Leo McCareyFilmography

Satan Never Sleeps

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter, Songwriter

Actors: William Holden, Clifton Webb, France Nuyen, Athene Seyler, Martin Benson

Synopsis: Director Leo McCarey returned to the religious themes of his classics Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) for this action drama, his final film. William Holden stars as Father O'Banion, a Catholic priest assigned to relieve the retiring Father Bovard (Clifton Webb) at a mission Read More

Rally 'round the Flag, Boys!

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Joan Collins, Jack Carson, Dwayne Hickman, Joseph Holland

Synopsis: Director Leo McCarey was clearly past his prime when he made this screen version of Max Shulman's comic novel Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys; still, the film was a success, no small thanks to the star power of real-life husband and wife Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. The scene is Putnam's Landing Read More

An Affair to Remember

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Screen Story, Screenwriter, Songwriter

Actors: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Richard Denning, Neva Patterson, Cathleen Nesbitt

Synopsis: An Affair to Remember, director Leo McCarey's scene-for-scene remake of his own 1939 film Love Affair, isn't really an improvement on the original, but it's equally as enjoyable. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, high-profile types both engaged to be married to other people, meet and fall in love Read More

My Son, John

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Helen Hayes, Van Heflin, Robert Walker, Dean Jagger, Minor Watson

Synopsis: Filled with the kind of Red Scare propaganda that must have delighted members of McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee, this drama chronicles the attempts of two All-American parents to save their son from the temptations of Communism. Unfortunately, they are too late. The arrogant and Read More

Good Sam

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Gary Cooper, Ann Sheridan, Ray Collins, Edmund Lowe, Joan Lorring

Synopsis: Small-town department store manager Sam Clayton (Gary Cooper) is a born "Good Samaritan", which in his case translates as "sucker." Much to the dismay of his wife Lu (Anne Sheridan), who'd like to save up enough cash for a new house, Sam habitually gives his money away to one "deserving" soul or Read More

The Bells of St. Mary's

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Bing Crosby, Ingrid Bergman, Henry Travers, Ruth Donnelly, William Gargan, Rhys Williams

Synopsis: In this follow-up to director Leo McCarey's Going My Way (1944), Bing Crosby repeats his Oscar-winning characterization of happy-go-lucky priest Father O'Malley. The good father is sent to help out financially strapped St. Mary's Academy, a parochial school presided over by lovely nun Sister Read More

Going My Way

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Bing Crosby, Rise Stevens, Barry Fitzgerald, Gene Lockhart, Frank McHugh, James Brown

Synopsis: It took some doing to persuade the staunchly Catholic Bing Crosby to play a happy-go-lucky priest in Going My Way; luckily he acquiesced, winning an Academy Award in the process. Crosby is cast as Father Chuck O'Malley, newly arrived at rundown, heavily in debt St. Dominic's Church. Father Read More

Once Upon a Honeymoon

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Cary Grant, Walter Slezak, Albert Dekker, Albert Basserman

Synopsis: The surrealistic opening sequence, featuring a WW2 calendar as written "by A. Hitler", should be indication enough that Once Upon a Honeymoon is no ordinary lighthearted romantic trifle. Ginger Rogers plays Katie, an American chorus girl who seeks to better herself by marrying titled European Read More

My Favorite Wife

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Randolph Scott, Gail Patrick, Ann Shoemaker

Synopsis: Leo McCarey was supposed to both produce and direct My Favorite Wife, but an illness forced him to relinquish the director's chair to Garson Kanin, who did a splendid job. This hilarious retread of the old "Enoch Arden" legend stars Irene Dunne as Ellen, who returns home to her husband Nick (Cary Read More

Love Affair

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya, Lee Bowman, Astrid Allwyn

Synopsis: Leo McCarey's classic tale of romance stars Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer as two strangers who fall in love on an ocean voyage. Charles Boyer is Michel Marnet, engaged to be married to Lois Clarke (Astrid Allwyn). Irene Dunne is Terry McKay, also engaged to be married, in this case to Kenneth Read More

