In a Scottish sanitarium, a brilliant research psychiatrist works on a treatment for dementia praecox. He falls for his altruistic female lab assistant and they begin a passionate, tragic relationship.
05-30-1941
1h 20m
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Irving Rapper
Production:
Warner Bros. Pictures
Key Crew
Screenplay:
Howard W. Koch
Director of Photography:
James Wong Howe
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
James Stephenson
British stage actor James Stephenson made his film debut quite late in life, at the age of 49, in 1937, making four pictures that year. Warner Bros. got a glimpse of this distinguished gent and signed him to a contract where he indulged himself in urbane villainy. Proving a reliable support in such films as Boy Meets Girl (1938), You Can't Get Away with Murder (1939), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), and the classic adventure The Sea Hawk (1940), he was entrusted by director William Wyler and mega-star Bette Davis to play the sympathetic role of the family attorney Howard Joyce in The Letter (1940). It was the role of a lifetime and he didn't let them down for he earned an Oscar nomination in the process. Stephenson was soon on a roll, playing the titular sleuth in Calling Philo Vance (1940) and was first-billed in the above-average "B" movie Shining Victory (1941) when he died suddenly in 1941 of a heart attack at the rather young age of 53.
Date of Death: 29 July 1941, Pacific Palisades, California (heart attack)
Geraldine Fitzgerald, Lady Lindsay-Hogg was an Irish-American actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame. She was born south of Dublin, the daughter of Edith Catherine and Edward Martin FitzGerald.
She studied painting at the Dublin School of Art. Inspired by her aunt, and began her acting career in at Dublin's Gate Theatre. After two seasons in Dublin, she moved to London, where she found success in films The Mill on the Floss, The Turn of the Tide, and Cafe Mascot.
Fitzgerald's success led her to the Broadway stage in 1938. She made her American debut in the Mercury Theatre production of Heartbreak House. Producer Hal B. Wallis saw her in this production and subsequently signed her to a contract with Warner Bros, where she starred in Dark Victory and Wuthering Heights.
Afterwards, appeared in Shining Victory, The Gay Sisters, and Watch on the Rhine, but her career was hampered by her frequent clashes with studio management. Although she continued to work throughout the 1940s, the quality of her roles began to diminish and her career lost momentum.
In 1946, shortly after completing work on Three Strangers, she left Hollywood to return to New York City, where she married her second husband, Stuart Scheftel, a grandson of Isidor Straus. She returned to Britain to film So Evil My Love, receiving strong reviews, and The Late Edwina Black, before returning to the United States. She became a naturalized United States citizen on April 18, 1955.
The 1950s provided her with few opportunities in film, but during the 1960s she asserted herself as a character actor and her career enjoyed a revival. Among her successful films of this period were Ten North Frederick, The Pawnbroker, and Rachel, Rachel. Her later films included The Mango Tree, for which she received an Australian Film Institute Best Actress nomination, and Harry and Tonto, in a scene opposite Art Carney. She also starred in Arthur 1 and 2, miniseries Kennedy, Do You Remember Love, Easy Money, Poltergeist 2, as in Circle of Violence, a television film about elder abuse.
Fitzgerald returned to stage acting, and won acclaim for her performance in the 1971 revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night. In 1976, she performed as a cabaret singer with the show Streetsongs, recorded an album of the show for Ben Bagley's Painted Smiles label. She also achieved success as a theatre director; becoming one of the first women to receive a Tony Award nomination for Best Direction of a Play. While in New York, Fitzgerald collaborated with playwright and Franciscan brother Jonathan Ringkamp to found the Everyman Theater of Brooklyn, a street theater company, that performed throughout the city.
She appeared on television, in such series as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Robert Montgomery Presents, Naked City, St. Elsewhere, The Golden Girls, and Cagney and Lacey. As well, she starred in Our Private World, and Mabel and Max. She won a Daytime Emmy Award as best actress for her appearance in the NBC Special Treat episode "Rodeo Red and the Runaways".
