Sammy Fain Filmography

Radio Days

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Mia Farrow, Seth Green, Julie Kavner, Josh Mostel, Michael Tucker

Synopsis: Woody Allen's gentle and nostalgic tribute to the glory days of radio and coming-of-age during World War II plays like Fellini's Amarcord filtered through Neil Simon. The nominal star is Seth Green as Joe, a teenage Jewish boy, growing up with a house full of relatives in Brooklyn. Allen cuts Read More

The Rescuers

Crew: Musical Performer, Songwriter

Synopsis: Two fantasy novels by Margery Sharp were combined for in the Disney animated feature The Rescuers. The title characters are a pair of mice, Bernard and Miss Bianca. A little girl named Penny has been kidnapped by Miss Medusa. When the human law enforcement officials fail to locate the child Read More

The Specialist

Crew: Songwriter

Synopsis: A handsome lawyer begins a passionate affair with an extraordinarily beautiful woman, not realizing that she is a paid assassin out to fulfill a contract with his name on it. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

If He Hollers, Let Him Go

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Songwriter

Actors: Dana Wynter, Raymond St. Jacques, Kevin McCarthy, Barbara McNair, Arthur O'Connell

Synopsis: James Lake (Raymond St. Jacques) is an escaped black convict imprisoned for a murder he didn't commit. Leslie Whitlock (Kevin McCarthy) offers James money to kill his wife, Ellen (Dana Wynter). He declines and tries to look up his old flame Lily (Barbara McNair), but discovers his own brother is Read More

Joy in the Morning

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Richard Chamberlain, Yvette Mimieux, Arthur Kennedy, Oscar Homolka, Donald Davis, Joan Tetzel

Synopsis: In this romantic drama based on a novel by Betty Smith, Carl Brown (Richard Chamberlain) is a student in law school who wants to marry his sweetheart, Annie McGairy (Yvette Mimieux). However, Carl and Annie's parents knew each other when they grew up in Ireland before emigrating to America, and Read More

The Incredible Mr. Limpet

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Don Knotts, Carole Cook, Jack Weston, Andrew Duggan, Larry Keating

Synopsis: In this amusing fantasy, a combination of live-action and animated effects, Don Knotts plays scrawny bookkeeper Henry Limpet, who longs to help the U.S. after the outbreak of World War II. He becomes depressed after being turned down by the Navy, particularly after his pal George (Jack Weston) is Read More

Island of Love

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Robert Preston, Tony Randall, Giorgia Moll, Walter Matthau, Betty Bruce

Synopsis: In this different type of gangster farce with a few flaws here and there, Robert Preston is Steve Blair, a superlative con artist whose sidekick Paul Ferris (Tony Randall) is a boozy writer currently working on a cartoon. Steve gets the idea of producing a movie based on Genesis in the Bible and Read More

Judy Garland: Judy Garland & Friends

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Synopsis: In this collection of clips from The Judy Garland Show, which ran for 26 episodes on CBS television in 1963 and 1964, the legendary singer and actress performs a number of songs, several of them collaborations with up-and-comer Barbra Streisand, grand dame Ethel Merman, and Garland's own daughter Read More

A New Kind of Love

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Thelma Ritter, Eva Gabor, George Tobias

Synopsis: A man falls for an exotic "bad girl," unaware he's already met the nice girl lurking beneath the surface, in this romantic comedy. Samantha Blake (Joanne Woodward) works for a large department store in New York City as a sort of industrial spy; while ostensively a buyer, Blake's greatest Read More

Tender Is the Night

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Songwriter

Actors: Jennifer Jones, Jason Robards, Jr., Joan Fontaine, Tom Ewell, Cesare Danova

Synopsis: David O. Selznick had intended to film an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night as a vehicle for his wife Jennifer Jones. But financial difficulties compelled Selznick to sell the property (including Ms. Jones' services) to 20th Century-Fox. Jones stars as a wealthy but disturbed Read More

The Big Circus

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Victor Mature, Red Buttons, Rhonda Fleming, Kathryn Grant, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre

Synopsis: Victor Mature, in one of his last leading man performances, plays Hank Whirling, the owner of a financially shaky circus who is trying to get back on his feet, despite cutthroat competition from a rival organization. He also has a younger sister (Kathryn Grant) to watch out for. After arranging Read More

Imitation of Life

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Lana Turner, John Gavin, Juanita Moore, Sandra Dee, Dan O'Herlihy, Robert Alda, Susan Kohner

Synopsis: This glamorized remake of the 1934 film Imitation of Life bears only a passing resemblance to its source, the best-selling novel by Fannie Hurst. Originally, the heroine was a widowed mother who kept the wolf from the door by setting up a successful pancake business with her black housemaid. In Read More

A Certain Smile

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Songwriter

Actors: Rossano Brazzi, Joan Fontaine, Bradford Dillman, Christine Carère, Eduard Franz

