Tor JohnsonFilmography

Bonanza: San Francisco Holiday

Actors: Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Kathleen Crowley

Synopsis: At the end of a cattle drive, the Cartwrights and their cowhands look forward to rest and relaxation in San Francisco, Instead, two of Ben's gullible drovers are shanghaied on a boat bound for Hong Kong. While searching for his missing employees, Ben is himself shanghaied, forcing Hoss and Joe to Read More

Night of the Ghouls

Actors: Criswell, Kenne Duncan, Duke Moore, Tor Johnson, Valda Hansen

Synopsis: Night of the Ghouls (which was also known as Revenge of the Dead) was Edward D. Wood Jr.'s first attempt at making a horror film without any contribution, either in a true performance or through the presence of archival footage, from Bela Lugosi, who had died three years earlier. The plot, which Read More

The Man Who Turned to Stone

Actors: Victor Jory, Ann Doran, Charlotte Austin, William Hudson, Paul Cavanagh

Synopsis: The secret to immortality is thus: to rejuvenate tired bones and muscles and retain that youthful feeling forever, simply place nubile young women in a vat filled with chemicals, attach wires to their heads and suck out their life forces Warning: If after the first dosage subsequent treatments are not promptly administered, irreversible petrification will occur in all cases. Read More

The Unearthly

Actors: John Carradine, Allison Hayes, Sally Todd, Marilyn Buferd

Synopsis: Republic's The Unearthly was originally released on a double bill with The Beginning of the End. John Carradine chews the scenery as Professor Conway, who claims to have discovered a gland which enables his patients to live forever. Alas, most of Conway's human experiments are failures, left to Read More

Journey to Freedom

Synopsis: In this espionage thriller, Communist agents pursue a fleeing activist for "Voice of Freedom" from Bulgaria to the United States. Along the way he falls in love with a supportive nurse who helps him recuperate from an injury. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Plan 9 from Outer Space

Actors: Criswell, Tor Johnson, Maila "Vampira" Nurmi, Carl Anthony, Bela Lugosi, Mona McKinnon, Gregory Walcott

Synopsis: With its incoherent plot, jaw-droppingly odd dialogue, inept acting, threadbare production design, and special effects so shoddy that they border on the surreal, Plan 9 From Outer Space has often been called the worst movie ever made. But it's an oddly endearing disaster; boasting genuine Read More

The Black Sleep

Actors: Basil Rathbone, Akim Tamiroff, Lon Chaney, Jr., John Carradine, Bela Lugosi, Herbert Rudley, Tor Johnson

Synopsis: Given its cast and director, it is disheartening that The Black Sleep isn't any better than it is. Basil Rathbone heads the cast as Sir Joel Cadman, who uses a mind-controlling drug known as "The Black Sleep" to place brilliant scientist Gordon Ramsay (Herbert Rudley) under his control. Cadman Read More

Carousel

Actors: Gordon MacRae, Shirley Jones, Cameron Mitchell, Barbara Ruick, Claramae Turner, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: Carousel was adapted from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical of the same name--which, in turn, was based on Liliom, a play by Ferenc Molnar. Gordon MacRae stars as carnival barker Billy Bigelow, who much against his will falls in love with Maine factory girl Julie Jordan (Shirley Jones Read More

Bride of the Monster

Actors: Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson, Tony McCoy, Loretta King, Harvey B. Dunn

Synopsis: To most outside observers, Bride of the Monster probably seems like a ridiculously inept horror film, and in many ways it is just that. To connoisseurs of the work of director Edward D. Wood Jr., however, it is the biggest budgeted film in his entire output, made with the resources of a normal Read More

Houdini

Actors: Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Torin Thatcher, Angela Clarke, Stefan Schnabel, Douglas Spencer

Synopsis: This highly fanciful but immensely entertaining biopic stars Tony Curtis as legendary magician/escape-artist Harry Houdini. Janet Leigh, Mrs. Tony Curtis at the time, co-stars as Houdini's wife Bess, while Angela Clarke is seen as Houdini's mother. The film follows Houdini's progress from sideshow Read More

The San Francisco Story

Actors: Joel McCrea, Yvonne De Carlo, Sidney Blackmer, Richard Erdman, Florence Bates

Synopsis: Joel McCrea plays 19th-century miner Rick Nelson in The San Francisco Story. The year is 1856, and Frisco is a wide-open town. To stem the activities of crooks and con artists, newspaper editor Jim Martin (Onslow Stevens) organizes a group of peace-keeping vigilantes. Nelson, an old friend of Read More

The Lemon Drop Kid

Actors: Bob Hope, Marilyn Maxwell, Lloyd Nolan, Jane Darwell, Andrea King, Fred Clark

Synopsis: Damon Runyon's Broadway fable The Lemon Drop Kid was filmed twice by Paramount Pictures, but only the 1934 version with Lee Tracy paid more than lip service to the original Runyon story. The second version, filmed in 1951, was completely retooled to accommodate the talents of Bob Hope. Known far Read More

Abbott & Costello in the Foreign Legion

Actors: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Patricia Medina, Walter Slezak, Douglas Dumbrille

