John AbbottFilmography

Four Weddings and a Funeral

Actors: Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, Kristin Scott Thomas, Simon Callow, James Fleet, John Hannah

Synopsis: This acclaimed British comedy centers on the intermittent romance between a charming (if slightly bumbling) Englishman and a beautiful American woman, who seem to always run into each other at weddings. Indeed, it is at the first of the title's four weddings that Charles (Hugh Grant) and Carrie (Andie McDowell Read More

Treasure Island

Actors: Nicholas Amer, Christian Bale, Julian Glover, Christopher Lee, Oliver Reed, Clive Wood, Charlton Heston, Richard Johnson

Synopsis: This full-blooded TV adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island was written, produced and directed by Frasier Heston. His father, Charlton Heston plays Long John Silver. Eschewing the cuteness of Wallace Beery and the unadulterated ham of Robert Newton, Heston plays the character as Read More

A Hazard of Hearts

Actors: Marcus Gilbert, Diana Rigg, Helena Bonham Carter

Synopsis: Hazard of Hearts was adapted for television from a 1948 bodice-ripper by Barbara Cartland. Set (where else?) in 1810 England, the film stars Helena Bonham Carter as the obligatory innocent young lass with a dynamite figure. Falling in love with a Rochester-like Marquis (Marcus Gilbert), Helena is Read More

Lady Jane

Actors: Helena Bonham Carter, Cary Elwes, John Wood, Michael Hordern, Jill Bennett

Synopsis: Lady Jane Grey, the 16-year-old girl who for nine days in the 16th century was Queen of England, is here portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter. Lady Jane Grey's sickly cousin, who becomes Edward VI upon the death of Henry VIII, is on the threshold of death himself. The Protestant powers-that-be Read More

Slapstick of Another Kind

Actors: Jerry Lewis, Madeline Kahn, Marty Feldman, John Abbott, Jim Backus

Synopsis: This dismal sci-fi comedy is based on a novel by Kurt Vonnegut and features Jerry Lewis and Madeline Kahn in dual roles as wealthy, respected parents who give birth to two gigantic, and ugly twins. The appalled parents try to keep them hidden away for they do not know that their "children" are Read More

Used Cars

Actors: Kurt Russell, Jack Warden, Frank McRae, Gerritt Graham, Deborah Harmon, Michael McKean

Synopsis: Used Cars is one of Robert Zemeckis' pre-Roger Rabbit and pre-Forrest Gump efforts starring Kurt Russell is a devious car salesman who goes to work for affable but monumentally unsuccessful used car dealer Jack Warden. Warden's principal rival is his more prosperous twin brother, also played by Read More

Measure for Measure

Actors: Kate Nelligan, Kenneth Colley, Tim Pigott-Smith

Synopsis: Vincentio (Kenneth Colley), Duke of Vienna, is a good and kindly ruler, but his leniency has allowed vice to thrive. So he decides to leave town temporarily, putting in charge his stern chief deputy, Angelo (Tim Piggott-Smith). Immediately, Angelo condemns the young nobleman, Claudio (Christopher Strauli Read More

Doctor Who: The Horror of Fang Rock, Episode 3

Actors: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, Colin Douglas, John Abbott, Alan Rowe

Synopsis: In the third episode of the four-part story "The Horror of Fang Rock," the Doctor (Tom Baker) and Leela (Louise Jameson) help the keepers of the lighthouse in the English coastal village of Fang Rock fend off an invasion from space by the alien Rutans. Unfortunately, these efforts are undermined Read More

Doctor Who: The Horror of Fang Rock, Episode 1

Actors: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, Colin Douglas, John Abbott, Ralph Watson

Synopsis: The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Leela (Louise Jameson) materialize near the lighthouse of Fang Rock, a small English seacoast town in the early 20th century. The two time travelers quickly make friends with lighthouse keepers Reuben (Colin Douglas), Vince (John Abbott), and Ben (Ralph Watson), who are Read More

Doctor Who: The Horror of Fang Rock, Episode 2

Actors: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, Colin Douglas, John Abbott, Alan Rowe

Synopsis: In the second episode of the four-part story "The Horror of Fang Rock," the Doctor (Tom Baker) and Leela (Louise Jameson) investigate the mysterious goings-on in the British coastal village of Fang Rock in the early 1900s. A strange object, falling from the sky, has already killed one of the Read More

Sherlock Holmes in New York

Actors: Patrick Macnee, Roger Moore, Charlotte Rampling

Synopsis: Sherlock Holmes in New York is a topnotch TV movie starring Roger Moore (surprisingly effective as Holmes) and Patrick MacNee (an intelligent, compassionate Watson). The Great Detective travels to the Big Apple of the 1890s to thwart arch-villain Moriarty, who plans to devalue the world's gold Read More

The Black Bird

Actors: George Segal, Stéphane Audran, Lionel Stander, Lee Patrick, Elisha Cook, Jr.