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Francoise Sagan, A Certain Smile was a vehicle for Darryl F. Zanuck's latest protegee, Christine Carere. Parisian student Carere spats with her boyfriend Bradford Dillman, then impulsively agrees to accompany Dillman's worldly uncle Rossano Brazzi to the Riviera. At first Read More

The Gift of Love

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, Evelyn Rudie, Lorne Greene, Anne Seymour

Synopsis: The Gift of Love is a remake of 1946's Sentimental Journey, with Lauren Bacall in the role originated by Maureen O'Hara. Upon learning that she hasn't long to live, Bacall, the devoted wife of Robert Stack, adopts young Evelyn Rudie so that her husband will never be lonely. After his wife's death Read More

Marjorie Morningstar

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Gene Kelly, Natalie Wood, Claire Trevor, Everett Sloane, Martin Milner

Synopsis: Marjorie Morgenstern (Natalie Wood) is an 18-year-old, middle-class, Jewish girl from New York who wants nothing more than to be an actress, despite the hopes and wishes of her parents (Everett Sloane and Claire Trevor) that she graduate from college, marry, and settle down to have a family. At Read More

April Love

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Songwriter

Actors: Pat Boone, Shirley Jones, Dolores Michaels, Arthur O'Connell, Matt Crowley

Synopsis: April Love is a musicalized remake of 1944's Home in Indiana. Pat Boone stars as a potential juvenile delinquent who is sent to work on a Kentucky farm. When he meets apple-cheeked local girl Shirley Jones, Boone decides that mending his ways might be an option. Before long, he is devoting himself Read More

Hollywood or Bust

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Songwriter

Actors: Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Anita Ekberg, Pat Crowley, "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom

Synopsis: Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis made their last joint film appearance in the girl-filled musical Hollywood or Bust. The thinnish plot finds inveterate film fan Jerry making a cross-country journey to Tinseltown for the purpose of meeting his favorite screen star, the buxom Anita Ekberg (the film's Read More

Ain't Misbehavin'

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Rory Calhoun, Piper Laurie, Jack Carson, Mamie van Doren, Reginald Gardiner

Synopsis: In this lively musical a chorine hooks a successful businessman and becomes the snob she thinks he expects her to be. This is a problem, because he fell in love with her because she was so earthy and fun. Now that she has become refined and aloof, he is bored. Fortunately, just as he is leaving Read More

Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: William Holden, Jennifer Jones, Torin Thatcher, Isobel Elsom, Virginia Gregg, Murray Matheson

Synopsis: Based on the autobiographical novel by Han Suyin, Love is a Many Splendored Thing was evocatively location-filmed in Hong Kong. Jennifer Jones plays Ms. Suyin, a Eurasian doctor and the widow of a Chinese general. She falls in love with American news correspondent Mark Elliot (William Holden), who Read More

Calamty Jane

Crew: Songwriter

Calamity Jane

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Doris Day, Howard Keel, Allyn Ann McLerie, Philip Carey, Dick Wesson

Synopsis: Doris Day looks no more like the real Calamity Jane than you or I do, but this 1953 film is intended as a lighthearted musical, not a historical tract. As portrayed by the freckled Ms. Day, Jane is a rootin', tootin' shootin' hoyden in the western town of Deadwood. When she isn't tearing up the Read More

Call Me Mister

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Betty Grable, Dan Dailey, Danny Thomas, Dale Robertson, Richard Boone, Benay Venuta

Synopsis: The original Broadway musical Call Me Mister was a plotless revue. By the time the property made it to the screen, however, a storyline was grafted on and much of the revue's funnier (and dirtier) material was weeded out. Betty Grable stars as an American USO entertainer Kay Hudson, touring the Read More

Alice in Wonderland

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn, Sterling Holloway, Jerry Colonna

Synopsis: This Disney feature-length cartoon combines the most entertaining elements of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Chasing after the White Rabbit, who runs into view singing "I'm Late! I'm Late!," Alice falls down the rabbit hole into the topsy-turvy alternate world Read More

I'll Be Seeing You

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple, Spring Byington, Tom Tully

Synopsis: Ginger Rogers gives a dramatic performance in this moving romantic drama in which a woman named Mary Marshall, who was convicted of manslaughter (she defended herself when her lecherous boss attempted to rape her and she accidentally killed him), is granted a ten-day furlough for Christmas to Read More

I Dood It

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Red Skelton, Eleanor Powell, Lena Horne, Patricia Dane, Richard Ainley, Sam Levene

Synopsis: In later years, director Vincente Minnelli would dismiss I Dood It as his worst picture, though a more deserving candidate for that "honor" would be Minnelli's valedictory film A Matter of Time. In this remake of Buster Keaton's Spite Marriage, Red Skelton plays pants-presser Joseph Rivington Read More

Conspiracy

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Allan Lane, Linda Hayes, Robert H. Barrat, Charley Foy, Lionel Royce

Synopsis: RKO's Conspiracy attempts to be an up-to-date (for 1939) espionage drama without using such problematic words as "Nazi" or "Fascist". The film solves this problem by taking place in a mythical Central American country, though the key figure of a despotic dictator is clearly meant to be an Hispanic Read More