Synopsis: Bud Abbott and Lou Costello play wrestling promoters whose star attraction, Wee Willie Davis, skips town to return to his home in Arabia. While scouring the desert in search of Davis, Bud and Lou inadvertently purchase slave girl Patricia Medina, and with equal inadvertence join the Foreign Read More

Behind Locked Doors

Actors: Lucille Bremer, Richard Carlson, Douglas Fowley, Herbert Heyes

Synopsis: Behind the locked doors of a mental institution resides crooked politico Judge Drake (Herbert Heyes), free from prosecution so long as he pretends to be crazy. To get the goods on Drake, private detective Ross Stewart (Richard Carlson) has himself committed to the asylum as a patient. Meanwhile Read More

State of the Union

Actors: Florence Auer, Spencer Tracy, Irving Bacon, Katharine Hepburn, Van Johnson, Art Baker, Angela Lansbury, Adolphe Menjou, Tom Fadden

Synopsis: Frank Capra's only MGM film, State of the Union was adapted by Anthony Veiller and Myles Connolly from the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse. Spencer Tracy plays an aircraft tycoon who is coerced into seeking the Republican Presidential nomination by predatory Read More

Road to Rio

Actors: Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Gale Sondergaard, Frank Faylen

Synopsis: Road to Rio was the first of three "Road" pictures jointly produced by stars Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. On the run from the law again, musicians Bob and Bing stow away on an ocean liner. They try to come to the rescue of heiress Dorothy Lamour, who is doomed to an arranged marriage to caddish George Meeker Read More

Sudan

Actors: Maria Montez, Turhan Bey, Jon Hall, Andy Devine, George Zucco

Synopsis: In another of her series of romantic desert adventures, popular actress Maria Montez is this time Naila, the newly crowned queen of an ancient Egyptian land. Her father the king has just been assassinated and she intends to make those responsible pay for their crime. She sets out into the desert Read More

Ghost Catchers

Actors: Ole Olsen, Chic Johnson, Gloria Jean, Martha O'Driscoll, Andy Devine, Leo Carrillo

Synopsis: Colonel Breckinridge Marshall (Walter Catlett) of Clearwater, GA -- who puts on a big front but is actually only a step away from the poor house -- rents a luxurious townhouse in Manhattan in anticipation of the Carnegie Hall debut of his two daughters, singer Melinda (Gloria Jean) and Read More

Lost in a Harem

Actors: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Marilyn Maxwell, John Conte, Douglas Dumbrille

Synopsis: Lost in a Harem is arguably the best of Abbott & Costello's trio of MGM films; it's certainly the silliest, with any number of nonsensical plot twists and sidesplitting gags. This time, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello play Pete and Harvey, two American magicians stranded in a mythical Arabian Nights Read More

Swing out the Blues

Actors: Bob Haymes, Lynn Merrick

Synopsis: Singer Bob Haymes (not Dick Haymes, as has sometimes been reported) heads the cast of Columbia's Swing Out the Blues. The film is partly a parody of The Goodwill Court, a popular radio problem hosted by advice-dispenser "Mr. Anthony". The host of a "What's your problem?" radio hour tries to smooth Read More

The Meanest Man in the World

Actors: Jack Benny, Priscilla Lane, Edmund Gwenn, Matt Briggs

Synopsis: The old George M. Cohan theatrical chestnut The Meanest Man in the World was retailored for the screen to accommodate the talents of Jack Benny and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson. Benny plays small-town lawyer Richard Clark, whose soft-heartedness and sense of justice loses him case after case. Read More

Shadow of the Thin Man

Actors: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Barry Nelson, Donna Reed, Sam Levene

Synopsis: This fourth entry in MGM's Thin Man series could just as well have been titled "Nick and Nora Charles Go to the Races". Officially retired from sleuthing, Nick Charles (William Powell) does his best to be a dutiful husband to his lovely wife Nora (Myrna Loy) and a good father to his young son Nick Read More

Under Two Flags

Actors: Ronald Colman, Claudette Colbert, Victor McLaglen, Rosalind Russell, Gregory Ratoff

Synopsis: Two silent film versions preceded this 1936 Hollywood adaptation of the 19th century novel by the writer Ouida Bergere. It is set in Saharan Africa but was filmed in the Arizona desert. Ronald Colman is Corporal Victor, a man who has taken the rap for a crime committed by his younger brother. Read More

The Man on the Flying Trapeze

Actors: W.C. Fields, Mary Brian, Kathleen Howard, Grady Sutton, Vera Lewis

Synopsis: W.C. Fields plays Ambrose Wolfinger, the henpecked husband to end all henpecked husbands. A widower, Ambrose married a second time only to provide a mother for his pretty daughter (Mary Brian). What he got was an overbearing harpy of a wife (Kathleen Howard), a fussy and imperious mother-in-law (Vera Lewis Read More

Kid Millions

Actors: Eddie Cantor, Stanley Fields, Ann Sothern, Ethel Merman, Doris Davenport, George Murphy, Otto Hoffman, Eve Sully, Paul Harvey

Synopsis: Brooklyn tugboat worker Eddie (Eddie Cantor), bullied and cowed by his tough-guy stepfather and stepbrothers (a la Harold Lloyd's The Kid Brother), inherits $77 million from his uncle, an Egyptologist. Con artist Dot (Ethel Merman) wants to get her lunchhooks on the money, and to this end offers Read More