Walter Huston Filmography

The Great Sinner

Actors: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Melvyn Douglas, Walter Huston, Ethel Barrymore

Synopsis: Based loosely on the Dostoyevsky novel, The Gambler stars Gregory Peck as a sensitive 19th-century Russian author. His "great sin" is gambling, which starts when he attempts to rescue aristocratic Ava Gardner from the gaming tables. He succeeds, only to lose himself to gambling fever, which costs Read More

Summer Holiday

Actors: John Alexander, Mickey Rooney, Gloria de Haven, Walter Huston, Ruth Brady, Virginia Brissac, Frank Morgan, Agnes Moorehead

Synopsis: Summer Holiday is a musical remake of the 1935 MGM comedy-drama Ah, Wilderness!, which in turn was adapted from the play by Eugene O'Neill. Mickey Rooney (who played a supporting role in the 1935 film) stars as O'Neill's alter ego Richard Miller, a young man coming of age in early 20th century New Read More

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett, Barton MacLane

Synopsis: John Huston's 1948 treasure-hunt classic begins as drifter Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart), down and out in Tampico, Mexico, impulsively spends his last bit of dough on a lottery ticket. Later on, Dobbs and fellow indigent Curtin (Tim Holt) seek shelter in a cheap flophouse and meet Howard (Walter Huston Read More

Dragonwyck

Actors: Gene Tierney, Spring Byington, Walter Huston, Vincent Price, Scott Elliott, Ruth Ford, Glenn Langan, Anne Revere, Keith Hitchcock

Synopsis: Years before he became the leading star in horror movies, Vincent Price starred in this gothic thriller based on the best-selling novel by Anya Seton. Nicholas Van Ryn (Vincent Price) is a wealthy feudal heir of Dutch ancestry living in New York's Hudson Valley in the 1840s. Nicholas has come to Read More

Duel in the Sun

Actors: Griff Barnett, Jennifer Jones, Gregory Peck, Charles Bickford, Joseph Cotten, Sidney Blackmer, Lionel Barrymore, Harry Carey, Lillian Gish

Synopsis: In David O. Selznick's Duel in the Sun, Jennifer Jones stars as half-breed Pearl Chavez, whom everyone has tagged as a "bad girl" foredoomed to an unhappy end. She is taken into the home of wealthy, greedy rancher McCanles (Lionel Barrymore) and his kindly wife Laura Belle (Lillian Gish), who'd Read More

Let There Be Light

Synopsis: At the request of the Signal Corps, John Huston made a wartime documentary of the emotionally disturbed war veterans being treated at Mason General Hospital. For three months, Huston immersed himself in the project, observing the various methods used to pull these shattered-in-spirit men out of Read More

And Then There Were None

Actors: Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Louis Hayward, Roland Young, June Duprez

Synopsis: Based on the classic novel by mystery author Agatha Christie that was later adapted as the Broadway hit Ten Little Indians , And Then There Were None begins with ten characters, each with a skeleton in his or her closet, on a remote island off the English coast. They soon realize that they have Read More

Dragon Seed

Actors: Katharine Hepburn, Walter Huston, Aline MacMahon, Akim Tamiroff, J. Carrol Naish, Turhan Bey

Synopsis: This lavish, 145-minute cinemadaptation of the Pearl Buck best-seller Dragon Seed was intended by MGM as a followup to the studio's successful film version of Buck's The Good Earth. In true Hollywood fashion, the Chinese protagonists are all played by Caucasian actors, with fascinating if not Read More

The North Star

Actors: Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan, Farley Granger, Ann Harding

Synopsis: In this bit of WWII propaganda (designed to boost support of America's alliance with Russia against Germany), Kolya (Dana Andrews), Kurin (Walter Huston), Damian (Farley Granger), and Marina (Anne Baxter) are members of a farming collective in the Ukraine known as the North Star. The hard-working Read More

The Outlaw

Actors: Jack Buetel, Jane Russell, Thomas Mitchell, Walter Huston, Mimi Aguglia

Synopsis: Perhaps Hollywood's greatest success du scandal of the 1940s, this odd psychological Western became a box office hit largely thanks to the costuming of leading lady Jane Russell (or, more accurately, its relative absence). Billy the Kid (Jack Buetel) and Doc Holliday (Walter Huston) are Read More

