John SturgesFilmography

Born:: January 3, 1910 in Oak Park, IL
Occupation:: Director, Producer
Birth name:: John Eliot Sturges
Biography:: One of Hollywood's top action directors of the late 1950s and 1960s, John Sturges, for a time, was a name associated almost exclusively with large-scale action-adventure films. A one-time assistant in RKO's blueprint department, Sturges spent most of his early career in the studio's art...Read More

Current News:: Gorgeous `Wild Things' roars to the screen
Oct. 12, 2009 6:05 PM ET (AP)

Sort By:
Title
Release Date

The Spencer Tracy Legacy

1986
The Eagle Has Landed

Crew: Director

Actors: Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Jenny Agutter, Donald Pleasence

Synopsis: John Sturges directed this taut adaptation of Jack Higgins' suspense novel about an attempted kidnapping of Winston Churchill by the German high command during World War II. When it is discovered that in November 1943 Winston Churchill is scheduled to spend a weekend in a country home in Norfolk Read More

1976
McQ

Crew: Director

Actors: Dick Friel, John Wayne, Eddie Albert, Diana Muldaur, Colleen Dewhurst, Clu Gulager

Synopsis: Undoubtedly having second thoughts after turning down Dirty Harry, John Wayne showed up in 1974 in his own "maverick cop" adventure, McQ. Wayne, playing McQ, a veteran detective, turns in his badge when he's officially denied the opportunity of clearing the name of his late best friend, who has Read More

1974
Chino

Crew: Director

Actors: Charles Bronson, Marcel Bozzuffi, Jill Ireland, Vincent Van Patten

Synopsis: The US title of this Italian-Spanish-French coproduction is Chino, in deference to the character played by star Charles Bronson. Having long suffered the stigma of being part-Indian, New Mexico horse breeder Chino Valdez (Bronson) wants nothing more than to be left alone with his beloved horses. Read More

9/14/73
Joe Kidd

Crew: Director

Actors: Clint Eastwood, Robert Duvall, John Saxon, Don Stroud, Stella Garcia

Synopsis: In John Sturges' Americanized version of Sergio Leone's Man-With-No-Name films, Clint Eastwood is Joe Kidd, a cryptic stranger who arrives in the New Mexican town of Sinola, where Mexican bandito/revolutionary Luis Chama (John Saxon) has organized a peasant revolt against the local landowners, who Read More

1972
Marooned

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna, David Janssen, James Franciscus, Gene Hackman, Lee Grant

Synopsis: In this tense and suspenseful science fiction thriller, Charles Keith (Gregory Peck) is the ground commander in Houston who monitors the space mission of three astronauts. Buzz (Gene Hackman), Jim (Richard Crenna) and Clayton (James Franciscus) have their lives put in jeopardy when the oxygen Read More

1969
Ice Station Zebra

Crew: Director

Actors: Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine, Patrick McGoohan, Jim Brown, Tony Bill

Synopsis: A top-secret Soviet spy satellite -- using stolen Western technology -- malfunctions and then goes into a descent that lands it near an isolated Arctic research encampment called Ice Station Zebra, belonging to the British, which starts sending out distress signals before falling silent. The Read More

1968
Hour of the Gun

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: James Garner, Jason Robards, Jr., Robert Ryan, Albert Salmi, Charles Aidman

Synopsis: John Sturges directed this sequel to his Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, which is more of a melancholy character study than an action Western. The Edward Anhalt screenplay (based on Douglas D. Martin's Tombstone's Epitaph) traces Wyatt Earp's (James Garner) moral decline from a lawman with high Read More

1967
The Satan Bug

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: George Maharis, Richard Basehart, Anne Francis, Dana Andrews, Ed Asner

Synopsis: Adapted from an Alistair MacLean novel, The Satan Bug is one of the best efforts in the "deadly virus at large" genre. Insane scientist Dr. Hoffman (Richard Basehart) steals several vials containing a lethal germ culture from a government lab. Hoffman has been unhinged by the notion of the Read More