Description above from the Wikipedia article Geraldine Fitzgerald, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Donald Crisp was born George William Crisp at the family home in Bow, London. Donald's parents were James Crisp and Elizabeth Crisp, his birth was registered by his mother on 4th September 1882. Donald's sisters were Elizabeth, Ann, Alice (known as Louisa) and Eliza and his brothers were James, John and Mark. Family memories state that Donald's brother-in-law James Needham (Louisa's husband) lent/gave Donald the fare to USA. The family have a photo of Donald which he sent to 'Jimmy' and signed. On 16th February 1937 Donald applied for a US Social Security account number giving his address as N Vista Street Hollywood California, and his employers Warner Brothers Pictures, Burbank California. On his application Donald did not know his mother's maiden name.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Montagu Love (15 March 1880 – 17 May 1943), also known as Montague Love, was an English screen, stage and vaudeville actor.
Born Harry Montague Love in Portsmouth, Hampshire, he was the son of Harry Love (b. 1852) and Fanny Louisa Love, née Poad (b. 1856); his father was listed as accountant on the 1881 English Census. Educated in Great Britain, Love began his career as an artist and military correspondent with his first important job as a London newspaper cartoonist. Love honed basic stage talents in London, and in 1913 sailed to the Canada and crossed the border into the United States in November with a road-company production of Cyril Maude's Grumpy.
Usually Love was cast in heartless villain roles. In the 1920s, he played with Rudolph Valentino in The Son of the Sheik, opposite John Barrymore in Don Juan, and appeared with Lillian Gish in 1928's The Wind. He also portrayed 'Colonel Ibbetson' in Forever (1921), the silent film version of Peter Ibbetson. Love was one of the more successful villains in silent films.
One of Love's first sound films was the part-talkie The Mysterious Island co-starring Lionel Barrymore. In 1937, he played Henry VIII in the first talking film version of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper, with Errol Flynn. Love played the bigoted Bishop of the Black Canons in The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Flynn, too. However, he also played gruff authoritarian figures, such as Monsieur Cavaignac, who, contrary to history, demands the resignation of those responsible for the Dreyfus coverup, in The Life of Emile Zola (1937), as well as Don Alejandro de la Vega, whose son appears to be a fop but is actually Zorro, in the 1940 version of The Mark of Zorro, starring Tyrone Power.
In 1941, he played a doctor in Shining Victory, which also starred James Stephenson, Geraldine Fitzgerald and Donald Crisp. In 1939's Gunga Din, it is Montagu Love who reads the final stanza of Rudyard Kipling's original poem over the body of the slain Din.
Love's last film to be released, Devotion, was released three years after his death aged 63 in 1943. He was interred at Chapel of the Pines Crematory. His last acting stint was on Wings Over the Pacific (1943).
Sig Ruman was a German-American actor known for his portrayals of pompous and often stereotypical Teutonic officials or villains. Ruman made his film debut in Lucky Boy (1929).
He became a favorite of the Marx Brothers, appearing in A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, and A Night in Casablanca. His German accent and large stature kept him busy during World War II, playing sinister Nazi characters in a series of wartime thrillers.
During this period, he also appeared in several films by director Ernst Lubitsch including Ninotchka and To Be or Not to Be. Ruman continued playing over-the-top German characters later in his career for Billy Wilder in The Emperor Waltz, Stalag 17, and The Fortune Cookie.
Born as Bruce Timothy Huntley. Known for Beau Geste (1939), They Died with Their Boots On (1941) and Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (1939). He was married to Mildred Lillard.
Bruce Lester appeared in films from the 1930s into the 1950s, mainly in supporting roles. He was born Bruce Lister in Johannesburg, South Africa and later resided in England. After studying at Brighton College, he began his career on the London Stage and made his big screen debut in 1934. Lester's co-stars included Ronald Colman, Boris Karloff, James Cagney, Ray Milland and Joan Crawford. His film credits include, "To Be a Lady" (1934), "The Third Clue" (1934), "Boy Meets Girl" (1938), "The Witness Vanishes" (1939), "British Intelligence" (1940), "Pride and Prejudice" (1940), "The Letter" (1940, "Above Suspicion" (1943), "Golden Earrings" (1947), "The Fool and the Princess" (1948) and "Tarzan and the Trappers" (1958).