The Battle of Britain

Actors: Walter Huston

Synopsis: The Battle of Britain was the fourth of the US government's Why We Fight documentaries. The film uses newsreel footage and a few re-created scenes to illustrate the courage of the British people under the bombardment of Hitler's Luftwaffe. Much is made of the fact that Britain stood alone in 1940 Read More

December 7th

Actors: Walter Huston, Harry Davenport, Dana Andrews

Synopsis: Produced on behalf of the U.S. government, December 7th is just as slick and professional as any of director John Ford's "civilian" films. With the not inconsiderable contribution of cinematographer Gregg Toland, Ford literally recreates the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, and even manages to build Read More

Report from the Aleutians

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The semi-feature-length wartime documentary Report From the Aleutians was written and directed by Captain John Huston. It was one of three such films turned out between 1942 and 1945 while Huston was assigned to the Signal Corps. In detailing the day-to-day activities of protecting Alaska's Read More

Edge of Darkness

Actors: Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Walter Huston, Tom Fadden, Judith Anderson, Nancy Coleman, Helmut Dantine

Synopsis: The Norwegian resistance to the Nazi occupation of their country inspired several wartime films from Hollywood, including this Warner Bros. production, filmed in and around Monterey, California. In October 1942, a German observation airplane discovers a seaside village named Trollness where the Read More

December 7th: The Movie

Actors: Walter Huston, Harry Davenport

Synopsis: This is a restored, 82-minute version of 1943's December 7th, originally commissioned by the U.S. Navy to document the events leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Cinematographer Gregg Toland and filmmaker John Ford quietly made a full-length feature that intimated that the attack Read More

The Battle of Russia

Synopsis: The 60-minute documentary was the fifth of the Army Special Service's "Why We Fight" series. Assembled under the supervision of Lt. Colonel Frank Capra, the film is a sublimely assembled collection of authentic newsreel footage from both the U.S. Signal Corps and various Soviet sources. Narrated Read More

Mission to Moscow

Actors: Walter Huston, Ann Harding, Oscar Homolka, Gene Lockhart, George Tobias, Eleanor Parker

Synopsis: More so than most wartime films, Mission to Moscow must be viewed within the context of its times. Requested by President Roosevelt to make a film supportive of America's Russian allies, Warner Bros. turned to the memoirs of Ambassador Joseph H. Davies, who spent several years prior to WWII in the Read More

Always in My Heart

Actors: Kay Francis, Walter Huston, Gloria Warren, Frankie Thomas

Synopsis: A real four-hanky picture, Always in My Heart was loosely adapted from the stage play by Dorothy Bennett and Irving White. Walter Huston is a tower of strength as MacKenzie Scott, a brilliant musician falsely convicted of murder and sentenced to Life. While Scott languishes in prison, his Read More

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Actors: James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston, Richard Whorf, Irene Manning

Synopsis: Yankee Doodle Dandy is no more the true-life story of George M. Cohan than The Jolson Story was the unvarnished truth about Al Jolson -- but who the heck cares? Dandy has song, dance, pathos, pageantry, uproarious comedy, and, best of all, James Cagney at his Oscar-winning best. After several Read More

In This Our Life

Actors: Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, George Brent, Dennis Morgan, Charles Coburn

Synopsis: In This Our Life is not a "for the ages" classic of the Golden Age of Cinema, but as a highly effective and entertaining melodrama, it more than fits the bill. Howard Koch's screenplay is a trifle predictable, but it's well structured and provides the requisite juicy roles for its pair of female Read More

The Maltese Falcon

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Ward Bond, Barton MacLane, Gladys George

Synopsis: After two previous film versions of Dashiell Hammett's detective classic The Maltese Falcon, Warner Bros. finally got it right in 1941--or, rather, John Huston, a long-established screenwriter making his directorial debut, got it right, simply by adhering as closely as possible to the original. Read More

Our Russian Front

Synopsis: Director Lewis Milestone, himself a Russian expatriate, was one of the producers of this propaganda picture on behalf of Russian War Relief. Heavily reliant upon Soviet newsreel footage, the film eloquently states its case for an alliance between the US and the USSR against their common Nazi Read More

