Esther Dale

Esther Dale

Born: November 8, 1885
Died: July 23, 1961
in Beaufort, South Carolina, USA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Esther Dale (November 10, 1885 – July 23, 1961) was an American actress, best known perhaps for her role as Aunt Genevieve in the 1935 Shirley Temple vehicle, Curly Top.

On the stage, Dale starred in Carrie Nation on Broadway in 1933. Her other Broadway credits include Harvest of Years (1947), And Be My Love (1944), and Another Language (1932).

Dale's first film was Crime Without Passion (1934) in an uncredited role. She was a familiar face in films of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, frequently playing stern, authoritarian characters such as prison matrons and head nurses, although she was equally adept at playing grande dames and ladies of the aristocracy.

Dale played many roles in television over the years. In the 1958-1959 season of The Donna Reed Show, Dale played a job-seeking housekeeper who is frightened from the Stone home by Jeff Stone's pet mouse, and she appeared in the 1957 Maverick episode "According to Hoyle" opposite James Garner.

Movies for Esther Dale...

North to Alaska
Title: North to Alaska
Character: Woman at Picnic
Released: November 7, 1960
Type: Movie
After striking gold in Alaska, the romantic George sends his womanizing partner Sam to bring his fiancée up from Seattle. When Sam finds that she has already married, he returns instead with Angel, a dancer originally from France.
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Title: Thriller
Character: Ellen the Maid
Released: September 13, 1960
Type: TV
Thriller is an American anthology television series that aired during the 1960–61 and 1961–62 seasons on NBC. The show featured host Boris Karloff introducing a mix of self-contained, macabre weird-horror and morbid, hitchockian crime stories, in some of which he also starred.
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Title: The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
Released: September 29, 1959
Type: TV
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from 1959 to 1963. The series and several episode scripts were adapted from a 1951 collection of short stories of the same name, written by Max Shulman, who had also written a feature film adaptation of his short stories for MGM in 1953, The Affairs of Dobie Gillis. The series revolved around the life of teenager/young adult Dobie Gillis, who, along with his best friend, beatnik Maynard G. Krebs, struggles against the forces of his life - high school, the military, college, and his parents - as he aspires to attain both wealth and dates with girls. The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis was produced by Martin Manulis Productions in association with 20th Century Fox Television. Creator Shulman also wrote the theme song in collaboration with Lionel Newman.
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Title: Lock-Up
Released: September 28, 1959
Type: TV
Lock-Up is an American legal drama series that premiered in syndication in September 1959 and concluded in June 1961. The half-hour episodes had little time for character development or subplots and presented a compact story without embellishment.
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The Sound and the Fury
Title: The Sound and the Fury
Character: Mrs. Maud Mansfield
Released: March 27, 1959
Type: Movie
Drama focusing on a family of Southern aristocrats who are trying to deal with the dissolution of their clan and the loss of its reputation, faith, fortunes and respect.
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Title: The Donna Reed Show
Released: September 24, 1958
Type: TV
Revolves around typical family problems, such as firing a clumsy housekeeper, throwing a retirement bash for a colleague, and finding quality time away from the children.
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Title: Maverick
Character: Ma Braus
Released: September 22, 1957
Type: TV
Maverick is an American Western television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins. The show ran from September 22, 1957 to July 8, 1962 on ABC and stars James Garner as Bret Maverick, an adroitly articulate cardsharp. Eight episodes into the first season, he was joined by Jack Kelly as his brother Bart, and from that point on, Garner and Kelly alternated leads from week to week, sometimes teaming up for the occasional two-brother episode. The Mavericks were poker players from Texas who traveled all over the American Old West and on Mississippi riverboats, constantly getting into and out of life-threatening trouble of one sort or another, usually involving money, women, or both. They would typically find themselves weighing a financial windfall against a moral dilemma. More often than not, their consciences trumped their wallets since both Mavericks were intensely ethical. When Garner left the series after the third season due to a legal dispute, Roger Moore was added to the cast as their cousin Beau Maverick. Robert Colbert appeared later in the fourth season as a third Maverick brother, Brent Maverick. No more than two of the series leads ever appeared together in the same episode, and usually only one.
