Lester ColeFilmography

The High Wall

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Robert Taylor, Audrey Totter, Herbert Marshall, Dorothy Patrick, H.B. Warner, Warner Anderson

Synopsis: Former army pilot Robert Taylor is accused, on the basis of strong circumstantial evidence, of his wife's murder. Suffering from periodic blackouts, Taylor isn't so certain of his innocence himself. When offered a brain operation, Taylor refuses, knowing that if he is proven sane he will be Read More

The Romance of Rosy Ridge

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Joyce Arling, Van Johnson, Janet Leigh, James Bell, William Bishop, Thomas Mitchell, Jim Davis, Charles Dingle

Synopsis: Janet Leigh made an impressive film-debut in MGM's The Romance of Rosy Ridge. Though the title suggests a lighthearted musical, the film is actually a fairly sober adaptation (with slight comic undertones) of a novel by Mackinlay Kantor. In the days following the Civil War, a Missouri farming Read More

Fiesta

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Esther Williams, Akim Tamiroff, Ricardo Montalban, John Carroll, Mary Astor

Synopsis: Esther Williams moves from the swimming pool to the bull ring in this musical drama. Antonio Morales (Fortunio Bonanova) was once a champion bullfighter; now in retirement, Antonio and his wife (Mary Astor) have high hopes that their son Mario (Ricardo Montalban) will follow in his father's Read More

Strange Conquest

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Jane Wyatt, Lowell Gilmore, Peter Cookson, Julie Bishop, Milburn Stone

Synopsis: This drama is set within a steamy tropical jungle and chronicles the rivalry between two doctors looking for the cure to a deadly fever. One of the doctors gets frustrated by his repeated failure and so allows the other to try his latest cure out on him. Unfortunately, the "cure" kills the doctor. Read More

Men in Her Diary

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Peggy Ryan, Louise Allbritton, Ernest Truex, Virginia Grey

Synopsis: In 1912, John Bunny and Flora Finch starred in the one-reel farce The New Secretary, wherein Bunny's wife hires a homely stenographer to keep her hubby from straying. 33 years later, this old chestnut was reheated for The Men in Her Diary. The cute-as-a-button Peggy Ryan "dresses down" to portray Read More

Objective, Burma!

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Errol Flynn, Henry Hull, William Prince, James Brown, George Tobias

Synopsis: A few corny moments aside, Objective Burma must rate as one of the best combat films of WW2. Errol Flynn stars as Captain Nelson, who leads a hardy band of paratroopers behind enemy lines in Burma, for the purpose of destroying a Japanese radar station. Their mission accomplished, Nelson and his Read More

Blood on the Sun

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: James Cagney, Sylvia Sidney, Wallace Ford, Porter Hall, Robert Armstrong, John Emery, Rosemary de Camp

Synopsis: In his first film in two years, James Cagney stars as Nick Condon, the American editor of a pre-WW2 Tokyo newspaper. When two of his best friends are horribly murdered, Condon suspects that the "peaceful" Japanese military government is up to no good. He dedicates himself to getting his hands on Read More

None Shall Escape

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Marsha Hunt, Alexander Knox, Henry Travers, Erik Rolf, Richard Crane

Synopsis: In this drama, a crippled German veteran of WW I attempts to reconcile his recent experiences with his former ideologies in this drama. After the war he goes back to his hometown on the German-Polish border to his old teaching job. Time passes and he becomes increasingly cynical and bitter; he Read More

Hostages

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Arturo de Cordova, Luise Rainer, William Bendix, Roland Varno, Oscar Homolka

Synopsis: Luise Rainer's last Hollywood film was the economically produced wartime drama Hostages. Adapted from the novel by Stefan Heym, the story is set in a Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakian village. Rainer plays Milada, the daughter of collaborationist Lev Preissinger (Oscar Homolka). Totally apolitical Read More

Night Plane from Chungking

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Robert Preston, Ellen Drew, Steven Geray, Soo Yong

