Pat O'Brien Filmography

James Cagney: That Yankee Doodle Dandy

Synopsis: Born in 1899, James Cagney managed to become one of America's greatest and most imitated actors. Some of his best-known films are also ones in which his sister Jeanne played a role: Yankee Doodle Dandy, The Time of Your Life, A Lion Is in the Streets, and Man of a Thousand Faces. He received an Read More

Scout's Honor

Synopsis: In this children's movie, a single executive enjoys her life on the fast track, but when she is talked into becoming a den mother to a rambunctious pack of Cub Scouts, her life is temporarily derailed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The End

Actors: Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise, Sally Field, Strother Martin, David Steinberg

Synopsis: At the beginning of The End, Wendell Sonny Lawson (Burt Reynolds) is informed by his doctor that he's dying from "the same thing Ali MacGraw had in Love Story." Lawson's first reaction is to cry uncontrollably, much to the discomfort of his fellow elevator passengers. He heads to a nearby church Read More

Billy Jack Goes to Washington

Actors: Tom Laughlin, Delores Taylor, E.G. Marshall, Terasa Laughlin, Elmer Bernstein, Sam Wanamaker

Synopsis: The fourth film starring Tom Laughlin as Billy Jack, Billy Jack Goes To Washington was a loose remake of Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. The story begins with Billy receiving a pardon for the trumped-up charges that put him behind bars in The Trial Of Billy Jack. To curry favor with Read More

Kiss Me Kill Me

Actors: Bruce Boxleitner, Pat O'Brien, Robert Vaughn, Stella Stevens

Synopsis: Originally titled D.A.'s Investigator, Kiss Me Kill Me stars Stella Stevens as Stella Stafford, "leg woman" for the LA district attorney's office. The case at hand is the murder of a young, highly respected schoolteacher. Stella is certain that she has the killer dead to rights--but this is before Read More

The Sky's the Limit

Actors: Ike Eisenmann, Jeanette Nolan, Lloyd Nolan, Pat O'Brien

Synopsis: The central "character" of the Disney made-for-TV movie The Sky's the Limit is a battered old biplane. The aircraft comes in handy when a spry old farmer (Pat O'Brien) makes an effort to "reach" his truculent grandson (Ike Eisenmann). It so happens that the farmer was a World War I ace, and as Read More

The Adventures of Nick Carter

Actors: Robert Conrad, Shelley Winters, Broderick Crawford, Neville Brand, Pernell Roberts

Synopsis: Created for the "dime novels" in 1886, scientific detective Nick Carter has been transferred to film and radio several times in the past six decades, though most of these projects have tended to update his adventures. 1972's made-for-TV Adventures of Nick Carter restores the "turn of the century" Read More

Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol

Synopsis: In this drama, a freed-POW returns home and is further traumatized by his supposed friends, family and neighbors. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Over-the-Hill Gang

Actors: Walter Brennan, Edgar Buchanan, Andy Devine, Pat O'Brien, Chill Wills

Synopsis: One of the better and more diverting of ABC's first full season of made-for-television movies, The Over-the-Hill Gang was a low-budget Western with a gimmick: Get a bunch of elderly actors, known either for their leading roles in the 1930s, or for playing comic sidekicks (and Walter Brennan was a Read More

Branded: The Greatest Coward on Earth

Synopsis: TV certainly makes strange bedfellows, as witness this Branded episode featuring veteran film star Pat O'Brien and recording entrepeneur Dick Clark as those colorful 19th century showmen P.T. Barnum and J.A. Bailey! Angrily turning down Barnum's offer to showcase him as "the greatest coward on Read More

Town Tamer

Actors: Dana Andrews, Terry Moore, Pat O'Brien, Lon Chaney, Jr., Bruce Cabot

Synopsis: Adapting his own novel, Frank Gruber penned the screenplay for the A.C. Lyles production Town Tamer. Veteran filmmaker Leslie Selander directs an equally veteran cast in this high-action Western. After his wife is murdered, hired gun Tom Rosser (Dana Andrews) rides into town in search of revenge Read More

Some Like It Hot

Actors: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft, Pat O'Brien

Synopsis: The launching pad for Billy Wilder's comedy classic was a rusty old German farce, Fanfares of Love, whose two main characters were male musicians so desperate to get a job that they disguise themselves as women and play with an all-girl band in gangster-dominated 1929 Chicago. In this Read More