Synopsis: The Black Bird is a satirical sequel to The Maltese Falcon. George Segal plays Sam Spade Jr., who has inherited his dad's detective agency in a seedy section of San Francisco. The ubiquitous, priceless Maltese Falcon, which eluded Bogart and company in the 1941 film, surfaces once again. This Read More

The Cat Creature

Actors: John Carradine, Gale Sondergaard

Synopsis: Cat Creature is a heady Curtis Harrington combination of high-gloss production values and spinechilling terror. A curse imposed thousands of years ago by a cat goddess wreaks havoc in the 20th century--all for the purpose of retrieving a long-lost golden amulet. Gale Sondergaard, whose association Read More

Two Thousand Years Later

Actors: Terry-Thomas, Edward Everett Horton, Pat Harrington, Jr., Lisa Seagram, John Abbott

2000 Years Later

Synopsis: John Abbott, a citizen of Ancient Rome, is transported against his will to the 20th Century. No sooner has he landed in Tinseltown than he's pounced upon by opportunists and sharpsters. Ad man Terry-Thomas exploits Abbott for marketing purposes, while gorgeous Lisa Seagram hopes to use the hapless Read More

Three Guns for Texas

Actors: Neville Brand, Peter Brown, William Smith, Martin Milner, Philip Carey

Synopsis: Three Guns For Texas is a routine western. Taken from the television series "Laredo," three 30-minute episodes are strung together. The only continuity seems to be the plot of Texas Rangers fighting a renegade band of Indians led by Linda Little Trees (Shelley Morrison). Neville Brand, Peter Read More

Star Trek: Errand of Mercy

Synopsis: The Enterprise is called to respond to an unprovoked attack by the enemy Klingons on the neutral planet of Organia in this episode of the original Star Trek television series. Thanks to the strategic significance of the planet's location, the attack threatens to initiate total war between the Read More

The Jungle Book

Actors: Bruce Reitherman, Phil Harris, Sebastian Cabot, Louis Prima, George Sanders, Sterling Holloway, J. Pat O'Malley

Synopsis: The final animated feature produced under the supervision of Walt Disney is a lively neo-swing musical, loosely based upon the tales of Rudyard Kipling. The story takes place in a tropical jungle where people are conspicuously absent. But one day Bagheera the Panther (voice of Sebastian Cabot) Read More

Bewitched: Samantha's Da Vinci Dilemma

Actors: Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York, Agnes Moorehead, Erin Murphy, Diane Murphy

Synopsis: When Samantha decides that her house needs painting, helpful Aunt Clara summons up the spirit of the best painter she knows: Leonardo Da Vinci (John Abbott). Trying to undo her misfire spell, Clara inadvertently places Darrin in a Renaissance costume, leading his newest client to mount an ad Read More

Gambit

Actors: Shirley MacLaine, Michael Caine, Herbert Lom, Roger C. Carmel, Arnold Moss

Synopsis: Ideal and reality clash in this humorous tale of the heist that could have been. As scheming career cat burglar Harry Dean (Michael Cane) prepares to steal a priceless statue from the world's richest man, he seeks out the assistance of Eurasian showgirl Suzy Chang Shirley Maclaine). Though the Read More

Lost in Space: The Dream Monster

Synopsis: John Abbott guest stars as Sesmar, an alien scientist who has created an android named Raddion (played by the ubiquitous Dawson Palmer). The android is quite a piece of work, seemingly human in every respect save one: he lacks human emotions. To rectify this shortcoming, Sesmar drains the Read More

The Munsters: A Visit from Johann

Synopsis: Dr. Victor Frankenstein IV (John Abbott), a descendant of the scientist who "created" Herman Munster, has in his possession a primitive, brutish Herman lookalike named Johann (also Fred Gwynne). Unfortunately, Johann escapes from Dr. Frankenstein's lab at precisely the same time that his Herman Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Laughing Lady

Synopsis: Moving to a new Sunday-night timeslot opposite Bonanza for its ninth and final season, Perry Mason gets the ball rolling as Perry (Raymond Burr) is requested by a judge (Dan Tobin) to handle the defense of Carla Chaney (Jean Hale) a destitute young woman with a really nasty attitude. Charged with Read More

