Ottola NesmithFilmography

Bewitched: The Trial and Error of Aunt Clara

Actors: Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York, Agnes Moorehead, Erin Murphy, Diane Murphy

Synopsis: When the Witches Council announces their intention to banish Aunt Clara for her misfire spells, Clara asks Samantha to defend her before a jury of her peers. A tense situation is made even more so when Clara's legal briefs get mixed up with important business papers belonging to Darrin's boss Read More

Inside Daisy Clover

Actors: Natalie Wood, Christopher Plummer, Robert Redford, Roddy McDowall, Ruth Gordon

Synopsis: Daisy Clover (Natalie Wood) goes from teenage girl to movie star practically overnight when her demented mother enters her voice in a talent-search contest. From a broken-down carnival on the Santa Monica Pier, in no time at all she is attending glamorous Hollywood parties. But Daisy soon learns Read More

The Andy Griffith Show: Rafe Hollister Sings

Actors: Parley Baer

Synopsis: Rafe Hollister (Jack Prince), the taciturn farmer introduced in the second-season episode "The County Nurse", returns in the February 11, 1963 installment "Rafe Hollister Sings." Impressed by Rafe's glorious tenor voice, choir director John Masters (Olan Soule) chooses Rafe to solo in the annual Read More

The Andy Griffith Show: Andy and Barney in the Big City

Actors: Allan Melvin

Synopsis: Hoping to secure more assistance from the state police commission, Andy and Barney head to the bustling metropolis of Raleigh, North Carolina. The problem is that Mayberry has practically no crime, and thus no extra help is needed. The powers-that-be change their minds when our heroes Read More

The Notorious Landlady

Actors: Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, Fred Astaire, Lionel Jeffries, Estelle Winwood

Synopsis: This uneven farce by director Richard Quine has its hilarious and witty moments as American diplomat William Gridley (Jack Lemmon) inadvertently gets caught up in a jewel theft and mayhem. After William lands in London to take up his new position and get settled in his new digs, he becomes Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Services Rendered

Synopsis: This episode marked the first of several Hitchcock contributions by future Columbo and Murder, She Wrote creators Richard Levinson and William Link. Steve Dunne plays a young man who suffers total amnesia after sustaining a blow to the head. Rummaging through his wallet, the man finds two possible Read More

From the Terrace

Actors: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Myrna Loy, Ina Balin, Leon Ames

Synopsis: This cinemadaptation of John O'Hara's From the Terrace stars Paul Newman as Alfred Eaton, an unhappily married financial adviser, while his real-life wife Joanne Woodward portrays Mary St. John, his promiscuous screen spouse. Mary's libertine behavior is a by-product of her husband's inability to Read More

Witness for the Prosecution

Actors: Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester, Una O'Connor

Synopsis: Having just recovered from a heart attack, fabled British barrister Sir Wilfred Robards (Charles Laughton) has been ordered by his doctor to give up everything he holds dear-brandy, cigars and especially courtroom cases. Robards' already shaky resolve to follow doctor's orders flies out the window Read More

Something of Value

Actors: Rock Hudson, Dana Wynter, Sidney Poitier, Wendy Hiller, Juano Hernandez

Synopsis: The literalism of writer-director Richard Brooks serves him well in this meticulously faithful adaptation of the Robert Ruark novel Something of Value. Filmed on location in Africa, this is the story of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, as seen through the eyes of a handful of protagonists. Virtually Read More

The Story of Three Loves

Actors: Anna Maria Pier Angeli, Ethel Barrymore, Leslie Caron, Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Farley Granger

Synopsis: This anthology film tells three stories of love involving the passengers of an ocean liner at sea. In the first, "The Jealous Lover," James Mason plays Charles Coudray, a well-known ballet director. When someone asks Coudray why he staged his masterpiece, "Astarte," only once, he tells the story Read More