Walt Disney Presents: I Captured the King of the Leprechauns

Actors: Walt Disney, Pat O'Brien, Albert Sharpe, Janet Munro, Sean Connery

Synopsis: In its promotional material for the 1959 theatrical feature Darby O'Gill and the Little People, the Disney studio went into whimsical overdrive, hoping to convince the younger viewers that the leprechauns appearing in the film were not merely normal-sized actors made small via special effects, but Read More

Kill Me Tomorrow

Synopsis: In this sad drama, a boozy reporter must cope with a series of personal disasters begin with the death of his wife in a car crash. Next he loses his job. Finally he learns that his son must have a $5,000 eye operation in Switzerland. In desperation he decides to ask his old boss for his job back. Read More

The Last Hurrah

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Jeffrey Hunter, Dianne Foster, Pat O'Brien, Basil Rathbone, John Carradine

Synopsis: Spencer Tracy stars in John Ford's sentimental adaptation of Edwin O'Connor's novel about the final campaign of a big city mayor, loosely based upon the life of Boston politician James Curley. Tracy is Frank Skeffington, the political boss of an Eastern city dominated by Irish-Americans. Read More

Studio One: The Brotherhood of the Bell

Actors: Cameron Mitchell, Tom Drake, Pat O'Brien, Joanne Dru, John Baragrey

Synopsis: The distinguished CBS dramatic anthology Studio One moved from New York to Hollywood with this adaptation of David Karp's cautionary novel The Brotherhood of the Bell. In an indeterminate future, government agent James Waterson (Cameron Mitchell) must choose between friendship and blind loyalty. Read More

Inside Detroit

Actors: Dennis O'Keefe, Pat O'Brien, Tina Carver, Margaret Field, Mark Damon

Synopsis: This probing drama offers an inside look into corruption within the United Auto Workers and is loosely adapted from the true tale of the Reuther brothers. The story begins when someone bombs the union headquarters. Blair Vickers (Dennis O'Keefe), the head of the union, is an honest man whose Read More

Ring of Fear

Actors: Jack Stang, Pat O'Brien, Mickey Spillane, Sean McClory, Marian Carr

Synopsis: A real "must see" for devotees of 1950s pop culture, Ring of Fear boasts a script co-written by character actor Paul Fix and a cast which includes the likes of animal trainer Clyde Beatty and pulp-fiction novelist Mickey Spillane. The story takes place in Beatty's travelling circus, where a Read More

Jubilee Trail

Actors: Vera Ralston, Joan Leslie, Forrest Tucker, John Russell, Ray Middleton, Pat O'Brien

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Gwen Bristow, Jubilee Trail is a sprawling, all-star western from the Republic Studio mills. Despite is vaunted budget, the plot is strictly B-picture material. Ambitious California landowner Charles Hale (Ray Middleton) hopes to add to his riches by marrying off his brother Read More

The Crime

Okinawa

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Cameron Mitchell, Richard Denning, Rhys Williams, James Dobson

Synopsis: Running an action-packed 67 minutes, Okinawa is an expert combo of wartime newsreel footage and studio re-enactments. The plot concerns the gun crew of a destroyer, engaged in the torturous allied invasion of Okinawa, which cost more American and Japanese lives than any previous Pacific-Theater Read More

Criminal Lawyer

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Jane Wyatt, Carl Benton Reid, Mary Castle, Robert Shayne

Synopsis: Though made in 1951, Criminal Lawyer has the feel of a 1930s film, right down to the casting of Pat O'Brien in the lead. The star plays attorney James Regan, whose unethical methods have earned him the disdain of the American Bar Association. Eventually, Regan is even disgusted with himself, and Read More

The People Against O'Hara

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Pat O'Brien, Diana Lynn, John Hodiak, Eduardo Ciannelli

Synopsis: Fish-market worker Johnny O'Hara (James Arness) is named as a suspect when his boss -- with whom he had a dispute the previous day -- is shot to death in an apparent robbery. When he's arrested, his family appeals to their old friend James Curtayne (Spencer Tracy), who was once a renowned criminal Read More

The Fireball

Actors: Mickey Rooney, Pat O'Brien, Beverly Tyler, James Brown, Marilyn Monroe

Synopsis: Mickey Rooney is The Fireball in this independently produced sports film. The sport in this case is roller-skating, which was enjoying a resurgence of popularity in 1950 thanks to the various "Roller Derby" telecasts. Rooney plays Johnny Cesar, an orphan kid who rises to fame and fortune on the Read More

