Noble Johnson Filmography

North of the Great Divide

Actors: Roy Rogers, Penny Edwards, Gordon Jones, Roy Barcroft

Synopsis: Roy Rogers goes "PC" in North of the Great Divide. In this one, Roy champions the cause of the Oseka Indians, whose supply of salmon has been cut off. The perpetrator is fish-cannery owner Banning (Roy Barcroft), who has been hogging the salmon for his own business. Not only that, Banning Read More

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

Actors: John Wayne, Joanne Dru, John Agar, Ben Johnson, Victor McLaglen

Synopsis: The second of John Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy", She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is the only one of the three to be lensed in Technicolor. In an Oscar-calibre performance, 42-year old John Wayne plays sixtyish Cavalry Captain Nathan Brittles. In his last days before his compulsory retirement, Brittles must Read More

The Gallant Legion

Actors: Adrian Booth, James Brown, Bruce Cabot, Andy Devine, Steve Drake

Synopsis: When Republic moved its popular star William Elliot from "B" series westerns to "A" frontier specials, a lot of the fun and excitement was lost in the process. Additionally, Republic seemed reluctant to admit the new Elliot films were westerns, as witness the title Gallant Legion, which could have Read More

Dream Girl

Actors: Betty Hutton, MacDonald Carey, Patric Knowles, Virginia Field, Walter Abel

Synopsis: Elmer Rice's clever stage comedy Dream Girl is Hollywoodized and "dumbed down" almost beyond recognition in this 1948 film version. In place of the original play's Betty Field, Betty Hutton stars Georgina Allerton, who periodically escapes her humdrum existence by retreating into elaborate Read More

Hard-Boiled Mahoney

Synopsis: One of the many Bowery Boys movies, in this one Slip and Sach are mistaken for two private investigators and risk their lives trying to solve a missing persons mystery. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

Slave Girl

Actors: Yvonne De Carlo, George Brent, Albert Dekker, Broderick Crawford, Lois Collier

Synopsis: Slave Girl is the sort of fare that the Universal higher-ups used to dismiss as "tits and sand;" nonetheless, this kind of entertainment (along with the equally lowbrow Abbott and Costello and Ma and Pa Kettle pictures) paid the bills for the studio's more ponderous projects. The slave girl of the Read More

Unconquered

Actors: Gary Cooper, Paulette Goddard, Howard Da Silva, Boris Karloff, Katherine de Mille, Ward Bond

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille's first postwar production, the $5 million Technicolor historical spectacular Unconquered lacks only the kitchen sink. The story begins in England in the 1760s, as Abigail Martha Hale (Paulette Goddard), unjustly accused of a crime against the Crown, is sentenced by the Lord Chief Read More

The Plainsman and the Lady

Actors: Don "Red" Barry, Andy Clyde, William B. Davidson, Byron Foulger

Synopsis: The 87-minute running time of Plainsman and the Lady was evidence aplenty that this was no mere Republic B western. William Elliot (formerly and latterly "Wild Bill" Elliot) stars as cattleman Sam Cotten, who offers his services-and his six-guns-to the newly formed Pony Express. Erudite villain Read More

Angel on My Shoulder

Actors: Paul Muni, Anne Baxter, Claude Rains, Onslow Stevens, George Cleveland

Synopsis: In this comedy, Paul Muni plays a recently murdered gangster who finds himself roasting in Hell. Muni can't believe that he's in for All Eternity and keeps trying to "bust out," which brings him to the attention of the Head Man (Claude Rains), who calls himself Nick. Nick strikes a bargain with Muni Read More

A Game of Death

Actors: John Loder, Audrey Long, Edgar Barrier, Russell Wade, Jason Robards, Sr., Russell Hicks

Synopsis: RKO Radio's A Game of Death was the first official remake of Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game, given a contemporary WW2 twist. Novelist Rainsford (John Loder) and brother-and-sister shipwreck victims Ellen (Audrey Long) and Robert (Russell Wade) are among the innocents stranded on remote Read More

Thank Your Lucky Stars

Actors: Eddie Cantor, Dinah Shore, Joan Leslie, Bette Davis, Dennis Morgan, Humphrey Bogart, Olivia de Havilland, Edward Everett Horton

Synopsis: Practically everybody on the Warner Bros. lot shows up in the wartime morale-boosting musical extravaganza Thank Your Lucky Stars. Believe it or not, this one has a wisp of a plot. A pair of enterprising producers, played by S.Z. Sakall and Edward Everett Horton, want to hire singer Dinah Shore Read More