Man Crazy

Actors: Neville Brand, Christine White, Irene Anders, Colleen Miller, John Brown

Synopsis: Neville Brand receives top billing by default in 20th Century-Fox's Man Crazy. The main characters--three larcenous Minnesota girls who travel to Hollywood with stolen funds--are played by newcomers Christine White, Irene Anders and Coleen Miller. The ladies have a high old time while trying to Read More

The Greatest Show on Earth

Actors: Betty Hutton, Cornel Wilde, Charlton Heston, Dorothy Lamour, Gloria Grahame

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth is a lavish tribute to circuses, featuring three intertwining plotlines concerning romance and rivalry beneath the big top. DeMille's film includes spectacular action sequences, including a show-stopping train wreck. The Greatest Show on Earth won Read More

Scaramouche

Actors: Stewart Granger, Eleanor Parker, Janet Leigh, Mel Ferrer, Henry Wilcoxon

Synopsis: This delightful adaptation of Rafael Sabatini's swashbuckling novel stars Stewart Granger as Andre Moreau, an 18th-century French nobleman who is publicly humiliated by the Marquis de Maynes (Mel Ferrer). Challenged to a sword duel by the Marquis, Andre, who knows nothing about fencing, runs away Read More

The Son of Dr. Jekyll

Actors: Louis Hayward, Jody Lawrance, Alexander Knox, Lester Matthews, Gavin Muir

Synopsis: The Son of Dr. Jekyll is Edward Jekyll, played by Louis Hayward. The film's events take place long after the unpleasantness involving Dr. J's doppelganger Mr. Hyde. Young Edward hopes to prove that his father was a dedicated scientist, and not merely a mad monster. His nemesis in this endeavor is Read More

Sunset Boulevard

Actors: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich Von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Fred Clark

Synopsis: Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard ranks among the most scathing satires of Hollywood and the cruel fickleness of movie fandom. The story begins at the end as the body of Joe Gillis (William Holden) is fished out of a Hollywood swimming pool. From The Great Beyond, Joe details the circumstances of Read More

The File on Thelma Jordon

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Wendell Corey, Paul Kelly, Joan Tetzel, Stanley Ridges

Synopsis: No one is as good as Barbara Stanwyck when she's bad. Here Stanwyck plays Thelma Jordon, a woman who late one night shows up in the office of happily married Assistant DA Cleve Marshall (Wendell Corey) to seek help in solving the string of robberies at her wealthy aunt's estate. Before Cleve can Read More

Chicago Deadline

Actors: Alan Ladd, Donna Reed, June Havoc, Irene Hervey, Arthur Kennedy

Synopsis: Tough reporter Ed Adams (Alan Ladd) wants to get the full story behind the apparent suicide of a young woman. It seems that the girl left behind a notebook with a list of seemingly unrelated names. Adams tracks down each one of the persons cited in the notebook, slowly but surely putting the Read More

Julia Misbehaves

Actors: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Peter Lawford, Elizabeth Taylor, Cesar Romero

Synopsis: After suffering nobly in several heavyweight MGM dramas, Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon begged the studio to cast them together in a comedy. Though not an all-out laff riot, Julia Misbehaves strives hard to please. Garson plays an ever-in-debt British music-hall performer who relies on 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 Late George Apley

Actors: Ronald Colman, Edna Best, David Bond, Clifford Brooke, Vanessa Brown, Peggy Cummins

Synopsis: Based on John P. Marquand's Pulitzer Prize-winning satirical novel of the same title, this film stars Ronald Colman as George Apley, a Beantown blueblood passionately in love with his hometown. In his mind, Boston is the world's center of modern civilization and gentility and he has made it very Read More

Down to Earth

Actors: James Burke, Rita Hayworth, Larry Parks, Roland Culver, Jean Donahue, William Frawley, James Gleason, Edward Everett Horton, Marc Platt