The Shanghai Gesture

Actors: Gene Tierney, Victor Mature, Ona Munson, Walter Huston, Phyllis Brooks

Synopsis: Josef von Sternberg made his first return to exotic Shanghai since 1932's Shanghai Express in this baroque conflagration, based on a 1925 play by John Colton that required 30 revisions before it was sufficiently sanitized to pass muster with Hays Office censors. The film takes place in the Read More

The Devil and Daniel Webster

Actors: Edward Arnold, Walter Huston, James Craig, Jane Darwell, Simone Simon, Anne Shirley

Synopsis: This classic fantasy was based on a story by Stephen Vincent Benet. Jabez Stone (James Craig) is a simple New England farmer who has been suffering from a long run of bad luck. One day he mutters that he'd sell his soul for a little money and a decent crop. Moments later, who should appear but The Read More

Swamp Water

Actors: Walter Brennan, Walter Huston, Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Virginia Gilmore

Synopsis: Noted French director Jean Renoir made his American debut with this 1941 film. Walter Brennan plays Tom Keefer, a man who is falsely convicted of a murder and sentenced to death by hanging. He has escaped from prison and is hiding out in Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp. Keefer is dedicated to finding Read More

The Light That Failed

Actors: Ronald Colman, Walter Huston, Muriel Angelus, Ida Lupino, Dudley Digges

Synopsis: Based on a classic tale from Rudyard Kipling, this melodrama chronicles the desperate attempt of a painter to finish his greatest painting before he goes blind. His affliction is due to a war wound and his final project is to paint a portrait of London's most notorious prostitute. Trouble begins 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

Of Human Hearts

Actors: Walter Huston, James Stewart, Beulah Bondi, Guy Kibbee, Charles Coburn

Synopsis: Clarence Brown directed this heart-tugging piece of Americana, set during the Civil War era. Walter Huston plays a stern family patriarch, a preacher who thrusts his family into poverty in order to set an example for his parishioners. As a result, his son (James Stewart) grows up to resent him. He Read More

Dodsworth

Actors: Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, Paul Lukas, Mary Astor, David Niven

Synopsis: In this highly acclaimed adaptation of Sinclair Lewis' novel, Walter Huston plays Sam Dodsworth, a good-hearted, middle-aged man who runs an auto manufacturing firm. His wife Fran (Ruth Chatterton) is obsessed with the notion that she's growing old, and she eventually persuades Sam to sell his Read More

Rhodes

Actors: Walter Huston, Oscar Homolka, Basil Sydney, Frank Cellier, Peggy Ashcroft

Synopsis: African-American students who have accepted Rhodes scholarships may feel like wincing at Rhodes of Africa, an unabashed celebration of British imperialism. Walter Huston portrays Cecil Rhodes, the 19th century explorer who dreamed of "taming" the rugged African terrain. Establishing the colony of Read More

Transatlantic Tunnel

Actors: Richard Dix, Leslie Banks, Madge Evans, Helen Vinson, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Transatlantic Tunnel is the English-language version of the 1932 French-German speculative drama The Tunnel. Set sometime in the future (complete with two-way televisions, art-deco airships and self-propelled automobiles), the film stars Richard Dix as McAllen, a visionary architect who devotes Read More

Keep 'em Rolling

Actors: Walter Huston, Frances Dee, Minna Gombell, Frank Conroy

Synopsis: The touching bond between a cavalry horse and the doughboy whose life he saves provides the basis for this syrupy war drama. After the horse's heroism, he and the soldier are nearly inseparable until an officer intervenes and separates them. This enrages the soldier and he deserts. He is captured Read More

Hell Below

Actors: Robert Montgomery, Walter Huston, Madge Evans, Jimmy Durante, Eugene Pallette

Synopsis: Hell Below transcends its hackneyed World War I plot to emerge as a drama of rare originality and gutsiness. Walter Huston stars as a submarine commander whose lieutenant (Robert Montgomery) falls in love with Huston's daughter (Madge Evans). All cliches (including the intrusive comedy relief of Jimmy Durante Read More

Storm at Daybreak

Actors: Kay Francis, Nils Asther, Walter Huston, Phillips Holmes, Eugene Pallette

Synopsis: A conflict between the Serbs and the Hungarians provides the framework of this drama that centers on a love triangle between a Serbian mayor and his closest friend, a Hungarian officer. The story begins as the Archduke Ferdinand is assassinated at Sarajevo. The trouble between them begins when the Read More