Johnny One-Eye

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Wayne Morris, Dolores Moran, Gayle Reed

Synopsis: Johnny One-Eye was adapted from one of Damon Runyon's lesser-known stories. Pat O'Brien and Wayne Morris star as Martin Martin and Dane Cory respectively, former partners in crime who have long since split up. When a new district attorney puts the heat on, Cory, anxious to save his own hide Read More

A Dangerous Profession

Actors: George Raft, Ella Raines, Pat O'Brien, Bill Williams

Synopsis: The Dangerous Profession of the title is the bail-bond business. George Raft stars as Kane, a former cop turned professional bail-raiser. When one of his customers, robbery suspect Brackett (Bill Williams), is mysteriously murdered, Kane wants to know why. His reasons are twofold: he has an Read More

The Boy With Green Hair

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Robert Ryan, Barbara Hale, Dean Stockwell, Richard Lyon

Synopsis: Finding a curiously silent young runaway boy (Dean Stockwell) whose head has been completely shaved, small town police call in a psychologist (Robert Ryan) and discover that he is a war orphan named Peter Frye. Moving in with an understanding retired actor named Gramps (Pat O'Brien), Peter starts Read More

Fighting Father Dunne

Actors: Griff Barnett, Pat O'Brien, Gene Collins, Billy Cummings, Myrna Dell, Ruth Donnelly, Darryl Hickman

Synopsis: "Boys Town" goes to turn-of-the-century St. Louis in this moving drama that chronicles the love of a determined priest struggling to turn around the lives of a street-wise gang of newsboys living at his homeless shelter. The good father has little money and must use his wits and ability to Read More

Riff Raff

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Walter Slezak, Anne Jeffreys, Percy Kilbride, Jerome Cowan

Synopsis: No relation to the 1935 Jean Harlow-Spencer Tracy vehicle of the same name, RKO Radio's Riff-Raff is an action-packed vehicle for aging but still virile Pat O'Brien. At large in Panama, American private eye Dan (O'Brien) hopes to get his hands on a valuable map showing priceless oil concessions. Read More

Perilous Holiday

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Ruth Warrick, Alan Hale, Edgar Buchanan, Audrey Long

Synopsis: Pat O'Brien makes the casual acquaintance of fellow American Ruth Warrick while on vacation in Mexico City. What Warrick doesn't know is that O'Brien is a treasury agent, out to get expatriate counterfeiters Alan Hale and Edgar Buchanan. What O'Brien doesn't know is that Warrick is also out to get Hale Read More

Crack-Up

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Claire Trevor, Herbert Marshall, Ray Collins, Wallace Ford

Synopsis: Art critic and forgery expert George Steele (Pat O'Brien) is apprehended by the police as he desperately tries to break into the Manhattan Museum in the opening scene of Crack-Up, a noir mystery directed by Irving Reis. Steele does not understand his own bizarre actions, but explains that he was Read More

Having Wonderful Crime

Actors: Pat O'Brien, George Murphy, Carole Landis, Lenore Aubert, George Zucco

Synopsis: Having Wonderful Crime spotlights Michael J. Malone, the murder-solving attorney created by author Craig Rice. The film is also ostensibly based on a novel by Rice, though precious little of the original actually made it to the screen. The story begins as Malone (Pat O'Brien) brusquely informs his Read More

Man Alive

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Adolphe Menjou, Ellen Drew, Rudy Vallee

Synopsis: Man Alive is an inventive and consistently amusing farce dominated by stars Pat O'Brien and Adolphe Menjou. The former plays Speed, a moderately successful garage owner. Wrongly convinced that his wife Connie (Ellen Drew) has fallen in love with his old friend Gordon (Rudy Vallee), Speed goes off Read More

Secret Command

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Carole Landis, Chester Morris, Ruth Warrick, Barton MacLane

Synopsis: Secret Command features Pat O'Brien as a onetime foreign correspondent in the wartime employ of the FBI. Under an assumed name, O'Brien goes to work at a shipyard, intending to keep both eyes open for potential saboteurs. To maintain the cover, O'Brien is given a "wife" (Carole Landis) and two Read More

His Butler's Sister

Actors: Deanna Durbin, Pat O'Brien, Franchot Tone, Akim Tamiroff, Evelyn Ankers

Synopsis: In this frothy musical comedy, Ann Carter (Deanna Durbin) is an aspiring singer from the Midwest who decides to move to New York in hopes of advancing her career. Her half brother, Martin Murphy (Pat O'Brien), is already living in the Big Apple, and has told her that he's doing well as a Read More

