James Stephenson
Biography: 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)
Place of Birth: Not available
Birthday: April 13, 1889
Deathday: July 29, 1941
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Known For
Devil's Island
1939-01-07
Devil's Island
Overview: A French doctor sentenced for treason performs brain surgery on the prison commandant's daughter.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-01-07
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The Sea Hawk
1940-08-10
The Sea Hawk
Overview: Dashing pirate Geoffrey Thorpe plunders Spanish ships for Queen Elizabeth I and falls in love with Dona Maria, a beautiful Spanish royal he captures.
Genres: Adventure History Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-08-10
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King of the Underworld
1939-01-14
King of the Underworld
Overview: Physician Carole Nelson, suspected of having ties to notorious gangster Joe Gurney, must prove her innocence or the Medical Board will revoke her license. When Gurney seeks her out for treatment after being shot, it could be the break Nelson needs. Now she has a chance to use her medical know-how to outwit Gurney and his goons and reestablish her professional reputation.
Genres: Romance Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-01-14
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Beau Geste
1939-07-24
Beau Geste
Overview: When three brothers join the Foreign Legion to escape a troubled past, they find themselves trapped under the command of a sadistic sergeant deep in the scorching Sahara. Now the brothers must fight for their lives as they plot mutiny against tyranny and defend a desert fortress against a brutal enemy.
Genres: Adventure Drama War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-07-24
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The Old Maid
1939-08-16
The Old Maid
Overview: The lives of two cousins are complicated by the return of an ex-boyfriend and an illegitimate child.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-08-16
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The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex
1939-11-11
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex
Overview: This period drama frames the tumultuous affair between Queen Elizabeth I and the man who would be King of England.
Genres: Drama History Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-11-11
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Nancy Drew… Detective
1938-11-19
Nancy Drew… Detective
Overview: After a wealthy dowager who has made a substantial donation to her alma mater suddenly disappears, Nancy Drew sets out to solve the mystery.
Genres: Comedy Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-11-19
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The Letter
1940-11-21
The Letter
Overview: After a woman shoots a man to death, a damning letter she wrote raises suspicions.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-11-21
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Murder in the Air
1940-06-01
Murder in the Air
Overview: Enemy agents are everywhere and they are sabotaging all important war deliveries. The body of a hobo found in a train wreck had a money belt with $50,000 and a tattoo of a circle and arrow. This is a tattoo for saboteurs for hire and Brass must impersonate the dead man to find out what his orders are. As Steve Coe, he meets with the band of enemy agents in California and everything goes well until the wife of the dead 'Hobo' shows up. Luckily, Gabby is able to save Brass and Brass learns what is his assignment. He is to board the USN airship 'Mason', which is testing the super secret Inertia Projector, and destroy the airship.
Genres: Action Thriller Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-06-01
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Espionage Agent
1939-09-30
Espionage Agent
Overview: When Barry Corvall discovers that his new bride is a possible enemy agent, he resigns from the diplomatic service to go undercover to route out an espionage ring planning to destroy American industrial capability.
Genres: Drama War Thriller Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-09-30
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The Monroe Doctrine
1939-10-14
The Monroe Doctrine
Overview: The story of President Monroe's response to attempts by Spain to interfere in South America.
Genres: War Drama History Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-10-14
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Flight from Destiny
1941-02-08
Flight from Destiny
Overview: After his doctor informs him he will die in six months, Professor Henry Todhunter decides to spend his last days killing someone who contributes nothing but harm to society. When Henry learns that his friend Betty's husband, Michael, has been painting forgeries of ancient paintings for gallery owner Ketti Moret, he investigates the fraudulent dealer's life. Judging that Ketti is truly evil, Henry prepares to murder her.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-02-08
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Wolf of New York
1940-01-23
Wolf of New York
Overview: A New York attorney defends a young man with a criminal past who has been accused of murdering a police inspector.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-01-23
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Secret Service of the Air
1939-03-04
Secret Service of the Air
Overview: Brass Bancroft and his sidekick Gabby Watters are recruited onto the secret service and go undercover to crack a ruthless gang that smuggles illegal aliens.
Genres: Action Adventure Crime Drama Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-03-04
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On Trial
1939-04-01
On Trial
Overview: An ambitious attorney (Edward Norris) tries to prove a man (John Litel) who killed to protect his wife's (Margaret Lindsay) honor was justified.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-04-01
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River's End
1940-08-10
River's End
Overview: An escaped criminal pretends to be a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in order to prove his innocence of murder. Star Dennis Morgan plays two roles.
Genres: Action Drama Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-08-10
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Calling Philo Vance
1940-02-03
Calling Philo Vance
Overview: Philo is in Vienna working for the US Government to see if Archer Coe is selling aircraft designs to foreign powers. He grabs the plans with Archer's signature, but is captured by police before he can escape. Deported he comes back to America and plans to confront Archer, but Archer is found dead in his locked bedroom with a gun in his hand. While it looks like a suicide, Vance knows better and the coroner finds that Archer has been shot, hit with a blunt instrument and stabbed - making suicide unlikely. But Vance is on the case and is looking to see if government secrets have been sold and who has murdered Coe. This is a remake of "The Kennel Murder Case" using aircraft designs and espionage instead of Chinese porcelain and dog shows.
Genres: Crime Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-02-03
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The Adventures of Jane Arden
1939-03-18
The Adventures of Jane Arden
Overview: Reporter Jane Arden goes undercover to try to expose a gang of jewel thieves and smugglers. Her mission becomes more dangerous when her identity is discovered early on by one of the gang leaders.
