Robert RiskinFilmography

Half Angel

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Loretta Young, Joseph Cotten, Cecil Kellaway, Basil Ruysdael, Jim Backus

Synopsis: Even at age 38, Loretta Young could successfully pull off her ingenue duties in the innocuous comedy Half Angel. Young plays Nora, a prim and proper nurse, engaged to the stuffy Tim (John Ridgely). Unbeknownst to both, Nora is a sleepwalker; during her nocturnal forays, the less-inhibited side of Read More

Here Comes the Groom

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Bing Crosby, Jane Wyman, Alexis Smith, Franchot Tone, James Barton

Synopsis: Here Comes the Groom was the second collaboration between director Frank Capra and star Bing Crosby. Though not as "socially relevant" as previous Capra productions, the film is a thoroughly likeable yarn about a happy-go-lucky newspaperman named Pete (Bing Crosby). In order to legally adopt a Read More

Mister 880

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Dorothy McGuire, Edmund Gwenn, Millard Mitchell, Minor Watson

Synopsis: Based on a true story, Mister 880 is the whimsical tale of an elderly gentleman (Edmund Gwenn) who dabbles in counterfeiting. He makes only enough "funny money" to support himself, but the fact that his work is so amateurish (he can't even spell "Washington") arouses the indignation of the Read More

Riding High

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Bing Crosby, Coleen Gray, Charles Bickford, Frances Gifford, Raymond Walburn

Synopsis: Anxious to remain active in the 1950s, director Frank Capra wanted to prove to Paramount Pictures that he could deliver an "A" picture on a modest budget. To that end, Capra bought the rights of his 1934 film Broadway Bill from Columbia, and remade it under the title Riding High. He then hired Read More

Magic Town

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: E.J. Ballantine, James Stewart, Jane Wyman, Mary Currier, Julia Dean, Kent Smith, Ned Sparks, Ann Doran, Wallace Ford, Frank Fenton

Synopsis: With Robert Riskin as screenwriter, director William Wellman proved in Magic Town that it was possible to make a Frank Capra-esque picture without Capra himself at the helm. James Stewart plays Rip Smith, a cynical pollster who comes across a small American town named Grandview, which represents a Read More

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Roman Bohnen, Charles D. Brown, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas, Ann Doran, Judith Anderson

Synopsis: In The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, relationships formed in childhood lead to murder and obsessive love. The wealthy Martha Ivers (Barbara Stanwyck) is the prime mover of the small Pennsylvania town of Iverston. Martha lives in a huge mansion with her DA husband, Walter O'Neil (Kirk Douglas), an Read More

The Thin Man Goes Home

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Gloria de Haven, Lucile Watson, Anne Revere, Harry Davenport

Synopsis: This fifth entry in MGM's off-and-on "Thin Man" series maintains the high production and story values of the first four. Per the title, retired private detective Nick Charles (William Powell) pays a visit to his home town of Sycamore Springs, with wife Nora (Myrna Loy) in tow. Poor Nick is Read More

Meet John Doe

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan, Spring Byington

Synopsis: The first of director Frank Capra's independent productions (in partnership with Robert Riskin), Meet John Doe begins with the end of reporter Ann Mitchell's (Barbara Stanwyck) job. Fired as part of a downsizing move, she ends her last column with an imaginary letter written by "John Doe." Angered Read More

The Real Glory

Crew: Producer

Actors: Gary Cooper, Andrea Leeds, David Niven, Broderick Crawford, Reginald Owen

Synopsis: Set during the turn-of-the-century Moro uprising in the Philippines, The Real Glory stars Gary Cooper as an American Marine doctor and David Niven and Broderick Crawford as a pair of rowdy mercenaries. While staving off the insurgent Moros, Cooper must also combat a cholera outbreak. Once this Read More

They Shall Have Music

Crew: Producer

Actors: Jascha Heifetz, Andrea Leeds, Joel McCrea, Gene Reynolds, Walter Brennan

Synopsis: This musical drama follows a young ghetto kid who dreams of being a classical musician like his idol Jascha Heifetz. He first hears the renowned violinist after finding a ticket to Carnegie Hall on the sidewalk one day. The young man is so inspired by what he hears that he enrolls in Professor Read More