Marine Raiders

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Robert Ryan, Ruth Hussey, Frank McHugh, Barton MacLane

Synopsis: In this wartime propaganda film, two Marine officers and their company go on leave when the Army takes over during the Guadalcanal invasion. Their leave is spent in Australia where one of the officers falls in love with a woman. His pal, afraid that there will be no turning back for his buddy Read More

Bombardier

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Randolph Scott, Anne Shirley, Eddie Albert, Walter Reed

Synopsis: A major moneymaker for RKO Radio, Bombardier stars Pat O'Brien and Randolph Scott as trainers at a school for bomber pilots. O'Brien and Scott argue over teaching methods, while their students vie for the affections of Anne Shirley. O'Brien's methods prove sound during a bombing raid over Tokyo. Scott Read More

The Iron Major

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Ruth Warrick, Robert Ryan

Synopsis: The Iron Major is the saga of WW1 hero-cum-football coach Frank Cavanaugh, played with his usual no-nonsense professionalism by Pat O'Brien. Leaving home and hearth behind to serve his country in the Great War, Cavanaugh goes on to lead the Dartmouth, Boston College and Fordham football teams to Read More

Flight Lieutenant

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Glenn Ford, Evelyn Keyes, Jonathan Hale, Minor Watson

Synopsis: There are moments in Columbia's Flight Lieutenant that approach "high camp"; indeed, one is hard pressed to remember if any cliché is left unturned. Pat O'Brien plays air pilot Sam O'Doyle, who is professionally disgraced when he survives a crash in which his co-pilot is killed. He tries to get Read More

The Navy Comes Through

Actors: Pat O'Brien, George Murphy, Jane Wyatt, Jackie Cooper, Carl Esmond, Desi Arnaz

Synopsis: A combat picture was virtually a license to print money in 1942, and RKO Radio's The Navy Comes Through was no exception (net profit: $542,000). Most of the film takes place on the ramshackle old merchant-marine freighter, skippered by Captain McCall (Ray Collins). The captain and his stalwart Read More

Two Yanks in Trinidad

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Brian Donlevy, Janet Blair, Roger Clark, Donald MacBride

Synopsis: The Two Yanks in Trinidad are gangsters Tim Reardon (Pat O'Brien) and Vince Barrows (Brian Donlevy), who split up over a disagreement and join the army, Tim to escape Vince's wrath and Vince to get his lunch-hooks on Tim. Both of our heroes run afoul of Army discipline and protocol in general, and Read More

Broadway

Actors: George Raft, Pat O'Brien, Broderick Crawford, Janet Blair, Anne Gwynne, Marjorie Rambeau

Synopsis: In this musical, which manages to look back with nostalgia upon prohibition and the depression (no small accomplishment), George Raft plays George, a hoofer looking back on his glory days. His memories are triggered when The Paradise Club, a nightspot where he used to work, is about to be turned Read More

Doomed Caravan

Actors: William "Hopalong" Boyd, Russell Hayden, Andy Clyde, Morris Ankrum

Synopsis: This Hopalong Cassidy western finds Hoppy (William Boyd), Lucky (Russell Hayden) and California (Andy Clyde) trying to save Minna Gombell's wagon-freighting line. Bad guys Morris Ankrum and Trevor Bardette (five points to anyone who can tell these mustachioed miscreants apart) plan to sabotage Read More

Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie

Synopsis: In this western, a mining engineer vengefully seeks out the claim jumpers that murdered his brother. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Escape to Glory

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Constance Bennett, John Halliday, Melville Cooper, Alan Baxter

Synopsis: The Grand Hotel formula that was so overworked in the 1930s made an encore appearance in 1940's Escape to Glory. The story is given timeliness by placing the characters on a British merchant ship on the very day that World War II is declared. The ship is attacked by a Nazi U-Boat, resulting in a Read More

The Fighting 69th

Actors: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, George Brent, Jeffrey Lynn, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Officially, America had no intention of entering the Second World War in 1940: Why, then, were there so many "preparedness" pictures like The Fighting 69th? This film, based on the experiences of military priest Father Duffy (Pat O'Brien), is set during World War I. The US 69th division was a Read More