Vogues of 1938

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Warner Baxter, Joan Bennett, Helen Vinson, Mischa Auer, Alan Mowbray

Synopsis: An early Technicolor musical that concentrates on the fashions of the late 1930s, this film was reissued under the title All This and Glamour Too. The top models of the era, including several who are advertising household products, are in the cast. The plot centers around a chic boutique, whose Read More

New Faces of 1937

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Joe Penner, Milton Berle, Parkyakarkus [Harry Einstein], Harriet Hilliard

Synopsis: New Faces of 1937 was supposed to be the vanguard of a series of annual musical comedies -- RKO Radio's latest attempt to revive its long-dormant "Radio City Revels" concept. The plot is based on an old show-business legend, later immortalized in Mel Brooks' The Producers: Crooked Broadway Read More

Goin' to Town

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Songwriter

Actors: Mae West, Paul Cavanagh, Ivan Lebedeff, Gilbert Emery, Tito Coral, Marjorie Gateson

Synopsis: Mae West is Goin' to Town in this elegant post-Production Code vehicle. West plays Cleo Borden, a nouveau riche cattle rancher who hopes to crash into high society. Though she is willing to subject herself to "refinement" lessons, she still has a high old time puncturing the pretensions of those Read More

G-Men

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: James Cagney, Margaret Lindsay, Lloyd Nolan, Ann Dvorak, Robert Armstrong, Barton MacLane

Synopsis: In G Men, Warner Bros. "bad boy" James Cagney plays James "Brick" Davis, a young lawyer whose education has been financed by soft-hearted racketeer McKay (William Harrigan). When Cagney's best pal, detective Eddie Buchanan (Regis Toomey), is killed in a gangland shooting, James decides to become a Read More

Dames

Actors: Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, ZaSu Pitts, Guy Kibbee

Synopsis: As the title song says, you go to those shows to see those beautiful dames--and there's dames aplenty in this 1934 Busby Berkeley extravaganza. The wisp of a plot is motivated by one Ezra Ounce (Hugh Herbert), a silly millionaire who spearheads a national anti-fun movement. Ounce's distant cousin Dick Powell Read More

Fashions of 1934

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Bette Davis, William Powell, Veree Teasdale, Reginald Owen, Hugh Herbert, Frank McHugh

Synopsis: Now known simply as Fashions, the lavish Warner Bros. musical Fashions of 1934 stars the unlikely but copacetic team of William Powell and Bette Davis. It all begins when genial con artist Sherwood Nash (Powell) transfers his base of operations from New York to Paris. Sensing that the fashion Read More

Easy to Love

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Genevieve Tobin, Adolphe Menjou, Mary Astor, Guy Kibbee

Synopsis: In this family drama, a happy marriage is threatened by suspicion and jealousy, and illicit affairs. The trouble begins when the wife catches her husband in the arms of a family friend. The wife exacts her revenge claiming that she had an affair with the other woman's husband. This is a lie. They Read More

Here Comes the Navy

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Gloria Stuart, Frank McHugh, Dorothy Tree

Synopsis: Actually this film should have been titled "Here Comes Jimmy Cagney Again, so Duck!". James Cagney is a bantam-cock sailor who runs up against chief petty officer Pat O'Brien. Seems that Cagney and O'Brien had come to blows early in the film when O'Brien stole Cagney's date at a dance hall. Read More

Harold Teen

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Hal Le Roy, Rochelle Hudson, Patricia Ellis, Guy Kibbee, Hugh Herbert

Synopsis: First adapted for the screen in 1928, Carl Ed's popular comic strip Harold Teen was cinematized a second time in 1934. This time it's musical-comedy star Hal LeRoy as the titular high-schooler, with Rochelle Hudson as his sweetheart Lillums Lovell and Hobart Cavanaugh as sweet-shop owner Pop Read More

Footlight Parade

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Guy Kibbee

Synopsis: The last--and to some aficionados, the best--of choreographer Busby Berkeley's three Warner Bros. efforts of 1933, Footlight Parade stars James Cagney as a Broadway musical comedy producer. Cagney is unceremoniously put out of business when talking pictures arrive. To keep his head above water Read More

The Big Pond

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Andree Corday, Claudette Colbert, George Barbier, Maurice Chevalier, Maude Allen, Marion Ballou

Synopsis: Le Grande Mare is the French-language version of Paramount's The Big Pond (1930), with Maurice Chevalier and Claudette Colbert in their original roles as Pierre Mirande and Barbara Billings. Pierre is a Venetian tour guide, who falls in love with wealthy American tourist Barbara. Her male Read More

Young Man of Manhattan

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Norman Foster, Ginger Rogers, Charlie Ruggles, Leslie Austin

Synopsis: In this sports drama, Toby McLean, a sportswriter encounters another journalist, Ann Vaughn at the Tunney-Jack Dempsey fight. They end up married and living in a tiny New York apartment. One day he travels to St. Louis to cover the World Series and meets a socialite named Puff. Though she uses her Read More