You Can't Take It with You

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Edward Arnold, Mischa Auer, Ann Miller, Spring Byington

Synopsis: Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play You Can't Take It With You was transformed into a paean to populism by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin. This is the story of the zany Sycamore household, presided over by Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore Read More

Lost Horizon

Crew: Screenwriter

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

When You're in Love

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Grace Moore, Cary Grant, Aline MacMahon, Henry Stephenson, Thomas Mitchell

Synopsis: In this tuneful, romantic drama, an Australian opera star (Grace Moore) wants to perform in a major U.S. festival but cannot enter the country unless she is married. To this end, she hires a handsome artist (Cary Grant) temporarily marry her. At first it is all strictly business, but in time, the Read More

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, George Bancroft, Lionel Stander, Douglas Dumbrille, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: When a car crash ends the life of a fabulously wealthy patron of the arts, the decedent's $20,000,000 fortune is inherited by one Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) of Mandrake Falls, Vermont. Already a reasonably successful local businessman, Deeds doesn't really feel the need for anything extra in Read More

Carnival

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Lee Tracy, Sally Eilers, Jimmy Durante, Dickie Walters

Synopsis: In this melodramatic comedy a carnival puppeteer must cope with the death of his wife who expired while birthing his daughter. His father-in-law, decides to sue him for custody of the little girl because he believes carnival life with a single father will be harmful to her. The puppeteer takes the Read More

The Whole Town's Talking

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Jean Arthur, Wallace Ford, Arthur Hohl, Donald Meek, Arthur Byron

Synopsis: The film that revived Edward G. Robinson's career after a string of flops, along with A Slight Case of Murder (1938), it was one of the few comedies on his lengthy list of credits. The gangster-comedy was unusual in the composition of its writing staff, which included frequent Frank Capra Read More

Broadway Bill

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Warner Baxter, Myrna Loy, Walter Connolly, Helen Vinson, Douglas Dumbrille

Synopsis: Just after completing It Happened One Night, director Frank Capra churned out a bread-and-butter picture titled Broadway Bill. Warner Baxter plays the carefree scion of a wealthy, highly-respected family. Baxter's cold but socially correct wife Helen Vinson forces her husband into the family Read More

It Happened One Night

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Claire McDowell, Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns, Jameson Thomas

Synopsis: Frank Capra's seminal screwball comedy, which won all five major Academy Awards for 1934, is still as breezy and beguiling today. Claudette Colbert plays Ellie Andrews, a spoiled heiress who has married fortune-hunting aviator King Westley (Jameson Thomas), despite her father (Walter Connolly)'s Read More

Ann Carver's Profession

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Fay Wray, Gene Raymond, Claire Dodd, Arthur Pierson

Synopsis: In this melodrama a superb female lawyer finds that her success has emasculated her husband, a rather average architect, who runs away from home and career to become a nightclub singer and save some shred of manly dignity. While working at the club, he falls in love with an alcoholic Read More

Lady for a Day

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Warren William, May Robson, Guy Kibbee, Glenda Farrell, Ned Sparks

Synopsis: May Robson plays Apple Annie, a slatternly Broadway apple peddler. Annie has a curious setup whereby she is able to finagle other street merchants and beggars to pony up part of their weekly earnings to her--yet she never seems to spend any of the money on herself. This is because Annie has a Read More

Ex-Lady

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Bette Davis, Gene Raymond, Frank McHugh, Monroe Owsley, Claire Dodd

Synopsis: In this romantic sex-comedy from director Robert Florey, Bette Davis stars as Helen Bauer, a free-spirited, self-sufficient feminist who would rather pursue her career as a graphic artist than settle down and marry Don Peterson (Gene Raymond), the advertising writer she loves, out of fear that Read More

American Madness

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Walter Huston, Pat O'Brien, Kay Johnson, Constance Cummings, Gavin Gordon, Robert Ellis

Synopsis: Bank president Thomas Dickson (Walter Huston) has instituted a lending policy that shows great faith in ordinary people but which also irritates his board of directors, as does his claim that an increased money supply will help end the Depression. Elsewhere in the bank, criminal Dude Finlay (Robert Ellis Read More

Shopworn

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Regis Toomey, ZaSu Pitts, Lucien Littlefield, Clara Blandick