Make Way for Tomorrow

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Victor Moore, Beulah Bondi, Fay Bainter, Thomas Mitchell, Ray Mayer

Synopsis: While not a box-office success, this drama, directed by Leo McCarey, developed a potent reputation among film critics and movie buffs for its sensitive and perceptive treatment of the problems of the elderly. When McCarey won the Oscar for Best Director the same year for The Awful Truth, he Read More

The Awful Truth

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Ralph Bellamy, Robert (Tex) Allen, Cecil Cunningham, Mary Forbes, Alex D'Arcy

Synopsis: Leo McCarey directed this classic screwball comedy in which Cary Grant and Irene Dunne play Jerry and Lucy Warriner, a couple whose marriage is starting to fall apart. Jerry informs Lucy that he's taking a vacation alone in Florida; instead, he holes up with his buddies and plays poker for a week Read More

The Milky Way

Crew: Director

Actors: Harold Lloyd, Adolphe Menjou, Veree Teasdale, Helen Mack, William Gargan

Synopsis: One of the funniest, most sharply paced comedies of the 1930s, and perhaps the best of all of Harold Lloyd's talkies, The Milky Way was based on the Broadway play by Lynn Root and Harry Clork. Lloyd plays Burleigh Sullivan, a mild-mannered milkman who intercedes one night when his sister Mae (Helen Mack Read More

Ruggles of Red Gap

Crew: Director

Actors: Charles Laughton, Mary Boland, Charlie Ruggles, ZaSu Pitts, Roland Young, Leila Hyams

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1918 and 1923, Harry Leon Wilson's novel achieved movie classic status when it was remade by Leo McCarey in 1935. The story opens in Paris, circa 1908. Ruggles, beautifully underplayed by Charles Laughton, is the ultra-obedient manservant to the bibulous Earl of Burnstead (Roland Young Read More

Belle of the Nineties

Crew: Director

Actors: Mae West, Roger Pryor, Johnny Mack Brown, Katherine de Mille, John Miljan

Synopsis: Originally titled It Ain't No Sin until the censors prevailed, then St. Louis Woman and Belle of New Orleans, until complaints were registered from those two communities, Belle of the Nineties was Mae West's first post-Production Code film. West is cast as cabaret entertainer Ruby Carter, plying Read More

Six of a Kind

Crew: Director

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Mary Boland, George Burns, W.C. Fields, Gracie Allen

Synopsis: The "six" are Charlie Ruggles, Mary Boland, George Burns, Gracie Allen, W.C. Fields, and Alison Skipworth, who star in this cross-country comedy. Planning a motor vacation to California, J. Pinkham Whinney (Ruggles) and Flora Whinney (Boland) advertise for a couple to help drive and share Read More

Duck Soup

Crew: Director

Actors: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Zeppo Marx, Margaret Dumont, Raquel Torres

Synopsis: In this 1933 Marx Brothers film, the mythical country of Freedonia is broke and on the verge of revolution. Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont), Freedonia's principal benefactress, will lend the country 20 million dollars if the president withdraws and places the government in the hands of the Read More

The Kid from Spain

Crew: Director

Actors: Jane Wyman, Eddie Cantor, Lyda Roberti, Robert Young, Ruth Hall, John Miljan

Synopsis: In director Leo McCarey's film The Kid From Spain, actor Eddie Cantor plays mischievious college boy Eddie Williams, who, with his buddy Ricardo (Robert Young), is kicked out of college for sneaking into the women's dormitory. Ricardo (Young), on his way back to Mexico, suggests Eddie (Cantor) Read More

Indiscreet

Crew: Director

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Ben Lyon, Monroe Owsley, Barbara Kent, Arthur Lake

