Sylvia Sidney Filmography

Mars Attacks!

Actors: Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Jim Brown

Synopsis: This quirky science fiction comedy is a characteristic feature by iconoclastic director Tim Burton, known to moviegoers for Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. The storyline affectionately harkens back to the deadpan sincerity of such '50s and '60s Read More

Used People

Actors: Shirley MacLaine, Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Marcello Mastroianni, Marcia Gay Harden

Synopsis: Todd Graff wrote the screenplay for this eccentric romantic comedy in the spirit of Moonstruck that exchanges pasta for matzo balls. The film takes place in Queens in 1969, where Pearl Berman (Shirley MacLaine) has just arrived back from the funeral of her husband. As her dysfunctional family Read More

Andre's Mother

Actors: Sada Thompson, Richard Thomas, Sylvia Sidney, Haviland Morris

Synopsis: After her son dies of AIDS, a woman must come to terms with his abbreviated life. Sada Thompson stars as the mother in this Emmy award-winning movie that aired on PBS. Thompson is joined in her grief by her dead son's lover played by Richard Thomas. As they learn to cope with their losses, the two Read More

Beetlejuice

Actors: Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Michael Keaton, Catherine O'Hara, Jeffrey Jones

Synopsis: Thanks to the carelessness of a cute little dog, newlyweds Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin are killed in a freak auto accident. Upon arriving in the outer offices of Heaven, the couple finds that, thanks to a century's worth of bureaucratic red tape, they're on a long celestial waiting list. Before Read More

Pals

Actors: Don Ameche, Sylvia Sidney, George C. Scott, James Greene

Synopsis: The "pals" of the title, played by Don Ameche and George C. Scott, are Army chums living a sedentary retirement. Occasionally the twosome becomes a threesome when Scott's mother Sylvia Sidney shows up. All three are resigned to living out their lives on fixed incomes in a Georgia trailer park-and Read More

Hitchcock, II Brivido Del Genio

Actors: Patricia Hitchcock, Sylvia Sidney, Anne Baxter, Joan Fontaine, Judith Anderson

Synopsis: Film clips and interviews with actors and colleagues provide the material for this laudatory view of the career of Alfred Hitchcock. Among those interviewed who provide a bit of humor in the bargain are Philippe Noiret and Joan Fontaine. The "master of suspense" is shown according to stereotypes Read More

An Early Frost

Actors: Aidan Quinn, Gena Rowlands, Ben Gazzara, Sylvia Sidney, John Glover

Synopsis: Originally telecast November 11, 1985, An Early Frost was the first TV movie to deal with the subject of AIDS. Aidan Quinn plays a personable young gay lawyer who is stricken with the HIV virus. As his health deteriorates, Quinn finds that his physical agony is secondary to his mental anguish. Ben Gazzara Read More

Come Along with Me

Synopsis: Actress Joanne Woodward made her (surprisingly unheralded) directorial debut with Come Along With Me. Estelle Parsons stars as a freewheeling woman who decides to start over completely when her husband dies. Before leaving town, she sells everything she owns and burns all her bridges behind her. Parsons Read More

Finnegan Begin Again

Actors: Mary Tyler Moore, Robert Preston, Sylvia Sidney

Synopsis: Written by Walter Lockwood and directed by Joan Micklin Silver, Finnegan Begin Again is a whimsical comedy drama about a late-blooming romance. Robert Preston plays a Mike Finnegan, 65-year-old newspaperman resigned to wasting his time on a lonely hearts column and caring for his ailing Read More

The Brass Ring

Actors: Dina Merrill, Sylvia Sidney, April Lerman

Synopsis: The Brass Ring is one of the first American films produced expressly for cable TV. Dina Merrill heads the cast, as an emotionally disturbed wife and mother. Desperately in need of treatment, Merrill refuses to heed the warnings of her family and doctor, leading to dire consequences. Sylvia Sidney Read More

Magnum, P.I.: Birdman of Budapest

Synopsis: Sylvia Sidney guest stars as Elizabeth Barrett, the literary mentor of Magnum's boss Robin Masters. Elizabeth arrives in Hawaii ostensibly to interview Dr. Albert Tessa (Joseph Wiseman), a reclusive bird expert who has been living in hiding ever since the abortive 1956 Hungarian revolt. What Read More

Having It All

Actors: Hart Bochner, Barry Newman, Dyan Cannon

Synopsis: Having It All is a tailored-for-television attempt at "screwball" comedy from the director of About Last Night... and Glory. Dyan Cannon plays a fashion designer who believes that all good things come in pairs. She not only has two different clothing lines in two different cities (New York and Read More

Hammett

Actors: Frederic Forrest, Peter Boyle, Marilu Henner, Roy Kinnear, Elisha Cook, Jr.

