John AlexanderFilmography

The Man in the Net

Actors: Alan Ladd, Carolyn Jones, Diane Brewster, John Lupton, Charles McGraw

Synopsis: This undistinguished murder muddle by director Michael Curtis involves an artist and his alcoholic psychologically disturbed wife -- who disappears one day. John Hamilton (Alan Ladd) has retreated to the New England countryside to pursue a potential career as an artist, but his wife Linda (Carolyn Jones Read More

The Mugger

Actors: Kent Smith, Nan Martin, James Franciscus, Stefan Schnabel

Synopsis: In this crime drama, a police psychiatrist sets out to capture a whacko purse snatcher who has been scarring the faces of his female victims as he makes off with their bags. When a girl is killed, all evidence points to the mugger, but when he is captured he fervently denies it. The police then Read More

The Marrying Kind

Actors: Judy Holliday, Aldo Ray, Madge Kennedy, Sheila Bond, John Alexander, Mickey Shaughnessy, Griff Barnett

Synopsis: A master blend of comedy, domestic drama and sudden tragedy, The Marrying Kind remains one of the best collaborations between star Judy Holliday, screenwriters Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon, and director George Cukor. The film begins at the end, with married couple Florence and Chet Keefer (Judy Holliday Read More

Untamed Frontier

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Shelley Winters, Scott Brady, Suzan Ball, Minor Watson

Synopsis: Reportedly, there was no love lost between the three stars of Untamed Frontier, and perhaps it was this tension that added so much depth to this otherwise formula-bound western. Joseph Cotten plays Kirk Denbow, the straight-laced son of ruthless cattle-baron Matt Denbow (Minor Watson), while Scott Brady Read More

The Model and the Marriage Broker

Actors: Jeanne Crain, Scott Brady, Thelma Ritter, Zero Mostel, Michael O'Shea

Synopsis: The model (Jeanne Crain) is stuck in an unhappy relationship with a married man. The marriage broker (Thelma Ritter) doesn't like this and tries to match the model with a lonely x-ray technician (Scott Brady). The model is so grateful that she tries to find an eligible bachelor for the broker. The Read More

Winchester '73

Actors: James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea, Stephen McNally, Charles Drake, Rock Hudson, Millard Mitchell

Synopsis: Lin McAdam (James Stewart) and his friend High-Spade (Millard Mitchell) arrive in Dodge City for a shooting contest, in which the prize is a perfectly manufactured Winchester repeating rifle, referred to as "One of a Thousand" -- a gun so fine that Winchester won't sell it. Lin runs across Dutch Read More

Fancy Pants

Actors: Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Bruce Cabot, Jack Kirkwood, Lea Penman, Eric Blore

Synopsis: Fancy Pants is a musicalized remake of the oft-filmed Harry Leon Wilson story Ruggles of Red Gap, tailored to the talents of "Mr. Robert Hope (formerly Bob)". The basic plotline of the original, that of an English butler entering the service of a rowdy nouveau-riche family from the American West Read More

The Sleeping City

Actors: Richard Conte, Coleen Gray, Richard Taber, John Alexander, Peggy Dow, Alex Nicol

Synopsis: One of the finest and most troubling films to come out of Universal-International, The Sleeping City tried to emulate some of the cinéma vérité elements of The Naked City (which had been produced at Universal's facilities). The producers got the permission of the city of New York to shoot Read More

Summer Holiday

Actors: John Alexander, Mickey Rooney, Gloria de Haven, Walter Huston, Ruth Brady, Virginia Brissac, Frank Morgan, Agnes Moorehead

Synopsis: Summer Holiday is a musical remake of the 1935 MGM comedy-drama Ah, Wilderness!, which in turn was adapted from the play by Eugene O'Neill. Mickey Rooney (who played a supporting role in the 1935 film) stars as O'Neill's alter ego Richard Miller, a young man coming of age in early 20th century New Read More

Night Has a Thousand Eyes

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Gail Russell, John Lund, Virginia Bruce, William Demarest, Richard Webb

Synopsis: A man who dreams of seeing the future discovers the horrible burden that it can carry in this film noir suspense story. Suicidal Jean Courtland (Gail Russell) is prevented from killing herself by her fiancée Elliot Carson (John Lund). When they consult psychic John Triton (Edward G. Robinson Read More

Living in a Big Way

Actors: Gene Kelly, Marie McDonald, Charles Winninger, Phyllis Thaxter, Spring Byington

Synopsis: Despite MGM's insistence that star Gene Kelly, just returning from military service in 1947, appear exclusively in big-budget Technicolor musicals, maverick director Gregory La Cava showcased Kelly in the modest black and white tunefest Living in a Big Way. Kelly is cast as an ex-GI who discovers Read More

