Theodore Von Eltz Filmography

The Sea Around Us

Synopsis: Based on the best-selling book by Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us is a superior underwater documentary. Produced by future "master of disaster" Irwin Allen, the film offers footage culled from several marine expeditions all over the world. The film's basic thesis: That mankind may someday face Read More

Trial without Jury

Actors: Robert Rockwell, Barbara Fuller, Kent Taylor, Audrey Long, Stanley Waxman, K. Elmo Lowe

Synopsis: Western director Philip Ford switches gears by helming the crime melodrama Trial without Jury. Robert Rockwell stars as Bill Peters, a young playwright specializing in murder mysteries. Hoping to freshen up his latest play, Bill uses a recent real-life murder as inspiration. While on a research Read More

The Devil's Cargo

Actors: John Calvert, Rochelle Hudson, Roscoe Karns, Lyle Talbot, Tom Kennedy

Synopsis: Dropped by RKO Radio in 1946, the "Falcon" mystery series was briefly revived by low-budget Film Classics productions in 1948. In Devil's Cargo, professional magician-turned-actor John Calvert takes over from Tom Conway in the role of amateur sleuth Michael Waring, aka The Falcon. The story gets Read More

The Big Sleep

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers, Charles D. Brown

Synopsis: The definitive Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall vehicle, The Big Sleep casts Bogart as Raymond Chandler's cynical private eye Philip Marlowe. Summoned to the home of the fabulously wealthy General Sternwood (Charles Waldron), Marlowe is hired to deal with a blackmailer shaking down the General's Read More

Rhapsody in Blue

Actors: Robert Alda, Joan Leslie, Alexis Smith, Charles Coburn, Oscar Levant, Julie Bishop

Synopsis: There's slightly more fancy than fact in this lavish film biography of legendary American composer George Gershwin, but oh! That music! Director Irving Rapper had wanted Tyrone Power to play Gershwin, but Power was still serving in the Marines, so Rapper had to settle for Robert Alda--who isn't Read More

Saratoga Trunk

Actors: Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Flora Robson, Jerry Austin, John Warburton

Synopsis: Ingrid Bergman and Gary Cooper paired off again after For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) with this overwrought melodrama based on the romance novel by Edna Ferber. Bergman plays Clio Dulaine, a beautiful half-Creole woman whose return to 1875 New Orleans from Paris creates a stir. Born out of wedlock Read More

Hollywood Canteen

Actors: The Andrews Sisters, Robert Hutton, Joan Leslie, Jack Benny, Julie Bishop, Bette Davis, John Garfield, Betty Brodel, Sydney Greenstreet, Barbara Brown

Synopsis: The West Coast's answer to Broadway's Stage Door Canteen, the Hollywood Canteen was created as a GI morale-booster by film stars Bette Davis and John Garfield. The Canteen was established so that Our Boys on leave in Tinseltown could have a good time with good food and good dancing -- and, as a Read More

Since You Went Away

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple, Monty Woolley, Agnes Moorehead

Synopsis: David O. Selznick's first production since 1940's Rebecca, Since You Went Away, based on Margaret Buell Wilder's bestselling novel, is a long but rewarding paean to the World War 2 "home front". Claudette Colbert plays the wife of a businessman who, though well past draft age, volunteered to serve Read More

Bermuda Mystery

Actors: Preston S. Foster, Ann Rutherford, Charles Butterworth, Jean Howard

Synopsis: This 20th Century-Fox programmer stars Preston Foster as breezy detective Steve Carromond. When a man dies of a suspicious heart attack, the victim's niece, Constance Martin (Ann Rutherford), hires Steve to investigate. The solution to the mystery lies in a tontine-like arrangement, wherein six Read More

Follow the Boys

Actors: George Raft, Vera Zorina, Charles Grapewin, George Macready, Charles Butterworth, Regis Toomey, Grace McDonald

Synopsis: Paramount Pictures did their patriotic duty with this World War II era musical, with a number of the studio's biggest stars making cameo appearances. Tony West (George Raft), his sister Kitty (Grace McDonald), and their father Nick (Charles Grapewin) tour together as The Three Wests, a failing act Read More

Flight for Freedom

Actors: Rosalind Russell, Fred MacMurray, Herbert Marshall, Walter Kingsford

Synopsis: Flight for Freedom was an "a clef" version of the Amelia Earhart story. Rosalind Russell plays the Earhart-like aviatrix Tonie Carter, who spends the early part of the film fighting against the aviation industry's prejudice against woman pilots. Tonie establishes a reputation as "the Lady Read More