Synopsis: Divesting herself of her own production company, silent-screen queen Gloria Swanson entered into a two-picture deal with producer Joseph M. Schenck, which paid her a straight (and very hefty) salary for both productions. The first film completed under this arrangement was the trivial romantic Read More

Wild Company

Crew: Director

Actors: Frank Albertson, H.B. Warner, Joyce Compton, Claire McDowell

Synopsis: This drama is set during Prohibition and follows the exploits of a spoiled brat with overly permissive parents. He soaks them for as much money has he can get and then squanders the money in an illicit speak-easy where he has fallen for the lovely singer. Unfortunately, she is a gangster's moll. Read More

Red Hot Rhythm

Crew: Director

Actors: Josephine Dunn, Walter O'Keefe, Anita Garvin, Ilka Chase, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Anita Garvin, the willowy brunette comedienne who graced many a Laurel & Hardy comedy, once remarked with a mixture of pride and sarcasm that she'd been in "the worst film ever directed by Leo McCarey."Red Hot Rhythm isn't quite as bad as Garvin remembered, but it certainly isn't representative of McCarey Read More

Part Time Wife

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Leila Hyams, Tom Clifford, Walter McGrail, Louis Payne

Synopsis: This early Leo McCarey effort was tradeshown as Shepper-Newfounder, but wiser heads prevailed and the film was ultimately released as Part-Time Wife. Co-scripted by McCarey, the story concentrates of neglectful husband Jim Murdock (Edmund Lowe) and his frustrated wife Betty (Leila Hyams). For lack Read More

Brats

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play both the fathers and their unruly children in this two-reel comedy. The really funny thing about this film is that as the kids, Laurel and Hardy don't behave much differently as they generally do as adults. The relationship is basically the same between the two Read More

Blotto

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: In this especially amusing Laurel and Hardy short, the boys are planning a night on the town. Standing in their way is Mrs. Laurel (Anita Garvin). Ollie telephones Stan with a scheme: Stan will send himself a bogus telegram, calling him away on "business." Unfortunately for the duo, Mrs. Laurel Read More

Let's Go Native

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Jack Oakie, Jeanette MacDonald, James Hall, William Austin

Synopsis: Few films outside of Let's Go Native could boast a cast as diverse as Jack Oakie, Jeanette MacDonald and Kay Francis -- all under the direction of Leo McCarey. A variation of the "Admirable Crichton" theme, the story concerns a group of highly incompatible people, all stranded on a tropical Read More

Sky Boy

Crew: Director

Liberty

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This Laurel and Hardy short film has a thin plot but plenty of laughs. The two have escaped from prison, but the guards are hot on their tail. Some confederates pick them up, and Stan and Ollie change out of their prison uniforms in the car while a motorcycle policeman pursues them. In their Read More

Wrong Again

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This entertaining film is one of Laurel and Hardy's most bizarre. Stan and Ollie work as stable-hands for a racehorse named "Blue Boy." They overhear two men talking about "the famous Blue Boy," which has been stolen. There is a $5000 reward for its return, but the boys don't know that the men are Read More

The Unkissed Man

Crew: Director

Bacon Grabbers

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: This Laurel and Hardy two-reel silent involves the boys' attempts to repossess a radio from Collis P. Kennedy (Edgar Kennedy). A barking toy dog scares them off at first, but they come back with a borrowed Great Dane. The Great Dane is also scared off by the toy. Ollie apprehends Kennedy while Stan Read More

Berth Marks

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Laurel and Hardy's second two-reel talkie is made up of a few very simple scenes -- Oliver Hardy goes to meet his partner Stan Laurel at the train station. They have a vaudeville act which involves a bass fiddle and are on their way to their next performance. They just barely make the train and Read More

Big Business

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel, James Finlayson

Synopsis: Stan (Stan Laurel) and Ollie (Oliver Hardy) are selling Christmas trees door-to-door. Stan unintentionally insults their first customer (a single woman) when he asks, "If you had a husband, would he buy a tree?" The second house has a sign up that says "No Peddlers." Ollie rings the bell anyway Read More

