Norma ShearerFilmography

We Were Dancing

Actors: Norma Shearer, Melvyn Douglas, Gail Patrick, Lee Bowman, Marjorie Main

Synopsis: Strange but true: Norma Shearer turned down the title role in Mrs. Miniver to star instead in the insignificant trifle We Were Dancing. Loosely based on two Noel Coward playlets originally presented as part of the omnibus production Tonight at 8:30, the story concerns the romance between socialite Read More

Escape

Actors: Norma Shearer, Robert Taylor, Conrad Veidt, Alla Nazimova, Felix Bressart

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Ethel Vance, Escape stars Robert Taylor as a young American, the son of a widowed European woman (Alla Nazimova). The mother has been imprisoned in a German concentration camp, compelling her son to ignore America's neutrality and attempt a rescue. Sneaking into German-occupied Read More

The Women

Actors: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Mary Boland, Joan Fontaine, Paulette Goddard

Synopsis: Based on the Clare Booth Luce play of the same name, this MGM comedy is justly famous for its all-female cast and deft direction by George Cukor. The plot centers on a group of gossipy high-society women who spend their days at the beauty salon and haunting fashion shows. The sweet, happily wedded Read More

Idiot's Delight

Actors: Norma Shearer, Clark Gable, Edward Arnold, Charles Coburn, Joseph Schildkraut, Burgess Meredith

Synopsis: Robert E. Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Idiot's Delight starred Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne on Broadway. Set in a lavish alpine hotel bordering an Italian air base, the story throws together several disparate people, each in his or her own way affected by the World War that threatens to Read More

Marie Antoinette

Actors: Norma Shearer, Tyrone Power, John Barrymore, Robert Morley, Anita Louise, Joseph Schildkraut

Synopsis: M.G.M.'s opulent costume drama Marie Antoinette marked a return to the screen after a two-year absence for reigning Queen of M.G.M. Norma Shearer. Shearer plays the title role of an Austrian princess who is married off to Louis Auguste (Robert Morley), the Dauphin of France. Marie, by becoming the Read More

Romeo and Juliet

Actors: Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard, John Barrymore, Edna May Oliver, Basil Rathbone

Synopsis: Director George Cukor and producer Irving G. Thalberg's adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, a lavish production of Shakespeare's tale about two star-crossed lovers, is extremely well-produced and acted. In fact, it is so well-done, that it is easy to forget that Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer are too Read More

Rip Tide

Actors: Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Herbert Marshall, Mrs. Patrick Campbell

Synopsis: A few unique touches aside -- notably the opening costume-party scene, in which the revellers are dressed as insects -- Rip Tide is a standard-issue Norma Shearer soap opera. Shearer plays Mary, a footloose and fancy-free American heiress who weds British nobleman Lord Rexford (Herbert Marshall). Read More

The Barretts of Wimpole Street

Actors: Norma Shearer, Fredric March, Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Sullivan, Katherine Alexander

Synopsis: Based on a successful stage drama, this historical romance stars Norma Shearer as Elizabeth Barrett, an invalid largely confined to her bed. Elizabeth has little company beyond her dog and her obsessively protective father, Edward Moulton Barrett (Charles Laughton). Her one great passion and means Read More

Smilin' Through

Actors: Norma Shearer, Fredric March, Leslie Howard, O.P. Heggie, Ralph Forbes

Synopsis: Director Sidney Franklin originally adapted Jane Murfin and Jane Cowl's play Smilin' Through for the silver screen in a 1922 silent film starring Norma Talmadge and (the other) Harrison Ford. Remaking his own film, Franklin directed Norma Shearer in this 1932 talkie. Leslie Howard plays John Read More

Strange Interlude

Actors: Norma Shearer, Clark Gable, Alexander Kirkland, Ralph Morgan, Robert Young

Synopsis: A remarkably smooth 110-minute adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's marathon eight-hour play, Strange Interlude was advertised as "the picture in which you hear the characters think," a nod to O'Neill's technique of having the characters speak their innermost thoughts out loud between dialogue passages Read More

Private Lives

Actors: Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Reginald Denny, Una Merkel, Jean Hersholt

