Ray Milland was a Welsh-American actor and film director. He is often remembered for his portrayal of an alcoholic writer in Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend (1945), which won him Best Actor at Cannes, a Golden Globe Award, and ultimately an Academy Award—the first such accolades for any Welsh actor.
The year 1949 in film involved some significant events.
Jerome Irving Wald was an American screenwriter and a producer of films and radio programs.
Easy Living is a 1937 American screwball comedy film, directed by Mitchell Leisen, written by Preston Sturges from a story by Vera Caspary, and starring Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold, and Ray Milland. Many of the supporting players became a major part of Sturges' regular stock company of character actors in his subsequent films.
Audrey Mary Totter was an American radio, film, and television actress and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player in the 1940s.
Frederick Leonard Clark was an American film and television character actor, often cast in authoritative roles.
A Foreign Affair is a 1948 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Billy Wilder and starring Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, and John Lund. The screenplay by Wilder, Charles Brackett, and Richard L. Breen is based on a story by David Shaw adapted by Robert Harari.
Death Takes a Holiday is a 1934 American pre-Code romantic drama starring Fredric March, Evelyn Venable and Guy Standing. It is based on the 1924 Italian play La morte in vacanza by Alberto Casella (1891–1957), as adapted in English for Broadway in 1929 by Walter Ferris.
The Postman Always Rings Twice is a 1946 American film noir directed by Tay Garnett and starring Lana Turner, John Garfield, and Cecil Kellaway. It is based on the 1934 novel of the same name by James M. Cain. This adaptation of the novel also features Hume Cronyn, Leon Ames and Audrey Totter. The musical score was written by George Bassman and Erich Zeisl.
Cotton Comes to Harlem is a 1970 American neo-noir action comedy film co-written and directed by Ossie Davis and starring Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St. Jacques, and Redd Foxx. The film, later cited as an early example of the blaxploitation genre, is based on Chester Himes' novel of the same title. The opening theme, "Ain't Now But It's Gonna Be," was written by Ossie Davis and performed by Melba Moore. The film was one of the many black films that appeared in the 1970s and became overnight hits. It was followed two years later by the sequel Come Back, Charleston Blue.
Wild Boys of the Road is a 1933 pre-Code Depression-era American drama film directed by William Wellman and starring Frankie Darro, Rochelle Hudson, and Grant Mitchell. It tells the story of several teens forced into becoming hobos. The screenplay by Earl Baldwin is based on the story Desperate Youth by Daniel Ahern. In 2013, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Kitty is a 1945 film, a costume drama set in London during the 1780s, directed by Mitchell Leisen, based on the novel of the same name by Rosamond Marshall, with a screenplay by Karl Tunberg. It stars Paulette Goddard, Ray Milland, Constance Collier, Patric Knowles, Reginald Owen, and Cecil Kellaway as the English painter Thomas Gainsborough. In a broad interpretation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, the film tells the rags-to-riches story of a beautiful young cockney guttersnipe who is given a complete makeover by an impoverished aristocrat (Milland) and his aunt (Collier) in hopes of arranging her marriage to a peer, thereby repairing their fortunes and their social status.
Little Lord Fauntleroy is a 1936 American drama film based on the 1886 novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The film stars Freddie Bartholomew, Dolores Costello, and C. Aubrey Smith. The first film produced by David O. Selznick's Selznick International Pictures, it was the studio's most profitable film until Gone with the Wind. The film is directed by John Cromwell.
The Organization is a 1971 DeLuxe Color American crime thriller film starring Sidney Poitier and directed by Don Medford. It was the last of the trilogy featuring the police detective Virgil Tibbs that had begun with In the Heat of the Night (1967), followed by They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970). In The Organization, Tibbs is called in to hunt down a gang of urban revolutionaries, suspected of a series of crimes. The screenplay was penned by James R. Webb, and the film co-stars Barbara McNair, Gerald S. O'Laughlin, Sheree North and Raul Julia.
Captain Carey, U.S.A. is a 1949 American crime film noir directed by Mitchell Leisen and starring Alan Ladd and Wanda Hendrix. An American returns to post–World War II Italy to bring a traitor to justice.
A Bullet for Joey is a 1955 film noir directed by Lewis Allen and starring Edward G. Robinson and George Raft. The picture involves a gangster who sneaks into Canada to kidnap a scientist for the communists. The supporting cast features Audrey Totter, Peter van Eyck, George Dolenz, and Peter Hansen.
High Barbaree is a 1947 American drama war film directed by Jack Conway. It stars Van Johnson and June Allyson, in the third of their six screen pairings. The screenplay based on the novel High Barbaree (1945) by authors Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall.
Everett Glass was an American character actor who appeared in more than eighty films and television shows from the 1940s through the 1960s, including Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and episodes of Adventures of Superman, Lassie, and Perry Mason. He began as a stage actor and had a long career as a theatre director and playwright before coming to Hollywood in his 50s.
The Cheat is a 1931 American pre-Code drama film directed by George Abbott and starring Tallulah Bankhead and Harvey Stephens. The film is a remake of the 1915 silent film of the same title, directed by Cecil B. DeMille.
This is the complete filmography of actor Audrey Totter. Originally a radio actress, she entered motion pictures in 1944 and became known for her portrayals of Femme fatales and hard-boiled dames. She is best remembered for her appearances in such features as Lady in the Lake (1947), The Unsuspected (1947), and The Set-Up (1949). She later found equal success in television with recurring roles on such syndicated sitcoms as Our Man Higgins, Cimarron City, Dr. Kildare, and Medical Center.