From Wikipedia
Leonard Mudie (11 April 1883–14 April 1965) was an English character actor whose career lasted for nearly fifty years. After a successful start as a stage actor in England, he appeared regularly in the US, and made his home there from 1932. He appeared in character roles on Broadway and in Hollywood films.
Mudie made his film debut in a Boris Karloff film, The Mummy, in 1932. He moved to Hollywood in that year and lived there for the rest of his life. He played a range of screen parts, some substantial, and others short cameos. Among the bigger roles were Dr. Pearson in The Mummy, Porthinos in Cleopatra (1934), Maitland in Mary of Scotland (1936), and De Bourenne in Anthony Adverse (1936). His small roles, according to The New York Times, were typically "a bewigged, gimlet-eyed British judge".
Mudie made the post-war transition into television, and appeared in several episodes of Adventures of Superman. For the post-war cinema he played the regular character Commander Barnes in the series of Bomba, the Jungle Boy films.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hessy Doris Lloyd (3 July 1896 – 21 May 1968) was an English-American film, television and stage actress.
Born in Liverpool, she went to the United States of America to visit a sister already living there. What was supposed to be a visit she made permanent. She spent several years (1916–25) appearing in Broadway theatre plays, notably a number of Ziegfeld Follies editions, and probably spent some time on the road in touring companies. She decided on a film career, making her first film in 1925. With the exception of returning to one Broadway play in 1947, her career was devoted to films and television.
Lloyd appeared in over 150 films between 1925 and 1967, including the 1933 low-budget Monogram Pictures version of Oliver Twist, in which she played Nancy. Irving Pichel starred as Fagin and Dickie Moore as Oliver. Her roles ranged from the sinister Russian spy Mrs. Travers in the biopic Disraeli (1929) to the meek housekeeper Mrs. Watchett in The Time Machine (1960).
Her most famous film roles were in the Tarzan films starring Johnny Weissmuller. She voiced one of the roses in Disney's Alice in Wonderland (1951), later making small appearances in Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music which both starred Julie Andrews.
Frank Reicher (December 2, 1875 – January 19, 1965) was a German-born American stage and film actor, director and producer. He is best known for playing Captain Englehorn in the 1933 film King Kong.
Reicher made his Broadway debut the year he came to America playing Lord Tarquin in Harrison Fiske's production of Becky Sharp, a comedy by Langdon Mitchell based on William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. His early career was spent in legitimate theater on and off Broadway. He was head of the Brooklyn Stock Company when Jacob P. Adler performed The Merchant of Venice in Yiddish while the rest of the cast remained in English. Reicher was for a number of years affiliated with the Little Theatre on West Forty-Fourth Street as an actor and manager and would remain active on Broadway as actor, director or producer well into the 1920s. On stage, Reicher starred in such plays as the first Broadway production of Georg Kaiser's From Morning to Midnight (as the cashier), and the original production of Percy MacKaye's The Scarecrow (in the title role).
Frank Reicher is probably more familiar to modern audiences as a supporting character actor in films. He began his cinema career with an uncredited role in the 1915 film The Case for Becky and would go on to work in over two hundred motion pictures. He is probably best remembered for playing the character of Captain Englehorn in King Kong and The Son of Kong, and for his work in such films as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) and Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950). His last Hollywood role was in the very first theatrical Superman movie, Superman and the Mole Men, in 1951.
Frank Reicher died at a hospital in Inglewood, California, aged 89. He was survived by his sister and a brother. His interment was at Inglewood Park Cemetery.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Billy Bevan (born William Bevan Harris, 29 September 1887 – 26 November 1957) was an Australian-born vaudevillian, who became an American film actor. He appeared in 254 American films between 1916 and 1950.