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Title: M Squad
Character: Julia Sheldon
Released: September 20, 1957
Type: TV
Lt. Frank Ballinger is a no-nonsense plain clothes cop in the elite M Squad Division. The Squad's task is to root out organised crime and corruption in America's Second City, Chicago.
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The Oklahoman
Title: The Oklahoman
Character: Mrs. Fitzgerald
Released: May 19, 1957
Type: Movie
After his wife dies in childbirth, a doctor settles down in the small Oklahoma town of Cherokee Wells to raise his newborn daughter. Unfortunately, not all the citizens there are hospitable, especially when the doctor hires a pretty Indian teenager as his child's nanny.
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Betrayed Women
Title: Betrayed Women
Character: Head Matron Ballard
Released: July 17, 1955
Type: Movie
Love-starved gun molls (Carole Mathews, Beverly Michaels) escape from a prison farm where matrons make their lives miserable.
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Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki
Title: Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki
Character: Birdie Hicks
Released: April 1, 1955
Type: Movie
Ma and Pa, along with daughter Rosie, go off to Hawaii in answer to cousin Rodney's call for help running his pineapple farm while he recovers from an illness. Pa soon causes a major explosion and gets himself kidnapped.
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Title: December Bride
Released: October 4, 1954
Type: TV
December Bride is an American sitcom that aired on the CBS television network from 1954 to 1959, adapted from the original CBS radio network series that aired from June 1952 through September 1953.
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A Tale of Two Cities
Title: A Tale of Two Cities
Character: Pross
Released: May 3, 1953
Type: Movie
A dramatization originally for TV on the Plymouth Playhouse. A retelling of the Charles Dickens story.
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Title: Mr. & Mrs. North
Released: October 3, 1952
Type: TV
Mr. & Mrs. North is an American comedy/mystery television series that aired on CBS from October 3, 1952 to May 25, 1954. The series centers on Jerry North, a mystery magazine publisher who thinks he is a good amateur detective, and his wife, Pamela, as they solve crimes in New York City.
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Title: Cavalcade of America
Character: Aunt Tabitha
Released: October 1, 1952
Type: TV
Cavalcade of America is an anthology drama series that was sponsored by the DuPont Company, although it occasionally presented a musical, such as an adaptation of Show Boat, and condensed biographies of popular composers. It was initially broadcast on radio from 1935 to 1953, and later on television from 1952 to 1957. Originally on CBS, the series pioneered the use of anthology drama for company audio advertising. Cavalcade of America documented historical events using stories of individual courage, initiative and achievement, often with feel-good dramatizations of the human spirit's triumph against all odds. This was consistent with DuPont's overall conservative philosophy and legacy as an American company dating back to 1802. The company's motto, "Maker of better things for better living through chemistry," was read at the beginning of each program, and the dramas emphasized humanitarian progress, particularly improvements in the lives of women, often through technological innovation.
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Title: Four Star Playhouse
Character: Mrs. Weston
Released: September 25, 1952
Type: TV
Four Star Playhouse is an American television anthology series that ran from 1952 to 1956, sponsored in its first bi-weekly season by The Singer Company; Bristol-Myers became an alternate sponsor when it became a weekly series in the fall of 1953. The original premise was that Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino, David Niven, and Dick Powell would take turns starring in episodes. However, several other performers took the lead from time to time, including Ronald Colman and Joan Fontaine. Blake Edwards was among the writers and directors who contributed to the series. Edwards created the recurring character of illegal gambling house operator Willie Dante for Dick Powell to play on this series. The character was later revamped and spun off in his own series starring Howard Duff, then-husband of Lupino. The pilot for Meet McGraw, starring Frank Lovejoy, aired here, as did another episode in which Lovejoy recreated his role of Chicago newspaper reporter Randy Stone, from the radio drama Nightbeat.
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Monkey Business
Title: Monkey Business
Character: Mrs. Rhinelander
Released: September 3, 1952
Type: Movie
Research chemist Barnaby Fulton works on a fountain of youth pill for a chemical company. One of the labs chimps gets loose in the laboratory and mixes chemicals, but then pours the mix into the water cooler. When trying one of his own samples, washed down with water from the cooler, Fulton begins to act just like a twenty-year-old and believes his potion is working. Soon his wife and boss are also behaving like children.