Men O' War

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: In this early Laurel and Hardy sound short, Stan and Ollie are a pair of sailors on leave. They meet two girls at a park (Anne Cornwall and Gloria Greer). They have also found a pair of bloomers, which they assume belongs to one of the young ladies. Delicately, they try to discern if either of the Read More

The Sophomore

Crew: Director

Actors: Eddie Quillan, Sally O'Neil, Stanley Smith, Jeanette Loff, Russell Gleason

Synopsis: In this comedy, a college sophomore gets into deep trouble when he gambles away his tuition money on the first day of school. Now to pay for his education, he must work as a soda jerk at a local fountain. There he meets and falls in love with a pretty coed. Because the shop's owner also loves her Read More

Habeas Corpus

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are perhaps unique amongst comedians of the 1920s and 1930s, and their silent and sound films are equally funny. This two-reeler was originally released with music and sound effects; it would be nearly six more months before the boys made their talkie debut. This short Read More

From Soup to Nuts

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Mr. and Mrs. Culpepper (Tiny Sanford and Anita Garvin, respectively) are a nouveau-riche couple who are throwing a fancy dinner party. Unfortunately for them, the waiters they have hired for the evening are Laurel and Hardy. The subsequent gags run from typical (Ollie destroys a cake) to the Read More

Pass the Gravy

Crew: Director

We Faw Down

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Laurel and Hardy want to slip out of the house and play poker. Their wives want them to stay home, so they make up a story about having to meet their "boss" at the Orpheum Theatre. On the way to the poker game, they run into two women who have lost a hat under an automobile. While they attempt to Read More

Should Married Men Go Home?

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Up until this two-reeler, Laurel and Hardy's films for Hal Roach were released under the "All-Star Comedy" label; Should Married Men Go Home is the start of the duo's own series, showing the faith Roach had in their future. The film opens up on a peaceful day for Ollie and his wife (Kay Deslys). Read More

The Finishing Touch

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This two-reel Laurel and Hardy silent is especially rich in slapstick. The comic duo have been promised five hundred dollars to finish a house, but the racket is disturbing the quiet of a nearby hospital, and both a nurse (Dorothy Coburn) and policeman (Edgar Kennedy) insist that the noise be kept Read More

Eve's Love Letters

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Although Oliver Hardy doesn't appear in this comedy, which features his future partner Stan Laurel, his name does -- there is a character named Sir Oliver Hardy. In the leads are fading stars Agnes Ayres and Forrest Stanley. A wife (Ayres) is being blackmailed by her former lover, Sir Oliver Read More

Why Girls Say No

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Max Davidson stars in this Hal Roach comedy as Papa Whissleberg, who is determined that his pretty daughter (Marjorie Daw) will wed a nice Jewish boy. So he is less than thrilled -- to put it mildly -- when Marjorie invites the very Irish-looking Creighton Hale to his birthday gathering. Things go Read More

Should Second Husbands Come First?

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This is an especially amusing Max Davidson two-reeler. He plays Ethan Wattles, who is courting a chubby widow (Lillian Elliott). But her two sons have their doubts about him, even before they meet him -- "Wattles!" says one. "He sounds like a turkey!" They're even more dismayed when they see him Read More

Don't Tell Everything

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Ethnic humor was common and generally accepted in the 1910s and 1920s, and Max Davidson was one of the better known Jewish comedians of the era. Between 1925 and 1928, he had his own two-reel series for producer Hal Roach; it was canned, however, because of complaints from Jewish filmgoers (which Read More

Mighty Like a Moose

Crew: Director

Actors: Charley Chase, Vivien Oakland

Synopsis: In one of his best silent films, Charley Chase plays homely Mr. Moose, whose buck teeth make him a laughingstock. But Mrs. Moose (Vivien Oakland) isn't any better off -- her nose really does rival a moose's. Each of them decide to have plastic surgery and surprise their unsuspecting mate. The Read More