1965
The Hallelujah Trail

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Lee Remick, Jim Hutton, Pamela Tiffin, Donald Pleasence

Synopsis: In The Hallelujah Trail, Lee Remick plays temperance leader Cora Templeton Massingale, who is determined to halt a shipment of whiskey headed for Denver. The shipment is being escorted by the US cavalry, under the guidance of Col. Thadeus Gearhardt (Burt Lancaster). As the Denver miners thirstily Read More

1965
The Great Escape

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, James Donald, Charles Bronson, James Coburn

Synopsis: The Great Escape is based on the true story of a group of Allied prisoners of war who managed to escape from an allegedly impenetrable Nazi prison camp during World War II. At the beginning of the film, the Nazis gather all their most devious and troublesome POWs and place them at a new prison Read More

1963
Sergeants 3

Crew: Director

Actors: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop

Synopsis: The 1939 adventure classic Gunga Din is transferred from British India to the American West, courtesy of Frank Sinatra's "Clan." Sinatra, Dean Martin and Peter Lawford play three cavalry officers, always ready for a brawl but willing to die for each other if need be. Sammy Davis Jr. a cavalry Read More

1962
A Girl Named Tamiko

Crew: Director

Actors: Laurence Harvey, France Nuyen, Martha Hyer, Gary Merrill, Michael Wilding, Sr.

Synopsis: Certain film historians are perpetually amazed that the doggedly unappetizing Laurence Harvey became a major film star. In Girl Named Tamiko, Harvey is once more the embittered heel, this time playing a Eurasian photographer who pretends to be in love with numerous American ladies. His only true Read More

1962
By Love Possessed

Crew: Director

Actors: Lana Turner, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Jason Robards, Jr., George Hamilton, Susan Kohner

Synopsis: There's always something simmering beneath the quaint and placid surface of small-town New England lives -- and that includes the usual maladies of alcoholism, rape, and suicide. At least this is the case if you go by the tortuous tale told in By Love Possessed, a Peyton Place knock-off, directed Read More

1961
The Magnificent Seven

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, Horst Buchholz, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter, James Coburn

Synopsis: Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai (1954) is westernized as The Magnificent Seven. Yul Brynner plays Chris, a mercenary hired to protect a Mexican farming village from its annual invasion by bandit Calvera (Eli Wallach). As Elmer Bernstein's unforgettable theme music (later Read More

1960
Last Train From Gun Hill

Crew: Director

Actors: Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, Carolyn Jones, Earl Holliman, Brad Dexter

Synopsis: Just outside the small town of Pauley, a Native American woman is attacked by two riders on horseback, raped, and killed. Her husband, Matt Morgan (Kirk Douglas), the town marshal, has only two clues to their identity, a fancy saddle with the initials "C.B." that one of the men left behind, and Read More

1959
Never So Few

Crew: Director

Actors: Frank Sinatra, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lawford, Steve McQueen, Richard Johnson

Synopsis: Action director John Sturges had a few good films behind him (Bad Day at Black Rock, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral) and a few more to come (The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven) when he put together this colorful story of wartime romance. In addition to his talents as a director, this saga of an Read More

1959
The Law and Jake Wade

Crew: Director

Actors: Robert Taylor, Richard Widmark, Patricia Owens, Robert Middleton, Henry Silva

Synopsis: Although reformed and a town marshal Jake Wade (Robert Taylor) has one thing more to do before he can settle down and marry Peggy Carter (Patricia Owens): spring former comrade-in-arms Clint Hollister (Richard Widmark) from jail. Clint had done the same for Jake way back and the latter now Read More

1958
The Old Man and the Sea

Crew: Director

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Felipe Pazos, Harry Bellaver, Donald Diamond, Don Blackman

Synopsis: Ernest Hemingway's short novel The Old Man and the Sea was probably unfilmable to begin with, but this didn't stop John Sturges from trying to cinematize Hemingway's tight little character study. Spencer Tracy is the Old Man, a Cuban fisherman who tries to haul in a huge fish that he catches far Read More