Air Force

Actors: John Ridgely, Gig Young, Arthur Kennedy, Harry Carey, Charles Drake

Synopsis: On December 6, 1941, a squadron of nine B-17 bombers takes off for Hickam Field, HI. The crew of the Mary Ann, including two new men, assistant radio man Private Chester (Ray Montgomery) and gunner Sergeant Joe Winocki (John Garfield), assembles for the flight, and in the first 20 minutes, the Read More

Quiet Please, Murder

Actors: George Sanders, Gail Patrick, Richard Denning, Lynne Roberts, Sidney Blackmer

Synopsis: A public library at night is the setting for this fast-moving crime caper. George Sanders is a gentleman crook specializing in selling forgeries of rare books. In the company of phony policemen, Sanders enters the library unmolested and pilfers a priceless Shakespeare folio in order to expedite Read More

The Man in the Trunk

Actors: Lynne Roberts, George Holmes, Raymond Walburn, J. Carrol Naish, Dorothy Peterson

Synopsis: Man in the Trunk is a variation on the "Topper" theme, with Raymond Walburn carrying the weight of the film as a restless ghost. Ten years before the story proper gets under way, bookie Jim Cheevers (Walburn) is murdered and his body is stuffed in a trunk. When the trunk is opened, all that Read More

The Great Man's Lady

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Brian Donlevy, Thurston Hall, Lloyd Corrigan

Synopsis: This rambling historical drama covers 109 years in the life of one woman. Encased in convincing old-age makeup, Barbara Stanwyck reminisces on her experiences in the American West. As a young woman, she is squired by gambler Brian Donlevy, but her heart belongs to dreamer Joel McCrea. She chooses Read More

A Shot in the Dark

Actors: William Lundigan, Nan Wynn, Regis Toomey, Ricardo Cortez, Maris Wrixon

Synopsis: The oft-used title A Shot in the Dark was affixed in 1941 to this Warner Bros. B-picture. Much of the film takes place in the big-city nightclub owned by shady Phil Richards (Ricardo Cortez). When the prospective buyer of Richards' establishment is murdered, there's no shortage of suspects, but Read More

Sergeant York

Actors: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie, Ward Bond, Margaret Wycherly, Stanley Ridges

Synopsis: When World War I hero Alvin York agreed to sell the movie rights to his life story to Warner Bros., it was on three conditions: (1) That the film contains no phony heroics, (2) that Mrs.York not be played by a Hollywood "glamour girl" and (3) That Gary Cooper portray York on screen. All three Read More

I'll Wait for You

Actors: Robert Sterling, Marsha Hunt, Virginia Weidler, Paul Kelly, Fay Holden

Synopsis: The title I'll Wait for You effectively gives away the ending of this MGM second feature. Robert Sterling plays a gangster on the lam who heads for the safety of the country. He accepts the hospitality of a farm family, who has no knowledge of his true identity. Reformed by the family's daughter Marsha Hunt Read More

Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery

Actors: Ralph Bellamy, Margaret Lindsay, Charles Grapewin, James Burke

Synopsis: Like the first entry in Columbia's "Ellery Queen" series, Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery depicts its amateur-criminologist hero as an oafish ignoramus. This time around, Chinese ventriloquist Gordon Cobb (Noel Madison), is murdered by a gang of jewel thieves. Baffled by the contradictory clues Read More

The Son of Monte Cristo

Actors: Louis Hayward, Joan Bennett, George Sanders, Florence Bates, Lionel Royce

Synopsis: Though set in 1865, The Son of Monte Cristo is a thinly disguised indictment against 20th century dictatorships. Louis Hayward plays the title character, Edmond Dantes Jr., who while posing as an epicene dandy works tirelessly to topple the regime of fascistic Balkan despot Count Gurko (George Read More

Life with Henry

Actors: Jackie Cooper, Leila Ernst, Eddie Bracken, Hedda Hopper

Synopsis: The box-office success of Paramount's What a Life (1939), coupled with the popularity of the spinoff Henry Aldrich radio series, inspired the studio to launch an "Aldrich" series of its own. The inagural entry was Life with Henry, with Jackie Cooper repeating his role as befuddled teenager Henry Read More

Little Old New York

Actors: Alice Faye, Fred MacMurray, Richard Greene, Brenda Joyce, Andy Devine

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1923 as a vehicle for Marion Davies, Rida Johnson Young's warhorse theatrical property Little Old New York was dusted off by 20th Century-Fox for Alice Faye, Fred MacMurray and Richard Greene. The latter plays the nominal lead, Scottish inventor Robert Fulton, who in 1807 Read More