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Actors: Max von Sydow, Dorothy McGuire, Robert Loggia, Claude Rains, José Ferrer, Charlton Heston

Synopsis: Filmmaker George Stevens chose Monument Valley, Utah for his exterior sequences in The Greatest Story Ever Told, this ($20 million) adaptation of Fulton Oursler's best-selling book. The "Greatest Story" is, of course, the life of Jesus Christ, played herein by Max Von Sydow. The large supporting Read More

The Beverly Hillbillies: Jed Becomes a Movie Mogul

Synopsis: The third season of The Beverly Hillbillies was launched on September 23, 1964, with the first episode of a four-part story arc. In "Jed Becomes a Movie Mogul," the Clampetts purchase Mammoth Pictures, a movie studio on the verge of bankruptcy. Not unexpectedly, the new owners can't convince the Read More

Who's Minding the Store?

Actors: Jerry Lewis, Jill St. John, Agnes Moorehead, John McGiver, Ray Walston

Synopsis: This frantic comedy finds Raymond (Jerry Lewis) working in a department store. Mr. Tuttle (John McGiver) is the watchful owner, whose outspoken wife Phoebe (Agnes Moorehead) makes no secret about her feelings that Raymond is an incompetent boob. Barbara (Jill St. John) is the pretty elevator Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Bogus Books

Synopsis: Moving from Saturday to Thursday evening for its sixth season on CBS, Perry Mason kicks off the new year with another baffling murder case. This time the victim is Joseph Kraft (Maurice Manson) a crooked book dealer who traffics in forgeries of rare first editions. Not long after firing his clerk Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: First Class Honeymoon

Synopsis: Saddled with paying huge alimony checks to his high-maintenance former wife, Edward Gibson (Robert Webber) seeks a legal method to rid himself of this burden. Enter Edward's pal Carl Seabrook (Jeremy Slate), who magnanimously offers to marry the ex-Mrs. Gibson himself -- for a 5,000-dollar fee. Read More

Bonanza: Gabrielle

Actors: Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, John Abbott

Synopsis: The Cartwrights rescue 11-year-old Gabrielle Wickham (Diane Mountford), a blind orphan girl whom they find wandering aimlessly in the snow. Gabrielle is hoping against hope to locate her grandfather, Zachariah Wickham (John Abbott). Alas, Zachariah turns out to be a contentious hermit who hates Read More

Have Gun, Will Travel: Shot by Request

Synopsis: In Carson City, Paladin (Richard Boone) finds a kindred spirit in the form of an elderly, cultured gentleman named Ainslee (John Abbott). Like Paladin, Ainslee has been forced by circumstances to become a gunfighter, and now must face down every young punk in the west who is trying to make a name Read More

Gigi

Actors: Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan, Hermione Gingold, Eva Gabor, Isabel Jeans

Synopsis: Leslie Caron plays Gigi, a young girl raised by two veteran Parisian courtesans (Hermione Gingold and Isabel Jeans) to be the mistress of wealthy young Gaston (Louis Jourdan). When Gaston falls in love with Gigi and asks her to be his wife, Jeans is appalled: never has anyone in their family ever Read More

Public Pigeon No. 1

Actors: Red Skelton, Vivian Blaine, Janet Blair, Jay C. Flippen, Allyn Joslyn

Synopsis: Red Skelton's final film starring vehicle is an expansion of an hour-long TV play, which also starred Skelton when it was originally seen in September of 1955 on the weekly anthology Climax!. Skelton plays doltish lunchroom attendant Rusty Morgan, who is dutifully saving up enough money so that he Read More

Omar Khayyam

Actors: Cornel Wilde, Michael Rennie, Debra Paget, Raymond Massey, John Derek

Synopsis: Frank Freeman Jr., son of the longtime head of Paramount Pictures, made his debut as producer with the opulent but empty Omar Khayyam. Cornel Wilde stars as the legendary Persian poet, here depicted as not only a philosopher but a scientist, politician and great lover. As the Persians gear up for Read More

Gunsmoke: Professor Lute Bone

Synopsis: Doc Adams (Milburn Stone) reacts with uncharacteristic violence when snake-oil peddler Lute Bone (John Abbott) shows up in town. Though everyone (including Chester [Dennis Weaver) falls for Professor Bone's line of patter, Doc is convinced that the man is not only a fraud but a potential murderer Read More

The Hour of Stars: Miracle on 34th Street

Actors: Thomas Mitchell, Teresa Wright, Sandy Descher

Synopsis: The 20th Century-Fox Hour (later syndicated as The Hour of Stars) ran on CBS just shy of two years, from October 1955 through September 1957. An anthology program, the series typically featured readaptations of 20th Century-Fox feature films for a sixty-minute TV airslot. The 1955 production of Read More