1958
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

Crew: Director

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Jo Van Fleet, John Ireland

Synopsis: Of the many filmed versions of the October 26, 1881, O.K. Corral shootout in Tombstone, Arizona, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was one of the most elaborate and star-studded. Burt Lancaster plays Wyatt Earp, the renowned lawman, while Kirk Douglas is consumptive gambler (and gunfighter) Doc Holliday Read More

1957
Backlash

Crew: Director

Actors: Richard Widmark, Donna Reed, William Campbell, John McIntire, Barton MacLane

Synopsis: The breathtakingly beautiful Technicolor cinematography of Irving Glassberg is but one of the many small pleasures of the big-budget western Backlash. Set in post-Civil War Arizona, the film stars Richard Widmark as Jim Slater, who hopes to prove that his down-and-out father (John McIntire) was Read More

1956
Bad Day at Black Rock

Crew: Director

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Dean Jagger, Walter Brennan

Synopsis: This powerfully tense, fast-paced suspense drama also yields a grim social message about racial prejudice. Spencer Tracy is John J. MacReedy, a one-armed stranger who comes to the tiny town of Black Rock one hot summer day in 1945, the first time the train has stopped there in years. He looks for Read More

2/1/55
Underwater!

Crew: Director

Actors: Jane Russell, Gilbert Roland, Richard Egan, Lori Nelson, Robert Keith

Synopsis: Both Jane Russell and her uncredited stunt double look great in skimpy swimwear throughout the Technicolor and SuperScope romantic adventure Underwater. Ms. Russell is cast as the wife of fortune-chasing Richard Egan, who takes her along to the Caribbean on a treasure hunt. The couple is Read More

1955
The Scarlet Coat

Crew: Director

Actors: Cornel Wilde, Michael Wilding, Sr., Anne Francis, George Sanders, Robert Douglas

Synopsis: The infamous Benedict Arnold affair is the basis of the lively MGM costumer The Scarlet Coat. Arnold is played with suitably subtle menace by Robert Douglas, while his principal co-conspirator, Major John Andre, is essayed by Michael Wilding. The largely speculative storyline concerns the efforts Read More

1955
Escape from Fort Bravo

Crew: Director

Actors: William Holden, Eleanor Parker, John Forsythe, William Demarest, William Campbell

Synopsis: A nail-biting Indian deadlock remains the climax of this otherwise overly verbose Western filmed in M-G-M's then-new Ansco colors (forerunner of Eastmancolor). After ruthlessly dragging an escaped prisoner through the Arizona desert, Union Army Captain Roper (William Holden) suffers rebuke from Read More

1953
Jeopardy

Crew: Director

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Ralph Meeker, Lee Aaker

Synopsis: The answer is: A turgid melodrama. The question: What is Jeopardy? Barbara Stanwyck stars as a suburbanite on a Mexican vacation with her husband (Barry Sullivan) and son (Lee Aaker). The threesome runs afoul of escape convict Ralph Meeker. Stanwyck's dilemma: Attempting to rescue her husband from Read More

1953
Fast Company

Crew: Director

Actors: Howard Keel, Polly Bergen, Marjorie Main, Robert Burton

Synopsis: In this musical comedy, a young woman inherits a race horse. She wants to race it but encounters difficulty with its trainer who wants to be able to buy the horse for himself. To do so, he makes sure the horse keeps losing races. The woman refuses to sell it. Later, race track con artists try to Read More

1953
The Girl in White

Crew: Director

Actors: June Allyson, Arthur Kennedy, Gary Merrill, Mildred Dunnock, Jesse White

Synopsis: June Allyson portrays real-life doctor Emily Dunning in this respectful biopic. Emily chooses a medical career despite turn-of-the-century prejudice against female physicians. The only job open to her is in a slum hospital in the Bowery, where she performs with courage and perseverance, exposing Read More

1952
The People Against O'Hara

Crew: Director

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Pat O'Brien, Diana Lynn, John Hodiak, Eduardo Ciannelli