Synopsis: Director Wim Wenders made his American film bow with the ultra-stylish Hammett. Based on the speculative novel by Joe Gores, the story concerns real-life detective novelist Dashiell Hammett (Frederic Forest), who early in his career is involved in a complex mystery that will profoundly influence Read More

A Small Killing

Synopsis: A policeman masquerades as a homeless alcoholic and teams up with a bag lady, who is really a college professor, to bring a drug lord's assassin to justice in this memorable made-for-television drama. Along the way, the two disparate partners find themselves falling in love. The story is based Read More

The Shadow Box

Synopsis: Advertised as "Paul Newman's First Film for Television," Shadow Box was more specifically the first TV movie to be directed by Newman. Moving in a slow, deliberate fashion, the film concerns three terminally ill people. Their stories intertwine as the unfortunate spend their last days with their Read More

The Gossip Columnist

Actors: Steve Allen, Jim Backus, Jack Carter, Jayne Meadows, Martha Raye, Sylvia Sidney, Rip Taylor, Lyle Waggoner, Betty White, Dick Sargent

Synopsis: The Gossip Columnist is a rare one-part offering from Operation Prime Time, the TV-syndication service responsible for such miniseries as The Kent Family Chronicles. Fourth-billed Kim Cattrall plays the title character, journalist Dina Moran. Instructed by her boss (Dick Sargent) to take over the Read More

F.D.R. The Last Year

Actors: Eileen Heckart, Kim Hunter

Synopsis: Jason Robards stars as the ailing, 62-year-old President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in F.D.R.: The Last Year. Though visibly frail and weary, Roosevelt runs for a precedent-setting fourth term. He also oversees plans for the D-Day Invasion and engages in tempestuous summit meetings with his wartime Read More

WKRP in Cincinnati: Pilot, Part 1

Synopsis: The first episode of the first season of WKRP in Cincinnati finds troubleshooter Andy Travis (Gary Sandy) blowing in from Santa Fe to pump new life in WKRP, an all-but-moribund "beautiful music" radio station in Cincinnati. Almost immediately Andy junks the station's format in favor of Top 40 rock Read More

Siege

Actors: James Sutorius

Synopsis: Siege is set in a big-city housing development. Retiree Martin Balsam, along with the rest of the building's residents, live in terror of a street gang commandeered by self-styled "king" hoodlum Dorian Harewood. Police lieutenant James Sutorius tries to rally the older citizens to stand up against Read More

Damien: Omen II

Actors: William Holden, Lee Grant, Jonathan Scott-Taylor, Robert Foxworth, Lew Ayres, Lucas Donat

Synopsis: Satan's son comes of age in this horror sequel. Shortly after the events of The Omen, a pair of anthropologists uncovers an ancient crypt that depicts the face of the Antichrist -- that of Damien Thorn (Jonathan Scott-Taylor), recently orphaned scion of a wealthy industrialist. Before they can Read More

Corrupt

Actors: Harvey Keitel, Nicole Garcia, Leonard Mann, John (Johnny Rotten) Lydon, Sylvia Sidney

Synopsis: A New York policeman (Harvey Keitel) imprisons and tortures an admitted cop-killer (John Lydon), but finds the tables turned when his victim refuses to break and in fact urges more punishment. Highlighted is the intense interplay between the irrepressible Keitel and Lydon, the sneering frontman of Read More

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Actors: Bibi Andersson, Kathleen Quinlan, Ben Piazza, Lorraine Gary, Martine Bartlett, Darlene Craviotto

Synopsis: Without ever revealing the diagnosis, this film chronicles the inner life and outer circumstances of Deborah Blake (Kathleen Quinlan), a young mental patient. As the film opens, she is being accompanied by her subdued parents to yet another mental hospital. This one looks clean and cheerful, at Read More

Snowbeast

Synopsis: In this made-for-television chiller, an enormous and angry Bigfoot launches a campaign of death and destruction against the skiers who have disturbed its home. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Raid on Entebbe