Synopsis: A semi-sequel to Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Columbia's Down to Earth is a camp- and kitsch-lover's delight. More beautiful than ever, Rita Hayworth stars as Terpsichore, the Goddess of Dance. From her perch Up Above, Terpsichore discovers that Broadway producer Danny Miller (Larry Parks) intends to Read More

Forever Amber

Actors: Jane Ball, Linda Darnell, Edmund Breon, Cornel Wilde, Leo G. Carroll, Richard Greene, George Sanders, Robert Coote, Jessica Tandy

Synopsis: They said it couldn't be done, but they did it: Kathleen Winsor's "notorious", bestselling bodice-ripper Forever Amber actually made it to the screen in 1947 with full censorial approval. Of course, it was necessary to tone down the more erotic passages of Winsor's novel, but the end result Read More

Cluny Brown

Actors: Norman Ainsley, Jennifer Jones, Sara Allgood, Charles Boyer, Peter Lawford, Helen Walker, Margaret Bannerman, Florence Bates, Reginald Gardiner

Synopsis: The time is just prior to World War II. Lovely Cluny Brown (Jennifer Jones) is the niece of a London plumber; when her uncle is indisposed, Cluny rolls up her sleeves and takes a plumbing job at a society home, where she meets a handsome Czech author (Charles Boyer) - a refugee who has fled the Read More

My Name Is Julia Ross

Actors: Nina Foch, Dame May Whitty, George Macready, Roland Varno, Anita Bolster

Synopsis: Cult figure and B-movie auteur Joseph H. Lewis directed this taut exercise in film noir. Julia Ross (Nina Foch), an American receiving medical treatment in London, finds herself short on money and takes a job as secretary for Mrs. Hughes (May Whitty), the matriarch of a large estate. Julie meets Read More

Molly and Me

Actors: Gracie Fields, Monty Woolley, Roddy McDowall, Reginald Gardiner, Natalie Schafer

Synopsis: A servant with no experience ends up teaching the master of the house a thing or two in this comedy. Molly Barry (Gracie Fields) is a struggling actress who is short on money and needs paying work. When she learns that John Graham (Monty Woolley), a wealthy and respected former politician, needs a Read More

Love Letters

Actors: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ann Richards, Gladys Cooper, Cecil Kellaway, Anita Louise

Synopsis: Ayn Rand wrote this adaptation of Chris Massie's book Pity Mr. Simplicity, about a soldier who falls in love with a former comrade's wife -- an amnesiac who may have murdered her husband. The story begins in Italy when two soldiers, Allen Quinton (Joseph Cotten) and Roger Morland (Robert Sully) Read More

Our Hearts Were Young and Gay

Actors: Gail Russell, Diana Lynn, James Brown, Bill Edwards, Dorothy Gish

Synopsis: Our Hearts Were Young and Gay was based on the lighthearted joint autobiography of actress Cornelia Otis Skinner and humorist Emily Kimbrough. Gail Russell and Diana Lynn star respectively as Cornelia and Emily, two innocent but fun-loving young girls at loose in the Roaring 20s. The story Read More

Casanova Brown

Actors: Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, Frank Morgan, Anita Louise, Patricia Collinge

Synopsis: When he finds out his ex-wife has just had his child and plans to give her up for adoption, a timid English instructor dashes to the child's rescue and attempts to care for her in a hotel room. Before too long, however, his new fiancee and his ex confront him and he must decide what he will do. Read More

The Story of Dr. Wassell

Actors: Gary Cooper, Laraine Day, Signe Hasso, Dennis O'Keefe, Carol Thurston

Synopsis: The genesis of The Story of Dr. Wassell is said to have been a story told by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to director Cecil B. DeMille. Gary Cooper stars as Corydon M. Wassell, a real-life country doctor from Arkansas who worked as a medical missionary in China in the years prior to WWII. Read More

The Uninvited

Actors: Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Dorothy Stickney

Synopsis: The Uninvited is one of the rare Hollywood ghost stories that does not cop out with a "logical" ending. In fact, the film has more in common with British ghost tales of the period, in that the characters calmly accept spectral visitations as though they were everyday occurrences. Roderick Read More

