John HallidayFilmography

The Philadelphia Story

Actors: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Ruth Hussey, John Howard

Synopsis: We open on Philadelphia socialite C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) as he's being tossed out of his palatial home by his wife, Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn). Adding insult to injury, Tracy breaks one of C.K.'s precious golf clubs. He gallantly responds by knocking her down on her million-dollar Read More

Escape to Glory

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Constance Bennett, John Halliday, Melville Cooper, Alan Baxter

Synopsis: The Grand Hotel formula that was so overworked in the 1930s made an encore appearance in 1940's Escape to Glory. The story is given timeliness by placing the characters on a British merchant ship on the very day that World War II is declared. The ship is attacked by a Nazi U-Boat, resulting in a Read More

Intermezzo

Actors: Leslie Howard, Ingrid Bergman, Edna Best, John Halliday, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: Gregory Ratoff directed David O. Selznick's richly produced American remake of the Swedish film directed by Gustav Molander and starring Ingrid Bergman, who re-creates her role here. The story -- based on the original screenplay by Molander and Gosta Stevens -- concerns a love affair played out 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

Arsene Lupin Returns

Actors: Melvyn Douglas, Virginia Bruce, Warren William, John Halliday, Nat Pendleton

Synopsis: This follow-up to MGM's 1932 John Barrymore vehicle Arsene Lupin stars the ineluctable Melvyn Douglas. Reported to be dead, suave gentleman jewel thief Arsene Lupin (Douglas) resurfaces under the assumed name of Rene Farrand. Intending to follow the straight and narrow path, Lupin/Farrand reverts Read More

Blockade

Actors: Madeleine Carroll, Henry Fonda, Leo Carrillo, John Halliday, Vladimir Sokoloff

Synopsis: Since the United States was officially neutral in the Spanish Civil War, the struggle of the Loyalists against Franco's forces didn't find much favor in Hollywood; this drama, produced by Walter Wanger, was one of the few films to deal with the conflict, albeit in watered-down terms. Marco (Henry Fonda Read More

That Certain Age

Actors: Deanna Durbin, Melvyn Douglas, Jackie Cooper, Irene Rich, Nancy Carroll

Synopsis: In this musical romantic comedy of 1938, Deanna Durbin plays Alice Fullerton, a young woman of a "certain age" who is prone to developing crushes against her best judgment. Her parents have taken in an intriguing house guest, Vincent Bullitt (Melvyn Douglas), a successful international news Read More

Hollywood Boulevard

Actors: John Halliday, Marsha Hunt, Robert Cummings, C. Henry Gordon, Frieda Inescort

Synopsis: Hollywood Boulevard is a trenchant look at the underside of Tinseltown. Though the nominal hero is a disillusioned screenwriter played by Robert Cummings (whose dialogue anticipates the lines spoken by William Holden in 1950's Sunset Boulevard), the focus of the story is John Halliday as a Read More

Fatal Lady

Actors: Mary Ellis, Walter Pidgeon, Ruth Donnelly, Norman Foster, Guy Bates Post

Synopsis: Mary Ellis, Paramount's answer to Columbia's Grace Moore, stars in the title role in this musical melodrama/whodunit. When her fiancé dies under mysterious circumstances, neophyte opera diva Mary Stuart (Ellis) flees to South America, assumes a new identity, and obtains a position with a local Read More

Three Cheers for Love

Actors: Eleanore Whitney, Robert Cummings, William Frawley, Roscoe Karns, John Halliday

Synopsis: In this musical, a young lady is sent to an East coast finishing school. She doesn't realize that it is a bogus school run by an unemployed stage troupe, her fellow students are chorus girls, and the faculty is comprised of the troupe's star act. The truth is soon revealed. Fortunately, it all Read More

Desire

Actors: Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, John Halliday, William Frawley, Ernest Cossart

Synopsis: In this frothy romantic adventure, Marlene Dietrich plays Madeleine de Beaupre, a devious jewel thief. After sneaking a valuable string of pearls away from jeweler Aristide Duval (Ernest Cossart), Madeleine attempts to flee Paris, leaving a trail that will instead implicate psychiatrist Dr. Read More

The Melody Lingers on

Actors: Josephine Hutchinson, George Houston, John Halliday, Mona Barrie, Helen Westley

Synopsis: American opera baritone George Houston, who later gained a measure of fame as a western hero, made his film debut in The Melody Lingers On. Houston plays Salvini, a dashing Italian army captain who enjoys a brief romantic fling with concert pianist Ann Prescott (Josephine Hutchinson). Their Read More

