Peter Sydney Ernest Lawford was an English-American actor.
Edmund Gwenn was an English actor. On film, he is best remembered for his role as Kris Kringle in the Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street (1947), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the corresponding Golden Globe Award. He received a second Golden Globe and another Academy Award nomination for the comedy film Mister 880 (1950). He is also remembered for his appearances in four films directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Frederick Cecil Bartholomew, known for his acting work as Freddie Bartholomew, was an English-American child actor. One of the most famous child actors of all time, he became very popular in 1930s Hollywood films. His most famous starring roles are in Captains Courageous (1937) and Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936).
That's Entertainment! is a 1974 American compilation film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to celebrate the studio's 50th anniversary. The success of the retrospective prompted a 1976 sequel, the related 1985 film That's Dancing!, and a third installment in 1994.
Mister 880 is a 1950 American light-hearted romantic drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Burt Lancaster, Dorothy McGuire and Edmund Gwenn. The movie is about an amateurish counterfeiter who counterfeits only one dollar bills, and manages to elude the Secret Service for ten years. The film is based on the true story of Emerich Juettner, known by the alias Edward Mueller, an elderly man who counterfeited just enough money to survive, was careful where and when he spent his fake dollar bills, and was therefore able to elude authorities for ten years, despite the poor quality of his fakes, and despite growing interest in his case.
Babes on Broadway is a 1941 American musical film starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland and directed by Busby Berkeley, with Vincente Minnelli directing Garland's big solo numbers. The film, which features Fay Bainter and Virginia Weidler, was the third in the "Backyard Musical" series about kids who put on their own show, following Babes in Arms (1939) and Strike Up the Band (1940). Songs in the film include "Babes on Broadway" by Burton Lane (music) and E.Y. "Yip" Harburg (lyrics), and "How About You?" by Lane with lyrics by Ralph Freed, the brother of producer Arthur Freed. The movie ends with a minstrel show performed by the main cast in blackface.
Norman Rae Taurog was an American film director and screenwriter. From 1920 to 1968, Taurog directed 180 films. At the age of 32, he received the Academy Award for Best Director for Skippy (1931), becoming the youngest person to win the award for eight and a half decades until Damien Chazelle won for La La Land in 2017. He was later nominated for Best Director for the film Boys Town (1938). He directed some of the best-known actors of the twentieth century, including his nephew Jackie Cooper, Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Deanna Durbin, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Deborah Kerr, Peter Lawford, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, and Elvis Presley. Taurog directed six Martin and Lewis films, and nine Elvis Presley films, more than any other director.
A Yank at Oxford is a 1938 comedy-drama film directed by Jack Conway and starring Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Vivien Leigh and Edmund Gwenn. The screenplay was written by John Monk Saunders and Leon Gordon. The film was produced by MGM-British at Denham Studios.
The White Cliffs of Dover is a 1944 American war drama film based on the verse novel The White Cliffs by Alice Duer Miller. It was made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Clarence Brown, and produced by Clarence Brown and Sidney Franklin. The screenplay was by Claudine West, Jan Lustig and George Froeschel, with the credit for additional poetry by Robert Nathan. Nathan stated in an interview that he wrote the screenplay as his first work as a contracted writer for MGM but the studio credited Claudine West who died in 1943 as a tribute to her.
National Velvet is a 1944 American Technicolor sports film directed by Clarence Brown and based on the 1935 novel of the same name by Enid Bagnold. It stars Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp, Angela Lansbury, Anne Revere, Reginald Owen, and an adolescent Elizabeth Taylor.
Ian Hunter was a Cape Colony-born British actor of stage, film and television.
Thoroughbreds Don't Cry is a 1937 American musical comedy film directed by Alfred E. Green and starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in their first film together.
Family Classics is a Chicago television series which began in 1962 when Frazier Thomas was added to another program at WGN-TV. Thomas not only hosted classic films, but also selected the titles and personally edited them to remove those scenes which he thought were not fit for family viewing. After Thomas' death in 1985, Roy Leonard took over the program. The series continued sporadically until its initial cancellation in 2000.
Challenge to Lassie is an American drama directed by Richard Thorpe in Technicolor and released October 31, 1949, by MGM Studios. It was the fifth feature film starring the original Lassie, a collie named Pal, and the fourth and final Lassie film starring Donald Crisp.
Julia Misbehaves is a 1948 American romantic comedy film starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon as a married couple who are separated by the man's snobbish family. They meet again many years later, when the daughter whom the man has raised, played by Elizabeth Taylor, invites her mother to her wedding. The film also features Peter Lawford and Cesar Romero.
Andy Hardy's Private Secretary is a 1941 American comedy film directed by George B. Seitz and starring Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Kathryn Grayson, Ann Rutherford and Fay Holden. It was the tenth of the 16-film Andy Hardy series. Marian Hardy does not appear in this film.
The Human Comedy is a 1943 American comedy-drama film directed by Clarence Brown. It began as a screenplay by William Saroyan, who was expected to direct. After Saroyan was removed from the project, he wrote the novel of the same name and published it just before the film was released. Howard Estabrook was brought in to reduce the run time to two hours. The picture stars Mickey Rooney with Frank Morgan; also appearing in the film are James Craig, Marsha Hunt, Fay Bainter, Ray Collins, Van Johnson, Donna Reed and Jackie "Butch" Jenkins. Barry Nelson, Robert Mitchum and Don DeFore appear together as boisterous soldiers in uncredited supporting roles.
Girl Crazy is a 1943 American musical film starring Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. Produced by the Freed Unit of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, it is based on the stage musical Girl Crazy – which was written by Guy Bolton and Jack McGowan, with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin. It was the last of Garland and Rooney's nine movies as co-stars, the pair appearing only once more together on film, as guest stars in 1948's Words and Music.
Strike Up the Band is a 1940 American musical film produced by the Arthur Freed unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film was directed by Busby Berkeley and stars Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, in the second of a series of musicals they co-starred in, after Babes in Arms, all directed by Berkeley. The story written for the 1927 stage musical Strike Up the Band, and its successful 1930 Broadway revision, bear no resemblance to this film, aside from the title song.
The Earl of Chicago is a 1940 American drama film directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Robert Montgomery, Edward Arnold, Reginald Owen and Edmund Gwenn. Made during 1939 and released in January 1940, it was the first MGM film of the 1940s.