Practically Yours

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Fred MacMurray, Gil Lamb, Cecil Kellaway, Robert Benchley

Synopsis: The popular screen team of Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray stars in this wartime farce. MacMurray is an army pilot who develops engine trouble during a vital mission. Thinking he's about to die, MacMurray radios back his undying affection for his dog "Piggy." But the radio reception is fuzzy Read More

Ministry of Fear

Actors: Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Dan Duryea, Carl Esmond, Percy Waram, Hillary Brooke

Synopsis: An innocent man is drawn into a web of espionage when he unwittingly comes into possession of a crucial piece of microfilm in this shadowy, ominous film noir. Fritz Lang's adaptation of Graham Greene's novel is filled with unusual touches, beginning with the fact that protagonist Stephen Neale (Ray Milland Read More

The Leopard Man

Actors: Dennis O'Keefe, Margo, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell, James Bell

Synopsis: Adapted from the Cornell Woolrich novel Black Alibi, The Leopard Man is a lesser but still fascinating psychological-horror effort from producer Val Lewton. Someone has been killing off the citizens of a small New Mexico town, and the most likely suspect is a huge leopard, purchased for a local Read More

The Seventh Victim

Actors: Kim Hunter, Tom Conway, Isabel Jewell, Hugh Beaumont, Jean Brooks, Evelyn Brent, Erford Gage

Synopsis: Producer Val Lewton once more utilized leftover Magnificent Ambersons sets for his psychological horror piece The Seventh Victim. Kim Hunter arrives in New York's Greenwich Village in search of her errant sister Jean Brooks. Gradually, the naive Hunter is drawn into a strange netherworld of Satan Read More

The Return of the Vampire

Actors: Bela Lugosi, Frieda Inescort, Nina Foch, Roland Varno, Miles Mander

Synopsis: He looks like Dracula, talks like Dracula and dresses like Dracula; but since the movie rights to Dracula were controlled by Universal, Bela Lugosi's character name is Armand Tesla in Columbia's Return of the Vampire. Bringing the Old Legend up to date, the film contrives to have the blood-sucking Read More

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

The Great Man's Lady

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Brian Donlevy, Thurston Hall, Lloyd Corrigan

Synopsis: This rambling historical drama covers 109 years in the life of one woman. Encased in convincing old-age makeup, Barbara Stanwyck reminisces on her experiences in the American West. As a young woman, she is squired by gambler Brian Donlevy, but her heart belongs to dreamer Joel McCrea. She chooses Read More

Mrs. Miniver

Actors: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright, Dame May Whitty, Reginald Owen

Synopsis: As Academy Award-winning films go, Mrs. Miniver has not weathered the years all that well. This prettified, idealized view of the upper-class British home front during World War II sometimes seems over-calculated and contrived when seen today. In particular, Greer Garson's Oscar-winning Read More

Journey for Margaret

Actors: Margaret O'Brien, Robert Young, Laraine Day, Fay Bainter, Nigel Bruce

Synopsis: This wartime weeper could just as well have been titled Stardom for Margaret, inasmuch as it solidified the popularity of that remarkable child actress Margaret O'Brien. While visiting London, American married couple Robert Young and Laraine Day are caught in the middle of the 1940 blitz. Read More

There's Magic in Music

Actors: Allan Jones, Susanna Foster, Margaret Lindsay, Lynne Overman, Grace Bradley

Synopsis: The illustrious National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan provides the backdrop for this musical that chronicles the ups and downs of overseeing such an establishment. The story centers on a young burlesque singer who is discovered and taken to the camp. At first the uncultured girl rebels Read More

The Wolf Man

Actors: Lon Chaney, Jr., Claude Rains, Warren William, Evelyn Ankers, Ralph Bellamy, Bela Lugosi, Maria Ouspenskaya, Patric Knowles