Ann Vickers

Actors: Irene Dunne, Walter Huston, Conrad Nagel, Bruce Cabot, Edna May Oliver

Synopsis: This 1933 movie version of Sinclair Lewis's novel Ann Vickers stars Irene Dunne in the title role. Left alone and pregnant by her soldier sweetheart (Bruce Cabot), Ann turns her life around by devoting herself to social work. A frustrating tenure as psychologist in a poorly maintained woman's Read More

The Prizefighter and the Lady

Actors: Myrna Loy, Max Baer, Primo Carnera, Jack Dempsey, Walter Huston

Synopsis: One woman helps make an unknown boxer a star, but could a handful lead him back to obscurity again? Steve Morgan (Max Baer) is a ex-sailor tending bar in a seedy dive when The Professor (Walter Huston), a boxing coach, sees Morgan make short work of a troublesome customer. The Professor convinces Read More

Gabriel Over the White House

Actors: Walter Huston, Karen Morley, Franchot Tone, Arthur Byron, Dickie Moore

Synopsis: In 1933, at the height of the bleakness and desperation of the Depression, MGM released this genuine curiosity piece -- directed by comedy (!) director Gregory La Cava -- concerning a Warren G. Harding-like partisan hand-shaker President of the United States who, after seeing a vision, revokes the Read More

The Beast of the City

Actors: Walter Huston, Jean Harlow, Wallace Ford, Jean Hersholt, Dorothy Peterson

Synopsis: A reluctantly appointed police chief in a crime-riddled city takes his job seriously and works hard to clean the streets of gangsters and to shape up his own corrupt department in this brutal, gritty film noir. Jean Harlow plays a luminescent but ill-fated gun moll. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Read More

Night Court

Actors: Phillips Holmes, Walter Huston, Anita Page, Mary Carlisle

Synopsis: Night Court is one of those pictures that "hooks" the viewer with one audacious plot twist after another. Walter Huston is eminently hissable as Judge Moffett, a corrupt jurist who has managed to buy off practically everyone in town, all the while maintaining a facade of respectability. When Read More

American Madness

Actors: Walter Huston, Pat O'Brien, Kay Johnson, Constance Cummings, Gavin Gordon, Robert Ellis

Synopsis: Bank president Thomas Dickson (Walter Huston) has instituted a lending policy that shows great faith in ordinary people but which also irritates his board of directors, as does his claim that an increased money supply will help end the Depression. Elsewhere in the bank, criminal Dude Finlay (Robert Ellis Read More

The Woman from Monte Carlo

Actors: Lil Dagover, Walter Huston, Warren William, John Wray, George E. Stone

Synopsis: In this WW II drama, the commander of the French cruiser Lafayette is sunk by a German U-boat. Following the rescue of the survivors, the commander undergoes an investigative hearing to determine his culpability in the sinking. He didn't know it at the time, but his philandering young wife was Read More

Kongo

Actors: Walter Huston, Lupe Velez, Conrad Nagel, Virginia Bruce, C. Henry Gordon

Synopsis: A remake of West of Zanibar, this strange, gut-wrenching melodrama set in the African jungles, offers a disturbing portrait of a bitter, crippled and insane megalomaniac who vents his rage via mental torture against all those who get too near. Walter Huston plays the madman who lost the use of his Read More

The Wet Parade

Actors: Dorothy Jordan, Neil Hamilton, Emma Dunn, Robert Young

Synopsis: Directed by Victor Fleming, Wet Parade chronicles the effects of alcoholism and the Prohibition on the lives of two families from very different backgrounds. The Tarletons reside in New York City, where the family patriarch (Walter Huston) repeatedly drowns himself in liquor and local bars. The Read More

Rain

Actors: Joan Crawford, Walter Huston, William Gargan, Guy Kibbee, Walter Catlett

Synopsis: The pleasures of the flesh confront the discipline of the Lord's teachings in this screen adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's story Miss Sadie Thompson. Sadie Thompson (Joan Crawford) is a sassy streetwalker who lands in Pago Pago in the South Pacific after an epidemic grounds the ship on which Read More

Law and Order

Actors: Walter Huston, Harry Carey, Raymond Hatton, Russell Simpson, Russell Hopton

Synopsis: An early screen version of the oft-filmed tale of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Law and Order was adapted by young screenwriter John Huston from W. R. Burnett's novel, which alters the names of the principals but few of the facts. The film opens with a montage of Read More

