Lee BonnellFilmography

Born:: South Bend, IN
Occupation:: Actor
Biography:: American actor Lee Bonnell got his start with RKO after he won a national talent contest on the radio. He made many films during the early '40s. During WW II, he did a stint in the Coast Guard and returned to films until 1948 when he retired and established a life-insurance business. ~ Sandra...Read More

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Nuremberg

Actors: Lee Bonnell

Synopsis: Unlike what the title suggests, this routine docudrama is not about one of the Nuremberg trials but about the rise of Nazism in Hitler's Germany. A woman is ostensibly on trial at Nuremberg, the issue being whether she was a card-carrying Nazi or not, and then flashbacks (documentary footage) show Read More

1961
Jiggs and Maggie in Society

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Betty Blythe, Lee Bonnell, William Cabanne

Synopsis: Monogram's Jiggs and Maggie in Society was the second entry in the series based on the George McManus comic strip "Bringing Up Father." Joe Yule Sr. (Mickey Rooney's father) and Rene Riano are once again ideally cast as Jiggs and Maggie, the world-famous nouveau riche shanty-Irish couple. Read More

1948
The Checkered Coat

Actors: Tom Conway, Noreen Nash, Hurd Hatfield, James Seay, Garry Owen

Synopsis: In this crime drama a psychiatrist tries to help a psycho patient who loses consciousness after he kills someone. When the doctor provides the patient with a letter that explains his problem, he inadvertently implicates himself in the crimes. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1948
Smart Woman

Actors: Iris Adrian, Brian Aherne, Constance Bennett, Willie Best, Lee Bonnell

Synopsis: In this courtroom drama, two opposing lawyers lead a double life. In the courtroom they are ruthless toward each other, but once the day is over they become passionate lovers. Unfortunately their newest case may well threaten their relationship as the defense attorney is defending a corrupt Read More

1948
San Quentin

Actors: Lawrence Tierney, Barton MacLane, Harry Shannon, Marian Carr, Carol Forman

Synopsis: This prison reform-minded melodrama from B-movie director Gordon Douglas opens with an introduction from Lewis F. Lawes, the real-life prison warden turned author of 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932). Lawrence Tierney stars as Jim Roland, one of the founding members of the Inmate's Welfare League Read More

1946
Criminal Court

Actors: Tom Conway, Martha O'Driscoll, June Clayworth, Robert Armstrong, Addison Richards

Synopsis: Elevating Criminal Court above the B-picture norm is the inventive direction by Robert Wise and the better-than-usual performances by all concerned. In a break from his heroic "Falcon" role, Tom Conway stars as Steve Barnes, a criminal attorney known for his unorthodox courtroom tactics. After Read More

1946
Sister Kenny

Actors: Rosalind Russell, Alexander Knox, Dean Jagger, Philip Merivale, Beulah Bondi

Synopsis: We prefer Rosalind Russell when she's making us laugh; judging by such films as Mourning Becomes Electra and The Velvet Touch, Russell preferred herself in heavy dramatics. In Sister Kenny, Rosalind Russell is all grim determination and pursed lips as Elizabeth Kenny, tireless battler of infantile Read More

1946
The Navy Comes Through

Actors: Pat O'Brien, George Murphy, Jane Wyatt, Jackie Cooper, Carl Esmond, Desi Arnaz

Synopsis: A combat picture was virtually a license to print money in 1942, and RKO Radio's The Navy Comes Through was no exception (net profit: $542,000). Most of the film takes place on the ramshackle old merchant-marine freighter, skippered by Captain McCall (Ray Collins). The captain and his stalwart Read More

1942
The Mayor of 44th Street

Actors: George Murphy, Anne Shirley, William Gargan, Richard Barthelmess, Joan Merrill

Synopsis: In this drama, an ex-vaudevillian dancer opens up a dance band agency and help street kids at the same time by hiring them to help out. Unfortunately, the local gang of hood's leader resists his attempts. More trouble ensues when the dancer helps a convict gain parole by hiring him. It later turns Read More