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Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair
Title: Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair
Character: Birdie Hicks
Released: July 11, 1952
Type: Movie
Ma and Pa are trying to raise enough money at the county fair to send their daughter Rosie to college. Ma competes in baking and Pa enters a trotter in a horse race, while Rosie takes up with handsome young Marvin Johnson.
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Too Young to Kiss
Title: Too Young to Kiss
Character: Mrs. Boykin
Released: November 22, 1951
Type: Movie
Eric Wainwright, a busy impresario, is besieged by hordes of wannabe concert stars, eager for their big break. One of them is Cynthia Potter, a talented pianist... but she can't get in to see him. When she learns that Wainwright is auditioning young musicians for a children's concert tour, Cynthia dons braces and bobby sox and passes herself off as a child prodigy.
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On Moonlight Bay
Title: On Moonlight Bay
Released: July 26, 1951
Type: Movie
The Winfield family moves into a new house in a small town in Indiana. Tomboy Marjorie Winfield begins a romance with William Sherman who lives across the street. Marjorie has to learn how to dance and act like a proper young lady. Unfortunately William Sherman has unconventional ideas for the time. His ideas include not believing in marriage or money, which causes friction with Marjorie's father, who is the local bank vice president
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Walk Softly, Stranger
Title: Walk Softly, Stranger
Character: Miss Thompson
Released: October 14, 1950
Type: Movie
A petty crook moves to an Ohio town and courts a factory owner's disabled daughter.
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Surrender
Title: Surrender
Character: Aunt May
Released: September 15, 1950
Type: Movie
Violet Barton, a femme-fatale goal-setter, fascinates men and readily returns their affection to obtain the wealth she desires, even to the point of bigamy. She has an affair with gambler Gregg Delaney but marries his best friend, Johnny Hale, when she discovers Hale is the richest man in Texas. This loses her the respect of her sister, Janet, who loves Hale, and Delaney, who loves Violet. Meanwhile, town sheriff Bill Howard is working hard to get Delaney to confess to a murder.
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No Man of Her Own
Title: No Man of Her Own
Character: Josie
Released: February 21, 1950
Type: Movie
A penniless pregnant woman adopts the identity of a rich woman killed in a train crash.
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Holiday Affair
Title: Holiday Affair
Character: Mrs. Ennis
Released: December 12, 1949
Type: Movie
Just before Christmas, department store clerk Steve Mason meets big spending customer Connie Ennis, who's actually a comparison shopper sent by another store. Steve lets her go, which gets him fired. They spend the afternoon together, which doesn't sit well with Connie's steady suitor, Carl, when he finds out, but delights her young son Timmy, who quickly takes to Steve.
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Ma and Pa Kettle
Title: Ma and Pa Kettle
Character: Mrs. Birdie Hicks
Released: April 1, 1949
Type: Movie
The Kettles and their fifteen children are about to be evicted from their rundown rustic home when Pa wins the grand prize by coming up with a new tobacco slogan. Birdie Hicks is jealous of the family's new wealth, which includes a completely automated modern home, and accuses Pa of stealing the slogan. Reporter Kim Parker proves Birdie wrong and marries Tom Kettle.
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A Song Is Born
Title: A Song Is Born
Character: Miss Bragg
Released: October 19, 1948
Type: Movie
The story of seven scholars in search of an expert to teach them about swing music. They seem to have found the perfect candidate in winsome nightclub singer Honey Swanson. But Honey's gangster boyfriend doesn't want to give her up.
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The Unfinished Dance
Title: The Unfinished Dance
Character: Olga
Released: September 19, 1947
Type: Movie
A young dance student accidentally cripples a teacher she doesn't like.
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The Egg and I
Title: The Egg and I
Character: Birdie Hicks
Released: May 1, 1947
Type: Movie
World War II veteran Bob MacDonald surprises his new wife, Betty, by quitting his city job and moving them to a dilapidated farm in the country. While Betty gamely struggles with managing the crumbling house and holding off nosy neighbors and a recalcitrant pig, Bob makes plans for crops and livestock. The couple's bliss is shaken by a visit from a beautiful farm owner, who seems to want more from Bob than just managing her property.