Mystery Woman

Actors: Mona Barrie, Gilbert Roland, John Halliday, Rod La Rocque, Mischa Auer

Synopsis: Lifelong mystery buff Samantha Kinsey (Kellie Martin) is thrilled when she inherits a bookstore that sells only "whodunits." Among the thousands of authors in this field, Samantha's personal idol is Professor Jack Stenning (Robert Wagner), a mystery writer who solves real crimes as a hobby. When Read More

The Dark Angel

Actors: Fredric March, Merle Oberon, C. Montague Shaw, Charles Tannen, David Torrence, Clare Verdera, Douglas Walton, George Breakston, Colin Campbell, Tom Moore, Louise M. Bates, Roy Darmour, Douglas Gordon, Harold Howard, Albert Russell, Doris Stone, Francis Palmer Tilton, Carl Voss, Claud Allister, Jimmy Baxter, Janet Beecher, Jimmy Butler, Robert Carleton, Denis Chaldecott, Fay Chaldecott, Phyllis Coghlan, Cora Sue Collins, Edward Cooper, Henrietta Crosman, Philip Dare, Gunnis Davis, Jack Deery, Vernon P. Downing, Sarah Edwards, Bud Geary, Lawrence Grant, Robert Hale, John Halliday, Sam Harris, Holmes Herbert, Olaf Hytten, Frieda Inescort, Colin Kenny, Claude King, Murdock MacQuarrie, Herbert Marshall, John Miltern, Vesey O'Davoren

Synopsis: Samuel Goldwyn's The Dark Angel is a sumptuously produced soap opera with a poignant "Enoch Arden" style denouement. Fredric March, Merle Oberon and Herbert Marshall star respectively as Alan Trent, Kitty Vane and Gerald Shannon, friends since childhood. Though Gerald is deeply in love with Kitty Read More

Peter Ibbetson

Actors: Gary Cooper, Ann Harding, John Halliday, Ida Lupino, Douglas Dumbrille

Synopsis: "I'll See You in My Dreams" could well have been the theme music of Peter Ibbetson, the second film version of George du Maurier's 1891 novel. Peter Ibbetson (Gary Cooper) is an architect who, while working on a restoration job for the British Duke of Towers (John Halliday), discovers that The Read More

The Witching Hour

Actors: Guy Standing, Judith Allen, Tom Brown, Olive Tell

Synopsis: In this courtroom thriller, a hypnotic psychic uses his gift for dubious ends by running a gambling den. The trouble begins when he accidentally hypnotizes his daughter's beau while threatening to kill a corrupt politician. The mesmerized lad actually commits the crime. He is later defended by a Read More

Registered Nurse

Actors: Bebe Daniels, Lyle Talbot, John Halliday, Irene Franklin, Sidney Toler

Synopsis: In this sudsy hospital melodrama, a married nurse finds herself falling in love with one of two surgeons when her husband goes mad and needs an operation. One of the surgeons regards his pursuit a lark, while the other harbors genuine affections for the nurse. At first, she is attracted to the Read More

Return of the Terror

Actors: Mary Astor, Lyle Talbot, John Halliday, Frank McHugh, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: An Edgar Wallace yarn was the basis for the uncharacteristic Warner Bros. melodrama Return of the Terror. Hoping to escape prosecution for a series of poison murders, Dr. Redmayne (John Halliday) feigns insanity at his trial. The audience knows that Redmayne is innocent, so when he escapes from Read More

Housewife

Actors: George Brent, Bette Davis, Ann Dvorak, John Halliday, Ruth Donnelly

Synopsis: A pre-stardom Bette Davis struggles mightily as the "other woman" in this rather obvious divorce court drama from Warner Bros. George Brent stars as William Reynolds, a hardworking but markedly unmotivated office manager whose wife, Nan (Ann Dvorak), manages to make ends meet with the little she's Read More

Desirable

Actors: Jean Muir, George Brent, Veree Teasdale, Arthur Ayleswofth, Joan Wheeler

Synopsis: This drama examines the rivalry between a mother and the daughter she is too vain to acknowledge. The mother is a famous actress who does not want her true age to be known. She, therefore, keeps her 19-year old daughter secreted away in a boarding school. The daughter is too old to be concealed. Read More

Happiness Ahead

Actors: Dick Powell, Frank McHugh, Josephine Hutchinson, John Halliday, Dorothy Dare

Synopsis: Josephine Hutchinson is a beautiful heiress bored by her stifling lifestyle. She bolts her family mansion on New Years' Eve and heads for a boisterous nightclub, where she meets blue-collar worker Dick Powell. Hutchinson pretends to be poor, and soon she and Powell are pitching woo. Powell has Read More

Terror Aboard

Synopsis: In this suspenseful mystery, a murderous psychopath aboard a luxury liner begins a series of grisly but creative murders. One victim is found in a refrigerator, one is poisoned. Still others are shot and stabbed. In the end, he dumps a lifeboat filled with sailors into the sea where they drown. Read More