Kitty Foyle

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, James Craig, Eduardo Ciannelli, Ernest Cossart

Synopsis: Though Ginger Rogers' starring vehicles always turned a profit for RKO Radio, many filmgoers thought of Rogers only in terms of "Fred Astaire's partner." Others considered her a delightful comedienne, but no great shakes as a dramatic actress. Thus it was both a personal and professional triumph Read More

The Great Plane Robbery

Actors: Jack Holt, Stanley Fields, Vicki Lester, Noel Madison, Granville Owen

Synopsis: It's ironic that leading man Jack Holt, who in real life was deathly afraid of flying, should appear in so many aviation-oriented pictures. In The Great Plane Robbery, racketeer Joe Colson (Noel Madison) is released from jail three months before the expiration of his $500,000 life insurance Read More

A Dispatch from Reuters

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Edna Best, Eddie Albert, Albert Basserman, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: As part of his new contract with Warner Bros., Edward G. Robinson agreed to appear in the gangster comedy Brother Orchid on the condition that the studio permit him to play the leading role in the lavish biopic A Dispatch from Reuters. Robinson is cast as Baron Paul Julius Reiter, who in 1833 Read More

Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Ruth Gordon, Otto Kruger, Donald Crisp, Maria Ouspenskaya

Synopsis: Edward G. Robinson portrays real-life German medical researcher Paul Erlich, the man who discovered and perfected "Formula 606," the cure for syphilis. The world at large would prefer to treat the disease as though it does not exist, so Erlich spends most of his life underfunded and frustrated. A Read More

The Old Swimmin' Hole

Actors: Jackie Moran, Marcia Mae Jones, Leatrice Joy, Charles D. Brown, Theodore Von Eltz

Synopsis: Longtime "Our Gang" director Robert McGowan wielded the megaphone for the laid-back Monogram drama Old Swimming Hole. Jackie Moran and Marcia Mae Jones, whom the studio was hoping to develop into a screen team, star as Chris and Betty, bucolic sweethearts who hope to play matchmaker for Chris' Read More

The Saint Takes Over

Actors: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, Jonathan Hale, Paul Guilfoyle, Morgan Conway

Synopsis: In this fourth film in RKO's series based on Leslie Charteris' modern Robin Hood "The Saint", George Sanders plays Simon Templar, alias the title character. The Saint's quarry is a ring of gamblers who have been fixing horse races. Inspector Fernack (Jonathan Hale), the Saint's friendly adversary Read More

Legion of Lost Flyers

Actors: Richard Arlen, Andy Devine, Anne Nagel, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams

Synopsis: Legion of Lost Flyers is a typically action-packed entry in Universal's Richard Arlen-Andy Devine series (if one can call a group of thematically unconnected B-pictures a "series"). This time, heroes Loop Gillian (Arlen) and Beff Brumley (Devine) are, respectively, a pilot and mechanic for an Read More

They Made Her a Spy

Actors: Sally Eilers, Fritz Leiber, Frank M. Thomas, Theodore Von Eltz

Synopsis: In this espionage drama, a young woman enrolls in the US Army Intelligence Corps so she can avenge her brother's death. She is assisted by a rookie reporter who helps her investigate a spy ring. They think they know the leader, but things are not as they seem. The film's climax involves an Read More

The Sun Never Sets

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Basil Rathbone, Barbara O'Neil, Lionel Atwill, Virginia Field

Synopsis: In this patriotic British adventure, two courageous brothers try to keep war from erupting in Africa and stop a megalomaniacal arms baron from ruling the world. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle

Actors: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edna May Oliver, Walter Brennan, Lew Fields

Synopsis: The last of RKO's Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicles, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle is also the least typical. At their best playing carefree characters in gossamer-thin musical comedy plotlines, Fred and Ginger seem slightly ill at ease cast as the real-life dancing team of Vernon and Read More

Inside Story

Actors: Michael Whalen, Jean Rogers, Chick Chandler, Douglas Fowley

Synopsis: In this heartwarming drama, a good-hearted reporter attempts to find the loneliest woman in New York so he can give her an old-fashioned Christmas on a farm. He meets a woman whom he thinks is a stenographer. In reality she is a hard-bitten nightclub owner with no Christmas spirit at all. By Read More