Synopsis: "Even a man who is pure at heart/And says his prayers by night/May become a wolf when the wolf-bane blooms/And the moon is full and bright." Upon first hearing these words, Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney) dismisses them as childish folderol. After all, this is the 20th Century; how can a human being Read More

International Squadron

Actors: Ronald Reagan, Olympe Bradna, James Stephenson, William Lundigan, Joan Perry

Synopsis: A remake of Ceiling Zero (1936), International Squadron stars Ronald W. Reagan (in the old James Cagney role) as a hotshot flying who joins the Royal Air Force in England. Reagan refuses to mend his barnstorming ways, and thanks to his recklessness two pilots are killed. The headstrong young flyer Read More

The Deadly Game

Synopsis: Charles Farrell, once a heartthrob of the silent screen, is the snow-on-the-roof protagonist in Monogram's The Deadly Game. Farrell rescues the lovely June Lang from a jam, only to get involved with a complex murder case. Evidently, no one can be trusted, so Farrell has his hands full during the Read More

H.M. Pulham, Esq.

Actors: Hedy Lamarr, Robert Young, Ruth Hussey, Charles Coburn, Van Heflin

Synopsis: MGM was doing so well in 1941 that it could afford the occasional "prestige" film with little box-office appeal. Based on the novel by J.P. Marquand, H.M. Pulham, Esq., stars Robert Young as a successful but stuffy Boston businessman. The glimmer of sadness in Young's eyes indicates that his Read More

Lillian Russell

Actors: Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Henry Fonda, Edward Arnold, Warren William

Synopsis: Lillian Russell is the sanitized musical biopic of the legendary (and much-married) 19th century musical comedy star. Discovered in 1880 by bandleader Tony Pastor (Leo Carrillo), Lillian Russell (Alice Faye) wastes no time rising to fame and fortune on the Broadway stage. Along the way, she Read More

The Letter

Actors: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson, Frieda Inescort, Gale Sondergaard, Sen Yung

Synopsis: William Wyler's dark and poisonous melodrama, based on the W. Somerset Maugham novel, features Bette Davis in one of her nastiest roles. The story begins in the shimmering moonlight on a tropical Malayan rubber plantation. Shots ring out and a wounded man, Geoffrey Hammond (David Newell) staggers Read More

Her First Romance

Synopsis: In this musical comedy, two rival sisters, one plain-but-good-hearted, and one a gorgeous manipulator, compete for the love of a handsome man. They are assisted by their pretty cousin who is involved in a tempestuous engagement. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Television Spy

Actors: William Henry, Judith Barrett, William Collier, Sr., Richard Denning, John Eldredge

Synopsis: In this espionage drama, an inventor creates a way to send television broadcasts across the country and finds himself pursued by international spies. Eventually the enemy succeeds in stealing the plans. But in the end, he gets it back and even falls in love with his former partner's daughter, with Read More

The Star Maker

Actors: Dorothy Babbs, Bing Crosby, Louise Campbell, Linda Ware, Ned Sparks, Laura Hope Crewes

Synopsis: The Star Maker is the story (with variations) of vaudeville enterpreneur Gus Edwards, here played by Bing Crosby. Determining that he can attain the uppermost showbiz rungs by spotlighting new, untried talents, Edwards rises to fame by hiring preteen boys and girls for his touring acts, the most Read More

Fools for Scandal

Actors: Carole Lombard, Fernand Gravey, Ralph Bellamy, Allen Jenkins, Isabel Jeans

Synopsis: In her only Warner Bros. starring film, Carole Lombard plays a Hollywood movie actress who makes the park-bench acquaintance of an impoverished French marquis (Fernand Gravet). Hoping to coerce Carole into marriage, the nobleman poses as a butler and enters her household. His plan is to compromise Read More

Nobody's Baby

Actors: Patsy Kelly, Lyda Roberti, Lynne Overman, Robert Armstrong, Rosina Lawrence