Synopsis: Amanda (Norma Shearer) and Elyot (Robert Montgomery) -- a witty, sophisticated married couple -- divorce and marry other mates. Amanda chooses stuffy Victor (Reginald Denny), while Elyot's selection is the tiresome Sibyl (Una Merkel). Coincidentally, both newlywed couples honeymoon at the same Read More

A Free Soul

Actors: Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard, Lionel Barrymore, Clark Gable, James Gleason

Synopsis: In this Academy Award-winning film, Stephen Ashe (Lionel Barrymore) is a hotshot Californian lawyer from a well-to-do family, whose main failing is his indulgence in alcohol. After winning a case for mobster Ace Wilfong (Clark Gable), Stephen brings his client along to a party at his parents' Read More

Strangers May Kiss

Actors: Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Neil Hamilton, Marjorie Rambeau, Irene Rich

Synopsis: Norma Shearer stars in this pre-Code melodrama as Lisbeth Corbin, who is in love with Alan (Neil Hamilton), a globe-trotting newspaper reporter, but also strings along Steve (Robert Montgomery), a well-mannered local boy who is good friends with Lisbeth, even though she doesn't love him. When Alan Read More

Two Reelers: Comedy Classics 10

The Stolen Jools

The Divorcée

Actors: Norma Shearer, Chester Morris, Conrad Nagel, Robert Montgomery, Florence Eldridge

Synopsis: Norma Shearer earned an Academy Award for playing the not so gay divorcée in this pre-Code offering based, loosely, on Ex-Wife, a 1929 Ursula Parrott novel. Shearer is Jerry, a socialite who marries handsome Ted (Chester Morris) after a whirlwind courtship. But Ted is not exactly the faithful type Read More

Let Us Be Gay

Actors: Norma Shearer, Rod La Rocque, Marie Dressler, Gilbert Emery, Hedda Hopper

Synopsis: In this romance, a disillusioned wife, learning that her husband has been unfaithful, divorces him and moves to Paris where she is changed from a frowsy hausfrau to a sexy, sophisticated lady. A wealthy dame asks her to help destroy the affair between her granddaughter and the woman's ex-husband. Read More

Hollywood Revue of 1929

Synopsis: With the arrival of talkies, every major studio hopped on the musical bandwagon by turning out lavish "revues," spotlighting their top stars performing specialty numbers. MGM's entry in this all-star genre was Hollywood Revue of 1929, which, though a box-office smash and a "Best Picture" Oscar Read More

The Trial of Mary Dugan

Actors: Norma Shearer, H.B. Warner, Raymond Hackett, Lilyan Tashman

Synopsis: In this well-executed courtroom drama, a Broadway chorine is accused of stabbing her wealthy boy friend to death. The girl is defended by her good friend. During the trial, the lawyer refrains from cross-examining the witnesses. This enrages the dancer's younger brother, who has just passed the Read More

Their Own Desire

Actors: Norma Shearer, Belle Bennett, Robert Montgomery, Helene Millard

Synopsis: Yet another early talkie about love, jealousy and divorce among the upper classes, Their Own Desire remains a dramatically stilted if technically efficient star vehicle. Lewis Stone is married to frumpy Belle Bennett, whom he leaves for the more streamlined Helene Millard. Stone's daughter, Norma Read More

The Last of Mrs. Cheyney

Actors: Norma Shearer, Basil Rathbone, George Barraud, Herbert Bunston, Hedda Hopper

Synopsis: This early talkie was based on Frederick Lonsdale's successful Broadway play. Fay Cheyney (Norma Shearer) is a cunning jewel thief who impersonates a wealthy widow as she travels to Monte Carlo, planning on stealing a fortune in pearls from one Mrs. Webley (Maude Turner Gordon); Fay's henchmen Read More

The Latest from Paris

Actors: Norma Shearer, George Sidney, Ralph Forbes, Tenen Holtz, William Bakewell

Synopsis: The Latest from Paris takes place in New York's garment district, where business rivals Blogg (George Sidney) and Littauer (Tenen Holz) have been carrying on a feud for years. In the tradition of Romeo and Juliet, heroine Ann Dolan (Norma Shearer) works for Blogg, while her sweetheart Joe Adams (Ralph Forbes Read More

