entertainers include Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, The Andrews Sisters Read More

Milton Berle's Mad World of Comedy

Actors: Milton Berle

Synopsis: Milton Berle hosts this 1974 program, a look back at comedy appearances on his variety show plus material from contemporary comics. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

The Man

Actors: Elizabeth Ross, James Earl Jones, Martin Balsam, Burgess Meredith, Lew Ayres, William Windom

Synopsis: Rod Serling, a master of speculative scriptwriting, penned the screenplay of The Man. Set a few days into the future, the story contrives to kill off the President, the vice president, and virtually everyone in line of succession in a bizarre accident. This turn of events elevates Read More

The Lucy Show: Lucy and Jack Benny's Account

Actors: Jack Benny, Roy Roberts

Synopsis: Anticipating a huge bonus, Lucy (Lucille Ball) tries to convince comedian Jack Benny to open an account at the bank. Hollywood's most notorious tightwad scoffs at this notion, observing that he already has a burglar-proof bank vault in his own cellar, replete with a moat, a collection of Read More

The Lucy Show: Lucy and George Burns

Actors: George Burns, Jack Benny, Joan Carey, Sid Gould

Synopsis: Season Five of The Lucy Show begins, typically enough, with a guest star--in this instance the ageless George Burns. While doing business with banker Mooney (Gale Gordon), Burns confides that he is working up a new nightclub act: All he needs is a "kooky" female partner. Enter Mooney's secretary Read More

Jack Benny Visits Walt Disney

The Lucy Show: Lucy and the Plumber

Actors: Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Willard Waterman, Tom G. Linder, Louis Nicoletti

Synopsis: Jack Benny guests on this episode as plumber Harry Tuttle, who charges exorbitant fees because he can't get much work--all because he happens to resemble Jack Benny! Lucy is determined to afford Mr. Tuttle, so she arranges a TV appearance for her stagestruck butcher Mr. Krause (Tom G. Linder) Read More

Hollywood and the Stars: The Wild and Wonderful Thirties

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Clark Gable, James Cagney, Cary Grant, Jack Benny, Jackie Coogan

Milton Berle Spectacular

Actors: Milton Berle

Gypsy

Actors: Rosalind Russell, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Paul Wallace, Betty Bruce, Ann Jillian

Synopsis: This Stephen Sondheim/Jules Styne/Arthur Laurents musical comedy Gypsy had been a Broadway smash with Ethel Merman in the lead. Based on the autobiography of striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee, it centers on the antics of Mama Rose (here played by Rosalind Russell), the Stage Mother from Hell who Read More

Radio

The Slowest Gun in the West

Actors: Phil Silvers, Jack Benny, Bruce Cabot

Star Gazing

Synopsis: This video contains a star-studded broadcast of the 1959 Emmy Awards Ceremony. It also contains a lively comedy short from 1931. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The All-Star Christmas Show

Actors: Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, George Burns, Milton Berle, Jack Benny

Synopsis: Produced for the Armed Forces overseas, this is a holiday spectacular created for Christmas. Fifty of the top stars of Hollywood in the 1950s turned out to be a part of this special. Some of these included: Bob Hope, George Burns, Bing Crosby, Danny Thomas, Dinah Shore, Shirley MacLaine, and Jane Russell Read More

Beau James

Actors: Bob Hope, Vera Miles, Paul Douglas, Alexis Smith, Darren McGavin

Synopsis: New York City is known for choosing colorful characters for its mayors. One its most illustrious was the wisecracking, dancing and singing Mayor James J. Walker (as played by Bob Hope in a rare, serious role) who helmed the Big Apple in the 1920s. This biopic chronicles his surprising rise to Read More

Shower of Stars: The Dancers

Susan Slept Here

Actors: Dick Powell, Debbie Reynolds, Anne Francis, Alvy Moore, Glenda Farrell

Synopsis: Susan Slept Here is the only feature film in Hollywood history ever to be narrated by an Academy Award. After introducing itself, the Oscar statuette invites us into the apartment home of its owner, screenwriter Mark Christopher Dick Powell. Knowing that Mark is working on a script about juvenile Read More

Jack Benny Comedy Hour

Christmas Classics 2

Synopsis: Included are Christmas specials from 1953-54: Your Hit Parade live from Rockefeller Center and an episode of The Jack Benny Show. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

Somebody Loves Me

Actors: Betty Hutton, Ralph Meeker, Robert Keith, Adele Jergens, Billie Bird

Synopsis: Written and directed by Irving Brecher, best known for his weekly TV series Life of Riley and The People's Choice, Somebody Loves Me is the highly fictionalized life story of vaudeville and Broadway star Blossom Seeley (Betty Hutton) and her husband-partner Benny Fields (Ralph Meeker). Read More

Four Star Playhouse, Vol. 2

Synopsis: A video of two dramas from the early television series: "The House Always Wins" and "The Left Fist of David." ~ All Movie Guide Read More