Cass Timberlane

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Lana Turner, Zachary Scott, Tom Drake, Mary Astor

Synopsis: A visibly uneasy Spencer Tracy plays the title role in this lavish MGM screen version of Sinclair Lewis' 1945 magazine serial. A small-town bachelor judge, Cass Timberlane, takes a personal interest in beautiful stenographer Jinny Marshland (Lana Turner), who appears one day as a witness in his Read More

Where There's Life

Actors: Bob Hope, Signe Hasso, William Bendix, George Coulouris, Vera Marshe

Synopsis: Bearing traces of such earlier hits as My Favorite Blonde and The Ghost Breakers, Where There's Life is one of the best of Bob Hope's postwar vehicles. The inimitable Mr. Hope is cast as New York radio personality Michael Valentine, who's poised to marry his long-time fiancee Hazel O'Brien (Vera Marshe Read More

New Orleans

Actors: John Alexander, Louis Armstrong, Arturo de Cordova, Dorothy Patrick

Synopsis: New Orleans is Republic Pictures' spin on such "musical origin" films as Birth of the Blues and Dixie. Covering nearly four decades, the story is a fanciful recreation of the "birth" of American jazz music. Arturo de Cordova plays Nick Duquesne, owner of a posh gambling house in Read More

The Jolson Story

Actors: Larry Parks, Evelyn Keyes, William Demarest, Bill Goodwin, Ludwig Donath

Synopsis: Though legendary entertainer Al Jolson was a highly visible presence on the U.S.O. circuit during World War II, he was generally regarded as a relic of an earlier time until his movie comeback in 1945's Rhapsody in Blue. Showing up 30 minutes into this biopic of George Gershwin, Jolson literally Read More

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Actors: Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, James Dunn, Lloyd Nolan, Peggy Ann Garner

Synopsis: One-time movie song-and-dance man James Dunn won an Academy Award for his "comeback" performance in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Based on the best-selling novel by Betty Smith, the film relates the trials and tribulations of a turn-of-the-century Brooklyn tenement family. The father, Dunn, is a Read More

Junior Miss

Actors: Peggy Ann Garner, Allyn Joslyn, Michael Dunne, Mona Freeman, Faye Marlowe, Barbara Whiting, John Alexander

Synopsis: Adapted from the high school drama-class perennial by Jerome Chodhorov and Joseph Fields, Junior Miss stars Peggy Ann Garner as a troublesome teenager. Garner means well, but can't help meddling in the affairs of her father (Allyn Joslyn) and other unsuspecting grownups. Most of the story revolves 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

Arsenic and Old Lace

Actors: Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey, Jack Carson, Peter Lorre, Edward Everett Horton

Synopsis: Arsenic and Old Lace is director Frank Capra's spin on the classic Joseph Kesselring stage comedy, which concerns the sweet old Brewster sisters (Josephine Hull, Jean Adair), beloved in their genteel Brooklyn neighborhood for their many charitable acts. One charity which the ladies don't advertise Read More

The Doughgirls

Actors: Ann Sheridan, Alexis Smith, Jack Carson, Jane Wyman, Irene Manning

Synopsis: The wartime housing shortage in Washington DC is the basis for this comedy. Several attractive young ladies rent a single DC apartment, causing no end of complications to their various professional and private lives. Also moving in (due to a misunderstanding) is a young newlywed (Jane Wyman) Read More

Mr. Skeffington

Actors: Bette Davis, Claude Rains, Walter Abel, Richard Waring, George Coulouris, Jerome Cowan

Synopsis: From a novel of the same name by "Elizabeth", the film begins in 1914, with Bette Davis cast as vain, flighty society woman Fanny Trellis. Informed by Jewish-American financier Job Skeffington (Claude Rains) that her brother Trippy (Richard Waring) has stolen money to pay his gambling debts, Fanny Read More

It Shouldn't Happen to a Dog

Actors: Carole Landis, Allyn Joslyn, Margo Woode, Henry Morgan, Jean Wallace, Reed Hadley

Synopsis: This 20th Century-Fox cheapie stars Carole Landis as a pretty detective and Allyn Joslyn as a fast-talking reporter ever on the verge of losing his job. Landis is entrusted with a large, troublesome Doberman pinscher named Rodney, who is docile only around her. After numerous Disney-like Read More

Calling All Husbands

Actors: George Tobias, Lucille Fairbanks, Ernest Truex, George Reeves, Florence Bates