Flowing Gold

Actors: John Garfield, Frances Farmer, Pat O'Brien, Raymond Walburn, Cliff Edwards

Synopsis: A tough, bitter fugitive's travels lead him to a grungy rundown oil town. There the transient is taken in by an oil-rigger who gives him a job working a well. They must work double-quick for the well's lease is due to expire. Unfortunately, they become so focused on striking oil quickly, they Read More

'Til We Meet Again

Actors: Merle Oberon, George Brent, Pat O'Brien, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Binnie Barnes

Synopsis: 'Til We Meet Again is an inflated remake of 1932's One Way Passage. As in the original, the hero is a convicted murderer en route to the death house by way of a merchant ship; the heroine is suffering from a terminal illness. Once more, hero and heroine fall in love, each keeping the facts of his Read More

Torrid Zone

Actors: James Cagney, Ann Sheridan, Pat O'Brien, Andy Devine, Helen Vinson

Synopsis: Torrid Zone star James Cagney once described the film as "The Front Page among the bananas." Indeed, the screenplay diligently follows the Front Page plot device of a tough boss (Pat O'Brien) pulling every underhanded trick in the book to keep his top man (Cagney) from quitting. This time the Read More

Slightly Honorable

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Edward Arnold, Broderick Crawford, Ruth Terry, Claire Dodd

Synopsis: The successful producer-director combination of Walter Wanger and Tay Garnett served up another winner with Slightly Honorable. Adapted from F. G. Presnell's novel Send Another Coffin, the story concerns the efforts made by corrupt politician Cushing (Edward Arnold) to frame honest attorney John Read More

Castle on the Hudson

Actors: John Garfield, Ann Sheridan, Pat O'Brien, Burgess Meredith, Jerome Cowan, Henry O'Neill

Synopsis: In this remake of the classic prison story 20,000 Years in Sing-Sing, John Garfield plays Tommy Gordon, a jewel thief who has been sent up the river for a minimum of 25 years. Tommy isn't especially worried about prison, as he's convinced his well-connected friends will help him get out before Read More

Knute Rockne, All American

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Gale Page, Ronald Reagan, Donald Crisp, Albert Basserman

Synopsis: Knute Rockne-All American was Pat O'Brien's finest hour: thanks to intensive rehearsals and numerous makeup applications, he so closely resembled the title character that, in the words of Rockne's widow, "I almost expected him to make love with me". The life of the legendary Notre Dame football Read More

Indianapolis Speedway

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Ann Sheridan, John Payne, Gale Page, Frank McHugh

Synopsis: In this drama, a remake of The Crowd Roars, two auto racing brothers become rivals on the racetrack when the older brother tries to keep his younger one from dropping out of school and becoming a driver too. The stubborn younger brother just gets behind the wheel of someone else's car and the race Read More

The Night of Nights

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Olympe Bradna, Roland Young, Reginald Gardiner, George E. Stone

Synopsis: Directed by Lewis Milestone nine years after taking home the best director Academy Award for All Quiet on the Western Front, this backstage drama stars Pat O'Brien as Dan O'Farrell, a boozy Broadway producer who makes his way back to show-business after a long absence. As a young man, O'Farrell Read More

The Kid from Kokomo

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Wayne Morris, Joan Blondell, May Robson, Jane Wyman

Synopsis: Banking on the popularity of the Warner Bros.' boxing saga Kid Galahad (37), the studio rushed into production with another, similarly titled prizefight picture. In Kid from Kokomo, Wayne Morris once more plays a small-town rube who's good with his fists. The "kid" becomes convinced that a drunken Read More

Off the Record

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Joan Blondell, Bobby Jordan, Alan Baxter

Synopsis: Pat O'Brien is his usual likably obnoxious self in the Warner Bros. newspaper yarn Off the Record. While trying to smash a numbers racket, star reporter Breezy Elliot (O'Brien) takes tough young numbers-runner Mickey Fallon (Bobby Jordan) under his wing. The kid gets a job as a copy boy, earning Read More

Boy Meets Girl

Actors: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Marie Wilson, Ralph Bellamy, Frank McHugh

Synopsis: Once a staple of summer stock and community theatres, Bella and Samuel Spewack's Broadway farce Boy Meets Girl dates rather badly when seen today. The 1938 movie version is also a bit mildewed, though it is saved by the dynamo-like energy of James Cagney and Pat O'Brien. The stars are cast as Read More

Angels With Dirty Faces

Actors: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart<