Richard Brooks Filmography

Born:: May 18, 1912 in Philadelphia, PA
Occupation:: Director, Producer, Screenwriter
Birth name:: Ruben Sax
Biography:: After attending Philadelphia's Temple University, Richard Brooks labored away as a sports reporter for the Atlantic City Press Union, the Philadelphia Record and the New York World-Telegram. Brooks joined New York radio station WNEW as a staff writer in the late 1930s, then moved on to the NBC...Read More

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Fever Pitch

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Ryan O'Neal, Catherine Hicks, Giancarlo Giannini, Chad Everett

Synopsis: Writer-director Richard Brooks' final film features a weak script and poor acting but high energy direction in a tale of compulsive gambling in Las Vegas. Ryan O'Neal stars as Taggart, a sports reporter obsessed with gambling. As Taggart gets deeper and deeper into debt, he compounds his problems Read More

1985
Wrong Is Right

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Sean Connery, George Grizzard, Robert Conrad, Katharine Ross, G.D. Spradlin, Leslie Nielsen

Synopsis: Based on Charles McCarry's 1979 novel The Better Angels, Wrong is Right is set in a near future in which violence has become something of a national sport and television news has fallen to tabloid depths (a significantly bigger stretch in 1982, when the film was released.) Star Sean Connery plays Read More

1982
Looking for Mr. Goodbar

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Diane Keaton, Tuesday Weld, William Atherton, Richard Kiley, Richard Gere

Synopsis: Adapted from Judith Rossner's best-selling novelization of a true story, Richard Brooks's melodrama turns one woman's search for a liberated life into a cautionary tale about promiscuity. After an affair with her college professor, no-longer-good Catholic girl Theresa Dunn (Diane Keaton) follows Read More

1977
Bite the Bullet

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Sally Kirkland, Gene Hackman, Candice Bergen, James Coburn, Ben Johnson, Ian Bannen, Jan-Michael Vincent, Dabney Coleman

Synopsis: An excellent cast, featuring Gene Hackman, Ben Johnson, and James Coburn, highlights this entertaining Western that came and went at the box office, barely noticed by audiences. That doesn't stop the exciting story from capturing the viewer's attention as a disparate group of riders assembles to Read More

1975
$ (Dollars)

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, Gert Fröbe, Robert Webber, Scott Brady

Synopsis: Originally billed as merely $, Dollars stars top box office draws Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn. Beatty plays a security whiz, employed in Hamburg, Germany. He devises a clever method of robbing the secret bank vaults of notorious criminals, reasoning that the crooks will never turn to the cops. Read More

1971
The Happy Ending

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Jean Simmons, John Forsythe, Lloyd Bridges, Teresa Wright, Dick Shawn

Synopsis: Suburban housewives console themselves with pills and alcohol to tolerate their spouses' infidelities in The Happy Ending. Mary Wilson (Jean Simmons) is married to Fred (John Forsythe) and she prepares for their 16th wedding-anniversary party with tranquilizers and booze. The guests are clients of Read More

1969
In Cold Blood

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Robert Blake, Scott Wilson, John Forsythe, Paul Stewart, Gerald O'Loughlin, John Gallaudet

Synopsis: Richard Brooks wrote and directed this stark black-and-white (with brilliantly evocative cinematography by Conrad Hall) study of two drifters who murder a family, based on Truman Capote's non-fiction novel In Cold Blood. The film takes place in Holcomb, Kansas, where four members of the Herbert Read More

1967
The Professionals

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Jack Palance, Claudia Cardinale, Woody Strode

Synopsis: Grant (Ralph Bellamy) is a wealthy rancher who hires four mercenaries to retrieve his wife, Maria (Claudia Cardinale), from the clutches of the desperado Raza (Jack Palance) in this Western adventure set in 1917. Dolworth (Burt Lancaster) is a munitions expert who joins gunslinger Fardan (Lee Read More

1966
Lord Jim

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Peter O'Toole, James Mason, Curd Jürgens, Jack Hawkins, Eli Wallach, Daliah Lavi

Synopsis: Joseph Conrad's cerebral, philosophical novel Lord Jim is streamlined and simplified by producer/director/writer Richard Brooks for the action-and-adventure crowd. Peter O'Toole plays the first officer of a tramp steamer, who, during a hurricane, cravenly abandons ship, leaving the passengers to Read More

1965
Sweet Bird of Youth

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Paul Newman, Geraldine Page, Shirley Knight, Ed Begley, Sr., Rip Torn

Synopsis: Paul Newman recreates his Broadway role in the 1962 film version of Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth. Newman plays handsome hustler Chance Wayne, who romances fading film star Alexandra Del Lago (Geraldine Page) in hopes of winning a movie contract for himself. The mercenary Wayne and the Read More

1962
Elmer Gantry

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons, Dean Jagger, Arthur Kennedy, Shirley Jones

Synopsis: Elmer Gantry (Burt Lancaster), a drunken, dishonest street preacher allegedly patterned on Billy Sunday, wrangles a job with the travelling tent ministry conducted by Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons). Thanks to Gantry's enthusiastic hellfire-and-brimstone sermons, Sister Sharon's operation Read More

1960
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, Burl Ives, Jack Carson, Judith Anderson, Madeleine Sherwood

Synopsis: This dynamic and commanding adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning play focuses on a troubled Southern family and the discord over their dying father's millions. Wealthy plantation owner Big Daddy Pollitt (Burl Ives), celebrating his 65th birthday, is visited by his sons, Brick (Paul Newman Read More

1958
The Brothers Karamazov

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Yul Brynner, Maria Schell, Claire Bloom, Lee J. Cobb, Richard Basehart, William Shatner

Synopsis: Dostoyevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov is given a Hollywood screen treatment by producer Pandro S. Berman and director Richard Brooks. Yul Brynner plays Dmitri Karamazov, a callous Russian officer who cuckolds his domineering father (Lee J. Cobb) with the old man's mistress Grushenka (Maria Schell Read More

1958
Something of Value

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

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

1957
The Last Hunt

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Robert Taylor, Stewart Granger, Lloyd Nolan, Debra Paget, Russ Tamblyn

Synopsis: Set in the West of the late 19th century, Richard Brooks' film stars Robert Taylor as Charles Gilson, a brutal buffalo hunter who kills purely for sport and enjoyment. Stewart Granger portrays Sandy McKenzie, a former hunter on whom Gilson is seeking revenge. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

1956
The Catered Affair

Crew: Director

Actors: Bette Davis, Ernest Borgnine, Debbie Reynolds, Barry Fitzgerald, Rod Taylor

Synopsis: Bette Davis goes the "kitchen sink drama" route in The Catered Affair. As the frowsy wife of Bronx cabdriver Ernest Borgnine, Davis insists that her daughter Debbie Reynolds have a high-class wedding--caterers and all. Reynolds and future hubby Rod Taylor want a simple ceremony, but Davis' mind is Read More

1956
Blackboard Jungle

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Glenn Ford, Sidney Poitier, Anne Francis, Louis Calhern, Vic Morrow

Synopsis: In this gritty urban drama, war veteran Richard Dadier (Glenn Ford) wants to begin his career as a teacher and is given an assignment at a boys high school in inner-city New York. However, he soon discovers the school is overrun by delinquents, led by Artie West (Vic Morrow), an insolent hood who Read More

1955
The Flame and the Flesh

Crew: Director

Actors: Lana Turner, Anna Maria Pier Angeli, Carlos Thompson, Bonar Colleano, Charles Goldner

Synopsis: Filmed on location in Europe, Flame and the Flesh is nothing more nor less than a vehicle for the glamorous Lana Turner. The plot finds Madeline (Ms. Turner) stranded in Italy with nary a lire to her name. But this doesn't bother her, because she's always depended upon the kindness of Read More

1954
The Last Time I Saw Paris

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Elizabeth Taylor, Van Johnson, Walter Pidgeon, Donna Reed, Eva Gabor

Synopsis: Loosely based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's Paradise Revisited, MGM's The Last Time I Saw Paris is a star-studded soap opera, luxuriously lensed by director Richard Brooks. In his last film as an MGM contractee, Van Johnson plays reporter Charles Wills, who while covering the VE Day celebrations in Read More

1954
Take the High Ground

Crew: Director

Actors: Richard Widmark, Karl Malden, Elaine Stewart, Russ Tamblyn, Carleton Carpenter

Synopsis: "You guys will never be soldiers!" With these words Richard Widmark opens and closes Take the High Ground. Widmark plays a tough drill sergeant, whipping his recruits through basic training in preparation for shipment to Korea. Carleton Carpenter is the standard-issue private who just can't seem Read More

1953
Battle Circus

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, June Allyson, Keenan Wynn, Robert Keith, William Campbell

Synopsis: In his only MGM film, Humphrey Bogart plays the commanding officer of a M*A*S*H unit during the Korean War. Bogart runs his operation by the book, though he can take time out now and again for compassion. When nurse June Allyson shows up, Bogie is irritated by her foolhardiness and misplaced Read More

1953
Deadline U.S.A.

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Ethel Barrymore, Kim Hunter, Ed Begley, Sr., Warren Stevens

Synopsis: An abundance of subplots are expertly woven together by screenwriter/director Richard Brooks in Deadline - USA. Humphrey Bogart stars as crusading editor Ed Hutcheson, whose newspaper is on the verge of closing thanks to the machinations of the mercenary daughter (Audrey Christie) of Mrs. Garrison Read More

1952
The Light Touch

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Stewart Granger, Anna Maria Pier Angeli, George Sanders, Kurt Kasznar, Joseph Calleia

Synopsis: Filmed on location in Italy, The Light Touch served as a showcase for MGM's newest female star Pier Angeli. The title refers to the nimble-fingered technique utilized by art thief Sam Conride (Stewart Granger). Sam is a cog in the wheel of the operation controlled by illegal art peddler Felix Read More

1951
Crisis

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Cary Grant, José Ferrer, Paula Raymond, Signe Hasso, Ramon Novarro

Synopsis: Cary Grant's utter credibility in the role of a brilliant, world-famous brain surgeon Dr. Eugene Norland Ferguson is the single element that keeps Crisis afloat. While vacationing in a politically unstable Latin American country, Ferguson and his wife, Helen (Paula Raymond), find themselves the Read More

1950
Mystery Street

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Ricardo Montalban, Sally Forrest, Bruce Bennett, Elsa Lanchester, Marshall Thompson

Synopsis: Blonde good-time girl Vivian Heldon (Jan Sterling), who lives in a cheap rooming house in a working-class section of Boston, run by the inquisitive and neurotic Mrs. Smerrling (Elsa Lanchester), goes out one night after a phone conversation with her boyfriend, proclaiming that she's got big plans Read More

1950
Storm Warning

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Ronald Reagan, Doris Day, Steve Cochran, Hugh Sanders

Synopsis: In Storm Warning, Ginger Rogers stars as a schoolteacher visiting relatives in an unnamed small town. She happens to witness the beating death of a man at the hands of the KKK. Rogers soon discovers that the whole town is controlled by this vigilante group, and that her loutish brother-in-law Steve Cochran Read More

1950
Any Number Can Play

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Clark Gable, Alexis Smith, Wendell Corey, Audrey Totter, Frank Morgan, Mary Astor

Synopsis: In this light drama, Clark Gable once again played his stock-in-trade role of a rogue with a heart of gold. Charlie King (Gable) runs a casino, but, in a business that thrives among the unscrupulous, Charlie takes pride in running an honest game and treating his customers with fairness and Read More

1949
Key Largo

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Monte Blue, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, Claire Trevor, Thomas Gomez

