Burton Stephen Lancaster was an American actor and producer. Initially known for playing tough guys with a tender heart, he went on to achieve success with more complex and challenging roles over a 45-year career in films and television series. He was a four-time nominee for the Academy Award for Best Actor, and he also won two BAFTA Awards and one Golden Globe Award for Best Lead Actor. The American Film Institute ranks Lancaster as #19 of the greatest male stars of classic Hollywood cinema.
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical films, suspense horror, and occasional comedies, although her greater successes were in romantic dramas. A recipient of two Academy Awards, she was the first thespian to accrue ten nominations.
Perfect Strangers, also released as Too Dangerous to Love in some territories, is a 1950 American comedy-drama film directed by Bretaigne Windust. Edith Sommer wrote the screenplay from an adaptation written by George Oppenheimer, based on the 1939 play Ladies and Gentlemen by Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht. The film stars Ginger Rogers and Dennis Morgan as two jurors who fall in love while sequestered during a murder trial. Thelma Ritter, Margalo Gillmore, and Anthony Ross co-star in supporting roles.
The Enforcer is a 1951 American film noir co-directed by Bretaigne Windust and an uncredited Raoul Walsh, who shot most of the film's suspenseful moments, including the ending. The production, largely a police procedural, stars Humphrey Bogart and is based on the Murder, Inc. trials. The supporting cast features Zero Mostel and Everett Sloane.
A Stolen Life is a 1946 American drama film starring Bette Davis, who also produced it. The film, based on the 1935 novel A Stolen Life by Karel Josef Benes, was directed by Curtis Bernhardt. Among the supporting cast are Glenn Ford, Dane Clark, Peggy Knudsen, Charlie Ruggles, and Bruce Bennett. It is a remake of the 1939 British film Stolen Life starring Elisabeth Bergner and Michael Redgrave.
Waterloo Bridge is a 1931 American pre-Code drama romance war film directed by James Whale and starring Mae Clarke and Kent Douglass. The screenplay by Benn Levy and Tom Reed is based on the 1930 play Waterloo Bridge by Robert E. Sherwood.
In This Our Life is a 1942 American drama film, the second to be directed by John Huston. The screenplay by Howard Koch is based on the 1941 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title by Ellen Glasgow. The cast included the established stars Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland as sisters and rivals in romance and life. Raoul Walsh also worked as director, taking over when Huston was called away for a war assignment after the United States entered World War II, but he was uncredited. This film was the third of six films that de Havilland and Davis starred in together.
Payment on Demand is a 1951 American drama film directed by Curtis Bernhardt and starring Bette Davis and Barry Sullivan. The screenplay by Bernhardt and Bruce Manning chronicles a marriage from its idealistic early days to its dissolution.
Deception is a 1946 American film noir drama released by Warner Brothers and directed by Irving Rapper. The film is based on the 1927 play Monsieur Lamberthier by Louis Verneuil. The screenplay was written by John Collier and Joseph Than. It stars Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains, who had also appeared together in the highly successful Now, Voyager (1942), which was also directed by Rapper.
The Rich Are Always with Us is a 1932 American pre-Code romantic comedy-drama film directed by Alfred E. Green and starring Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, and Bette Davis. The screenplay by Austin Parker is based on the novel of the same name by Ethel Pettit.
Valdez Is Coming is a 1971 American Western film directed by Edwin Sherin and starring Burt Lancaster, Susan Clark, Richard Jordan and Jon Cypher. The film is based on the 1970 Elmore Leonard novel of the same name.
Of Human Bondage is a 1946 American drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Paul Henreid, Eleanor Parker and Alexis Smith. The second screen adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's 1915 novel, this Warner Bros. sanitized version was written by Catherine Turney. The central characters are Philip Carey, a clubfooted medical student, and Mildred Rogers, a low-class waitress with whom he becomes obsessed.
The Golden Arrow (1936) is an American comedy film directed by Alfred E. Green and starring Bette Davis and George Brent. The screenplay by Charles Kenyon is based on a story of the same title by Michael Arlen published in the September 14, 1935 issue of Liberty.
Ernest Bretaigne Windust was a United States-based French-born theater, film, and television director.
June Bride is a 1948 American comedy film directed by Bretaigne Windust. The screenplay, which was based on the unproduced play Feature for June by Eileen Tighe and Graeme Lorimer, was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Comedy. The film starred Bette Davis and Robert Montgomery. The Warner Bros. release marked the screen debut of Debbie Reynolds, although her appearance was uncredited.
Ex-Lady is a 1933 American pre-Code comedy/drama film directed by Robert Florey. The screenplay by David Boehm is a remake of the Barbara Stanwyck film Illicit (1931), both crediting a story by Edith Fitzgerald and Robert Riskin. The film focuses on a pair of lovers, commercial illustrator Helen Bauer and advertising writer Don Peterson, who have been living together quite happily for some time. One night, after hiding in Helen's bedroom until their party guests have all left, Don announces that he is tired of sneaking around. He wants marriage—and possibly children—and Helen finally agrees, although she is afraid that it will wreck their relationship. Her predictions of trouble—increased by the stresses of opening their own advertising agency—come true, but in the end, with the serendipitous intervention of their perpetually inebriated friend, Van, they reconcile and resume the mixed blessings of wedded bliss.
Of Human Bondage is a 1964 British drama film directed by Ken Hughes and starring Kim Novak and Laurence Harvey in the roles played by Bette Davis and Leslie Howard three decades earlier in the original film version. This MGM release, the third screen adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's 1915 novel, was written by Bryan Forbes from the novel by Somerset Maugham.
The Little Foxes is a 1941 American drama film directed by William Wyler. The screenplay by Lillian Hellman is based on her 1939 play The Little Foxes. Hellman's ex-husband Arthur Kober, Dorothy Parker and her husband Alan Campbell contributed additional scenes and dialogue.
The Menace is a 1932 American pre-Code American crime drama film directed by Roy William Neill. The screenplay by Roy Chanslor, Dorothy Howell, and Charles Logue is based on the 1927 novel The Feathered Serpent by Edgar Wallace.
Catherine Turney was an American writer and screenwriter. Born in Chicago, Illinois, she was active from the 1930s to the 1970s. She was one of the first women writers to become a contract worker at Warner Brothers, where she worked from 1943 to 1948 on films such as The Man I Love, A Stolen Life, and My Reputation.