Synopsis: An adequate wartime filler, Night Plane from Chungking features Robert Preston as the captain of the titular aircraft. En route from Chungking to India, the plane crashes, leaving captain and passengers stranded in a jungle surrounded by Japanese troops. It has been learned that one of the Read More

Among the Living

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Albert Dekker, Susan Hayward, Harry Carey, Frances Farmer, Gordon Jones

Synopsis: One of the eerier chillers of its period -- and one of the best ever to come out of Paramount -- Stuart Heisler's Among the Living is a strange and compelling mix of social drama, horror film, and suspense thriller. The story opens with the funeral of Maxim Raden, the patriarch who was pretty much Read More

Footsteps in the Dark

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Ralph Bellamy, Alan Hale, Lee Patrick

Synopsis: Footsteps in the Dark is a comedy/mystery, starring Errol Flynn as a wealthy investment counselor who secretly doubles as a dilettante detective, the better to write mystery novels. Brenda Marshall plays his wife, who can't understand why he is never home and begins to suspect hanky-panky. In Read More

Pacific Blackout

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Robert Preston, Philip Merivale, Eva Gabor, Louis Jean Heydt

Synopsis: Midnight Angel was the title of this Paramount actioner when it was first released in December of 1941. But by the time the film reached the hinterlands, America had entered WW2, and thus it was that Midnight Angel was rechristened Pacific Blackout, which remained its title to this very day. Read More

The Invisible Man Returns

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Cedric Hardwicke, Vincent Price, Nan Grey, John Sutton, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: A semi-sequel to the 1933 Universal horror masterwork The Invisible Man, The Invisible Man Returns stars Vincent Price in the title role. Condemned for a murder he did not commit, Price begs doctor John Sutton to inject him with the invisibility serum invented by Claude Rains in the first film. Sutton Read More

The House of the Seven Gables

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: George Sanders, Margaret Lindsay, Vincent Price, Nan Grey, Dick Foran

Synopsis: This fine adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic tale about a cursed family opens with a title card that reveals how the Pyncheon family stole, cheated, lied, and murdered their way to wealth. But within the hearts of the family's bloodline lay fear of the curse of Matthew Maule, a man they Read More

When the Daltons Rode

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Randolph Scott, Kay Francis, Brian Donlevy, George Bancroft, Broderick Crawford

Synopsis: When the Daltons Rode is the much-embellished tale of that celebrated outlaw family, the Daltons. Broderick Crawford, Brian Donlevy, Stu Erwin and Frank Albertson play the gunslinging brothers, with Mary Gordon on hand as Ma Dalton. In the tradition of the 1939 western Jesse James, the film Read More

Pirates of the Skies

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Kent Taylor, Rochelle Hudson, Lucien Littlefield, Ray Walker, Stanley Andrews

Synopsis: In this drama, a waitress leaves her husband after getting sick of being alone while her husband, a commercial pilot, plies his trade. To be near her, he quits his job and joins the state police air service. Unfortunately, he becomes mixed up in an interdepartmental rivalry between road-bound and Read More

The Big Guy

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Victor McLaglen, Jackie Cooper, Edward S. Brophy, Peggy Moran, Ona Munson

Synopsis: In this melodrama, the acting warden at a correctional facility must make a difficult choice when he comes across some ill-gotten loot after averting a prison break. At first he keeps it for himself, but then one of the recently recaptured inmates gets blamed for the crime. During the attempted Read More

Winter Carnival

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Ann Sheridan, Richard Carlson, Helen Parrish, James Corner, Robert Armstrong

Synopsis: This romance is set during the Dartmouth College Winter Carnival and follows the exploits of a woman recently divorced from a count who has returned to her alma mater for the annual carnival. A former carnival queen, she watches as her lovely little sister vies for the title. She also flirts with Read More

I Stole a Million

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: George Raft, Claire Trevor, Dick Foran, Henry Armetta, Victor Jory

Synopsis: In this crime drama, a grizzled cabbie is scammed out of his life savings by a fake finance company. He tries to no avail to get police assistance. Finally he becomes a wanted criminal and escapes to California where he meets the girl who will become his wife. She helps him go straight by helping Read More

The Crime of Dr. Hallet

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: This medical melodrama, set in the moist Sumatran jungles, centers around bacteria research. To find a cure for red fever, a dreaded disease, a young doctor with a healthy Park Avenue clientele, leaves his practice and ventures into the jungle. The native doctors do not welcome his to Sumatra as Read More

The Jury's Secret

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Kent Taylor, Fay Wray, Jane Darwell, Nan Grey, Larry Blake

Synopsis: Universal ran into censorship problems with this farfetched but well-acted courtroom drama directed by silent screen veteran Edward Sloman. When corrupt tycoon Brandon Williams (Samuel S. Hinds) is found murdered, the obvious suspect is young William Sheldon (Larry Blake), who had publicly feuded Read More

Secrets of a Nurse

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Helen Mack, Dick Foran, Samuel S. Hinds, Paul Hurst

Synopsis: The slick Universal programmer Secrets of a Nurse was based on a Collier's Magazine story by distinguished journalist Quentin Reynolds. This story in turn was based on a true incident, in which a gangster "returned from the dead" to save an innocent young man from the electric chair. The nurse of Read More

Sinners in Paradise

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Madge Evans, John Boles, Bruce Cabot, Marion Martin, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: At one time Universal's "prestige" director, James Whale had slipped off the A-list by the end of the 1930s; even so, his films remained both intriguing and entertaining. In Whale's Sinners in Paradise, an airplane cracks up during a storm and crash-lands on an uncharted South Sea island. All nine Read More

Midnight Intruder

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Louis Hayward, Eric Linden, J.C. Nugent, Barbara Read, Irving Bacon

Synopsis: In this comedy, two racetrack gamblers lose all their dough by betting on a long shot. Now they must hitchhike to the next racetrack. En route they take cover in an apparently abandoned mansion. There they find some clothing, which they put on. Unfortunately, in that garb, they are mistaken by the Read More

Some Blondes Are Dangerous

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Noah Beery, Jr., William Gargan, Dorothea Kent, Nan Grey, Roland Drew

Synopsis: Some Blondes are Dangerous is a remake of 1931's The Iron Man, using the same W. R. Burnett novel as its source. Noah Beery Jr. stars as Bud "Iron Man" Mason, a talented but rather dimwitted prizefighter. Against the advice of his crusty old manager George Regan (William Gargan), Mason dumps his Read More

The Man in Blue

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Robert Wilcox, Edward Ellis, Nan Grey, Richard Carle, Ralph Morgan

Synopsis: Robert Wilcox stars in Man in Blue as Frankie, a gangster's son. Frankie has been raised since childhood by Officer Martin Dunne (Edward Ellis), the cop who killed his father. About to join the force himself, Frankie is enticed into a life of crime by his con-artist uncle Willie Loomis (Richard Carle Read More

The Affairs of Cappy Ricks

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Walter Brennan, Mary Brian, Lyle Talbot, Frank Shields, Frank Melton

Synopsis: Returning from a trip, wealthy seaman Cappy Ricks (Walter Brennan) is annoyed to find his home automated, his daughters' romances awry and his business in disarray, so he schemes with Bill (Lyle Talbot) to trap everyone aboard Cappy's yacht. Later, they fake a fire to maroon everyone on an island Read More

Hitch Hike Lady

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Arthur Treacher, James Ellison, Warren Hymer

Synopsis: In this emotional drama, a lonely British housekeeper, uses her hard-earned savings account to finance a trip to America so she can see the successful son she has been proud of all her life. At least she has been lead to believe that her son is a big shot. Once in the US, she and her young female Read More

Follow Your Heart

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Marion Talley, Michael Bartlett, Nigel Bruce, Luis Alberni, Henrietta Crosman

Synopsis: Casting an envious eye towards the huge box-office take of Columbia's Grace Moore vehicles, Republic hoped to strike gold in a similar fashion by fashioning a screen property for Kansas-born Metropolitan Opera diva Marion Talley. As it turned out, Follow Your Heart was Talley's first and last Read More