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Margie
Title: Margie
Character: Grandma McSweeney
Released: October 15, 1946
Type: Movie
A woman reminisces about her teenage years in the 1920s, when she fell in love with her teacher.
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Smoky
Title: Smoky
Character: Mrs. 'Gram' Richards
Released: June 26, 1946
Type: Movie
Clint Barkley first sees Smoky as a runaway, and drives him back to the ranch where he meets the owner, Julie Richards. He is given a job on her ranch, but the head cowhand is doubtful about Clint and fears that since he refuses to talk about himself, he must have some dreadful secret in his past. Clint and Smoky become close to each other, weathering the hardships of Western life and the suspicions of others together, until one day, Smoky tragically vanishes. Will Clint ever see him again?
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A Stolen Life
Title: A Stolen Life
Character: Mrs. Johnson
Released: May 1, 1946
Type: Movie
A twin takes her deceased sister's place as wife of the man they both love.
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My Reputation
Title: My Reputation
Character: Anna
Released: January 25, 1946
Type: Movie
Tongues begin to wag when a lonely widow becomes romantically involved with a military man. Problems arise when the gossip is filtered down to her own children.
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Behind City Lights
Title: Behind City Lights
Character: Sarah Lowell
Released: September 10, 1945
Type: Movie
This Republic programmer stars Lynne Roberts as a country gal who is slickered by a couple of city-fied jewel thieves, played by Peter Cookson and Jerome Cowan. Roberts is set up for a patsy by these two rogues, and nearly ends up in jail-and later on, narrowly escapes being rubbed out by gangsters.
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On Stage Everybody
Title: On Stage Everybody
Character: Ma Cassidy
Released: July 13, 1945
Type: Movie
Radio's miracle show is on the screen.
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Her Favorite Patient
Title: Her Favorite Patient
Character: Martha Gravitt
Released: June 22, 1945
Type: Movie
A beautiful female doctor visits her small hometown on her way back to Chicago. Her overworked uncle, who is the town's doctor, wants her to stay and help him, and he and a macho test pilot who's fallen for her come up with a plan that involves the pilot faking an illness and being treated by her, with her uncle's "help".
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Old Acquaintance
Title: Old Acquaintance
Character: Harriet
Released: November 27, 1943
Type: Movie
Two writers, friends since childhood, fight over their books and lives.
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The North Star
Title: The North Star
Character: Anna Kurin
Released: November 4, 1943
Type: Movie
A Ukrainian village must suddenly contend with the Nazi invasion of June 1941. Later re-edited and released as "Armored Attack."
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Swing Your Partner
Title: Swing Your Partner
Character: Caroline Bird, aka Anna Robbins
Released: May 20, 1943
Type: Movie
Caroline Bird, the crotchety and stingy owner of Bird Milk Products, is not amused when her employees at the Dairyville factory, the oldest plant in the company, broadcast a special radio program in honor of her birthday. Employees Lulubelle, Scotty and Vera Vague, fed up with the terrible working conditions at Dairyville, cut into the broadcast, and Lulubelle asserts that Caroline is a "big hunk of cheese." Lane, the factory manager, cannot find the culprit, and so Caroline goes with her secretary, Dale Evans, to Dairyville.
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Murder in Times Square
Title: Murder in Times Square
Character: Longacre Lil
Released: April 1, 1943
Type: Movie
An actor becomes a suspect in the murders of four New Yorkers injected with rattlesnake venom.
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The Amazing Mrs. Holliday
Title: The Amazing Mrs. Holliday
Released: February 19, 1943
Type: Movie
A missionary tries to outwit the U.S. government and smuggle Chinese orphans into the country.
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Wrecking Crew
Title: Wrecking Crew
Character: Mike O'Glendy
Released: November 7, 1942
Type: Movie
Follows a crew as they work under a deadline set by their boss to complete the demolition of a building. Touches on the lives of several of the crew in their lives away from the job and shows rhe comraderie of the crew in their work and even away from work.