Thunder in the East

Actors: Alan Ladd, Deborah Kerr, Charles Boyer, Corinne Calvet, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: During the early days of East Indian independence in 1947, a native rebellion threatens a hotel full of Britishers, Europeans and Americans. Gunrunner Alan Ladd could care less about anything other than his own neck. Ladd runs up against the resistance of a pacifist Indian leader (Charles Boyer) Read More

Sombrero

Actors: Anna Maria Pier Angeli, Ricardo Montalban, Vittorio Gassman, Yvonne De Carlo, Cyd Charisse

Synopsis: This tuneful romantic melodrama is set in a tiny Mexican village and is comprised of three storylines. One tale concerns a pair of young lovers from rival villages who will not be able to marry until a long time feud is ended. In another tale, an heir to a large fortune falls in love with an Read More

The Steel Lady

Actors: Rod Cameron, Tab Hunter, John Dehner, Richard Erdman, John Abbott

Synopsis: The Steel Lady in this crazy-quilt actioner is the armored tank commandeered by star Rod Cameron. Marooned in the Sahara desert, airplane pilot Mike Monohan (Cameron) and his melting-pot crew (including a young Tab Hunter) come across a deserted Afrika Korps tank. As they roll across the burning Read More

The Merry Widow

Actors: Lana Turner, Fernando Lamas, Una Merkel, Richard Haydn, Thomas Gomez

Synopsis: Based on an operetta by Franz Lehar, this remake of the 1934 original finds a wealthy widow (Lana Turner) returning to her husband's native land to dedicate a memorial to him. The king (Thomas Gomez) of the country, deep in debt, tries to convince her to stay by offering a young count (Fernando Lamas Read More

Rogue's March

Actors: Peter Lawford, Richard Greene, Janice Rule, Leo G. Carroll, John Abbott

Synopsis: Rogue's March was described by one observer as an eastern western. A mustachioed Peter Lawford stars as Capt. Dion Lenbridge of His Majesty's Service. Branded a traitor, Lenbridge is cashiered from the regiment. In fact, Lenbridge isn't a traitor, but he spends the next 84 minutes proving it. He Read More

Thunder on the Hill

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Ann Blyth, Robert Douglas, Anne Crawford, Phillip Friend

Synopsis: Charlotte Hastings' West End stage hit Bonaventure was adroitly translated to the American screen as Thunder on the Hill. The bulk of the action takes place at convent, presided over by Sister Mary (Claudette Colbert). Circumstances -- namely, a dangerous rainstorm and raging flood -- dictate that Read More

Navy Bound

Actors: Tom Neal, Wendy Waldron, Regis Toomey, John Abbott, Murray Alper

Synopsis: Tuna fisherman Joe Morelli (Tom Neal) is Navy Bound in this Monogram programmer. While on board ship, Morelli becomes the fleet's boxing champion. He gives up pugilistic glory to return home, where he tries to help his family out of a financial dilemma. When things prove harder to handle than he'd Read More

Crosswinds

Actors: John Payne, Rhonda Fleming, Forrest Tucker, Robert Lowery, Alan Mowbray

Synopsis: Paramount's Pine-Thomas unit served up another winner with the Technicolor actioner Crosswinds. Set in New Guinea, the film stars John Payne as schooner captain Pete Singleton, who loses his boat to a pair of scheming gold thieves (Forrest Tucker, Robert Lowery). On board the vessel as a Read More

Sideshow

Actors: Don McGuire, Tracey Roberts, John Abbott, Eddie Quillan, Ray Walker

Synopsis: Sideshow was the last starring effort of Don McGuire, who would soon abandon acting in favor of writing, producing and directing. McGuire plays Steve Arthur, an undercover T-Man (or Treasury Agent), hot on the trail of jewel smugglers. He traces the crooks to a travelling carnival, where he takes Read More

Madame Bovary

Actors: Jennifer Jones, James Mason, Van Heflin, Louis Jourdan, Christopher [Alf] Kent

Synopsis: MGM circumvented the censorship that would otherwise have prevented a film version of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary by adding a prologue and epilogue that assured any and all bluenoses that the story was strictly a work of fiction. James Mason appears as Flaubert, defending his inflammatory Read More

The Woman in White

Actors: Eleanor Parker, Alexis Smith, Sydney Greenstreet, Gig Young, Agnes Moorehead

Synopsis: The Woman in White attempts to translate the archaic prose of 19th century gothic-mystery writer Wilkie Collins to the medium of film. Gig Young plays a 19th century painter who, while en route to a country estate, encounters a strange, ethereal young lady (Eleanor Parker) who both begs his help Read More

Addio Mimi!