A Lady of Chance

Actors: Norma Shearer, Lowell Sherman, Gwen Lee, Johnny Mack Brown, Eugénie Besserer

Synopsis: In her last silent film, Norma Shearer plays Dolly, aka Angel Face, a young woman engaged in blackmailing rich libertines. Cheated out of her loot by a couple of former associates, Bradley (Lowell Sherman) and Gwen (Gwen Lee), Dolly commits a bit of larceny but manages to skip town with her latest Read More

The Actress

Actors: Norma Shearer, Ralph Forbes, Owen Moore, O.P. Heggie, Gwen Lee

Synopsis: The Actress is a silent-film adaptation of Arthur Wing Pinero's evergreen stage play Trelawny of the Wells. Norma Shearer plays Rose Trelawny, who becomes an accomplished actress only after she learns to "love the players"-that is, to believe in what she's doing. While touring with a second-string Read More

The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg

Actors: Ramon Novarro, Norma Shearer, Jean Hersholt, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Philippe DeLacy

Synopsis: Even without the benefit of sound, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg seems to be inundated by Franz Lehar's unforgettable songs. Director Ernst Lubitsch fashioned a gloriously schmaltzy, delightfully artificial rendition of the 1924 Lehar opera, which in turn was based on the 1902 play In Old Read More

After Midnight

Actors: Norma Shearer, Lawrence Gray, Gwen Lee, Eddie Sturgis

Synopsis: Film star Norma Shearer and director Monta Bell made a half-dozen films together. Bell gave Shearer some of her best acting opportunities during the silent era, even when he cast her in lightweight material such as this romance. Mary, a cigarette girl (Shearer), meets Joe Miller (Lawrence Gray) Read More

Demi Bride

Actors: Norma Shearer, Lew Cody, Lionel Belmore, Tenen Holtz, Carmel Myers

Synopsis: Lew Cody and Carmel Myers, previously co-starred in MGM's The Gay Deceiver, were reteamed by popular demand in The Demi-Bride. Actually, Cody and Myers appear in support of Norma Shearer, cast as Criquette, the stepdaughter of randy Parisienne Madame Girard (Myers). Trouble begins when Mme. Girard Read More

Devil's Circus

Actors: Norma Shearer, Charles Emmett Mack, Carmel Myers, John Miljan, Claire McDowell

Synopsis: Celebrated Danish director Benjamin Christensen made his American movie debut with the 1925-26 Norma Shearer vehicle The Devil's Circus. Shearer plays Mary, a circus trapeze artist who is inexorably sucked into the marital travails of lion-tamer Hugo (John Miljan) and his violently jealous wife Read More

Upstage

Actors: Norma Shearer, Oscar Shaw, Tenen Holtz, Gwen Lee, Dorothy Phillips

Synopsis: Upstage stars Norma Shearer as Dolly Haven, an aspiring actress. Applying for a secretarial post at a theatrical agency, Dolly makes the acquaintance of vaudevillian Johnny Storm (Oscar Shaw), who has shown up at the office looking for a partner. Before long, the team of Storm and Haven is Read More

The Waning Sex

Actors: Norma Shearer, Conrad Nagel

Synopsis: According to playwrights Frederic and Fanny Hatton, The Waning Sex was the male -- and this hypothesis was carried over to the film version of the Hattons' stage comedy. Norma Shearer stars as female lawyer Nina Duane, who has quite a time overcoming the chauvinist "good old boy" network in the Read More

The Tower of Lies

Actors: Norma Shearer, Lon Chaney, Ian Keith, Claire McDowell, William Haines

Synopsis: Director Victor Sjostrom and stars Lon Chaney and Norma Shearer made an impressive team on He Who Gets Slapped. They came together again for this dour and less interesting film, based on the novel The Emperor of Portugallia by the Swedish author Selma Lagerlof. Jan (Chaney) is a farmer whose hard Read More

Excuse Me

Actors: Norma Shearer, Conrad Nagel, Renée Adorée, John Boles, Bert Roach

Synopsis: Norma Shearer and Conrad Nagel star in this farce based on the successful stage play by Rupert Hughes. Lieutenant Harry Mallory (Nagel) wins a promotion for his valor and is ordered to go to the Philippines. His fiancée, Marjorie Newton (Shearer), wants to go with him so they decide to get Read More