The Desert Song

Actors: Dennis Morgan, Irene Manning, Bruce Cabot, Victor Francen, Lynne Overman

Synopsis: The popular operetta by Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II enjoyed its second screen adaptation with this film, which added four new songs and updated the story to World War II. Paul Hudson (Dennis Morgan), an American veteran of the Spanish Civil War, makes his living playing piano in a Read More

A Night in New Orleans

Actors: Preston S. Foster, Patricia Morison, Albert Dekker, Charles Butterworth, Dooley Wilson

Synopsis: A solid Jonathan Latimer screenplay is one of the "plusses" of the medium-budget mystery A Night in New Orleans. Preston S. Foster plays police lieutenant Steve Abbott, at present engrossed in a baffling murder case. As he pieces the clues together, Abbott comes to the sobering conclusion that his Read More

The Mad Doctor of Market Street

Actors: Una Merkel, Lionel Atwill, Nat Pendleton, Claire Dodd, Richard Davies

Synopsis: Considering the fact that it was the only Universal horror film directed by cult favorite Joseph H. Lewis, it's a shame that Mad Doctor of Market Street isn't better than it is. Lionel Atwill dominates the proceedings as Dr. Benson, an addlepated medico obsessed with the notion of restoring the Read More

The Jungle Book

Actors: Sabu, Joseph Calleia, John Qualen, Frank Puglia, Rosemary de Camp

Synopsis: The Jungle Book isn't always faithful to the Rudyard Kipling original (in fact, it seldom is), but 1942 audiences swept up in the grandeur of the production values and the lush Technicolor photography didn't mind at all. Indian juvenile-star Sabu plays Mowgli, who having been lost in the jungle as Read More

Shut My Big Mouth

Actors: Joe E. Brown, Adele Mara, Victor Jory, Fritz Feld, Don Beddoe

Synopsis: The best of Joe E. Brown's Columbia starring vehicles, Shut My Big Mouth is also one of Joe's funniest efforts since his heyday at Warner Bros. Brown is cast as wealthy easterner Wellington Holmes, who heads to the Wild West in search of peace and quiet (!) When Wellington's stagecoach is held up Read More

Ten Gentlemen from West Point

Actors: George Montgomery, Maureen O'Hara, John Sutton, Laird Cregar, Victor Francen

Synopsis: This historical drama tells the story of the first class to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. In the early 19th Century, Congress appropriated the money to build the school, but opponents who believed it to be an illegitimate expansion of the powers of the federal government Read More

Road to Zanzibar

Actors: Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Una Merkel, Joan Marsh

Synopsis: The second Bing Crosby/Bob Hope "Road" picture casts Crosby as a penny-ante sideshow promoter and Hope as Crosby's only client, "Fearless Frazier." Under Crosby's tutelage, Hope has been shot from a cannon, zapped in an electric chair and nearly strangled by an octopus. Now they're practically Read More

Aloma of the South Seas

Actors: Dorothy Lamour, Jon Hall, Lynne Overman, Phillip Reed, Katherine de Mille

Synopsis: The South Seas romance is set on the scenic island of Tahiti where the island chief betroths his son to a woman and then ships him to the US to attend Harvard. During the return voyage the lad is befriended by the ship's captain who also protects the beautiful girl the boy meets, but doesn't know Read More

Hurry, Charlie, Hurry

Actors: Leon Errol, Mildred Coles, Ken Howell, Cecil Cunningham, George Watts

Synopsis: In this comedy, the marital conflicts between a meek banker and his nagging wife are chronicled. First they fight over their daughter's future. His snooty, domineering wife wants her to marry a wealthy man, but he, realizing that she really loves the humble delivery boy for the bakery encourages Read More

The Ghost Breakers

Actors: Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, Richard Carlson, Paul Lukas, Willie Best

Synopsis: Paramount followed up its successful Bob Hope/Paulette Goddard co-starrer The Cat and the Canary (1939) by warming up another venerable "old dark house" stage play, Paul Dickey and Charles Goddard's The Ghost Breaker, pluralizing the title to accommodate both stars. This time Hope plays radio Read More

Green Hell

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Vincent Price, Joan Bennett, Alan Hale, George Sanders, John Howard

Synopsis: Angry natives or a beautiful widow -- which poses the greater threat? Keith Brandon (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) is an archeologist leading a team of researchers -- Richardson (Vincent Price), Loren (Alan Hale), Forrester (George Sanders), and Scott (John Howard) -- who are exploring the jungles of Read More