The Jack Benny Show [TV Series]

Actors: Jack Benny

The Lucky Stiff

Crew: Producer

Actors: Dorothy Lamour, Brian Donlevy, Claire Trevor, Irene Hervey, Marjorie Rambeau

Synopsis: At the last possible moment, convicted murderess Anne Marie St. Claire (Dorothy Lamour) is saved from execution. However, the newspapers have reported that Anne Marie is dead. She decides to use her status as a "corpse" to her advantage, leading to several amusing and melodramatic complications Read More

It's in the Bag

Actors: Fred Allen, Jack Benny, William Bendix, Binnie Barnes, Robert Benchley

Synopsis: Based on the popular Russian novel The Twelve Chairs, this stars Fred Allen as flea-circus impresario Fred Floogle. Learning that he's inherited $12 million from his uncle, Fred also discovers that the money has been stuffed in one of thirteen chairs that he's sold at auction. The rest of the film Read More

The Horn Blows at Midnight

Actors: Jack Benny, Alexis Smith, Guy Kibbee, Margaret Dumont, Allyn Joslyn, Dolores Moran, Reginald Gardiner

Synopsis: Though Jack Benny made a cottage industry out of joking about the purported rottenness of his 1945 vehicle Horn Blows at Midnght, the film is in fact a delightful comedy-fantasy-certainly not Benny's best film, but far from his worst. While dozing off during a radio broadcast, studio musician Read More

Hollywood Canteen

Actors: The Andrews Sisters, Robert Hutton, Joan Leslie, Jack Benny, Julie Bishop, Bette Davis, John Garfield, Betty Brodel, Sydney Greenstreet, Barbara Brown

Synopsis: The West Coast's answer to Broadway's Stage Door Canteen, the Hollywood Canteen was created as a GI morale-booster by film stars Bette Davis and John Garfield. The Canteen was established so that Our Boys on leave in Tinseltown could have a good time with good food and good dancing -- and, as a Read More

Show Business at War

The Meanest Man in the World

Actors: Jack Benny, Priscilla Lane, Edmund Gwenn, Matt Briggs

Synopsis: The old George M. Cohan theatrical chestnut The Meanest Man in the World was retailored for the screen to accommodate the talents of Jack Benny and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson. Benny plays small-town lawyer Richard Clark, whose soft-heartedness and sense of justice loses him case after case. Read More

George Washington Slept Here

Actors: Jack Benny, Ann Sheridan, Charles Coburn, Percy Kilbride, Hattie McDaniel

Synopsis: The Moss Hart-George S. Kaufman Broadway hit George Washington Slept Here has herein been tailored to the unique talents of Jack Benny. In the original play, city dweller Bill Fuller, fired up with the spirit of "back to the soil," purchases a ramshackle Colonial-era farmhouse in upstate New York Read More

To Be or Not to Be

Actors: Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill

Synopsis: Ernst Lubitsch directs the 1942 political satire classic To Be or Not to Be, which marked the final screen appearance of comedienne Carole Lombard. In Warsaw at the beginning of WWII, Maria Tura (Lombard) and husband Joseph (Jack Benny) perform anti-Nazi plays with their theater troupe until they Read More

Charley's Aunt

Actors: Jack Benny, Kay Francis, Anne Baxter, Edmund Gwenn, Richard Haydn, James Ellison

Synopsis: Jack Benny brings his own distinctive touch to Brandon Thomas' venerable (and oft-filmed) stage farce Charley's Aunt. Utilizing a gloriously unconvincing broad-A English accent, Benny is cast as Lord Fancourt Babberly, a somewhat overaged undergraduate at Oxford University. Babbs' roommates Jack Read More

Buck Benny Rides Again

Actors: Jack Benny, Ellen Drew, Andy Devine, Phil Harris

Synopsis: To fully appreciate Buck Benny Rides Again, one must have some familiarity with Jack Benny's radio programs of the 1939-40 season. During this period, Jack's broadcast costars included bandleader Phil Harris, announcer Don Wilson, singer Dennis Day and comedians Eddie "Rochester" Anderson and Andy Devine Read More

Love Thy Neighbor

Actors: Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Mary Martin, Veree Teasdale

Synopsis: Love Thy Neighbor was produced to capitalize on the famous radio feud between comedians Jack Benny and Fred Allen. The two stars (actually friends in real life) play "themselves," constantly at each other's throats due to real and imagined slights. Benny complicates matters by falling in love with Read More

Man About Town

Actors: Jack Benny, Dorothy Lamour, Edward Arnold, Binnie Barnes, Monty Woolley

Synopsis: Jack Benny goes to London in this frothy musical. He plays a Broadway producer and while in London begins pining for the love of glamorous singer Dorothy Lamour. Unfortunately, she finds him unattractive. Wanting to make her jealous, Benny pursues a pair of women who are trying to make their Read More