Actors: Peter Finch, Charles Bronson, Horst Buchholz, Martin Balsam, John Saxon, Jack Warden

Synopsis: Raid on Entebbe constitutes one of two all-star made-for-TV reenactments of the Entebbe rescue of July 4, 1976. On June 27, 1976, a jet carrying an international mix of passengers is hijacked by pro-Palestinian revolutionaries. The plane lands in Entebbe, Uganda, where President-for-life Idi Amin (Yaphet Kotto Read More

God Told Me To

Actors: Tony Lo Bianco, Richard Lynch, Sylvia Sidney

Synopsis: Released theatrically as God Told Me To, this inventive film from "B"-movie auteur Larry Cohen was later re-named Demon after television distributors refused to air it under the original title. The convoluted, tabloid-flavored storyline (predating the kind of stories frequently featured on The Read More

The Secret Night Caller

Actors: Robert Reed

Synopsis: Most TV movies about obscene phone callers concentrate on the reactions of the victims--and the subsequent dangers they're exposed to. The Secret Night Caller takes a different tack, telling its story from the point of view of the caller. What makes the film doubly disturbing is that the Read More

Winner Take All

Synopsis: In this drama, a gambling-addicted housewife resorts to stealing from the family savings account to feed her obsession. Trouble ensues when her husband finds out. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Death at Love House

Actors: Kate Jackson

Synopsis: In this made-for-TV film, a screenwriter (Robert Wagner) begins writing the biography of the dead movie queen who had a brief affair with his father. After work on the project has commenced, he becomes obsessed with her spirit and gets a response from the other side of the grave. ~ John Bush, All Read More

Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams

Actors: Grant Code, Joanne Woodward, Martin Balsam, Sylvia Sidney, Dori Brenner, Teresa Hughes

Synopsis: American GI Harry Walden (Martin Balsam) emerged from a harrowing experience in WWII to find himself living an outwardly-happy but inwardly-empty and tedious existence in the post-war U.S. He is an eye doctor, successful in his work, but unfulfilled spiritually and emotionally. He and his wife Read More

Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate

Actors: Helen Hayes, Myrna Loy, Mildred Natwick, Sylvia Sidney, Vince Edwards

Synopsis: Helen Hayes, Mildred Natwick, Myrna Loy and Sylvia Sidney star as four elderly pranksters devoted to practical jokes. When one of the ladies gets hold of a computer-dating questionnaire, the others invent a mythical girl and feed the falsified information into the computer. Alas, the description Read More

Naked City: A Hole in the City

Playhouse 90: No Time at All

Actors: William Lundigan, Jane Greer, Betsy Palmer, Keenan Wynn, Cliff Edwards

Synopsis: Every so often, the prestigious 1950s CBS anthology Playhouse 90 would digress from its "live" format and offer a sumptuously produced film presentation. One of these was the suspenseful 1958 offering No Time at All, a fascinating precursor to the Airport films of the 1970s. On a routine night Read More

Behind the High Wall

Actors: Tom Tully, Sylvia Sidney, Betty Lynn, John Gavin, Don Beddoe

Synopsis: Behind the High Wall is a remake of the 1937 Jackie Cooper-Victor McLaglen film The Big Guy. Tom Tully plays prison warden Frank Carmichael, who is kidnapped during a jail break in which a policeman is killed. In an ensuing car crash, all the escapees are killed except young Johnny Hutchins (John Gavin Read More

Violent Saturday

Actors: Victor Mature, Richard Egan, Stephen McNally, Virginia Leith, Lee Marvin, Tommy Noonan

Synopsis: Three bank robbers (J. Carroll Naish, Lee Marvin, Stephen McNally) case a small Arizona mining town prior to pulling a holdup. The audience get to know the various townsfolk as they're scrutinized by the crooks. Victor Mature plays a man who is a disappointment to his son because he didn't serve Read More

Les Miserables

Actors: Michael Rennie, Debra Paget, Robert Newton, Edmund Gwenn, Sylvia Sidney

Synopsis: Not up to the classic 1935 presentation, this is still an excellent adaptation of Victor Hugo's epic novel. The familiar characters of Valjean and Javert and the agonies of injustice are all portrayed convincingly against a backdrop of 18th century France. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