Northwest Mounted Police

Actors: Gary Cooper, Madeleine Carroll, Preston S. Foster, Paulette Goddard, Robert Preston

Synopsis: Cecil B. De Mille directed this lavish all-star spectacular paying tribute to America's neighbors to the North. In 1885, as Louis Riel (Francis J. McDonald) tries to organize Indians and French settlers into a fighting force that will battle against the ruling British, Texas Ranger Dusty Rivers (Gary Cooper Read More

The Ranger and the Lady

Actors: Roy Rogers, George "Gabby" Hayes, Jacqueline Wells, Harry Woods, Henry Brandon

Synopsis: The Ranger and the Lady stars Roy Rogers and Jacqueline Wells (aka Julie Bishop) in the title roles. Captain Colt (Rogers) of the Texas Rangers finds himself at odds with territorial administrator Kinkaid (Henry Brandon), left in charge of the Lone Star Territory while President Sam Houston is in Read More

Drums Along the Mohawk

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Henry Fonda, Edna May Oliver, Arthur Shields, Eddie Collins, Ward Bond, John Carradine

Synopsis: John Ford directed this outdoor adventure set in the American Colonial period. Gilbert and Lana Martin (Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert) are a young couple trying to make a home in New York State's Mohawk Valley, but repeated attacks by Indians drive them, along with other settlers in the Read More

Tropic Fury

Actors: Richard Arlen, Andy Devine, Beverly Roberts, Lupita Tovar

Synopsis: Tropic Fury is one of several Universal programmers built around the box-office appeal of handsome Richard Arlen and ratchet-voiced Andy Devine. Arlen plays private detective Dan Burton, assigned to prevent enemy agents from taking over an old rubber plantation. Aided and abetted by his tubby Read More

Juarez

Actors: Paul Muni, Bette Davis, Brian Aherne, Claude Rains, John Garfield

Synopsis: Juarez was originally designed to concentrate almost exclusively on the tragedy of Hapsburg Emperor Maximillian, whose attempts to establish a puppet government in Mexico on behalf of Napoleon III ended in disaster and death. But when Paul Muni decided that he wanted to play Read More

Union Pacific

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Akim Tamiroff, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy, Lynne Overman

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille takes us back to the 1860s, then rebuilds the first intercontinental railroad in Union Pacific. The real-life spectacle is occasionally interrupted by the fictional adventures of railroad overseer Joel McCrea, postmistress Barbara Stanwyck (with an incredible Irish brogue), and Read More

Frontier Pony Express

Actors: Roy Rogers, Mary Hart, Raymond Hatton, Edward Keane, Noble Johnson

Synopsis: Frontier Pony Express is a fast-paced Roy Rogers program western which could stand up on its own with any big-budgeted "A" picture. Per the title, Rogers plays an express rider, working the California-to-Kansas City route. While the Civil War rages in the East, our hero must contend with Yankee Read More

Four Men and a Prayer

Actors: Loretta Young, Richard Greene, George Sanders, David Niven, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: This saga spans the globe as the three young heroes search for the man who killed their much-admired, beloved father, a cashiered officer who was wrongly dishonorably discharged before he was murdered. Their quest takes them from India to South America, London, Egypt, and the U.S. As the progress Read More

Hawk of the Wilderness [Serial]

Synopsis: This 12-episode serial stars Herman Brix as Kioga, a young man who is raised by natives after wrecking his ship on a remote island. He eventually has to protect his land from invading pirates. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide Read More

Lost Horizon

Actors: Ronald Colman, Edward Everett Horton, H.B. Warner, Jane Wyatt, Sam Jaffe, John Howard, Margo

Synopsis: It took British author James Hilton six weeks to write his visionary novel Lost Horizon. It took director Frank Capra two years-and half of his home studio Columbia's annual budget-to bring it to the screen. After a lengthy preamble, inviting audiences to imagine their own ideas of Utopia, the Read More

Wee Willie Winkie

Actors: Shirley Temple, Victor McLaglen, C. Aubrey Smith, June Lang, Michael Whalen

Synopsis: In this lovely John Ford film, Joyce Williams (June Lang) and her young daughter, Priscilla (Shirley Temple), travel to India to live on a British Army base with Joyce's father, Colonel Williams, Aubrey C. Smith). Once there, sweet, young Priscilla manages to win the love and affection of the Read More

The Plainsman

Actors: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, James Ellison, Charles Bickford, Helen Burgess