Synopsis: Richard Brooks and John Huston's screenplay for Huston's Key Largo eschews the lofty blank verse of Maxwell Anderson's original play, concentrating instead on the simmering tensions among the many characters. Humphrey Bogart plays Frank McCloud, an embittered war veteran who travels to Key Largo Read More

1948
To the Victor

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Dennis Morgan, Viveca Lindfors, Victor Francen, Bruce Bennett, Dorothy Malone

Synopsis: To the Victor is one of the first Hollywood films to touch upon the subject of war guilt. There are no high-ranking Nazis or gas ovens here; the people on trial are French citizens, accused of collaboration. This being a Warner Bros. production, the cast includes such authentic Frenchpersons as Dennis Morgan Read More

1948
Crossfire

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame, Paul Kelly

Synopsis: This drama was one of the first major-studio efforts to confront anti-Semitism (beating the Oscar-winning Gentleman's Agreement by several months), and it features a standout performance from Robert Ryan as a bigoted soldier on the run. Monty Montogomery (Ryan) is a violent and unstable soldier Read More

1947
Brute Force

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford, Yvonne De Carlo, Ann Blyth

Synopsis: Burt Lancaster had one of his first starring roles in this hard-hitting prison drama. Capt. Munsey (Hume Cronyn) is a cruel, corrupt prison guard who has his own less-than-ethical ways of dealing with inmates, enough so that Joe Collins (Lancaster) -- the toughest inmate in the cell block -- has Read More

1947
Swell Guy

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Sonny Tufts, Ann Blyth, Ruth Warrick, William Gargan, Thomas Gomez, John Litel, Millard Mitchell

Synopsis: One of many films of the late 1940s examining the impact of WWII on post-war domestic life in the U.S., The Swell Guy is the story of an unprincipled war correspondent, Jim Duncan (Sonny Tufts). Jim has returned to his hometown following the war and tries to milk his wartime status and pose as a Read More

1946
Cobra Woman

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Maria Montez, Jon Hall, Sabu, Edgar Barrier, Lon Chaney, Jr., Mary Nash

Synopsis: On the eve of her wedding to Ramu (Jon Hall), the beautiful Tollea (Maria Montez) is spirited away from her tranquil South Sea island to the mysterious, forbidden place of her birth, Cobra Island. Ramu follows and, with help from his young-but-not-too-bright friend Kado (Sabu) and their chimp Read More

1944
My Best Gal

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Jane Withers, Jimmy Lydon, Frank Craven, Fortunio Bonanova, George Cleveland

Synopsis: A druggist's pretty assistance ignores the call of the bright lights and audience that runs in the veins of her show biz family. Eventually though, the family succeeds in getting the talented lass to perform the music of a struggling young composer. His music is great and she enthusiastically Read More

1944
White Savage

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Jon Hall, Maria Montez, Sabu, Don Terry, Turhan Bey

Synopsis: This frothy fantasy adventure centers upon the exotic romance between a shark fisherman (the sharks he captured are used for the manufacture of vitamin A) and the beautiful princess of Temple Island. They meet when the fisherman asks a young boy with royal connections to introduce him to the Read More

1943
Men of Texas

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Robert Stack, Broderick Crawford, Jackie Cooper, Anne Gwynne, Ralph Bellamy

Synopsis: Surprisingly little known, Universal's Men of Texas boasts an impressive cast and a fairly exciting and complex storyline. Set just after the Civil War, the film stars Robert Stack as Chicago war correspondent Barry Conovan, who is sent by his newspaper to Texas to get the low-down on the martial Read More

1942
Sin Town

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Constance Bennett, Broderick Crawford, Anne Gwynne, Patric Knowles, Andy Devine

Synopsis: Marlene Dietrich was supposed to have starred in Universal's Sin Town, but the script was not to her liking. Dietrich was replaced by Constance Bennett in the role of a glamorous suspect in a small-town murder. Broderick Crawford and Leo Carrillo costar as a couple of con men who must solve the Read More

1942

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