The President's Mystery

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Henry Wilcoxon, Betty Furness, Sidney Blackmer, Evelyn Brent, Barnett Parker

Synopsis: The screenplay for this mystery is based upon a story suggested to Liberty Magazine by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It is the tale of a prominent lawyer who shocks his snooty friends, family and colleagues by abruptly abandoning his successful practice and his wife to find true happiness. He Read More

Too Tough to Kill

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Victor Jory, Sally O'Neil, Thurston Hall, Johnny Arthur, Robert Gleckler

Synopsis: The construction site of a big tunnel provides the backdrop for this drama. When the project is delayed, the chief engineer is sent to the mountainous site to ensure things go as planned. He is accompanied by a reporter and her photographer. Together they stop the troublemakers before blood is Read More

Under Pressure

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Victor McLaglen, Florence Rice, Marjorie Rambeau, Charles Bickford

Synopsis: Directed by Raoul Walsh, Under Pressure tells of the competition between the crews employed to excavate a complex network of tunnels ranging from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Shocker (Edmund Lowe) and Jumbo (Victor McLaglen) are two such rivals, and the trouble really begins when they both fall for the Read More

Wild Gold

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: John Boles, Claire Trevor, Harry Green, Roger Imhof, Ruth Gillette

Synopsis: This off-beat romantic melodrama contains elements of comedy not usually found in the genre as it tells the story of the love between a show girl fleeing from her husband, a grifter. She heads to a mining company and ends up involved with a dam engineer. When a dam accidentally breaks, the Read More

Sleepers East

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Wynne Gibson, Preston S. Foster, Mona Barrie, Harvey Stephens, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Frederick Nebel (of "Torchy Blane" fame), Sleepers East is largely set on a train bound for New York. The plot is set in motion by the murder trial of a man accused of killing a politician. The defendant intended to pull the trigger, but the murder was actually committed by Read More

Pursued

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Rosemary Ames, Victor Jory, Pert Kelton, Russell Hardie, George Irving

Synopsis: In this drama, a nice young woman is saving all her money so she can leave her South Seas island home, move to San Francisco and open a tea room. Meanwhile, a hardworking young man has come the island to begin running his uncle's profitable plantation, a piece of property coveted by the island Read More

Charlie Chan's Greatest Case

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Warner Oland, Heather Angel, Roger Imhof, John Warburton, Walter Byron

Synopsis: Warner Oland returns as wily, philosophical oriental detective Charlie Chan in this expensive-looking series entry. This time, Chan follows the trail of clues when a "respectable" Honolulu businessman sidelining in blackmail and other unsavory activities is murdered. Like the earlier Black Camel Read More

Walls of Gold

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Sally Eilers, Norman Foster, Ralph Morgan, Rosita Moreno, Rochelle Hudson

Synopsis: Walls of Gold is based on the Kathleen Norris novel of the same name. Sally Eilers stars as Jeanie Satterlee, a level-headed blue-collar gal to becomes the mistress of wealthy J. Gordon Ritchie (Ralph Morgan). This she does to spite her sweetheart, Ritchie's nephew Barnes (Norman Foster), who Read More

If I Had a Million

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton, W.C. Fields, Charlie Ruggles, George Raft, Jack Oakie

Synopsis: Based on a story by Robert Andrews, If I Had a Million is a multipart comedy-drama employing Paramount's top directorial and acting talents. Refusing to leave his fortune to his grasping relatives, dying millionaire Richard Bennett selects several people at random from the phone book and bestows Read More

Love at First Sight

Actors: Norman Foster, Doris Rankin, Lester Cole

Synopsis: In this musical, two producers find backing for their Broadway debut and must then find someone to star in it. One of the producers spies a lovely night club singer and falls in love with her. He naturally thinks she is the best woman for the part. She would like to be in the show, but she also Read More

Painted Faces

Synopsis: A circus clown creates trouble when he serves on a jury and refuses to convict an innocent young woman for murder. His vote causes a hung jury for five long days. In the end, it is discovered why he is so sure the girl is innocent---it was he who killed the man for abusing his adopted daughter. Read More