Actors: Marta Eggerth, Jan Kiepura, Janis Carter, Douglas Dumbrille, Marc Platt

Synopsis: The Italian-American Her Wonderful Lie is based on the novel Latin Quarter by Murger. This literary work is better known as the source for the Puccini opera La Boheme, and indeed, Her Wonderful Life is a modernized adaptation of the Puccini classic, with a few songs from other operas thrown in for Read More

If Winter Comes

Actors: John Abbott, Walter Pidgeon, Deborah Kerr, Angela Lansbury, Hugh French, Binnie Barnes, Halliwell Hobbes, Janet Leigh

Synopsis: In this drama, set in England, an honorable textbook writer in a village becomes friends with a pregnant girl. The friendship costs him his marriage. Later, the girl dies, and the authorities wonder if it is murder. A coroner's inquest is held, and for a while the writer's social and professional Read More

Adventure Island

Actors: Rory Calhoun, Rhonda Fleming, Paul Kelly, John Abbott, Alan Napier

Synopsis: Adventure Island is a shorter and less satisfying remake of the 1937 Paramount actioner Ebb Tide. Rory Calhoun, Paul Kelly and John Abbott star as Herrick, Lochlin and Hulsh, three mercenary seamen involved in illegal activities in the South Seas. Hired to pilot a schooner to Australia, the Read More

The Web

Actors: Ella Raines, Edmond O'Brien, William Bendix, Vincent Price, Maria Palmer

Synopsis: Bob Regan (Edmond O'Brien) -- a small-time attorney from the wrong side of the tracks who nonetheless has a lot of dedication -- is representing a vegetable pushcart owner (Tito Vuolo) in a damage suit against multi-millionaire Andrew Colby (Vincent Price). It seems Colby's car wrecked the man's Read More

Time out of Mind

Actors: Phyllis Calvert, Robert Hutton, Ella Raines, Eddie Albert, Leo G. Carroll

Synopsis: Adapted from a novel by Rachel Field, Time Out of Mind is a slow-moving costume drama enlivened by its stars. Servant girl Kate Ferald (Phyllis Calvert, in her first Hollywood film) falls in love with Christopher Fortune (Robert Hutton), the scion of a wealthy New England sailing family. Read More

One More Tomorrow

Actors: Ann Sheridan, Dennis Morgan, Jane Wyman, Jack Carson, Alexis Smith

Synopsis: In this comedy, an adaptation of the play The Animal Kingdom, a liberal, social reformist photographer falls in love with a wealthy gadabout, and finds she abhors his decadent life even though she loves him. She then takes up with another whom she marries. Unfortunately, she still loves the Read More

The Bandit of Sherwood Forest

Actors: Cornel Wilde, Anita Louise, Jill Esmond, Edgar Buchanan, George Macready, Henry Daniell

Synopsis: The Technicolor swashbuckler Bandit of Sherwood Forest stars Cornel Wilde as Robert of Nottingham, son of the legendary Robin Hood (Russell Hicks). Robert elects to follow in his father's footsteps when oppression rears its ugly head in the form of a despotic Regent (Henry Daniell) and his partner Read More

Anna and the King of Siam

Actors: Irene Dunne, Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Lee J. Cobb, Gale Sondergaard, John Abbott

Synopsis: More serious and less colorful than The King And I, Anna And The King Of Siam is still a well-crafted and elaborate spectacle. Leonowens (Irene Dunne) and her son travel to the tiny kingdom of Siam, where she has been hired to teach Western ways and culture to the multitudes of children sired by Read More

Deception

Actors: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, John Abbott, Benson Fong

Synopsis: Deception is an operatic rehash of the 1929 film Jealousy. Music teacher Bette Davis--who evidently has a large student pool, judging by the size of her penthouse apartment--is reunited with her cellist lover Paul Henreid, whom she believed to have been killed in the war. Henreid wants to marry Read More

Humoresque

Actors: John Abbott, Joan Crawford, John Garfield, Oscar Levant, Paul Cavanagh, J. Carrol Naish, Joan Chandler, Tommy Cook

Synopsis: Fannie Hurst's novel Humoresque is the lachrymose tale of a famed Jewish-American violinist who forgets all about his friends and family in his rise to fame. Screenwriters Clifford Odets and Zachary Gold refashioned this timeworn material into a first-class, big-budget soap opera, completely Read More