Synopsis: Poor Mr. Trippe, a spineless spouse, finds himself brow-beaten by his overbearing nag of a wife who constantly reminds him that she should have married her dashing, successful ex-boy friend Armstrong. Fortunately, Trippe's daughter Betty understands and tries to help him cope with his battle-axe Read More

Flowing Gold

Actors: John Garfield, Frances Farmer, Pat O'Brien, Raymond Walburn, Cliff Edwards

Synopsis: A tough, bitter fugitive's travels lead him to a grungy rundown oil town. There the transient is taken in by an oil-rigger who gives him a job working a well. They must work double-quick for the well's lease is due to expire. Unfortunately, they become so focused on striking oil quickly, they Read More

On Such a Night

Actors: Grant Richards, Karen Morley, Roscoe Karns, Eduardo Ciannelli, Milli Monti

Synopsis: A Mississippi flood saves the life of a petty crook who is about to be lynched for a murder he did not commit. After he escapes, he flees to a nearby plantation where he and a woman (claiming to be his wife) are taken in and treated with great kindness. They are happy until the killer that framed Read More

Men in Exile

Actors: Dick Purcell, June Travis, Alan Baxter, Margaret Irving, Victor Varconi

Synopsis: Director John Farrow was always at his best when dealing with desperate men in desperate situations. One of Farrow's lesser but still fascinating 1930s assignments was the Warner Bros. actioner Men in Exile, starring Dick Purcell as American fugitive from justice Jimmy Carmody. Escaping across the Read More

Stage Struck

Actors: Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, Warren William, Frank McHugh, Jeanne Madden

Synopsis: Stage Struck is one of the least known of Busby Berkeley's Warner Bros. musicals, chiefly because there are no major production numbers. The plot is that old saw about young, unknown hopefuls who put on a Big Show and become overnight stars. Alas, the magic didn't work for leading lady Jeanne Madden Read More

Polo Joe

Actors: Joe E. Brown, Carolyn Hughes, Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, Joseph King

Synopsis: At the time of its release, Polo Joe was critically lambasted as the worst Joe E. Brown starrer to date. Compared to his later non-Warners efforts, however, it's not so bad: the biggest criticism that can be levelled against it is that it's virtually indistinguishable from Brown's other 1930s Read More

The Petrified Forest

Actors: Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Dick Foran, Genevieve Tobin

Synopsis: Burned-out British intellectual Alan Squier (Leslie Howard) wanders into the desert service station/restaurant owned by Jason Maple (Porter Hall). Alan finds himself an object of fascination for Jason's starry-eyed daughter, Gabrielle Bette Davis, who dreams of moving to France and establishing Read More

Satan Met a Lady

Actors: Bette Davis, Warren William, Alison Skipworth, Arthur Treacher, Winifred Shaw

Synopsis: While John Huston's screen adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon is widely regarded as a screen classic, it wasn't the first time Hammett's novel had been brought to the screen, and this comedy drama offers a decidedly different spin on the same story. Detective Ted Shayne (Warren William Read More

The Ghost Rider

Synopsis: Although billed fourth, Veteran silent screen actor Franklyn Farnum is the real star of this ultra low-budget Western from the poorly named Superior Talking Pictures. Escaping from jail, Jim Bullard (Farnum) avenges himself on the thieving Raskobb clan by placing an ace of spade on every member he Read More

Special Agent

Actors: Bette Davis, George Brent, Ricardo Cortez, Jack LaRue, Henry O'Neill

Synopsis: The agent of the title is George Brent, a journalist sent by the Government to get the goods on a crime syndicate. Brent befriends Bette Davis, bookkeeper for suspected crime boss Ricardo Cortez. Bette's cooperation nearly costs her life, but both she and Brent manage a tricky escape during a Read More

Baby, Take a Bow

Actors: Shirley Temple, James Dunn, Claire Trevor, Alan Dinehart, Ray Walker

Synopsis: Shirley Temple's first starring vehicle casts her as the button-cute daughter of ex-convict Eddie Ellison (James Dunn) and his wife Kay (Claire Trevor). Ellison and his old cellmate Larry Scott (Ray Walker) manage to land jobs as chauffeurs for a wealthy family. When a valuable string of pearls Read More

Wings of the Turf

Actors: A. Bromley Davenport, John Alexander, Ivy Duke, Mary Rorke

Fox Farm

Synopsis: British farmer James Falconer (Guy Newall) worships Ivy Duke (Ann Wetherall) from afar. When Falconer is blinded in an accident, Ivy goes to work for him. This does not sit well with Falconer's nagging spouse Kate (Barbara Everest). Even so, Falconer remains faithful to Kate, until her own Read More