Fifth Avenue Girl

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Walter Connolly, Veree Teasdale, James Ellison, Tim Holt

Synopsis: A wealthy older man and a poor young woman each get a chance to see how the other half lives in this comedy. Alfred Borden (Walter Connolly) is a millionaire who feels neglected by his family. His wife Martha (Verree Teasdale), daughter Katherine (Kathryn Adams), and son Tim (Tim Holt) usually Read More

Land of Liberty

Synopsis: Originally designed for exhibition at the 1939 World's Fair, Land of Liberty is a 137-minute compendium of filmclips from past American historical epics. The project was sponsored by the Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America, Inc. and supervised by Cecil B. DeMille, who also edited Read More

The Night of Nights

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Olympe Bradna, Roland Young, Reginald Gardiner, George E. Stone

Synopsis: Directed by Lewis Milestone nine years after taking home the best director Academy Award for All Quiet on the Western Front, this backstage drama stars Pat O'Brien as Dan O'Farrell, a boozy Broadway producer who makes his way back to show-business after a long absence. As a young man, O'Farrell Read More

Pardon Our Nerve

Actors: Lynn Bari, June Gale, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, Michael Whalen, Edward S. Brophy

Synopsis: A sequel of sorts to 1938's Meet the Girls, Pardon Our Nerve stars as Lynn Bari and June Gale (replacing June Lang) as intrepid chorus girls Terry Wilson and Judy Davis. Unable to find any showbiz work, our heroines take jobs with a dating service. Before getting fired as usual, Terry and Judy Read More

A Letter of Introduction

Actors: Adolphe Menjou, Andrea Leeds, Edgar Bergen, George Murphy, Rita Johnson

Synopsis: A master blend of high comedy and tense emotional drama, A Letter of Introduction reteams Adolphe Menjou, Andrea Leeds, and Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy, who'd previously costarred in the negligible Goldwyn Follies. Menjou plays John Mannering, a Barrymoresque actor who years earlier had Read More

Delinquent Parents

Actors: Doris Weston, Maurice Murphy, Helen MacKellar, Terry Walker, Carlyle Moore, Jr.

Synopsis: Drawing heavily on both Madame X and Stella Dallas, this cheap exploitation-melodrama was produced by the ill-named Progressive Pictures at the newly formed Grand National studios. The parents of the title are Edythe Ellis (Marjorie Reynolds) and Charles Wharton (Carlyle Moore Jr.), who are forced Read More

Blondes at Work

Actors: Glenda Farrell, Barton MacLane, Tom Kennedy, Rosella Towne, Donald Briggs

Synopsis: Blondes at Work is number four in Warner Bros.' lively "Torchy Blane" series. Glenda Farrell returns as girl reporter Torchy Blane, she of the mile-a-minute mouth, while Barton MacLane is back as Torchy's boyfriend/sparring partner, police lieutenant Steve McBride. The story revolves around Read More

Smashing the Rackets

Actors: Chester Morris, Frances Mercer, Bruce Cabot, Rita Johnson, Donald Douglas

Synopsis: "Ripped from today's headlines", RKO Radio's Smashing the Rackets was inspired by the career of colorful New York district attorney Thomas E. Dewey. Chester Morris plays the Dewey character, here rechristened Jim Conway. Starting out as a G-Man, Conway is appointed special prosecutor of a Read More

I Cover Chinatown

Actors: Norman Foster, Elaine Shepard, Theodore Von Eltz, Polly Ann Young, Arthur Lake

Synopsis: A woman is brutally strangled and her body stuffed into a suitcase in this otherwise rather frivolous low-budget thriller. The unfortunate woman is one Myra Duryea (Polly Ann Young), who has discovered that her husband Clark (Theodore von Eltz) and his equally unsavory brother Victor (Edward Read More

The Adventures of Marco Polo

Actors: Gary Cooper, Sigrid Gurie, Basil Rathbone, George Barbier, Binnie Barnes

Synopsis: Gary Cooper stars in this lavish and often comic retelling of the life of the famed Italian explorer. Marco Polo (Cooper) crosses the sea in search of treasure and adventure, with the help of his loyal if cowardly sidekick Binguccio (Ernest Truex), and finds both in China, where as the nation's Read More

I Am the Law

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Barbara O'Neil, Wendy Barrie, Otto Kruger

Synopsis: I Am the Law is arguably the best of the late-1930s films inspired by the racket-busting career of New York district attorney Thomas E. Dewey. Edward G. Robinson switches to the right side of the law as the Dewey counterpart, here named John Lindsay (!) A feisty, no-nonsense law professor, Lindsay Read More