Synopsis: One is immediately aware that The Plainsman is a Cecil B. DeMille production in the opening scene, wherein President Abraham Lincoln (Frank McGlynn Sr.), on the verge of signing crucial legislation which will determine the future of the American West, is dragged away from his Cabinet by a scolding Read More

Conquest

Actors: Greta Garbo, Charles Boyer, Reginald Owen, Alan Marshal, Henry Stephenson

Synopsis: Conquest was released in England as Marie Waleska, the name of the real-life historical personage portrayed by Greta Garbo. The film begins in 1807, when Marie, a Polish countess, is dispatched by her country to meet with Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (Charles Boyer). Marie has been encouraged to Read More

Escape from Devil's Island

Actors: Victor Jory, Florence Rice, Norman Foster, Stanley Andrews, Daniel L. Haynes

Synopsis: Escape from Devil's Island delivers exactly was the title promises...almost. Victor Jory and Norman Foster play two desperate Devil's Island inmates, bitter enemies who pool their resources and work out an escape plan. They bribe those who can be bribed, befriend those willing to be befriended Read More

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer

Actors: Gary Cooper, Franchot Tone, Richard Cromwell, Guy Standing, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Gary Cooper stars in this rousing adventure saga of three British officers of the 41st Regiment of Bengal Lancers of India. The story begins as Lt. McGregor (Gary Cooper) accepts two new officers to his company -- the brash Lt. Fortesque (Franchot Tone) and Lt. Stone (Richard Cromwell), the son of Read More

Dante's Inferno

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Claire Trevor, Rita Hayworth, Alan Dinehart, Scotty Beckett

Synopsis: Carnival barker Spencer Tracy befriends elderly concessionaire Henry B. Walthall, who owns a picturesque but stodgy display depicting Dante's Inferno. Walthall is more interested in the spiritual aspects of Man's fascination with Hell, but Tracy uses hoopla and exaggeration to get the suckers into Read More

She

Actors: Helen Gahagan, Randolph Scott, Helen Mack, Nigel Bruce, Gustav von Seyffertitz

Synopsis: Randolph Scott, whom Cooper borrowed from Paramount, plays Leo Vincey, an explorer searching for the "flame of life," a radioactive element hidden in the Arctic parts of Manchuria which, according to Vincey family lore, can bestow eternal life. Setting out on the fearful journey along with British Read More

Murder in Trinidad

Actors: Nigel Bruce, Heather Angel, Victor Jory, Murray Kinnell, Douglas Walton

Synopsis: What a shame that the 1934 Fox crime meller Murder in Trinidad is currently unavailable for viewing. In one of his best performances, Nigel Bruce is cast as Bertram Lynch, a slovenly, sweat-stained detective with a mind like a steel trap. Lumbering his way through a tropical outpost, Lynch Read More

Kid Millions

Actors: Eddie Cantor, Stanley Fields, Ann Sothern, Doris Davenport, Ethel Merman, George Murphy, Otto Hoffman, Paul Harvey, Eve Sully

Synopsis: Brooklyn tugboat worker Eddie (Eddie Cantor), bullied and cowed by his tough-guy stepfather and stepbrothers (a la Harold Lloyd's The Kid Brother), inherits $77 million from his uncle, an Egyptologist. Con artist Dot (Ethel Merman) wants to get her lunchhooks on the money, and to this end offers Read More

Nagana

Actors: Tala Birell, Miki Morita, Onslow Stevens, Everett Brown

Synopsis: A countess and a doctor embark on an adventure in Africa in order to find a cure for sleeping sickness, but superstitions and crocodiles get in their way. Of course, they end up together. ~ Steve Huey, All Movie Guide Read More

White Woman

Actors: Charles Laughton, Carole Lombard, Charles Bickford, Kent Taylor, Percy Kilbride

Synopsis: In this campy "adult-oriented" drama from the early 1930s, the ruthless manager of a Malaysian rubber plantation marries a singer facing deportation. He offers her a miserable existence of abuse and loneliness. She finds a bright spot with a handsome plantation worker. Unfortunately, her jealous Read More

King Kong

Actors: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot, Frank Reicher, Sam Hardy, Noble Johnson

Synopsis: "How would you like to star opposite the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood?" Enticed by these words, brunette leading lady Fay Wray dyed her hair blonde and accepted the role of Ann Darrow in King Kong -- and stayed with the project even after learning that her "leading man" was a 50-foot Read More

