Stanley DonenFilmography

Love Letters

Crew: Director

Actors: Steven Weber, Laura Linney, Kirsten Storms, Tim Redwine

Synopsis: Stanley Donen directed this made-for-television adaptation of A.R. Gurney's international stage success, which follows the long-gestating romance between two people through their correspondence. Andy (Steven Weber) first fell for Melissa (Laura Linney) when they were in second grade, and while Read More

Musicals Great Musicals: The Arthur Freed Unit at MGM

Synopsis: This is a documentary film about the work of a legendary producer of musicals. After winning his laurels in 1939 as the assistant producer of The Wizard of Oz, MGM set up a whole studio for Arthur Freed. He began his career as a singer/songwriter and as an actor, (he appeared with the Marx Brothers Read More

Blame It on Rio

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Michael Caine, Joseph Bologna, Valerie Harper, Michelle Johnson, Jose Lewgoy

Synopsis: This attempt to remake the clever 1977 French farce Un Moment d'Egarement stars 50-film-a-year man Michael Caine as an executive named Matthew Hollis, who, together with friend Victor Lyons (Joseph Bologna), travels to Rio de Janeiro on business. Victor sets out on the town in search of a lambada Read More

Saturn 3

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Farrah Fawcett, Kirk Douglas, Harvey Keitel, Ed Bishop, Douglas Lambert

Synopsis: In a futuristic setting, two research scientists (a guy and a gal) are set up in an orbiting space station. The guy is Kirk Douglas, and the gal is Farah Fawcett. They are doing just fine until a run-away scientist comes to visit, lusts for Fawcett, and builds a robot that also lusts for her. Mr. Douglas Read More

Movie, Movie

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: George C. Scott, Barbara Harris, Eli Wallach, Trish VanDevere, Red Buttons

Synopsis: This spoof of a "typical" double-feature bill of the 1930s is introduced by George Burns, who explains that we're about to see two classic films produced by the legendary Warren Brothers. The first, "Dynamite Fists," is a black-and-white takeoff of such boxing dramas as Golden Boy. Harry Hamlin Read More

Lucky Lady

Crew: Director

Actors: Gene Hackman, Liza Minnelli, Burt Reynolds, Geoffrey Lewis, John Hillerman

Synopsis: During the Prohibition era, Walker (Burt Reynolds) and Kibby (Gene Hackman) run a liquor smuggling operation in Mexico; they team up with Claire (Liza Minnelli), a cabaret entertainer who has an "in" with several big-time nightclub owners. Complications ensue when both men fall in love with Read More

The Little Prince

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Richard Kiley, Steven Warner, Bob Fosse, Gene Wilder, Joss Ackland

Synopsis: Stanley Donen directed this lugubrious musical fantasy based on the classic Antoine de Saint-Exupery children's parable, featuring a musical score by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe -- their first film score since Gigi. The simple story concerns a French aviator (Richard Kiley) who crashes his Read More

Staircase

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Cathleen Nesbitt, Beatrix Lehmann, Gordon Heath

Synopsis: Homosexuality is only incidentally important in this drama of dependence and intimacy between two aging hair stylists, and nothing shocking to staid and heterosexual sensibilities takes place in this movie, a star turn for Richard Burton and Rex Harrison. Whether the original play was as patently Read More

Bedazzled

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Eleanor Bron, Raquel Welch, Alba, Michael Bates, Robert Russell

Synopsis: Falling somewhere between the Beyond the Fringe school and the Monty Python league, Bedazzled is an irreverent Faust take-off, written by and starring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore (Moore also composed the music). Moore plays a short-order cook at a London Wimpyburger restaurant, who falls Read More

Two for the Road

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Audrey Hepburn, Albert Finney, Eleanor Bron, William Daniels, Claude Dauphin

Synopsis: In preparing his romantic comedy Two For the Road, director Stanley Donen decided to utilize many of the cinematic techniques popularized by the French "nouvelle vague" filmmakers. Jump cutting back and forth in time with seeming abandon, Donen and scriptwriter Frederic Raphael chronicle the Read More

Arabesque

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Gregory Peck, Sophia Loren, Alan Badel, Kieron Moore, Carl Duering

Synopsis: An expert in ancient hieroglyphics unexpectedly finds himself involved in a web of international intrigue in this chic, enjoyably tongue-in-cheek espionage adventure. Gregory Peck stars as David Pollock, an American professor whose predictable academic routine is overturned when he is hired to Read More