Marie Antoinette

Actors: Norma Shearer, Tyrone Power, John Barrymore, Robert Morley, Anita Louise, Joseph Schildkraut

Synopsis: M.G.M.'s opulent costume drama Marie Antoinette marked a return to the screen after a two-year absence for reigning Queen of M.G.M. Norma Shearer. Shearer plays the title role of an Austrian princess who is married off to Louis Auguste (Robert Morley), the Dauphin of France. Marie, by becoming the Read More

Jim Hanvey, Detective

Actors: Guy Kibbee, Tom Brown, Catherine Doucet, Edward S. Brophy

Synopsis: In this detective story, a super sleuth is hired by an insurance company to find a stolen emerald belonging to a rich man's daughter. He soon discovers that the theft was a hoax precipitated by the girl's boyfriend, an aspiring novelist doing research for his forthcoming novel. Real trouble ensues Read More

Mind Your Own Business

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Alice Brady, Lyle Talbot, Ben Baker, Jack LaRue

Synopsis: In this drama, a Boy Scout leader hosts a local gossip show. Trouble ensues when he predicts a politician's murder just before it occurs. He is arrested by the DA, but before getting to jail, he is abducted by irate gangsters--the real killers. Fortunately, his loyal Scout troop rallies to his Read More

Under Cover of Night

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Florence Rice, Nat Pendleton, Henry Daniell, Sara Haden

Synopsis: For a studio specializing in glossy soap operas, costume pictures and musicals, MGM made an inordinate number of "B"-grade crime thrillers in 1937. The first on the docket that year was Under Cover of Night, starring Edmund Lowe as intrepid sleuth Christopher Cross. This time the killer is an Read More

The Emperor's Candlesticks

Actors: William Powell, Luise Rainer, Robert Young, Maureen O'Sullivan, Frank Morgan

Synopsis: Baroness Orczy, author of The Scarlet Pimpernel, came up with the story upon which The Emperor's Candlesticks was based. As in Pimpernel, the theme is international intrigue, but this time the setting is pre-World War One Europe and Russia rather than Revolutionary France. William Powell and Luise Rainer Read More

The Westland Case

Actors: Preston S. Foster, Carolyn Hughes, Barbara Pepper, Frank Jenks, Astrid Allwyn

Synopsis: The Westland Case was the opening volley in Universal's "Crime Club" series. The film was based on Headed for a Hearse, a novel by Jonathan Latimer which had to be toned down considerably for the filmgoers' consumption. Latimer's cynical private-eye team of Bill Crane and Doc Williams are here Read More

A Man Betrayed

Actors: Eddie Nugent, Kay Hughes, Lloyd Hughes, John Wray

Synopsis: The Man Betrayed in this Republic actioner is hero Eddie Nugent, though this doesn't occur until the film is half over. Framed for a murder he didn't commit, Nugent finds support from an unlikely corner: a group of crooks, led by John Wray, set about to prove the boy's innocence. All of this meets Read More

Clarence

Actors: Eleanore Whitney, Eugene Pallette, Inez Courtney

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1921 with Wallace Reid, Booth Tarkington's stage comedy Clarence proved a worthwhile screen vehicle for Roscoe Karns. The title character is a resourceful young man who knows a whole little about a whole lot of things, and who concentrates by playing his saxophone. Clarence Read More

Youth on Parole

Actors: Marian Marsh, Gordon Oliver, Margaret Dumont, Peggy Shannon, Miles Mander

Synopsis: Sentenced to prison for a crime they did not commit, a desperate pair of young lovers attempts to capture the culprits responsible for framing them and destroying their lives. Philip and Bonnie were two strangers with little in common, that is until they were framed for a daring daytime jewelry Read More

Stage Door

Actors: Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, Gail Patrick, Constance Collier

Synopsis: Adapted from the Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman play, Stage Door is a comedic portrait of the theatrical community in New York. Katharine Hepburn stars as Terry Randall a young woman who comes from a wealthy, socially connected family. Aspiring for a career on the stage, Terry opts to see if Read More

California Straight Ahead

Actors: John Wayne, Louise Latimer, Robert McWade, Theodore Von Eltz, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: This action drama features John Wayne in an early, non western role. He plays a trucker who owns half of a small but increasingly successful trucking firm. When Duke's company begins stealing business away from LeRoy Mason's firm, Mason retaliates by engineering the violent death of Wayne's Read More