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A Letter From Bataan
Title: A Letter From Bataan
Character: Mrs. Jackson
Released: September 15, 1942
Type: Movie
An American soldier pleads to the folks at home to conserve scarce wartime resources.
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Ten Gentlemen from West Point
Title: Ten Gentlemen from West Point
Character: Mrs. Thompson
Released: June 26, 1942
Type: Movie
This historical drama tells the story of the first class to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. In the early 19th Century, Congress appropriated the money to build the school, but opponents who believed it to be an illegitimate expansion of the powers of the federal government decided to sabotage the school. They put the hard-as-nails Major Sam Carter in charge of the academy, and he ruthlessly put the recruits through grueling training -- until only ten prospective soldiers remained. They include Dawson, a patriotic farm boy and Howard Shelton, a selfish playboy who has come to West Point only because of its prestige. The two vie for Carolyn Bainbridge, while they, along with the other eight, try convince Carter that the school is worth keeping.
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Maisie Gets Her Man
Title: Maisie Gets Her Man
Character: Mrs. McIntyre (Uncredited)
Released: June 1, 1942
Type: Movie
Struggling performers, Sothern and Skelton's lives are thrown off gear when they are caught with a bagful of hard cash robbed by a goon. With Skelton in prison, how will Sothern prove their innocence?
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You're Telling Me
Title: You're Telling Me
Character: Aunt Fannie Handley
Released: May 3, 1942
Type: Movie
Hubert Abercrombie Gumm, a flighty, eccentric screwball acquires a job as an executive at a radio station at the insistence of his only-slightly less eccentric aunt Fannie Handley, who is married to one of the company owners. After mixing up the script pages to the various radio programs, Hubert sets out to get the name of a returning explorer on a contract for the radio station. Other than the title, this film has no connection at all to the 1934 W.C. Fields film of the same title even though some sources give the plot of the Fields' film as the plot of this film.
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What's Cookin'?
Title: What's Cookin'?
Character: Mrs. Murphy (uncredited)
Released: February 20, 1942
Type: Movie
J. P. Courtney wants to update the music on the radio program he sponsors, but his wife, Agatha Courtney, is the final authority and addicted to the classics and won't allow him to replace Professor Bistell and his symphonic orchestra. Conspiring with his daughter Sue and her friends, Marvo the Great, the Andrews Sisters, Anne Payne and bandleader Woody Herman, they devise a sabotage plot that gets rid of Professor Bistell, and a new sound is soon heard on the program.
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Blondie Goes to College
Title: Blondie Goes to College
Character: Mrs. Carrie Dill, the Landlady
Released: January 15, 1942
Type: Movie
Dagwood Bumstead must receive a college diploma or lose his job with the Dithers Construction Company. Not wishing to be separated from her husband, Blondie enrolls in college as well. But Leighton College rules stipulate "No Married Couples", forcing Blondie and Dagwood to pretend that they're not married. This causes quite a dilemma when coed Laura Wadsworth begins flirting with Dagwood and Rusty Bryant does the same with Blondie. And Blondie's discovery of a very pleasant secret threatens to expose her and Dagwood's marital status too.
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Dangerously They Live
Title: Dangerously They Live
Character: Dawson, Goodwin's Housekeeper
Released: December 24, 1941
Type: Movie
A doctor tries to rescue a young innocent from Nazi agents.
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All-American Co-Ed
Title: All-American Co-Ed
Character: Aunt Matilda Collinge
Released: October 31, 1941
Type: Movie
Fraternity brothers enter one of their own into a scholarship lottery after a women's college insults them. Though the Zeta boys are celebrated for their comedy drag revue, staying undercover as a woman at an all-girls' school wasn't part of the rehearsal!
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Aloma of the South Seas
Title: Aloma of the South Seas
Character: Tarusa
Released: August 27, 1941
Type: Movie
A young South Seas native boy is sent to the U.S. for his education and returns to his island after his father dies to try to stop a revolution.
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Unfinished Business
Title: Unfinished Business
Character: Aunt Mathilda
Released: August 27, 1941
Type: Movie
Starting with a cruel joke – a couple of callow men make a bet that one of them can seduce the woman sharing their train compartment – the film charts the relationship that develops between a small-town girl in the big city, and the brother of the man who has heartlessly seduced and abandoned her.