The Notorious Lone Wolf

Actors: Gerald Mohr, Janis Carter, Eric Blore, John Abbott

Synopsis: Three years after its previous "Lone Wolf" entry Passport to Suez, Columbia Pictures revitalized the B-picture series with The Notorious Lone Wolf. Gerald Mohr succeeds Warren William in the role of jewel thief-turned-detective Michael Lanyard, while Eric Blore is back as Lanyard's faithful valet Read More

Crime Doctor's Warning

Actors: Warner Baxter, John Litel, Dusty Anderson, Coulter Irwin, Miles Mander

Synopsis: In this episode of the "Crime Doctor" series, Dr. Orday, the sleuthing shrink, cares for a patient who suffers from blackouts. The patient, an artist from New York's Latin Quarter, cannot remember a thing from these episodes. What is most disturbing is that several models have been recently Read More

A Thousand and One Nights

Actors: Cornel Wilde, Evelyn Keyes, Phil Silvers, Adele Jergens, Dusty Anderson

Synopsis: Thousand and One Nights is an occasionally strident but generally successful satire of the popular Universal Jon Hall/Maria Montez epics. Cornel Wilde stars as a twentyish Aladdin, whose magic lamp yields two genies: Collosus-like Rex Ingram (repeated the role he played in 1940's Thief of Baghdad Read More

The Power of the Whistler

Actors: Richard Dix, Janis Carter, Jeff Donnell, Loren Tindall, John Abbott

Synopsis: The third of Columbia's "Whistler" series, Power of the Whistler once more stars Richard Dix as the tortured protagonist. This time, Dix is cast as an amnesiac named William Everett, who is given aid and comfort by pretty Jean Lang (Janis Carter). Assuming that Everett has been victimized by Read More

Honeymoon Ahead

Synopsis: In this musical, a chorus of convicts conspires to get a paroled crooner chucked back in the clink. Songs include: "Time Will Tell," "Now And Always," "Round The Bend," and "How Lovely." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Saratoga Trunk

Actors: Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Flora Robson, Jerry Austin, John Warburton

Synopsis: Ingrid Bergman and Gary Cooper paired off again after For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) with this overwrought melodrama based on the romance novel by Edna Ferber. Bergman plays Clio Dulaine, a beautiful half-Creole woman whose return to 1875 New Orleans from Paris creates a stir. Born out of wedlock Read More

The Vampire's Ghost

Actors: John Abbott, Charles Gordon, Peggy Stewart, Grant Withers, Adele Mara

Synopsis: It is altogether typical of Republic Pictures that the studio's 1945 horror effort The Vampire's Ghost was interrupted mid-film by a barroom brawl! Set in a coastal African village, the story concerns one Webb Fallon (John Abbott), an unprepossessing sort who holds the region in thrall because of Read More

Pursuit to Algiers

Actors: Basil Rathbone

Synopsis: Taking place almost exclusively on a transatlantic ocean liner, this easygoing Sherlock Holmes entry finds Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Watson (Nigel Bruce) escorting Far Eastern regent Nikolas (Leslie Vincent) on a diplomatic mission. A group of assassins have targeted Nikolas for extermination Read More

Abroad With Two Yanks

Actors: William Bendix, Dennis O'Keefe, John Loder, George Cleveland

Synopsis: Allan Dwan directed this light-hearted service comedy starring William Bendix (best known from the television series The Life of Riley) and Dennis O'Keefe as a pair of Marines stationed in Australia. As might be expected, the two soldiers fall for the same woman, a pretty Australian named Joyce Read More

Cry of the Werewolf

Actors: Nina Foch, Stephen Crane, Osa Massen, Blanche Yurka, Barton MacLane

Synopsis: Nina Foch plays the title role in this rather dull horror melodrama from Columbia Pictures. Investigating his father's murder Bob Morris (Stephen Crane) and his Transylvanian girlfriend Elsa (Osa Massen) come to suspect the mysterious Celeste Latour (Foch), who calls herself a Gypsy princess. And Read More

Jane Eyre

Actors: Orson Welles, Joan Fontaine, Margaret O'Brien, John Sutton, Peggy Ann Garner, Agnes Moorehead, Henry Daniell

Synopsis: Director Robert Stevenson collaborated with novelist Aldous Huxley and theatrical-producer John Houseman on the screenplay for this 1944 adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's gothic romance Jane Eyre. After several harrowing years in an orphanage, where she was placed by a supercilious relative for Read More