Synopsis: Barbara Stanwyck overcomes a veritable ocean of clichés and manages to make her "shopworn" heroine come to life in this old-fashioned but rather poignant melodrama. A waitress in her aunt and uncle's café, orphaned Kitty Lane falls in love with society scion Dave Livingston (Regis Toomey). Much to Read More

Virtue

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Carole Lombard, Pat O'Brien, Mayo Methot, Jack LaRue, Ward Bond

Synopsis: The title Virtue should be a good tip-off that the central character is a step below virtuous. Carole Lombard, still not established as a comedienne in 1932, plays a streetwalker seeking an escape from her sordid existence. She meets Pat O'Brien, one of the few men who doesn't expect a quick fix Read More

Three Wise Girls

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Jean Harlow, Mae Clarke, Walter Byron, Marie Prevost, Andy Devine

Synopsis: Glamorous Jean Harlow had her first big starring role in this standard story of an innocent small town young woman corrupted by big city life. Harlow plays Cassie Barnes, who is bored with her life and jumps at the chance to move to New York City to join her old friend Gladys Kane (Mae Clarke). Read More

Big Timer

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Ben Lyon plays an aspiring boxer in this pre-code drama. Cookie Bradford (Lyon) toils at a diner and works out at the gym while waiting for his big break. His one supporter is the gym owner's daughter, Honey (Constance Cummings). When her father dies suddenly, she decides to take over his Read More

The Night Club Lady

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Adolphe Menjou, Mayo Methot

Synopsis: A night club owner under heavy police protection is murdered anyway, and a clever police commissioner figures out that it was her mother, who used a scorpion as the murder weapon. ~ Steve Huey, All Movie Guide Read More

Illicit

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, James Rennie, Charles Butterworth, Joan Blondell, Natalie Moorhead, Ricardo Cortez

Synopsis: Few actresses exuded as much raw sensuality as the pre-Production Code Barbara Stanwyck. In Illicit, Anne Vincent (Stanwyck) spends most of her time dressed in a loose-fitting kimono as the mistress of Dick Ives (James Rennie). The couple lives openly in sin because Anne does not believe in Read More

Arizona

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: John Wayne, Laura La Plante

Synopsis: When Lt. Bob Denton (John Wayne) tells his girlfriend Evelyn (Laura La Plante) that he has no intention of marrying her, she takes her revenge by romancing Denton's protege and father figure Colonel Bonham (Forrest Stanley). Unbeknownst to Evelyn (La Plante), Denton (Wayne) begins to court Read More

Platinum Blonde

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Loretta Young, Robert Williams, Jean Harlow, Louise Closser Hale, Donald Dilloway, Reginald Owen

Synopsis: A rather bleak comedy-drama from Frank Capra, Platinum Blonde basically starts where Capra's later and much more buoyant It Happened One Night (1934) ends: the marriage between a brash newspaperman and a society dame. But where the latter comedy was enhanced by the director's patented optimism Read More

The Miracle Woman

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, David Manners, Sam Hardy, Beryl Mercer, Russell Hopton

Synopsis: A minister's daughter finds fame as an evangelist but struggles with her own lack of faith in Frank Capra's impassioned drama. Inspired by the true story of Aimee Semple McPherson, the film follows the rise to prominence of Florence Fallon (Barbara Stanwyck). Disillusioned by the mistreatment of Read More

Men in Her Life

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Lois Moran, Charles Bickford, Victor Varconi, Luis Alberni

Synopsis: In this drama, a woman with dubious past finds herself blackmailed when she makes plans to marry a senator's son. She finds salvation with a bootlegger who offers to take care of the excursionist. Unfortunately, he chooses to kill the fellow, gets caught, and is put on trial. Now the woman must Read More

Many a Slip

Crew: Play Author, Screenwriter

Actors: Joan Bennett, Lew Ayres, George "Slim" Summerville, Ben Alexander, Virginia Sale

Synopsis: Young Joan Bennett and Lew Ayres make an attractive couple in the Universal programmer Many a Slip. Because of her imperious attitude, beautiful young debutante Pat Coster (Bennett) can't find a boy friend until Jerry Brooks (Ayres) comes along. Anxious not to lose Jerry, Pat leads him to believe Read More