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Back Street
Title: Back Street
Character: Mrs. Smith
Released: February 7, 1941
Type: Movie
Previously filmed in 1932, and remade a third time in 1961, this second film version of Fannie Hurst's novel stars Margaret Sullavan as a fashion designer in love with a married banker (Charles Boyer). Directed by Robert Stevenson, the film also stars Richard Carlson, Tim Holt, Frank McHugh, Esther Dale and Cecil Cunningham.
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Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Title: Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Character: Mrs. Krausheimer
Released: January 31, 1941
Type: Movie
Happily married for three years, Ann and David Smith live in New York. One morning Ann asks David if he had to do it over again, would he marry her? To her shock, he answers, "No". Later that day, they separately discover that, due to a legal complication, they are not legally married.
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Arise, My Love
Title: Arise, My Love
Character: Susie
Released: November 8, 1940
Type: Movie
A dashing pilot and a vivacious reporter have romantic and dramatic adventures in Europe as World War II begins.
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Blondie Has Servant Trouble
Title: Blondie Has Servant Trouble
Character: Anna Vaughn
Released: July 25, 1940
Type: Movie
Things get under way when Blondie Bumstead demands that her husband request a raise from his boss Mr. Dithers, so that she can afford to hire a maid. But Dithers has no time for any salary disputes: his construction firm is currently stuck with an unsaleable old mansion that is rumored to be haunted. To disprove this theory, Dithers asks the Bumstead family to spend a night in the crumbling old house, throwing a retinue of servants into the bargain.
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Untamed
Title: Untamed
Character: Mrs. Smith
Released: July 24, 1940
Type: Movie
A courageous doctor braves a fierce blizzard in the Canadian wilderness to save a remote community from a deadly epidemic. He has come North to visit and ends up stealing a wife from her husband. When the epidemic hits, he and the wife begin their arduous journey.
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Cross-Country Romance
Title: Cross-Country Romance
Character: Mrs. McGillicuddy
Released: July 12, 1940
Type: Movie
A runaway heiress hides in a doctor's trailer for a rollicking trip to San Francisco.
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The Mortal Storm
Title: The Mortal Storm
Character: Marta
Released: June 20, 1940
Type: Movie
The Roth family leads a quiet life in a small village in the German Alps during the early 1930s. When the Nazis come to power, the family is divided and Martin Brietner, a family friend is caught up in the turmoil.
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Opened by Mistake
Title: Opened by Mistake
Character: Mrs. Anthony DeBorest
Released: May 10, 1940
Type: Movie
A wise-guy reporter and a tippling sportswriter acquire an unclaimed trunk with a corpse inside.
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Forty Little Mothers
Title: Forty Little Mothers
Character: Mrs. Mason the Landlady
Released: April 26, 1940
Type: Movie
An out-of-work professor gets a break from an old college buddy to teach at an exclusive girl's school. But events conspire against him: he finds an abandoned child which he takes under his wing, despite the school's rules against teachers having a family; and the girls in the school resent his replacing a handsome and popular teacher, and do everything in their power to get him fired.
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And One Was Beautiful
Title: And One Was Beautiful
Character: Margaret
Released: April 5, 1940
Type: Movie
A teenager falls hard for an irresponsible playboy.
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Women Without Names
Title: Women Without Names
Character: Head Matron Ingles
Released: March 14, 1940
Type: Movie
Joyce and Fred MacNeil's honeymoon comes to an abrupt and unsatisfying halt when Fred is accused of murder. Railroaded into prison through the efforts of politically ambitious assistant DA Marlin, Fred awaits his doom on Death Row, while Joyce works overtime on the outside to clear her husband's name
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Abe Lincoln in Illinois
Title: Abe Lincoln in Illinois
Character: Lincoln's Cook (uncredited)
Released: February 22, 1940
Type: Movie
Abe Lincoln in Illinois is a 1940 biographical film which tells the story of the life of Abraham Lincoln from his departure from Kentucky until his election as President of the United States.
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Convicted Woman
Title: Convicted Woman
Character: Chief Matron Brackett
Released: January 31, 1940
Type: Movie
A reporter and a lawyer investigate a women's prison and help an inmate who does not belong there.