1942
Parachute Battalion

Actors: Robert Preston, Edmond O'Brien, Nancy Kelly, Harry Carey, Buddy Ebsen

Synopsis: In this patriotic war drama, a unit of Army recruits train for a parachute corps. One is an arrogant football star who finds jumping a kick. Another is a coward who eventually finds his courage. Finally there is a chronic bumbler. The coward and jock find themselves competing for the affections of Read More

1941
Look Who's Laughing

Actors: Edgar Bergen, Dummy: Charlie McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Marian Jordan, Lucille Ball

Synopsis: Several popular radio personalities converge in the RKO Radio "comedy salad" Look Who's Laughing. Taking a vacation from his radio series, ventriloquist Edgar Bergen sets out in his private plane, accompanied by his dummy Charlie McCarthy. Developing engine trouble, Bergen makes a forced landing Read More

1941
Lady Scarface

Actors: Dennis O'Keefe, Frances Neal, Judith Anderson, Mildred Coles, Eric Blore

Synopsis: A partial remake of 1936's Wanted: Jane Turner, Lady Scarface is a seedy but entertaining tour de force for the great Judith Anderson. Embittered over the ugly facial scar which covers the left side of her face, a woman named Slade becomes a criminal mastermind. The cops have no idea that Read More

1941
The Saint in Palm Springs

Actors: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, Paul Guilfoyle, Jonathan Hale, Linda Hayes

Synopsis: George Sanders makes his final appearance as crook-turned-detective Simon Templar, a.k.a. "The Saint," in The Saint in Palm Springs. The gimmick in this one is a set of rare stamps, smuggled from England. Wendy Barrie is the true heir to this treasure, and the Saint is engaged to protect her and Read More

1941
Footlight Fever

Actors: Alan Mowbray, Donald MacBride, Elizabeth Risdon, Lee Bonnell, Elyse Knox

Synopsis: A sequel to the zany backstage comedy Curtain Call, RKO Radio's Footlight Fever once again stars Alan Mowbray and Donald MacBride as fly-by-night theatrical producers Avery and Crandall. This time, our heroes try to weasel money out of a potential backer, spinsterish millionaire Hattie (Elisabeth Read More

1941
The Gay Falcon

Actors: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, Allen Jenkins, Anne Hunter, Gladys Cooper

Synopsis: When the film rights to its "Saint" series proved too expensive to renew, RKO Radio came up with a lookalike property in the form of "The Falcon", even engaging George Sanders, the best of the "Saint" impersonators, to play the studio's newest gentleman detective. The Gay Falcon opens as Gay Read More

1941
Land of the Open Range

Actors: Tim Holt, Ray Whitley, Lee "Lasses" White, Hobart Cavanaugh

Synopsis: In time-honored B-Western fashion, RKO took the exciting Oklahoma land-rush sequence from their Academy Award-winning Cimarron (1931) and crafted an entirely new story to suit their cowboy star in residence, the personable Tim Holt. The result was an exciting, well-acted story of a small-town real Read More

1941
The Stranger on the Third Floor

Actors: Peter Lorre, John McGuire, Margaret Tallichet, Charles Waldron, Elisha Cook, Jr.

Synopsis: Though he doesn't speak his first line of dialogue until the film's final ten minutes, Peter Lorre spiritually dominates the fascinating RKO melodrama Stranger on the Third Floor. The plotline is carried by John McGuire, playing Ward, a newspaper reporter whose courtroom testimony sends the Read More

1940
Men Against the Sky

Actors: Richard Dix, Wendy Barrie, Edmund Lowe, Kent Taylor, Granville Bates

Synopsis: Richard Dix is his usual strong, silent self in RKO Radio's Men Against the Sky. Dix plays a washed-up pilot who designs a revolutionary new plane. Realizing that he is persona non grata in the aviation industry due to his irresponsibility and alcoholism, Dix allows his sister Wendy Barrie to take Read More

1940