Star Witness

Actors: Walter Huston, Charles "Chic" Sale, Frances Starr, Grant Mitchell, Sally Blane

Synopsis: Star Witness starts out as a homey family comedy and develops into a rather gutsy thriller. Chic Sale plays a cantankerous Civil War veteran who, while visiting his family, witnesses a gangland shooting. The rest of the family also gets a good look at the gang boss (Ralph Ince) and everyone agrees Read More

The Criminal Code

Actors: Walter Huston, Phillips Holmes, Constance Cummings, Mary Doran, DeWitt Jennings

Synopsis: Howard Hawks' early sound prison melodrama, based on a play by Martin Flavin, already contains his stylistic signature of over-lapping dialogue -- a technique he would greatly expand upon in the next ten years. Walter Huston is district attorney Brady, who quickly convicts Robert Graham (Phillips Holmes Read More

A House Divided

Actors: Walter Huston, Kent Douglass, Helen Chandler, Vivien Oakland, Frank S. Hagney

Synopsis: "A house divided against itself cannot stand" declared Abraham Lincoln; proof that a house divided can be repaired is provided in this early talkie effort from director William Wyler. Walter Huston plays alcoholic fisherman Seth Law, who, recently widowed, signs up for a mail-order bride. Ruth Read More

The Ruling Voice

Actors: Walter Huston, Loretta Young, Doris Kenyon, David Manners, John Halliday

Synopsis: Originally titled Upper Underworld, The Ruling Voice stars Walter Huston as a powerful underworld chieftain who covers his crooked activities in a cloak of respectability. Cold-blooded in all business matters, Huston cares only for the welfare of his beloved daughter Loretta Young, whom he has Read More

Abraham Lincoln

Actors: Walter Huston, Una Merkel, Kay Hammond, Jason Robards, Sr., Ian Keith

Synopsis: To date, this D.W. Griffith epic is the only talking-picture effort to encapsulate the entire life of Abraham Lincoln, from cradle to grave. The script, credited to Stephen Vincent Benet, manages to include all the familiar high points, including Lincoln's tragic romance with Ann Rutledge (Una Merkel Read More

The Bad Man

Actors: Walter Huston, Dorothy Revier, James Rennie, O.P. Heggie, Sidney Blackmer

Synopsis: Based on Porter Emerson Browne's 1920 play of the same name, The Bad Man features Walter Huston as the title character, bold Mexican bandido Pancho Lopez. Holding Americans Ruth Pell (Dorothy Revier) and her wealthy husband Morgan (Sidney Blackmer) for ransom, Lopez takes a liking to Ruth and Read More

The Virtuous Sin

Actors: Walter Huston, Kay Francis, Kenneth MacKenna, Jobyna Howland

Synopsis: The Virtuous Sin was adapted from The General, a novel by Lajos Zilahy. Kay Francis plays Marya, the wife of overly sensitive scientist Sabin (Kenneth MacKenna). Commissioned into the Russian army during WWI, Sabin can't cope with the rigors of military life, and as a result is condemned to death Read More

The Lady Lies

Actors: Walter Huston, Claudette Colbert, Charlie Ruggles, Patricia Deering, Tom Brown

Synopsis: When blue-blooded widower Robert Rossiter (Walter Huston) announces his plans to marry salesgirl Joyce Roamer (Claudette Colbert), his family goes out of their way to stop the engagement. Despite their original suspicion that Joyce (Colbert) was only involved with their father for his money Read More

Gentlemen of the Press

Actors: Walter Huston, Charlie Ruggles, Betty Lawford, Norman Foster

Synopsis: In this dark drama, based on a play by Ward Morehouse, the life of a tough newspaperman is chronicled. The man is a work-a-holic, and the demands of his job cause him to miss all the pleasures of his life. Because he is working on a story, he misses the birth of his daughter. He is not there for Read More

The Virginian

Actors: Gary Cooper, Walter Huston, Richard Arlen, Mary Brian, Chester Conklin, Eugene Pallette

Synopsis: Gary Cooper, as a lanky Wyoming ranch and foreman, places his gun on a poker table after being insulted by one of the gamblers and intones, "If you want to call me that . . . smile." That much quoted line's origin is in this early sound version of the Owen Wister novel, The Virginian, directed by Victor Fleming Read More