Charade

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, Ned Glass, George Kennedy

Synopsis: Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn star in this stylish comedy-thriller directed by Stanley Donen, very much in a Hitchcock vein. Grant plays Peter Joshua, who meets Reggie Lampert (Hepburn) in Paris and later offers to help her when she discovers that her husband has been murdered. After the funeral Read More

The Grass Is Greener

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons, Moray Watson

Synopsis: A rousing chorus of Noël Coward's "Stately Homes of England" is heard as the opening titles of The Grass Is Greener fade into several stock shots of those stately homes. One of these mansions is owned by British earl Victor Rhyall (Cary Grant), who opens his home to American tourists in order to Read More

Once More, with Feeling

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Yul Brynner, Kay Kendall, Geoffrey Toone, Maxwell Shaw, Gregory Ratoff, Mervyn Johns

Synopsis: Yul Brynner and Kay Kendall star as Victor and Dolly Fabian in this successful cinematic version of the stage comedy by Harry Kurnitz. Victor is a larger-than-life symphony conductor who loves music but has all the social skills of a wounded rhinoceros. After his wife Dolly gets fed up with Read More

Surprise Package

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Yul Brynner, Bill Nagy, Mitzi Gaynor, Barry Foster

Synopsis: This is an unimpressive spy-comedy from director Stanley Donen who inserts his specialty, a small song-and-dance number, into the odd proceedings. Gangster Nico March (Yul Brynner) has been ordered out of the United States because of his unsavory activities and back to the Greek island from whence Read More

Indiscreet

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Cecil Parker, Phyllis Calvert, David Kossoff

Synopsis: Adapted by Norman Krasna from his play Kind Sir, Indiscreet stars Ingrid Bergman as a wealthy actress and Cary Grant as an international financial wizard. While Grant is visiting London, Bergman's sister Phyllis Calvert and brother-in-law Cecil Parker introduce Grant to Bergman. Because he feels Read More

Damn Yankees

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Tab Hunter, Gwen Verdon, Ray Walston, Russ Brown, Shannon Bolin

Synopsis: Damn Yankees is a frothy, faithful adaptation of the 1956 Broadway hit. In an amusing slant on the "Faust" legend, aging baseball fan Joe Boyd (Robert Schafer) is given an opportunity to lead his beloved Washington Senators to victory by a devilish gent named Applegate (Ray Walston). Boyd is Read More

Funny Face

Crew: Director

Actors: Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Kay Thompson, Michel Auclair, Robert Flemyng

Synopsis: This filmed version of the 1927 George Gershwin Broadway musical Funny Face utilizes the play's original star, Fred Astaire, and several of the original tunes, then goes merrily off on its own. Astaire is cast as as fashion photographer Dick Avery (a character based on Richard Avedon, the film's Read More

Kiss Them for Me

Crew: Director

Actors: Cary Grant, Suzy Parker, Jayne Mansfield, Leif Erickson, Ray Walston

Synopsis: Luther Davis' racy wartime comedy Kiss Them for Me was expurgated a bit for the 1957 film version. Cary Grant, Ray Walston and Larry Blyden portray three navy war heroes who've been booked on a morale-building "vacation" in San Francisco. Eluding their ulcerated public relations officer (Werner Klemperer Read More

The Pajama Game

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Doris Day, John Raitt, Carol Haney, Eddie Foy, Jr., Reta Shaw

Synopsis: The Broadway musical Pajama Game was based on Seven and a Half Cents. a comic novel about labor relations written by Richard Bissell. Doris Day stars as an employee at a pajama factory who becomes the spokesperson for her fellow workers when management refuses to give them a 7 1/2 cent raise. Read More

It's Always Fair Weather

Crew: Choreography, Director

Actors: Gene Kelly, Dan Dailey, Cyd Charisse, Dolores Gray, Michael Kidd

Synopsis: Cooked up by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, It's Always Fair Weather could well have been titled On the Town Ten Years Later. Like 1949's On the Town (also a Comden/Green collaboration), this MGM musical follows the exploits of three servicemen buddies, played by Gene Kelly, Dan Dailey and Michael Kidd Read More