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Village Barn Dance
Title: Village Barn Dance
Character: Minerva Withers
Released: January 30, 1940
Type: Movie
Dan Martin, an unemployed college graduate, drifts into the town of Lyndale, only to learn that the town and everything in it are dominated by Minerva Withers, a tight-fisted, old skinflint whose welcome does not extend to tramps.
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Laddie
Title: Laddie
Character: Sarah, the Housekeeper
Released: January 18, 1940
Type: Movie
Handsome Laddie Stanton courts neighbor Pamela Pryor, meeting opposition from her stern military father, recently immigrated from England.
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Swanee River
Title: Swanee River
Character: Temperance Woman
Released: December 29, 1939
Type: Movie
Swanee River is a 1940 American biopic about Stephen Foster, a songwriter from Pittsburgh who falls in love with the South, marries a Southern girl, then is accused of sympathizing when the Civil War breaks out. Typical of 20th Century Fox biopics of the time, the film is more fictional than factual biography.
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A Child Is Born
Title: A Child Is Born
Character: Prison Matron (uncredited)
Released: December 7, 1939
Type: Movie
A pregnant prison inmate shares her problems with the patients in a maternity ward.
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Bad Little Angel
Title: Bad Little Angel
Character: Miss Brown, Orphanage Secretary (uncredited)
Released: October 27, 1939
Type: Movie
A bible-guided Victorian orphan befriends a bootblack in a strange town.
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Blackmail
Title: Blackmail
Character: Sarah
Released: September 8, 1939
Type: Movie
A fugitive from a chain gang becomes an oil-well firefighter and meets the man who framed him.
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The Women
Title: The Women
Character: Ingrid (uncredited)
Released: September 1, 1939
Type: Movie
A happily married woman lets her catty friends talk her into divorce when her husband strays.
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Tell No Tales
Title: Tell No Tales
Character: Mrs. Haskins
Released: June 12, 1939
Type: Movie
A newspaper editor turns a kidnapping into the banner headlines and exclusive story that could save his publication.
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6,000 Enemies
Title: 6,000 Enemies
Character: Prison Matron
Released: June 9, 1939
Type: Movie
A tough prosecutor who has sent dozens of criminals to prison finds himself framed on a bribery charge and winds up in prison himself.
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Big Town Czar
Title: Big Town Czar
Character: Ma Daley
Released: May 3, 1939
Type: Movie
When gangster Phil Daley gets rid of his chief Paul Burgess he has everything that money can buy, except the respect of his parents and his sweetheart Susan Warren. His younger brother Danny quits college and forces Phil to make him part of the gang. The overly-ambitious Danny fixes a prize-fight on which rival gang-leader Mike Luger loses heavily and, thinking that Phil has double-crossed him, sends gunmen out to kill Phil. They kill Danny instead and the frightened Phil flees to a country hideout. His chief lieutenant, Sid Travis, sets a trap for Phil when he returns.
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Broadway Serenade
Title: Broadway Serenade
Character: Mrs. Olsen, the Landlady
Released: April 7, 1939
Type: Movie
A married singer, pianist/composer team are struggling to hit it big in New York. Finally, they audition before a Broadway producer, but the producer only wants the singer, leaving the husband without a job and feeling a failure.
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Sergeant Madden
Title: Sergeant Madden
Character: Mrs. McGillivray
Released: March 24, 1939
Type: Movie
A dedicated police officer is torn between family and duty when his son turns to a life of crime.
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Made for Each Other
Title: Made for Each Other
Character: Annie (uncredited)
Released: February 10, 1939
Type: Movie
A couple struggle to find happiness after a whirlwind courtship.
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How to Sub-Let
Title: How to Sub-Let
Character: Mrs. Mustavas
Released: January 29, 1939
Type: Movie
A man fumbles through an apartment sub-let assessment while his wife is away.