The Falcon in Hollywood

Actors: Tom Conway, Barbara Hale, Rita Corday, Jean Brooks, Veda Ann Borg

Synopsis: This delightful entry in RKO Radio's "Falcon" series finds amateur Tom Lawrence (Tom Conway), aka The Falcon, tring to solve a series of Tinseltown murders. The killings all seem to be tied in with a "jinxed" movie production, supervised by neurotic studio executive Martin Dwyer (John Abbott). Read More

Summer Storm

Actors: George Sanders, Linda Darnell, Anna Lee, Edward Everett Horton, Hugo Haas

Synopsis: Summer Storm is a remarkably effective Hollywood filmization of Anton Chekhov's The Shooting Party. Linda Darnell stars as the young and beautiful wife of a middle-aged Russian civil servant (Hugo Haas). Darnell becomes the object of the affections of her husband's employer, a lecherous count (Edward Everett Horton Read More

Once Upon a Time

Actors: Cary Grant, Janet Blair, James Gleason, Ted Donaldson, Howard Freeman, William Demarest

Synopsis: Based on Norman Corwin's satirical radio play My Client Curley, Once Upon a Time is an engaging bit of whimsy, completely dominated by the personality of star Cary Grant. It all begins when fly-by-night Broadway producer Jerry Flynn (Grant) learns of a trained caterpillar (!) that dances to the Read More

The Mask of Dimitrios

Actors: Sydney Greenstreet, Zachary Scott, Faye Emerson, Peter Lorre, Victor Francen

Synopsis: Zachary Scott made his screen debut in this clever bit of film noir that has gained a cult reputation in recent years. Dutch mystery novelist Cornelius Leyden (Peter Lorre) is travelling through Istanbul when he meets Col. Haki (Kurt Katch), head of the secret police and a big fan of Read More

Secrets of Scotland Yard

Actors: C. Aubrey Smith, Edgar Barrier, Stephanie Bachelor, Lionel Atwill, Henry Stephenson

Synopsis: Secrets of Scotland Yard is Republic's spin on a plotline first elucidated in the old E. Phillips Oppenheim novel The Great Impersonation. After losing WW I, the German high command, with remarkable foresight, prepares for the next war by planting a spy in the British Admiralty. Edgar Barrier Read More

U-Boat Prisoner

Actors: Bruce Bennett, Erik Rolf, John Abbott, John Wengraf

Synopsis: All-purpose Columbia contractee Bruce Bennett (formerly college athlete Herman Brix) was awarded a leading role in the wartime "B" U-Boat Prisoner. Bennett plays merchant seaman Archie Gibbs, who manages to survive when his ship is torpedoed by a German submarine. Disguising himself in the uniform Read More

End of the Road

Actors: Edward Norris, John Abbott, June Storey, Jonathan Hale, Pierre Watkin

Synopsis: It's nearly the End of the Road for condemned prisoner Chris Martin (John Abbott), slated to be executed for a murder he says he didn't commit. Martin manages to convince crime novelist Robert Kirby (Edward Norris) of his innocence, but Kirby can't get the cops to go along. Thus, the novelist 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

Dangerous Blondes

Actors: Allyn Joslyn, Evelyn Keyes, Edmund Lowe, John Hubbard, Anita Louise

Synopsis: Stalwart supporting actor Allyn Joslyn is afforded a rare leading role in the Columbia mystery meller Dangerous Blondes. Joslyn and Evelyn Keyes play Harry and Jane Craig, a road-company Nick and Nora Charles. A popular mystery writer, Harry occasionally indulges in amateur detective work, with Read More

Under Secret Orders

Actors: John Loder, Dita Parlo, Claire Luce, Gyles Isham

Synopsis: The oft-filmed story of the WW I espionage agent known as "Fraulein Doktor" was given another go-round in the British Under Secret Orders. Dita Parlo plays Anne-Marie Lesser, a German secret agent who undermines the Allied cause at the expense of her own happiness. Top billing is bestowed upon Erich von Stroheim Read More

Joan of Paris

Actors: Michèle Morgan, Paul Henreid, Thomas Mitchell, Laird Cregar, May Robson

Synopsis: At first glance, we seem to be watching the 1934 Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musical The Gay Divorcee, which opens with a montage of Paris nightspots. Suddenly, however, stock footage from that earlier film is cut short, the screen goes dark, and an offscreen radio voice announces the Nazi invasion Read More

Get Hep to Love

Actors: Gloria Jean, Donald O'Connor, Jane Frazee, Robert Paige, Peggy Ryan, Tim Ryan