Artists and Models Abroad

Actors: Jack Benny, Joan Bennett, Mary Boland, Charles Grapewin, Yacht Club Boys

Synopsis: In this musical sequel to the highly successful Artists and Models, Jack Benny plays Buck Boswell, the leader of a troupe of performers who end up broke and stranded in gay Paris. To rustle up a little cash, he decides to produce a musical fashion show. Boswell hires an American father and Read More

Artists and Models

Actors: Jack Benny, Ida Lupino, Richard Arlen, Gail Patrick, Ben Blue

Synopsis: Jack Benny had one of his first starring film roles in this breezy comedy with plenty of music. Benny plays Mac Brewster, an advertising man trying to hold on to his biggest client, a silver company run by Alan Townshend (Richard Arlen). Elsewhere in the office, Paula Sewell (Ida Lupino) longs to Read More

College Holiday

Actors: Jack Benny, Gracie Allen, Mary Boland, Martha Raye

Synopsis: The quaint genetic theories of the 1930s are satirized in College Holiday. Dotty matron Mary Boland runs a ramshackle summer resort, opening her doors to college students of both sexes--but only those collegiates with extra-special physical and mental skills. She hopes to encourage these select Read More

The Big Broadcast of 1937

Actors: Jack Benny, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Martha Raye, Shirley Ross

Synopsis: The third film of Paramount's "Big Broadcast" series follows the pattern of the first two titles: negligible plot with plenty of memorable music and guest stars. Jack Carson (Jack Benny) owns the radio station this time out; he doesn't get along with the sponsors, and many are threatening to pull Read More

It's in the Air

Actors: Jack Benny, Ted Healy, Una Merkel, Nat Pendleton, Mary Carlisle

Synopsis: Jack Benny is cast against type as a small-time con man in this lightweight MGM programmer. Whenever he manages to outsmart himself, Calvin (Benny) returns to his ever-patient wife Alice (Una Merkel) to bail him out. In dutch with the law again -- this time he's managed to offend the IRS! Read More

Broadway Melody of 1936

Actors: Jack Benny, Eleanor Powell, Robert Taylor, Una Merkel, Sid Silvers

Synopsis: The Broadway Melody of 1936 was designed as the first of many annual follow-ups to "MGM"'s early-talkie triumph Broadway Melody (1929). Jack Benny is atypically cast as a Walter Winchell type who carries on a feud with Broadway producer Robert Taylor. Into this fray comes Taylor's childhood Read More

Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round

Actors: Gene Raymond, Jack Benny, Nancy Carroll, Sydney Howard, Mitzi Green

Synopsis: While crossing the Atlantic aboard a luxury liner, a radio troupe (led by Jack Benny) becomes involved in a murder mystery among a buffet of romance, music, trickery and blackmail--ornamented with a few musical numbers. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More

Mr. Broadway

Actors: Ed Sullivan, Johnny Walker, Josephine Dunn

Synopsis: Perhaps hoping to emulate the Hollywood success of his arch-rival Walter Winchell, New York gossip columnist Ed Sullivan starred in the cheaply produced musical hodgepodge Mr. Broadway. As stiff and unsmiling as he'd be on his much-later TV series, Sullivan appears as himself, taking the viewer on Read More

Taxi Tangle

Cab Waiting

A Broadway Romeo

The Medicine Man

Actors: Jack Benny, Betty Bronson

Synopsis: Jack Benny wasn't even 39 yet when he starred in the maudlin backstage drama The Medicine Man. Benny plays Dr. John Harvey, the worldly and none-too-honest title character, who while passing through a small town falls in love with winsome Mamie Goltz (Betty Bronson), the victim of what one Read More

Hollywood Revue of 1929

Synopsis: With the arrival of talkies, every major studio hopped on the musical bandwagon by turning out lavish "revues," spotlighting their top stars performing specialty numbers. MGM's entry in this all-star genre was Hollywood Revue of 1929, which, though a box-office smash and a "Best Picture" Oscar Read More

Chasing Rainbows

Actors: Bessie Love, Jack Benny, George K. Arthur, Polly Moran

Synopsis: Intended as a follow-up to the fabulously successful Broadway Melody, Chasing Rainbows reunites several of the leading players of MGM's Hollywood Revue of 1929. The story concerns a troupe of travelling entertainers, all of whom would like to escape their peripatetic existence but none of whom Read More

Easter Teleparade of Stars

Synopsis: A Lenten period television variety special. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

The Frank Sinatra Collection: Frank Sinatra with Jack Benny

Synopsis: Francis Albert Sinatra (1915-1998) went a long way for a kid from Hoboken, NJ. He became one of the world's most admired singers, a recording star, a radio star, and an Academy Award-winning actor. Part of a ten-tape collection, this program features archival footage of Sinatra singing and joking Read More