Bed of Roses

Actors: Constance Bennett, Joel McCrea, John Halliday, Pert Kelton, Samuel S. Hinds

Synopsis: In this sassy dramatic comedy, two reform-school girls finally graduate and as soon as they get out decide to board a New Orleans-bound stern-wheeler and rustle up a couple of handsome, wealthy men. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Perfect Understanding

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Laurence Olivier, John Halliday, Nigel Playfair, Michael Farmer

Synopsis: Star Gloria Swanson also co-produced this British film, a romantic comedy/drama that teamed her with a young Laurence Olivier. Judy Rogers (Swanson), an American vacationing in England, meets aristocrat Nicholas Randall (Olivier) and the two fall in love. They agree to marry but insist they'll Read More

Finishing School

Actors: Frances Dee, Billie Burke, Ginger Rogers, Bruce Cabot, John Halliday

Synopsis: The scandalous doings behind the high-toned exterior of a private school for rich young women provides the framework for this interesting but turgid drama. Much of the story centers on an unhappy socialite and her smart-alecky, world-wise roomy who has no morals at all when it comes to getting Read More

The Woman Accused

Actors: Nancy Carroll, Cary Grant, John Halliday, Irving Pichel, Norma Mitchell

Synopsis: On the eve of her marriage to Cary Grant, socialite Nancy Carroll is visited by her sadistic ex-lover Louis Calhern, who threatens to have his gangster pal Jack LaRue rub out Grant if Carroll doesn't give up her marriage plans. She responds by killing Calhern with a piece of statuary; a Read More

The House on 56th Street

Actors: Kay Francis, Ricardo Cortez, Gene Raymond, John Halliday, Margaret Lindsay

Synopsis: This melodrama chronicles three decades in the life of the New York located title house beginning at the turn of the century when a chorine falls in love with a wealthy young man. He loves her too and this inspires the lass to leave her sugar daddy, marry and move into the beautiful home that is Read More

Bird of Paradise

Actors: Dolores Del Rio, Joel McCrea, John Halliday, Lon Chaney, Jr., Richard "Skeets" Gallagher

Synopsis: Having inherited the warhorse stage piece Bird of Paradise from his predecessor William LeBaron, RKO Radio production chief David O. Selznick opted to do the property up brown, hoping to transform the Richard Walton Tully original into RKO's "prestige" offering of 1932. Joel McCrea stars as a Read More

Week-Ends Only

Actors: Joan Bennett, Ben Lyon, John Halliday, Halliwell Hobbes, Henry Armetta

Synopsis: In this romance, a recently impoverished but formerly wealthy young woman ends up working as a nightclub hostess. There she meets a handsome, sophisticated and wealthy fellow who hires her to help him spice up his weekend parties. She begins helping him and regains her lost wealth and posh Read More

The Age of Consent

Actors: Dorothy Wilson, Richard Cromwell, Eric Linden, Arline Judge, John Halliday

Synopsis: Dorothy Wilson, who'd previously been a stenographer at RKO Radio studios, plays the lead in RKO's Age of Consent. Wilson and co-star Richard Cromwell play a couple of green-as-grass college coeds, whose puppy love blossoms into genuine romance. But with love comes responsibilities, and soon it Read More

Men of Chance

Actors: Mary Astor, Ricardo Cortez, John Halliday, Ralph Ince, Kitty Kelly

Synopsis: Men of Chance refers to those well-dressed gentlemen who stake their fortunes upon the outcome of horse races. Ricardo Cortez plays Diamond Johnny Silk, a big-time gambler whose rough exterior hides the fact that he's scrupulously honest. Johnny's enemies, led by smooth but disreputable Dorval (John Halliday Read More

The Impatient Maiden

Actors: Lew Ayres, Mae Clarke, Una Merkel, John Halliday, Andy Devine

Synopsis: Lew Ayres and Mae Clarke, the reigning king and queen of the Universal lot in 1932, were teamed under the guidance of the studio's star director James Whale in Impatient Maiden. Anticipating his "Dr. Kildare" duties by nearly six years, Ayres is cast as inexperienced young surgeon Myron Brown. In Read More

The Man Called Back

Actors: Conrad Nagel, Doris Kenyon, John Halliday, Julie Compton, Reginald Owen

Synopsis: Fresh from his success with the moody melodrama Murders in the Rue Morgue, director Robert Florey dashed off The Man Called Back at bargain-basement Tiffany Studios. The film is set in the tropics; Conrad Nagel tops the cast as a dissipated, derelict doctor, hopelessly in love with married Read More

Millie

Actors: Helen Twelvetrees, Lilyan Tashman, Robert Ames, Joan Blondell, John Halliday