Synopsis: Fish-market worker Johnny O'Hara (James Arness) is named as a suspect when his boss -- with whom he had a dispute the previous day -- is shot to death in an apparent robbery. When he's arrested, his family appeals to their old friend James Curtayne (Spencer Tracy), who was once a renowned criminal Read More

1951
Kind Lady

Crew: Director

Actors: Ethel Barrymore, Maurice Evans, Angela Lansbury, Keenan Wynn, Betsy Blair

Synopsis: This remake of the 1935 version is considered far superior to the original. It is the harrowing story of a kindly old British woman with a love of art who is tricked into allowing an artist, his wife, and another couple into staying in her house. They then begin holding her prisoner in her home Read More

1951
The Magnificent Yankee

Crew: Director

Actors: Louis Calhern, Ann Harding, Philip Ober, Ian Wolfe, Eduard Franz

Synopsis: Louis Calhern repeats his Broadway role as Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in this 1950 cinemazation of Emmet Lavery's stage play The Magnificent Yankee. The film is for the most part confined to the Holmes home in Washington, where the good gray judge parries affectionately with his Read More

1950
It's a Big Country

Crew: Director

Actors: Ethel Barrymore, Gary Cooper, Van Johnson, Gene Kelly, Janet Leigh

Synopsis: Comprised of eight unrelated episodes of inconsistent quality, this anthology piece of American propaganda features some of MGM Studios' best directors, screenwriters and actors; it is narrated by Louis Calhern. Stories are framed by the lecture of a university professor. In one tale a Boston Read More

1950
Right Cross

Crew: Director

Actors: June Allyson, Dick Powell, Ricardo Montalban, Lionel Barrymore, Teresa Celli

Synopsis: Right Cross stars Dick Powell as cynical sportswriter Rick Gavery and Powell's wife June Allyson as boxing manager Pat O'Malley. Subbing for her incapacitated father (Lionel Barrymore), Pat grooms prizefighter Johnny Monterez (Ricardo Montalban) for the championship. Johnny holds a grudge against Read More

1950
The Capture

Crew: Director

Actors: Lew Ayres, Teresa Wright, Victor Jory, Jacqueline White, Jimmy Hunt

Synopsis: Virtually ignored at the time of its release, Capture has built up a small but enthusiastic following since its lapse into public domain. American oil man Lew Ayres kills a coworker whom he suspects of robbery. Thinking it over, Ayres wonders whether or not the man was innocent. He seeks out his Read More

1950
Mystery Street

Crew: Director

Actors: Ricardo Montalban, Sally Forrest, Bruce Bennett, Elsa Lanchester, Marshall Thompson

Synopsis: Blonde good-time girl Vivian Heldon (Jan Sterling), who lives in a cheap rooming house in a working-class section of Boston, run by the inquisitive and neurotic Mrs. Smerrling (Elsa Lanchester), goes out one night after a phone conversation with her boyfriend, proclaiming that she's got big plans Read More

1950
The Walking Hills

Crew: Director

Actors: Randolph Scott, Ella Raines, Arthur Kennedy, John Ireland, William Bishop, Edgar Buchanan

Synopsis: The Walking Hills stars Randolph Scott as a Westerner named Jim Carey. He is one of several people searching for a lost gold mine. Carey's cohorts in this treasure hunt include at least one convicted murderer and several potential killers, so it's a source of wonder who'll survive till fade-out Read More

1949
The Sign of the Ram

Crew: Director

Actors: Susan Peters, Alexander Knox, Phyllis Thaxter, Peggy Ann Garner, Ron Randell

Synopsis: Susan Peters, a fine actress of the 1940s whose career was curtailed by an accident which left her wheelchair-bound, utilizes her handicap to her advantage in Sign of the Ram. Peters plays an invalid wife and mother who exercises dictatorial control over all around her. Peters' loved ones are Read More