Slave of Fashion

Actors: Norma Shearer, Lew Cody, William Haines, Mary Carr, James Corrigan

Synopsis: Norma Shearer stars in this routine light comedy. Katherine Emerson (Shearer) decides to leave her small hometown in Iowa to make good in New York. The train taking her East is involved in a wreck and she winds up with a handbag belonging to Madeline (Miss Dupont), one of the fatalities. In the Read More

His Secretary

Actors: Norma Shearer, Lew Cody, Willard Louis, Karl Dane, Gwen Lee

Synopsis: Norma Shearer, who hadn't yet become the queen of the MGM lot (or won mogul Irving Thalberg as her husband), stars in this comedy with Lew Cody. Ruth Lawrence (Shearer) is the stenographer for David Colman (Cody) and John Sloden (Willard Louis). The two men are less than impressed with Ruth's Read More

Waking up the Town

Actors: Jack Pickford, Claire McDowell, Alec B. Francis, Norma Shearer, Herbert Pryor

Synopsis: This very slight comedy features Jack Pickford and Norma Shearer (the latter was borrowed from MGM to appear in this United Artists film). Jim Joyce (Pickford) runs a garage with old Abner Hope (Alec B. Francis). When Hope's granddaughter, Mary Ellen (Shearer), comes to visit, Joyce falls in love Read More

Lady of the Night

Actors: Norma Shearer, Malcolm McGregor, George K. Arthur, Fred Esmelton, Dale Fuller

Synopsis: Norma Shearer was very much an up-and-coming young actress when she played a dual role in this MGM drama. Molly, a girl of the streets (Shearer), is getting out of reform school at the same time that Florence (also Shearer) is graduating from a finishing school. While at a dance hall, Molly has a Read More

Pretty Ladies

Actors: ZaSu Pitts, Tom Moore, Ann Pennington, Lilyan Tashman, Bernard Randall

Synopsis: This comedy-drama about the Follies was written by veteran newspaper reporter and "sob sister" Adela Rogers St. John. Maggie (ZaSu Pitts) is the Follies comedienne, and she envies all the other girls in the show -- the pretty ladies with their sweethearts. She knows she's only there for the Read More

Empty Hands

Actors: Jack Holt, Norma Shearer, Charles Clary, Ward Crane, Charles Stevens

Synopsis: Claire Endicott (Norma Shearer) throws a wild party and her father (Charles Clary) walks in to find her flirting with the very married Milt Bisnet (Ward Crane). In an attempt to straighten her out, Endicott sends Claire to the Canadian northwoods, where his field engineer, Grimshaw (Jack Holt), is Read More

He Who Gets Slapped

Actors: Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer, John Gilbert, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: This compelling and exceptionally well-executed silent drama, from new MGM studio executives Irving Thalburg and producer Louis B. Mayer is based on a highly-regarded Russian play and features the studio's biggest stars, Lon Chaney, John Gilbert and Norma Shearer. Directed by noted Swedish Read More

Trail of the Law

Synopsis: A rough-and-tumble town in Maine is the setting for this routine drama. Norma Shearer masquerades as a boy during the day after her mother is killed by an unknown assailant. Wilfred Lytell is the city slicker who saves her from the neighbor who turns out to be the killer. John Morse and George Stevens Read More

Broken Barriers

Synopsis: A very young Norma Shearer and a fine supporting cast that includes Adolphe Menjou and Mae Busch all suffered from a hackneyed screenplay in this silent society melodrama from Metro-Goldwyn, the forerunner of MGM. Shearer plays Grace Durland, a debutante forced to leave college when her father (George Fawcett Read More

Blue Water

Wolf Man

Actors: John Gilbert, Edgar Norton

Synopsis: This is melodrama, not a horror film, and it's booze, not a full moon, that changes John Gilbert's character from man to beast. Gerald Stanley (Gilbert) is an English gentleman who is engaged to Beatrice Joyce (Alma Frances). But Stanley's personality changes whenever he drinks, and his Read More

