Joseph Cheshire Cotten Jr. was an American film, stage, radio and television actor. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original stage productions of The Philadelphia Story (1939) and Sabrina Fair (1953). He then gained worldwide fame for his collaborations with Orson Welles on Citizen Kane (1941), The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), and Journey into Fear (1943), in which Cotten starred and for which he was also credited with the screenplay.
The Third Man is a 1949 British film noir directed by Carol Reed, written by Graham Greene, and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles and Trevor Howard. Set in post-World War II Allied-occupied Vienna, the film centres on American writer Holly Martins (Cotten), who arrives in the city to accept a job with his friend Harry Lime (Welles), only to learn that he has died. Martins stays in Vienna to investigate Lime's death, becoming infatuated with Lime's girlfriend Anna Schmidt (Valli).
Bachelor Mother (1939) is an American romantic comedy film directed by Garson Kanin, and starring Ginger Rogers, David Niven, and Charles Coburn. The screenplay was written by Norman Krasna from an Academy Award-nominated story by Felix Jackson written for the 1935 Austrian-Hungarian film Little Mother. With a plot full of mistaken identities, Bachelor Mother is a light-hearted treatment of the otherwise serious issues of child abandonment.
The Paradine Case is a 1947 courtroom drama with elements of film noir set in England, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and produced by David O. Selznick. Selznick and an uncredited Ben Hecht wrote the screenplay from an adaptation by Alma Reville and James Bridie of the 1933 novel by Robert Smythe Hichens. The film stars Gregory Peck, Ann Todd, Alida Valli, Charles Laughton, Charles Coburn, Ethel Barrymore, and Louis Jourdan. It tells of an English barrister who falls in love with a woman who is accused of murder, and how it affects his relationship with his wife.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a 1941 American screwball comedy film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by Norman Krasna, and starring Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery. It also features Gene Raymond, Jack Carson, Philip Merivale, and Lucile Watson.
Spring Dell Byington was an American actress. Her career included a seven-year run on radio and television as the star of December Bride. She was a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player who appeared in films from the 1930s to the 1960s. Byington received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Penelope Sycamore in You Can't Take It with You (1938).
Alida Maria Laura, Freiin Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg, better known by her stage name Alida Valli, or simply Valli, was an Italian actress who appeared in more than 100 films in a 70-year career, spanning from the 1930s to the early 2000s. She was one of the biggest stars of Italian film during the Fascist era, once being called "the most beautiful woman in the world" by Benito Mussolini, and was internationally successful post-World War II. According to Frédéric Mitterrand, Valli was the only actress in Europe to equal Marlene Dietrich or Greta Garbo.
The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1942 American period drama written, produced, and directed by Orson Welles. Welles adapted Booth Tarkington's Pulitzer Prize–winning 1918 novel about the declining fortunes of a wealthy Midwestern family and the social changes brought by the automobile age. The film stars Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins, with Welles providing the narration.
Rachel and the Stranger is a 1948 American historical film starring Loretta Young, William Holden, and Robert Mitchum. The Norman Foster-directed film was one of the few to address the role of women in the early American frontier, as well as portray early America's indentured servant trade. It was based on the Howard Fast short story "Rachel".
Christine Cecilia McIntyre was an American actress and singer who appeared in various films in the 1930s and 1940s. She is mainly remembered as the beautiful blonde actress who appeared in many of The Three Stooges shorts produced by Columbia Pictures.
The Long Absence is a 1961 French drama film directed by Henri Colpi. It tells the story of Therese, a Puteaux café owner mourning the mysterious disappearance of her husband sixteen years earlier. A tramp arrives in the town and she believes him to be her husband. But he is suffering from amnesia and she tries to bring back his memory of earlier times.
I'll Be Seeing You is a 1944 American drama film made by Selznick International Pictures, Dore Schary Productions, and Vanguard Pictures, and distributed by United Artists. It stars Joseph Cotten, Ginger Rogers, and Shirley Temple, with Spring Byington, Tom Tully, and John Derek. It was produced by Dore Schary, with David O. Selznick as executive producer. The screenplay was by Marion Parsonnet, based on a radio play by Charles Martin (1910-1983).
Stingaree is an American pre-Code romantic drama film directed by William A. Wellman released by RKO Radio Pictures in 1934. The film was based on a 1905 novel by Ernest William Hornung. Set in Australia, it stars Irene Dunne as Hilda Bouverie and Richard Dix as Stingaree. Hollywood had previously filmed the Hornung story as serials in 1915 and 1917, starring True Boardman.
Easy Living is a 1949 American drama film directed by Jacques Tourneur, starring Victor Mature, Lucille Ball and Lizabeth Scott. The film features the real-life Los Angeles Rams football team.
The Happy Thieves is a 1961 American crime/comedy-drama film starring Rex Harrison and Rita Hayworth, and directed by George Marshall. The film is based on the novel The Oldest Confession by Richard Condon. The film was poorly received, with star Harrison later describing it as "absolute rubbish".
The Miracle of the Bells is a 1948 American drama film directed by Irving Pichel, written by Quentin Reynolds and Ben Hecht, and produced by RKO. It stars Fred MacMurray, Alida Valli, Frank Sinatra and Lee J. Cobb.
RKO Radio Pictures's Laddie is a 1940 American drama film starring Tim Holt, Virginia Gilmore and Joan Carroll and directed by Jack Hively. It is the third film adaptation based on Gene Stratton-Porter's novel, Laddie, A True Blue Story (1913), and previously had been filmed in 1926 and by RKO in 1935.
The Stranger's Hand is a 1954 British-Italian thriller drama film directed by Mario Soldati and starring Trevor Howard, Alida Valli and Richard Basehart. An international co-production, it is based on the draft novel with the same name written by Graham Greene. The plot follows the son of a British MI5 agent kidnapped in Venice by agents of Yugoslavia as he searches for his father.
Smartest Girl in Town is a 1936 American comedy film directed by Joseph Santley, written by Viola Brothers Shore, and starring Gene Raymond, Ann Sothern, Helen Broderick, Eric Blore, Erik Rhodes and Harry Jans. It was released on November 27, 1936, by RKO Pictures.
Reward Unlimited is a short film produced in 1944 by David O. Selznick's Vanguard Films, for the United States Public Health Service, dramatizing the need for volunteer military nurses for the U. S. Cadet Nurse Corps during World War II. Directed by Jacques Tourneur, the 10-minute film stars Dorothy McGuire in one of her first films. The story by Mary C. McCall, Jr., dramatizes the choice that young Peggy Adams makes to become a nurse, her training, and her volunteering for military nursing service. The cast includes Aline MacMahon, James Brown, Spring Byington and Tom Tully.