Synopsis: A bit higher-budgeted than most of Universal's "pocket" musicals, Get Hep to Love runs a full 79 mintues rather than the standard hard-and-fast hour. Gloria Jean plays child musical prodigy Doris Stanley, who is overworked and exploited by her avaricious Aunt Addie (Nana Bryant). Escaping her Read More

London Blackout Murders

Actors: John Abbott, Mary McLeod, Lloyd Corrigan, Lester Matthews, Anita Bolster

Synopsis: In this thriller set in WW II London during the bombing raids, a surgeon becomes a homicidal maniac during the frequent blackouts. Using his hypodermic needle, he only kills the people he believes are enemies to the Allies. Unfortunately, there is no real proof that the people he has offed are Read More

Nightmare

Actors: Diana Barrymore, Brian Donlevy, Henry Daniell, Eustace Wyatt, Arthur Shields

Synopsis: Slick gambler/burglar Brian Donlevy breaks into the house of Henry Daniell and his wife Diana Barrymore. Daniell is promptly murdered, and both the intruder and the wife fall under suspicion. Donlevy and Barrymore go on the lam, pursued by the cops--and by the Nazi spies who committed the murder. Nightmare Read More

The Gorilla Man

Actors: John Loder, Ruth Ford, Marian Hall, Richard Fraser, Paul Cavanagh

Synopsis: In this espionage drama, a battle-fatigued British commando is diagnosed as clinically insane by doctors who are in reality, Nazi spies. They do this to keep him from divulging the secret info he has gathered about them. To prove their diagnosis, they murder several woman and blame him for the Read More

This Above All

Actors: Tyrone Power, Joan Fontaine, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Stephenson, Nigel Bruce

Synopsis: Eric Knight's wartime novel This Above All was given the Tiffany treatment in the this 20th Century Fox big-budgeter. Tyrone Power plays Clive Briggs, a conscientious objector from humble origins, who deserts the British Army because he doesn't believe in fighting to preserve his country's Read More

They Got Me Covered

Actors: Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Lenore Aubert, Otto Preminger, Eduardo Ciannelli

Synopsis: Bob Hope's first starring vehicle for producer Sam Goldwyn borrows the title of Bob's 1942 autobiography They Got Me Covered and very little else. Co-scripted by Leonard Q. Ross (aka Leo Rosten), Leonard Spigelgass and Harry Kurnitz (among many others!), the film casts Hope as Robert Kittredge Read More

Rubber Racketeers

Actors: Ricardo Cortez, Rochelle Hudson, Barbara Read, Milburn Stone

Synopsis: The fourth production from the enterprising King Brothers, Rubber Racketeers drew its inspiration from late-breaking headlines. When wartime rationing kicks in, rubber suddenly is at a premium, resulting in a brisk black market in bootlegged rubber tires. Patriotic defense plant worker Bill Barry (Bill Henry Read More

Mrs. Miniver

Actors: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright, Dame May Whitty, Reginald Owen

Synopsis: As Academy Award-winning films go, Mrs. Miniver has not weathered the years all that well. This prettified, idealized view of the upper-class British home front during World War II sometimes seems over-calculated and contrived when seen today. In particular, Greer Garson's Oscar-winning 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

This Man Is News

Actors: Barry Barnes, Valerie Hobson, Alastair Sim, John Warwick, Philip Leaver

Synopsis: This Man is News is a British imitation of Hollywood's Thin Man pictures. The "Nick and Nora" herein are Barry K. Barnes as an investigative reporter and Valerie Hobson as his helpful wife (?) After writing a series of articles about an elusive gang of jewel thieves, Barnes is framed for robbery. Read More

The Saint in London

Actors: George Sanders, Sally Gray, David Burns, Athene Seyler, Gordon McLeod, Henry Oscar

Synopsis: In an unusual move for a mere program picture, RKO Radio filmed A Saint in London on location in England, using a largely British cast and crew. George Sanders makes his second appearance as suave soldier of fortune Simon Templer, aka The Saint. This time, Templar gets mixed up with a gang of Read More

Ten Days in Paris

Actors: Rex Harrison, Kaaren Verne, C.V. France, Joan Marion, Leo Genn

Synopsis: Rex Harrison plays a young Englishman who suffers periodic bouts of amnesia. When the plane he is riding in crashes, Harrison blacks out again and awakens in Paris. He is told that for the past ten days he has been involved in espionage of some sort or other--and now his life isn't worth two Read More

Conquest of the Air

Synopsis: This interesting early docu-drama offers a complete chronicle of the history of aviation from prehistoric times through the mid 1930s. Though the film was finished by 1935, it was not released until much later. H.G. Wells assisted on the first drafts of the script. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Read More