1948
The Best Man Wins

Crew: Director

Actors: Edgar Buchanan, Anna Lee, Robert Shayne, Gary Gray, Hobart Cavanaugh

Synopsis: Edgar Buchanan stars as a man who abruptly leaves his wife (Anna Lee) to "find himself". When he returns, he discovers that wifey has divorced him and has married stuffy Robert Shayne (later "Inspector Henderson" on the Superman TV series). Buchanan and Lee's son Gary Gray helps reunite the Read More

1948
For the Love of Rusty

Crew: Director

Actors: Ted Donaldson, Tom Powers, Ann Doran, Aubrey Mather, Sid Tomack

Synopsis: For the Love of Rusty is an easy-to-take entry in Columbia's brief "Rusty" series of the late 1940s. Danny Mitchell (Ted Donaldson) can't seem to get along with his father Hugh (Tom Powers). An especially sore spot is Danny's affection for his dog Rusty; Hugh Mitchell can't stand Rusty, and Read More

1947
Keeper of the Bees

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Based on an old Gene Stratton Porter story, Keeper of the Bees was a shade too bucolic for postwar audiences. Michael Duane stars as an artist who has lost confidence in humanity. He regains it with the help of a faith healer and her two daughters. One of the girls is played by Gloria Henry, later Read More

1947
The Man Who Dared

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The oft-used title The Man Who Dared was applied to an oft-filmed movie plotline in 1946. George Macready, in a respite from his usual villainous roles, plays a crusading newspaperman who questions the efficacy of "circumstantial evidence." He wants to prove that it's quite possible to railroad an Read More

1946
Alias Mr. Twilight

Crew: Director

Synopsis: A granddaughter's world begins to crumble when allegations of her grandfather say that he is a criminal. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

1946
Shadowed

Crew: Director

Synopsis: In this crime drama a courageous wealthy man uses all of his money and power to stop a gang of counterfeiters. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1946
Thunderbolt

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Filmed in Technicolor, Thunderbolt was the last of Major William Wyler's wartime directorial efforts on behalf of the US Army Air Corps. As in his previous WW2 documentaries, Wyler himself participated in the mission that he depicts herein on film. The title refers to the huge bombers used by the Read More

1945
Syncopation

Crew: Editor

Actors: Adolphe Menjou, Jackie Cooper, Bonita Granville, George Bancroft, Ted North

Synopsis: This musical chronicles the history of jazz music and features many of the most popular musical acts from the early 1940s, including Gene Krupa and Benny Goodman. The story centers on a trumpet player who falls for a young woman with an equal passion for music. Unfortunately, the girl is still Read More

1942
Tom, Dick and Harry

Crew: Editor

Actors: Ginger Rogers, George Murphy, Alan Marshal, Burgess Meredith, Phil Silvers, Joe Cunningham

Synopsis: Working girl Ginger Rogers (who dresses like movie star Ginger Rogers, despite her meager salary!) cannot decide which of her three suitors will march her down the aisle. Will it be fast-talking automobile salesman George Murphy, wealthy Alan Marshall, or free-spirited, eternally unemployed Burgess Meredith? Read More

1941
Scattergood Meets Broadway

Crew: Editor

Actors: Guy Kibbee, Emma Dunn, Joyce Compton, Bradley Page, Frank Jenks

Synopsis: Scattergood Meets Broadway was the third of RKO's film series based on the long-running radio favorite Scattergood Baines. Guy Kibbee once again plays the avuncular Mr. Baines, philosophical storekeeper of the mythical town of Coldriver. Though he has no use for the Big City, Scattergood heads to Read More

1941
They Knew What They Wanted

Crew: Editor

Actors: Carole Lombard, Charles Laughton, William Gargan, Harry Carey, Frank Fay

Synopsis: Like its predecessors, this third cinema version of Sidney Hoiward's Pulitzer Prize-winning play They Knew What They Wanted suffers from Hollywood censorship. Still, this story of the grim consequence of a misbegotten mail-order marriage has much to offer. Carole Lombard is superb as the waitress Read More

1940

Movie data provided by

Add this Person to Favorites

Need Help?

E-mail