Mama Behave

Crew: Director

Actors: Charley Chase

Bromo and Juliet

Crew: Director

Actors: Charley Chase, Corliss Palmer

Synopsis: Charley Chase will do just about anything to marry his sweetheart Madge (Corliss Palmer) in this amusing two-reeler. So she promises herself to him -- providing that he play Romeo to her Juliet in the Shakespeare/variety benefit show she's holding. He agrees, though reluctantly, and once he's in Read More

Long Fliv the King

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This Hal Roach two-reeler is not one of Charley Chase's best efforts. It's notable only because it's one of the approximately ten percent of silent films known to have survived, and it features Oliver Hardy, before he teamed up with Stan Laurel, in a bit role. Princess Helga of Thermosa (Martha Read More

Be Your Age

Crew: Director

Actors: Charley Chase

Synopsis: This entertaining Charley Chase comedy features an old star (pretty Gladys Hulette, whose career was on its downslide) and an up-and-coming luminary (Oliver Hardy, who hadn't yet teamed up with Stan Laurel). Charley discovers that his family is in desperate need of 10,000 dollars. Meanwhile, his Read More

Crazy Like a Fox

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Oliver Hardy -- who would soon join up with Stan Laurel to make a winning comic team -- has a walk-on in this Charley Chase two-reeler. A father (William V. Mong) wants his daughter (Martha Sleeper) to marry the son (Chase) of an old friend. Since she has never met the young man, Martha decides to Read More

Dog Shy

Crew: Director

Actors: Charley Chase

Synopsis: Stuart Holmes spent much of the 1920s playing villains. He even played them in comedy two-reelers for Hal Roach. Here, he gives funnyman Charley Chase a hard time. Chase has been afraid of dogs ever since he was a little boy, and this causes him no amount of trouble. He is chased into a phone Read More

The Uneasy Three

Crew: Director

Actors: Charley Chase, Katherine Grant, Bull Montana

Synopsis: This Hal Roach spoof of The Unholy Three starred Charley Chase. Chase, Katherine Grant, and Bull Montana all aspire to be society crooks. They decide that their first big job will be to steal the famed Kadjir brooch, which Mrs. Van Courtland has just presented to her daughter. The crook-wannabes Read More

Bad Boy

Crew: Director

Actors: Charley Chase

What Price Goofy?

Crew: Director

Actors: Charley Chase, Katherine Grant

The Caretaker's Daughter

Crew: Director

Actors: Charley Chase, Katherine Grant

Synopsis: Charley Chase plays a young married man with a suspicious wife (Katherine Grant) in this Hal Roach silent. The couple's car finally bites the dust (and their garage along with it), so Charley take it to a secondhand sales lot. He gets a tough looking character (the imposing George Siegmann) to buy Read More

His Wooden Wedding

Crew: Director

Actors: Charley Chase, Katherine Grant

Synopsis: In this silent two-reel comedy, Charley Chase is getting ready to wed the lovely Katherine Grant. But when his jealous rival hands him a note suggesting that his bride-to-be has a wooden leg, he gets cold feet. Instead of getting married he gets drunk and decides to sail to the South Seas and Read More

Is Marriage the Bunk?

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This Charley Chase short has more gags than plot. His wife, Sappie (Katherine Grant), comes from a snobbish family -- her sister has married a wealthy man and her mother turns to her and remarks, "It's too bad you didn't marry money instead of apple sauce." Husband Charley is an entertainer, and Read More

Innocent Husbands

Crew: Director

Actors: Charley Chase, Katherine Grant

Synopsis: Charley Chase stars in this amusing Hal Roach-produced short. Although she has no reason to doubt Charley, his wife (Katherine Grant) is an extremely jealous woman and she's looking for an excuse. She decides to go to a fortune teller to find out the truth, and of course the fortune teller Read More

All Wet

Crew: Director