Broadway After Dark

Actors: Adolphe Menjou, Norma Shearer, Anna Q. Nilsson, Carmel Myers

Synopsis: Ultra suave Adolph Menjou plays an urbane, filthy rich bachelor who finds himself falling for a socialite just as carefree as he. At first he is delighted by her gadabout ways, but after a while her cocquettish ways towards others begin to grate upon him. Deciding he needs a break from shallowness Read More

The Snob

Actors: John Gilbert, Norma Shearer, Conrad Nagel, Phyllis Haver, Hedda Hopper

Synopsis: Although John Gilbert became famous for playing the romantic lover, there was something inside him that occasionally rebelled at his glossy image. He leapt at the chance to play the exceedingly unsympathetic title character in this drama, which was based on the novel by Helen R. Martin. After her Read More

Married Flirts

Actors: Pauline Frederick, Conrad Nagel, Mae Busch, Huntly Gordon, Patterson Dial

Synopsis: Pauline Frederick stars in this romance, based on the Louis Joseph Vance novel Mrs. Paramor. Nelly (Frederick) is so intent on her writing career, that she neglects her appearance and her husband, Wayne (Huntly Gordon). Jill Wetherell (Mae Busch), who is looking for a rich husband, finds Wayne to Read More

The Wanters

Synopsis: A young and still inexperienced Norma Shearer was originally cast in the lead role of Myra Hastings in this society drama -- it was her first film for Metro, and Irving Thalberg, vice president and Louis B. Mayer's right hand man, had high hopes for her. But director John M. Stahl didn't see much Read More

Pleasure Mad

Actors: Huntly Gordon, Mary Alden, Norma Shearer, Winifred Bryson

Synopsis: Future MGM star Norma Shearer was still an up-and-coming young starlet when she made an impressive appearance as the flapper daughter in this otherwise mediocre drama. Hugh Benton (Huntly Gordon) comes into sudden wealth and he moves his family into a city mansion. His wife, Marjorie (Mary Alden) Read More

Lucretia Lombard

Actors: Irene Rich, Monte Blue, Marc MacDermott, Norma Shearer, Alec B. Francis

Synopsis: Lest exhibitors didn't think the source material's title (based on a novel by then-popular writer Kathleen Norris) was particularly exciting, Warner Brothers offered the alternative title, "Flaming Passion," to this Jack Conway melodrama. In the belief that his noble title will lead her to a Read More

The Devil's Partner

Actors: Norma Shearer

Synopsis: Norma Shearer hadn't yet been given the MGM superstar treatment when she starred in The Devil's Partner. Shearer is mostly passive in this he-man adventure tale set in the North Woods. The villain, smuggler Edward Roseman, would give anything if Norma would give in. Saving her virtue in the nick Read More

Man and Wife

Actors: Robert Elliott, Maurice Costello, Norma Shearer, Gladys Leslie, Robert Elliot

Synopsis: Norma Shearer plays Dora Perkins, a country girl who runs away to New York City. She gets work as a nurse and marries Dr. Howard Fleming (Robert Elliott), a famed brain surgeon. Supposedly she dies in a fire, and some time later Fleming takes a vacation in the country, where by some odd cinematic Read More

Man Who Paid

Synopsis: In her first leading role, a very young Norma Shearer played Jeanne, a wild girl of the Canadian Northwest who marries and has a child with a mystery man, Oliver Thornton (Wilfred Lytell). Having been convicted of a crime he didn't commit, Thornton is hoping to start a new life in Canada but is Read More

Channing of the Northwest

Synopsis: Norma Shearer returned to her native Canada -- at least in spirit -- for this routine Northwoods melodrama produced in Northern California by Lewis J. Selznick, father of David O. Selznick. Eugene O'Brien starred as a foppish Londoner who joins the Royal Canadian Mounties and breaks a smuggling Read More

Restless Sex

Synopsis: When publisher and producer William Randolph Hearst was putting together a picture for his mistress, the pretty and highly underrated actress Marion Davies, he tried to make sure she had the best. This time around, the film featured direction by the highly capable Robert Z. Leonard and a story by Read More

The Flapper

Synopsis: In 1920s jargon, a "flapper" was a footloose young lady who, in keeping with a current fad, wore open-laced boots that flapped as she walked. The word became a generic catchphrase, referring to any jazz-age female with a thirst for excitement. The Flapper stars Olive Thomas as Ginger King, a Read More