Deep in My Heart

Crew: Director

Actors: José Ferrer, Helen Traubel, Merle Oberon, Walter Pidgeon, Doe Avedon

Synopsis: Deep in My Heart is the MGM-ified biography of composer Sigmund Romberg, here played by José Ferrer. Evidently the scripters didn't feel that the life of Romberg (as set down by author Elliott Arnold, whose book was used as the film's basis) had enough drama to fill out two hours and ten minutes. Read More

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Crew: Director

Actors: Howard Keel, Jeff Richards, Russ Tamblyn, Tommy Rall, Marc Platt, Jane Powell

Synopsis: Based extremely loosely on the Stephen Vincent Benet story Sobbin' Women," Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is one of the best MGM musicals of the 1950s. Most of the story takes place on an Oregon ranch, maintained by Adam Pontabee (Howard Keel) and his six brothers, played by Jeff Richards, Russ Tamblyn Read More

Give a Girl A Break

Crew: Choreography, Director

Actors: Marge Champion, Gower Champion, Debbie Reynolds, Helen Wood, Bob Fosse

Synopsis: After providing excellent support in previous MGM musicals, the singing-dancing team of Marge and Gower Champion were rewarded with their own starring vehicle, Give a Girl a Break. Marge plays one of three actresses competing for the leading role in a Broadway show directed by Gower. The other two Read More

Fearless Fagan

Crew: Director

Actors: Janet Leigh, Carleton Carpenter, Keenan Wynn, Richard Anderson, Ellen Corby

Synopsis: The unbreakable bond between a young man and his pet lion provides the action in this comedy. The trouble begins when the young man becomes a private in the army. Because he cannot bear to sell his lion Fagan to a mean-spirited circus trainer, the private asks his sergeant to help him find a good Read More

Love Is Better Than Ever

Crew: Director

Actors: Larry Parks, Elizabeth Taylor, Josephine Hutchinson, Elinor Donahue, Tom Tully, Ann Doran

Synopsis: Though completed in 1950, Love Is Better Than Ever was held back from release until 1952, due in great part to the "political undesirability" of star Larry Parks, whose career was effectively ruined after he humbled himself before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Parks plays Broadway Read More

Singin' in the Rain

Crew: Director

Actors: Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell

Synopsis: Hollywood, 1927: the silent-film romantic team of Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) is the toast of Tinseltown. While Lockwood and Lamont personify smoldering passions onscreen, in real life the down-to-earth Lockwood can't stand the egotistical, brainless Lina. He prefers the Read More

Royal Wedding

Crew: Director

Actors: Fred Astaire, Jane Powell, Peter Lawford, Sarah Churchill, Keenan Wynn

Synopsis: Two real-life events were incorporated into the plot of the 1951 MGM musical Royal Wedding. One, the marriage of Fred Astaire's sister Adele to a British nobleman had occurred years earlier; the other, the wedding of England's Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip was only four years in the past. Read More

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Crew: Choreography, Screen Story

Actors: Frank Sinatra, Esther Williams, Gene Kelly, Betty Garrett, Edward Arnold

Synopsis: So baseball pictures never make money, eh? Try telling that to MGM, which raked in a box office gross of $4 million on their 1949 baseball musical Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Set in 1906, the film concerns the adventures and misadventures of The Wolves, a champion ball club. The team's success Read More

On the Town

Crew: Choreography, Director

Actors: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Betty Garrett, Ann Miller, Jules Munshin

Synopsis: Three sailors on a 24-hour pass -- Gabey (Gene Kelly), Chip (Frank Sinatra), and Ozzie (Jules Munshin) -- decide to soak up the sights and sounds of New York. Each one finds romance within those 24 hours: Gabey with aspiring dancer Ivy Smith (Vera-Ellen), Chip with lady cabbie Hildy Esterhazy (Betty Garrett Read More

A Date with Judy

Crew: Choreography

Actors: Leon Ames, Wallace Beery, Jane Powell, Elizabeth Taylor, George Cleveland, Carmen Miranda, Lloyd Corrigan, Robert Stack, Scotty Beckett

Synopsis: In this lightweight musical comedy, Judy Foster (Jane Powell) and Carol Pringle (Elizabeth Taylor) are teenagers and best friends who find their loyalties tested when they both fall for the same good-looking older man, Stephen Andrews (Robert Stack). This situation is particularly troublesome for Read More

The Big City

Crew: Choreography

Actors: Margaret O'Brien, Robert Preston, Danny Thomas, George Murphy, Karin [Katharine] Booth