Synopsis: Three former stalwarts of producer Hal Roach's two-reel comedies, actresses Patsy Kelly and Lyda Roberti and director Gus Meins, combine their talents in the Roach feature film Nobody's Baby. Kelly and Roberti play nurses-in-training Kitty and Lena, who reluctantly come into possession of a cute Read More

Three Men on a Horse

Actors: Frank McHugh, Joan Blondell, Guy Kibbee, Carolyn Hughes, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: All but forgotten today, the George Abbott-John Cecil Holm stage comedy Three Men on a Horse was once a staple of the community theatre and summer-stock circuit (a 1958 TV production starred no less than Johnny Carson). Though a faithful adaptation of the Broadway original, this 1936 film version Read More

Becky Sharp

Actors: Miriam Hopkins, Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce, Billie Burke, Frances Dee, Alan Mowbray, Alison Skipworth

Synopsis: Now famous as the first feature film produced in the three-strip Technicolor process, Becky Sharp is also an enjoyable effort in its own right. Adapted from William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair, the film stars Miriam Hopkins as Becky Sharp, a resourceful, totally self-involved young lady who Read More

A Feather in Her Hat

Actors: Pauline Lord, Basil Rathbone, Louis Hayward, Billie Burke, Wendy Barrie

Synopsis: Legendary stage actress Pauline Lord made but a few films, but was always worth watching whenever she took command of the screen. In Feather in Her Hat, Lord plays cockney storekeeper Clarissa Phipps, who worries that her son Richard will grow up being ashamed of her humble vocation. Thus, she Read More

Wings in the Dark

Actors: Myrna Loy, Cary Grant, Roscoe Karns, Hobart Cavanaugh, Dean Jagger

Synopsis: MGM loaned Myrna Loy to Paramount to co-star with Cary Grant in the roller coaster-paced romantic drama Wings in the Dark. Loy plays daredevil aviatrix Sheila Mason, who marries Ken Gordon (Grant), a flyer with serious aspirations to set groundbreaking world records. When Ken is accidentally Read More

She Gets Her Man

Actors: ZaSu Pitts, Hugh O'Connell, Helen Twelvetrees, Lucien Littlefield, Ward Bond

Synopsis: In this comedy, a waitress at a local lunch counter inadvertently foils a bank robbery and finds herself turned into a national heroine by an eager-beaver reporter. Unfortunately, her sudden notoriety causes gangsters to abduct her. The plucky waitress not only manages to talk them into returning Read More

Wife Against Wife

Actors: Pauline Starke, Percy Marmont, Edward Langford, Emily Fitzroy, Ottola Nesmith

Synopsis: Established stage actress Emily Fitzroy easily steals the show from the stars of this drama, Pauline Starke and Percy Marmont, neither of whom had a terribly compelling presence. Gabrielle Gautier (Starke) falls in love with artist Stannard Dole (Marmont), who is in Paris on vacation. She poses Read More

Beyond Price

Actors: Pearl White

Synopsis: Attempting to break away from serials in the early 1920s, Pearl "Perils of Pauline" White made several starring features at Fox Studios. In Beyond Price, White plays the wife of philandering Vernon Steele. She launches a campaign to win her husband back, using every feminine wile at her disposal. Read More

Rich Man, Poor Man

Synopsis: It perhaps goes without saying that the 1918 drama Rich Man, Poor Man bore no relation to the 1976 TV miniseries of the same name. The earlier film served as a vehicle for Marguerite Clark, who though rapidly approaching forty was convincing as the gaminelike heroine. Born and raised in poverty, Clark Read More

Still Waters

Synopsis: Marguerite Clark stars as Nesta, the daughter of canal-boat skipper Mike (Robert Conville). When she expresses a desire to attend a circus, Mike refuses, telling her the story of how her mother came to grief when she ran off with a circus performer. This serves only to make Nesta all the more Read More