Genres: Crime Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-03-18
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When Were You Born
1938-06-18
When Were You Born
Overview: A San Francisco astrologer correctly predicts a ship passenger's death and then helps the police look for the murderer.
Genres: Mystery Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-06-18
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Shining Victory
1941-05-30
Shining Victory
Overview: 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.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-05-30
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Sons of Liberty
1939-05-20
Sons of Liberty
Overview: Set during the American Revolution, this colorful 2 reel short tells the story of Haym Salomon, American patriot and financier of the American Revolution.
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-05-20
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White Banners
1938-06-23
White Banners
Overview: A homeless woman named Hannah drifts into the lives of the kindly Ward family, in a small Indiana town in 1919. Hannah makes herself useful as a cook and housekeeper and stays with the Wards... but her real interest is in meeting their neighbor, teenager Peter Trimble. It turns out that Peter is the son she bore out of wedlock and gave up for adoption, and now Hannah has returned to town to see what sort of young man her son has become.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-06-23
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Wanted by Scotland Yard
1939-04-19
Wanted by Scotland Yard
Overview: A safecracker, just released from prison, falls in love with a young woman who wants him to go straight. He finds, however, that going straight is easier said than done.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-04-19
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Cowboy from Brooklyn
1938-07-09
Cowboy from Brooklyn
Overview: A singing cowboy turns out to be a tenderfoot.
Genres: Comedy Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-07-09
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Boy Meets Girl
1938-08-27
Boy Meets Girl
Overview: Two lazy screenwriters need a story for the studio's cowboy star. A studio waitress turns out to be pregnant. This gives them the idea for a movie about a cowboy and a baby. The waitress's baby becomes the star. The cowboy and his agent run off with the waitress and her valuable asset. The writers retaliate by hiring an unemployed extra to impersonate the baby's father. But the extra already knows the waitress...
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-08-27
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South of Suez
1940-11-16
South of Suez
Overview: Greedy diamond mine owner Eli Snedeker, resentful that his ex-foreman John Gamble stopped him from taking over kindly, but drunken, mine owner Roger Smythe's mine just as he was about to strike it rich, kills Smythe and blames it on Gamble. Grabbing the diamonds, Gamble flees Africa to England where he changes his name and begins a new life. What he hasn't counted on, though, is meeting and falling in love with Smythe's daughter Katherine, who falls in love with him but can't marry him until she can deal with her hatred of John Gamble, the man she believes killed her father.
Genres: Mystery Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-11-16
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You Live and Learn
1937-09-01
You Live and Learn
Overview: American chorus-girl Mamie Wallace (Farrell) travels to Paris with a ramshackle touring musical revue. The company runs out of money, and it looks as though Mamie and her dancing colleagues are going to be stranded in Europe with no way home. Luckily, she meets a handsome, well-spoken Englishman Peter Millett (Hulbert), who falls in love with her and proposes marriage. Under the impression that he is a man of means, she readily accepts, imagining an entrée to English high society. The couple return to England and Mamie discovers to her horror that not only is her new home a decrepit farmhouse out in the sticks, but that Peter is a widower and his three children also come as part of the package.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-09-01
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Confessions of a Nazi Spy
1939-05-06
Confessions of a Nazi Spy
Overview: FBI agent Ed Renard investigates the pre-War espionage activities of the German-American Bund.
Genres: Drama War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-05-06
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We Are Not Alone
1939-11-25
We Are Not Alone
Overview: A British doctor and his son's Austrian governess have an affair and are accused of killing his wife.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-11-25
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Heart of the North
1938-12-10
Heart of the North
Overview: A two-fisted Canadian Mountie leads lawmen in pursuit of the thieves who stole an Edmonton-bound freighter's cargo.
Genres: Western Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-12-10
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Torchy Blane in Chinatown
1939-02-02
Torchy Blane in Chinatown
Overview: Torchy Blane joins her police-detective fiance to solve a series of murders involving a set of Chinese grave tablets taken and sold to a collector and death-threats written in Chinese characters.
Genres: Action Comedy Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-02-02
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A Dispatch from Reuters
1940-10-19
A Dispatch from Reuters
Overview: German Julius Reuter sends 19th-century news by carrier pigeon and then by wire, founding a news agency.
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-10-19
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Transatlantic Trouble
1937-01-01
Transatlantic Trouble
Overview: Max Miller plays a boxer's manager who fails to get fights for his simple-minded boxer. The manager sets up a scene in an American nightclub whereby his fighter gets the chance to knock down the reigning champion. The ruse fails to get the fighter a job but a female acquaintance of the champion takes a fancy to his opponent. The plot develops aboard a ship back to England.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-01-01
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The Dark Stairway
1938-01-01
The Dark Stairway
Overview: “Professional jealousy over the discovery of a formula for an anaesthetic leads to murder in a hospital.” - BFI.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-01-01
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The Man Who Made Diamonds
1937-12-06
The Man Who Made Diamonds
Overview: “Professor Calthrop, actuated only by scientific motives, and his assistant, out for his own gain, have invented a system for the manufacture of diamonds.” - BFI.
Genres: Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-12-06
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International Squadron
1941-08-13
International Squadron
Overview: The true story of the exploits of the RAF's (Royal Air Force) foreign legion battling the German Luftwaffe (Nazi Germany's Air Force) during the early months of 1941 during WWII before America officially entered the war at the end of the year when Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan and Hitler declared war on the United States. The United States then drafted all of their airmen and fighter pilot aces into the United States Air Force for their own combat missions against the Luftwaffe
Genres: Adventure Drama War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-08-13
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Mr. Satan
1938-02-01
Mr. Satan
Overview:
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-02-01
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