Synopsis: MGM's all-purpose title The Big City was deployed once more for this treacly 1948 drama. To prevent orphaned Midge (Margaret O'Brien) from being sent to an institution, Protestant minister Andrews (Robert Preston), Jewish cantor Feldman (Danny Thomas) and Catholic cop Patrick O'Donnell (George Murphy Read More

The Kissing Bandit

Crew: Choreography

Actors: Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson, J. Carrol Naish, Mildred Natwick, Mikhail Rasumny

Synopsis: In this period musical, Ricardo (Frank Sinatra) is the son of a Mexican innkeeper who has come to California to take over a hotel owned by his family after the death of his father. Ricardo makes the startling discovery that his father was best known as a "kissing bandit," a dashing thief who Read More

This Time for Keeps

Crew: Choreography

Actors: Esther Williams, Johnny Johnston, Lauritz Melchior, Jimmy Durante, Xavier Cugat

Synopsis: In this aqueous musical comedy, an opera singer brings his son to Michigan's Mackinac Island where the son falls in love with the star of the "aquacaper." It is difficult to woo her as she is constantly surrounded by her piano-playing bodyguard and her ever-present grandmother. It's musical and Read More

Killer McCoy

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Mickey Rooney, Brian Donlevy, Ann Blyth, James Dunn, Tom Tully

Synopsis: In one of his first "adult" roles (he made his last Andy Hardy vehicle only a year earlier), Mickey Rooney plays Tommy McCoy, a dancer who performs in a going-nowhere nightclub act with his alcoholic father, Brian (James Dunn). Johnny Martin (Mickey Knox), a lightweight boxing champ who is Read More

Living in a Big Way

Crew: Choreography

Actors: Gene Kelly, Marie McDonald, Charles Winninger, Phyllis Thaxter, Spring Byington

Synopsis: Despite MGM's insistence that star Gene Kelly, just returning from military service in 1947, appear exclusively in big-budget Technicolor musicals, maverick director Gregory La Cava showcased Kelly in the modest black and white tunefest Living in a Big Way. Kelly is cast as an ex-GI who discovers Read More

Holiday in Mexico

Crew: Choreography

Actors: Linda Christian, Ann Codee, Xavier Cugat, Hugo Haas

Synopsis: Too long by at least two reels, Holiday in Mexico is nevertheless one of the more enjoyable MGM Technicolor musicals of the 1940s. Walter Pigeon is top billed as Jeffrey Evans, American ambassador to Mexico. Captivated by the charms of her adopted homeland, Evans' impulsive daughter Christine Read More

No Leave, No Love

Crew: Choreography

Actors: Van Johnson, Keenan Wynn, Patricia Kirkwood, Marie Wilson, Edward Arnold

Synopsis: In this WWII musical, a young hero and his buddy decide to celebrate his receiving the Medal of Honor by partying. He is terribly excited about seeing his fiancée again. Unfortunately, she has fallen for another in his absence. He is later consoled by a lovely radio singer. Songs include "All the Read More

Anchors Aweigh

Crew: Choreography

Actors: Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson, Gene Kelly, José Iturbi, Dean Stockwell

Synopsis: This mammoth musical is at base the story of two sailors on leave in Hollywood. Brash Joseph Brady (Gene Kelly) has promised his shy pal Clarence Doolittle (Frank Sinatra) that he will introduce Clarence to all the glamorous movie starlets whom he allegedly knows so well. Actually, the only Read More

Hey, Rookie

Crew: Choreography

Actors: Ann Miller, Larry Parks, Joe Sawyer, Jimmy Little

Synopsis: Musical star Ann Miller plays a Broadway leading lady coaxed into reteaming with Larry Parks, her former producer. Parks is now a lowly Army G.I., anxious to produce a show for the troops--with a 200 dollar budget! This being a wartime musical, Ann Miller succumbs to Patriotism and stars in Parks' Read More

Cover Girl

Crew: Choreography

Actors: Rita Hayworth, Gene Kelly, Lee Bowman, Phil Silvers, Otto Kruger, Jinx Falkenburg, Eve Arden

Synopsis: Thanks to its Jerome Kern/Ira Gershwin/Yip Harburg score and the luminescence of stars Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly, Cover Girl has taken on a legendary status in recent years. In truth, the film has a banal and predictable premise: a chorus girl (Hayworth) is given a chance for stardom by a Read More