Bevan was born in the country town of Orange, New South Wales, Australia. He went on the stage at an early age, traveled to Sydney and spent eight years in Australian light opera, performing as Willie Bevan. He sailed to America with the Pollard’s Lilliputian Opera Company in 1912 and later toured Canada. Bevan broke into films with the Sigmund Lubin studio in 1916. When the company disbanded, Bevan became a supporting actor in Mack Sennett movie comedies. An expressive pantomimist, Bevan's quiet scene-stealing attracted attention, and by 1922 Bevan was a Sennett star. He supplemented his income, however, by establishing a citrus and avocado farm at Escondido, California.
Usually filmed wearing a derby hat and a drooping mustache, Bevan may not have possessed an indelible screen character like Charlie Chaplin but he had a friendly, funny presence in the frantic Sennett comedies. Much of the comedy depended on Bevan's skilled timing and reactions; the famous "oyster" routine performed on film by Curly Howard, Lou Costello, and Huntz Hall—in which a bowl of "fresh oyster stew" shows alarming signs of life and battles the guy trying to eat it—was originated on film decades earlier by Bevan in the short film Wandering Willies.
By the mid-1920s Bevan was often teamed with Andy Clyde; Clyde soon graduated to his own starring series. The late 1920s found Bevan playing in wild marital farces for Sennett.
The advent of talking pictures took their toll on the careers of many silent stars, including Billy Bevan. Bevan began a second career in "talkies" as a character actor and bit player in roles such as that of a bus driver in the 1929 film High Voltage, a hotel employee in the Mae Murray film Peacock Alley, and the supporting role of Second Lieutenant Trotter in Journey's End in 1930. His starring roles had come to an end, however, and for the next 20 years he often would play rowdy Cockneys (as in Pack Up Your Troubles with The Ritz Brothers), and affable Englishmen (as in Tin Pan Alley and Terror by Night). He played a friendly bus conductor opposite Greer Garson in one of the opening scenes of Mrs. Miniver.
Bevan died in 1957 in Escondido, California, just before new audiences discovered him in Robert Youngson's silent-comedy compilations. (The Youngson films mispronounce his name as "Be-VAN"; Bevan himself offered the proper pronunciation in a Voice of Hollywood reel in 1930.)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alexander Younger Craig Craig (30 March 1884 – 25 June 1945), was a Scottish character actor, particularly known for his roles in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and National Velvet (1944). He was particularly known for portraying stereotypically tight-fisted Scotsmen.
Alec Craig was born on 30 March 1884 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland, the son of James Chapman Craig and his wife Isabella,
Craig died of tuberculosis on 25 June 1945, aged 61, in Glendale, California, US. He is buried there at Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery.
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres; from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional comedies, though her greatest successes were her roles in romantic dramas.
After appearing in Broadway plays, Davis moved to Hollywood in 1930, but her early films for Universal Studios were unsuccessful. She joined Warner Bros. in 1932 and established her career with several critically acclaimed performances. In 1937, she attempted to free herself from her contract and although she lost a well-publicized legal case, it marked the beginning of the most successful period of her career. Until the late 1940s, she was one of American cinema's most celebrated leading ladies, known for her forceful and intense style. Davis gained a reputation as a perfectionist who could be highly combative, and confrontations with studio executives, film directors and costars were often reported. Her forthright manner, clipped vocal style and ubiquitous cigarette contributed to a public persona which has often been imitated and satirized.
Davis was the co-founder of the Hollywood Canteen, and was the first female president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, was the first person to accrue 10 Academy Award nominations for acting, and was the first woman to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute. Her career went through several periods of eclipse, and she admitted that her success had often been at the expense of her personal relationships. Married four times, she was once widowed and thrice divorced, and raised her children as a single parent. Her final years were marred by a long period of ill health, but she continued acting until shortly before her death from breast cancer, with more than 100 films, television and theater roles to her credit. In 1999, Davis was placed second, after Katharine Hepburn, on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest female stars of all time.