Synopsis: Yet another variation on the already then-ancient Madame X theme, this early talkie stars Helen Twelvetrees in the title role, a small-town girl marrying a New York City businessman (James Hall). The union produces a daughter, but ends when Millie catches her husband with a mistress (Marie Read More

Fifty Million Frenchmen

Actors: William Gaxton, John Halliday, Helen Broderick, Claudia Dell

Synopsis: Cole Porter's Broadway musical 50 Million Frenchmen was brought to the screen in 1931 with one minor alteration -- all of the music was removed! Set in Paris, the story concerns the exploits of wealthy Jack Forbes (William Gaxton), who bets his friend Michael Cummings (John Halliday) that he can Read More

Transatlantic

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Lois Moran, John Halliday, Greta Nissen, Jean Hersholt

Synopsis: Adhering to a formula that would later be popularized further in Grand Hotel, Transatlantic is one of the best of the "multi-story" films of the early 1930s. As a luxurious ocean liner makes its way across the Atlantic Ocean, the audience is made privy to the travails of several of its passengers. Edmund Lowe Read More

Consolation Marriage

Actors: Irene Dunne, Pat O'Brien, John Halliday, Matt Moore, Lester Vail

Synopsis: Consolation Marriage (British title: Marriage in Haste) stars Irene Dunne and Pat O'Brien. When hero and heroine are jilted by their respective sweethearts Lester Vail and Myrna Loy, they marry each other on the rebound. Having already been burned around the heart, Dunne and O'Brien agree that Read More

Father's Son

Actors: Leon Janney, Irene Rich, John Halliday

Synopsis: Based on a story by Booth Tarkington, Father's Son stars juvenile actor Leon Janney in the title role. Thanks to his predilection for stretching the truth, Billy Emory (Janney) manages to drive a wedge between his disciplinarian father William (Lewis Stone) and his sympathetic mother Ruth (Irene Rich Read More

The Spy

The Ruling Voice

Actors: Walter Huston, Loretta Young, Doris Kenyon, David Manners, John Halliday

Synopsis: Originally titled Upper Underworld, The Ruling Voice stars Walter Huston as a powerful underworld chieftain who covers his crooked activities in a cloak of respectability. Cold-blooded in all business matters, Huston cares only for the welfare of his beloved daughter Loretta Young, whom he has Read More

Captain Applejack

Synopsis: This British remake of 1923's Captain Applejack follows the courageous exploits of a mild mannered citizen who fights back when robbers break into his house in search of treasure. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Once a Sinner

Actors: Dorothy Mackaill, Joel McCrea, John Halliday, C. Henry Gordon, Ilka Chase

Synopsis: In this marital drama, a wife fears that her checkered past will be revealed when she and her husband move to the city to further his career. Soon after their arrival, the husband overhears a conversation about her. Apparently she had been a "kept" woman before she met him, and this causes him to Read More

Smart Woman

Actors: Mary Astor, Robert Ames, Edward Everett Horton, Noel Francis, Ruth Weston

Synopsis: In this comedy drama, a young wife returns from a vacation abroad and learns that her sleazy husband is playing around with another woman. In order to win him back, the wife decides to make him jealous. She enlists the aide of a willing cohort. Unfortunately, she finds herself genuinely interested Read More

Scarlet Pages

Actors: Elsie Ferguson, John Halliday, Marian Nixon, Grant Withers, Daisy Belmore

Synopsis: In rare film appearance, Broadway luminary Elsie Ferguson repeats her 1929 stage role in the 1930 film version of Scarlet Pages. Ferguson is cast as brilliant attorney Mary Bancroft, who defends nightclub songstress Nora Mason (Marian Nixon) from a murder charge. The victim was Nora's rapacious Read More

Recaptured Love

Actors: Belle Bennett, John Halliday, Dorothy Burgess, Richard Tucker, Junior Durkin

Synopsis: In this drama, a married woman's life is destroyed when her husband falls in love with a pretty chorine and divorces her. He then marries the chorus girl who uses him, then merrily cheats on him at every turn causing him to go sniveling and crawling back to his ex-wife who lovingly takes the Read More

East Side Sadie

Actors: John Ellis

Synopsis: In this romantic drama, a Jewish sweatshop girl works her fingers to the bone to help her boyfriend get through college. Trouble ensues when he hooks up with a professional matchmaker who sets him with a wealthy woman. The night before the wedding, the girl's brothers come and literally beat some Read More

Love Expert

Synopsis: In this comedy, Constance Talmadge plays Babs, a girl who is thrown out of boarding school because she's more interested in studying romance than she is in studying books. The object of her affections is Jim Winthrop (John Halliday), but before they can wed, he has to find suitable mates for his Read More