Love from a Stranger

Actors: John Hodiak, John Howard, Ann Richards, Isobel Elsom

Synopsis: Based on the novel by Agatha Christie and play by Frank Vosper, Love From a Stranger isn't quite as good as the 1937 version of the same property. This time, Sylvia Sidney and John Hodiak play the roles originally filled by Ann Harding and Basil Rathbone. Falling under the romantic spell of Read More

The Searching Wind

Actors: Robert Young, Sylvia Sidney, Ann Richards, Dudley Digges, Douglas Dick, Albert Basserman

Synopsis: The troublesome years "between the wars" provide the backdrop for the romantic drama The Searching Wind. Adapted by Lillian Hellman from her own stage play, the film stars Robert Young as Alex Hazen, an idealistic but incredibly naïve US ambassador who fails to heed the warning signals when Read More

Mr. Ace

Actors: George Raft, Sylvia Sidney, Stanley Ridges, Sara Haden, Jerome Cowan

Synopsis: His movie career on a roll since the surprise success of 1946's Johnny Angel, George Raft was starred in the Benedict Bogeaus production Mister Ace. Raft plays Eddie Ace, the head man of a crooked political machine who intends to scuttle the gubernatorial campaign of female senator Margaret Read More

Blood on the Sun

Actors: James Cagney, Sylvia Sidney, Wallace Ford, Porter Hall, Robert Armstrong, John Emery, Rosemary de Camp

Synopsis: In his first film in two years, James Cagney stars as Nick Condon, the American editor of a pre-WW2 Tokyo newspaper. When two of his best friends are horribly murdered, Condon suspects that the "peaceful" Japanese military government is up to no good. He dedicates himself to getting his hands on Read More

The Wagons Roll at Night

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Sylvia Sidney, Eddie Albert, Joan Leslie, Sig Rumann

Synopsis: In the 1930s and 1940s, Warner Bros. developed a positive genius for remaking earlier films in new, disguised fashion, retaining the plotlines but altering the circumstances and character names. Wagons Roll at Night was a 1941 reworking of the prizefight drama Kid Galahad, filmed only four years Read More

One Third of a Nation

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Myron McCormick, Sidney Lumet

Synopsis: Adapted from a play which was originally produced by the Federal Theatre Project (part of the WPA), this is a film from the Depression era which shows the disparity between life in the slums and the life of the upper class. When a young man inherits a city block in the ghetto, he begins to meet Read More

You and Me

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, George Raft, Robert Cummings, Barton MacLane, Roscoe Karns

Synopsis: This film is one of acclaimed director Fritz Lang's less noted achievements, a mixture of romance, comedy, drama, and satire. It includes three songs by the famed Kurt Weill, including "The Right Guy for Me." George Raft plays Joe Dennis, an ex-convict working in a department store. The store's Read More

Dead End

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Joel McCrea, Humphrey Bogart, Wendy Barrie, Claire Trevor

Synopsis: Adapted by Lillian Hellman from Sidney Kingsley's Broadway play, Dead End concerns itself with several denizens of New York's East River district. Here the elite and the slum-dwellers rub shoulders due to the close proximity of the riverfront tenements with the East Side luxury hotels. Slum girl Read More

You Only Live Once

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, Barton MacLane, Jean Dixon, William Gargan

Synopsis: Archetypal depression-era stars Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney are felicitously teamed in Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once. Fonda plays an ex-convict who can't get a break on the "outside". He marries Sidney, who like her husband is one of life's losers. Framed on a murder rap, Fonda is forced to Read More

Sabotage

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Oscar Homolka, Desmond Tester, John Loder, Joyce Barbour

Synopsis: Oskar Homolka plays a London movie-theatre owner who maintains a secret life as a paid terrorist. Homolka's wife Sylvia Sidney doesn't suspect Homolka of any wrongdoing, but she's picked up enough second-hand information about her husband's activities to arouse the interest of government agent (John Loder Read More

Fury

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Sylvia Sidney, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis

Synopsis: Fritz Lang's first American film is a vigorous and perceptive indictment of mob law, starring Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sidney. Katherine (Sidney) leaves her boyfriend, Joe Wilson (Tracy), behind in their Midwestern hometown when she takes a job in another city. Joe is a decent, hard-working soul Read More

The Trail of the Lonesome Pine

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, Fred MacMurray, Fred Stone, Nigel Bruce