The Son of Kong

Actors: Robert Armstrong, Helen Mack, Frank Reicher, John Marston, Victor Wong

Synopsis: Hoping to immediately cash in on its blockbuster hit King Kong (1933). RKO Radio commissioned producers Willis O'Brien and Ernest B. Schoedsack to hastily slap together a sequel. Son of Kong begins where King Kong left off, with foolhardy entrepreneur Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) facing hundreds Read More

The Most Dangerous Game

Actors: Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Leslie Banks, Robert Armstrong, Steve Clemente

Synopsis: The first of many official and unofficial screen versions of Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game was put together by producer Willis O'Brien and directors Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel in 1932. Leslie Banks stars as loony Russian count Zaroff, a renowned big-game hunter who tires of Read More

Mystery Ranch

Actors: George O'Brien, Cecilia Parker, Charles B. Middleton, Charles Stevens, Forrester Harvey

Synopsis: The comedic sidekick is shockingly done away with in this unusual and highly atmospheric Western from Fox. George O'Brien, of Sunrise (1927) fame, stars as Bob Sanborn, an Arizona ranger assigned to quell a reign of terror instigated by Paradise Valley rancher Henry Steele (Charles Middleton), who Read More

The Mummy

Actors: Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, David Manners, Edward Van Sloan, Arthur Byron, Bramwell Fletcher

Synopsis: The Mummy represented Boris Karloff's second horror starring role after his "overnight" success in Frankenstein. Brought back to life after nearly 3,700 years, Egyptian high priest Imhotep wreaks havoc upon the members of the British field exposition that disturbed his tomb (shades of the King Tut Read More

Murders in the Rue Morgue

Actors: Bela Lugosi, Leon Waycoff [Ames], Sydney Fox, Bert Roach, Brandon Hurst

Synopsis: Having missed the opportunity to direct Frankenstein for Universal, Robert Florey was offered Murders in the Rue Morgue as a consolation, whereupon he transformed a pedestrian property into a minor classic. Owing more to Cabinet of Dr. Caligari than to Edgar Allen Poe, the film stars Bela Lugosi Read More

East of Borneo

Actors: Rose Hobart, Charles Bickford, Georges Renavent, Lupita Tovar, Noble Johnson

Synopsis: One of the most frequently telecast films of the 1950s and 1960s, East of Borneo stars Rose Hobart as Linda, the wife of African missionary Dr. Clark (Charles Bickford). Feeling stifled by her unfamiliar surroundings, Linda is further isolated from civilization when her husband runs off into the Read More

Safe in Hell

Actors: Dorothy Mackaill, Donald Cook, Ralf Harolde, Morgan Wallace, Victor Varconi

Synopsis: A young Barbara Stanwyck was considered for the starring role as the exiled call-girl in this extremely frank pre production-code drama directed by William A. Wellman from a play by Houston Branch). The role eventually went ot Dorothy Mackaill, an evocative British-born veteran adept at playing Read More

Moby Dick

Actors: John Barrymore, Joan Bennett, Lloyd Hughes, May Boley, Noble Johnson, Walter Long

Synopsis: Herman Melville's classic novel gets a major revision in this screen adaptation of his seafaring novel - Hollywood's first talkie adaptation of the work. (A silent version, The Sea Beast, had been produced four years earlier). Captain Ahab Ceely (John Barrymore), a crusty and hard-drinking sailor Read More

Mamba

Actors: Jean Hersholt, Eleanor Boardman, Ralph Forbes, Josef Swickard, Claude Fleming

Synopsis: One of the most ambitious productions ever to emerge from parsimonious Tiffany Studios, Mamba is also one of the few 1930s horror films to be lensed in Technicolor. The story takes place in East Africa, where bestial August Bolte (Jean Hersholt), also known as Mamba, holds the local Zulu Read More

Kismet

Actors: Otis Skinner, Loretta Young, David Manners, Mary Duncan, Sidney Blackmer

Synopsis: Edward Knoblock's warhorse theatrical piece Kismet, first filmed in 1920, resurfaced as a talkie in 1930. Repeating the role he'd created on stage in 1911, Otis Skinner stars as Hajji, the wily Baghdad beggar who goes from rags to riches to rags again to riches again in the space of 24 hours. Read More

Redskin

Actors: Richard Dix, Jane Novak, Larry Steers, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: Intended as a follow-up (and improvement upon) the 1926 epic western The Vanishing American, Redskin was partially filmed in two-color Technicolor -- and, during its first big-city road show engagements, was shown in Magnascope, an early wide-screen process. Written by Elizabeth Pickett, an expert Read More