Synopsis: Paramount's first outdoor Technicolor feature, Trail of the Lonesome Pine was the third film version of John Fox Jr.'s novel. Inspired by the Hatfield-McCoy feud, the story is set in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia. Outsider Fred MacMurray arrives to clear the path for a new railroad. Read More

Behold My Wife

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Gene Raymond, Julie Compton, Laura Hope Crewes, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: A wealthy young heir rebels when his snooty parents refuse to allow him to marry a lovely young secretary. Deciding to teach them a lesson, he goes West where he falls in love and marries the daughter of a Native American chief. He brings her home to meet his parents, who are naturally appalled Read More

Mr. Music

Mary Burns, Fugitive

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Melvyn Douglas, Pert Kelton, Alan Baxter, Wallace Ford

Synopsis: An innocent but admittedly none-too-bright victim of circumstance, Mary Burns (played by perennial movie victim Sylvia Sidney) is inexorably sucked into the vortex of organized crime. She tries to escape her murderer husband Babe Wilson (Alan Baxter), but it's a losing proposition, especially Read More

Accent on Youth

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Herbert Marshall, Phillip Reed, Holmes Herbert, Catherine Doucet

Synopsis: Based on Samson Raphaelson's stage play, Accent on Youth focuses on a May-December romance. Herbert Marshall (46 years old at the time) is a successful middle-aged playwright; Constance Cummings is his young secretary, who prefers the company of mature men. She sets her cap on marrying the Read More

Thirty-Day Princess

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Cary Grant, Edward Arnold, Henry Stephenson, Vince Barnett

Synopsis: A European princess heads for New York in order to see if the U. S. will back her country's bond issue. Unfortunately, she is afflicted with the mumps and ordered to bed. This is an ill turn for the banker planning to issue the bonds for if the princess reneges upon her public engagements, the Read More

Good Dame

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Fredric March, Jack LaRue, Noel Francis, Russell Hopton

Synopsis: In this drama, two carneys, a card-sharp, and a peep-show performer, find themselves booted out of the show and decide to team up--platonically. They immediately get adjoining rooms in a hotel. Though the huckster constantly tries to romance the girl, she demurely rejects him. He comes to respect Read More

Pick-Up

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, George Raft, William Harrigan, Lillian Bond, Clarence H. Wilson

Synopsis: In this romantic drama, an ex-con conceals her criminal past and starts a new life with a kindly cab driver. Together, the two friends leave the city and move to the suburbs where she helps him set up an auto mechanic business. Though they are in love, they cannot marry for she is still legally Read More

Jennie Gerhardt

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Donald Cook, Mary Astor, Edward Arnold, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: This turn-of-the-century tragedy chronicles the sorrowful travails of a woman who endures a series of devastating losses. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Make Me a Star

Actors: Stuart Erwin, Joan Blondell, ZaSu Pitts, Ben Turpin, Charles Sellon

Synopsis: Joan Blondell, borrowed for the occasion from Warner Bros., earned top-billing in this delightful Hollywood parable, but the real star is of course Stuart Erwin as the irrepressible grocery clerk Merton Gill. Paramount screenwriters Saul Mintz, Walter De Leon and Arthur Kober based their witty Read More

The Miracle Man

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Chester Morris, Irving Pichel, John Wray, Robert Coogan

Synopsis: A San Francisco gangster hot foots it out of town to cool down after his crime boss is suddenly killed. He ends up in a little coastal town where he begins devising one of the nastiest little con games around. It seems there is a faith healer in town with the ability to help the crippled walk Read More

Madame Butterfly

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Cary Grant, Charlie Ruggles, Sandor Kallay, Irving Pichel

Synopsis: This adaptation of the Puccini opera jettisons all the music and retains only David Belasco's timeworn libretto. American actress Sylvia Sidney plays Japanese maiden Cio-Cio San, while Cary Grant is the dashing American navy lieutenant Pinkerton. The girl and the officer have a brief affair Read More

Merrily We Go to Hell

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Fredric March, Adrianne Allen

Synopsis: If only Merrily We Go To Hell was as interesting as its title! To escape an arranged marriage, heiress Joan Prentice (Sylvia Sidney) elopes with reporter Jerry Corbett (Fredric March). Unfortunately, Corbett is not only irresponsible, but also an abusive drunkard. To make matters worse, predatory Read More

Ladies of the Big House

Actors: Sylvia Sidney,