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The Great Man Votes
Title: The Great Man Votes
Character: Mrs. Markham
Released: January 13, 1939
Type: Movie
In 1923, Gregory Vance, a widower with two children, is a former scholar who has turned from book to bottle. He works, slightly, as a night-watchman, and his children, who know him for what he is and what he isn't, are his only admirers. Then, it is discovered that he is the only registered voter in a key precinct and the politicians, from both parties, arrive in droves bearing inducements. What he does about this situation, and the relatives who want to take his children away from him make up the story.
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Girls on Probation
Title: Girls on Probation
Character: Mrs. Engstrom
Released: October 22, 1938
Type: Movie
A dizzy young girl falls into crime but wins her lawyer's heart.
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Prison Farm
Title: Prison Farm
Character: Cora Waxley
Released: June 17, 1938
Type: Movie
Shirley Ross plays an innocent young girl convicted for complicity in a crime committed by her boy friend (Lloyd Nolan). The male crook is sentence to six months on a prison farm populated by both men and women (segregated, of course). Ross is also incarcerated, suffering the cruelties of the sadistic male and female guards (including J. Carroll Naish and future "Ma Kettle" Marjorie Main!)
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Stolen Heaven
Title: Stolen Heaven
Character: Lieschen
Released: May 11, 1938
Type: Movie
Two attractive jewel thieves, one female (Olympe Bradna), one male (Gene Raymond) escape together after their latest escapade and hide out in the home of an aged concert pianist (Lewis Stone). To cover their tracks and keep the old man from turning them in, the thieves pretend to arrange his comeback concert. The artifice becomes reality, the pianist makes a triumphant return, and the thieves reform. This 1938 film is not a remake of 1932's Stolen Heaven, which wove an entirely different story about a suicide pact.
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Condemned Women
Title: Condemned Women
Character: Mrs. Clara Glover, Head Matron
Released: March 18, 1938
Type: Movie
A shoplifter gets sentenced to a women's prison.
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The Awful Truth
Title: The Awful Truth
Character: Mrs. Leeson
Released: October 20, 1937
Type: Movie
Unfounded suspicions lead a married couple to begin divorce proceedings, whereupon they start undermining each other's attempts to find new romance.
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Dead End
Title: Dead End
Character: Mrs. Fenner
Released: August 27, 1937
Type: Movie
Mobster "Baby Face" Martin returns home to visit the New York neighborhood where he grew up, dropping in on his mother, who rejects him because of his gangster lifestyle, and his old girlfriend, Francey, now a syphilitic prostitute. Martin also crosses paths with Dave, a childhood friend struggling to make it as an architect, and the Dead End Kids, a gang of young boys roaming the streets of the city's East Side slums.
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On Such a Night
Title: On Such a Night
Character: Miss Belinda Fentridge
Released: August 27, 1937
Type: Movie
When her husband is accused of murder, an actress tries to prove his innocence.
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Easy Living
Title: Easy Living
Character: Lillian
Released: July 16, 1937
Type: Movie
J.B. Ball, a rich financier, gets fed up with his free-spending family. He takes his wife's just-bought (very expensive) sable coat and throws it out the window, it lands on poor hard-working girl Mary Smith. But it isn't so easy to just give away something so valuable, as he soon learns.
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Wild Money
Title: Wild Money
Character: Jenny Hawkins
Released: July 9, 1937
Type: Movie
A tightwad accountant for a newspaper becomes friends with a reporter. The bookkeeper goes on vacation, and while there he learns of a kidnapping conspiracy. He quickly phones the paper and they order him to follow up on the story and stay off the phone so the reporter (whom he secretly has a crush on) can use it.
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Damaged Goods
Title: Damaged Goods
Character: Mrs. Dupont
Released: May 22, 1937
Type: Movie
A groom-to-be contracts syphilis and wrestles with the consequences of his diagnosis.
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Outcast
Title: Outcast
Character: Hattie Simmerson
Released: February 5, 1937
Type: Movie
A physician in a small town suddenly finds himself the object of vilification and persecution when one of his patients commits suicide.
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Hollywood Boulevard
Title: Hollywood Boulevard
Character: Martha
Released: August 20, 1936
Type: Movie
With a full Hollywood background and settings but more an expose of scandal-and-gossip magazines of the era, has-been actor John Blakeford agrees to write his memoirs for magazine-publisher Jordan Winston. When Blakeford's daughter, Patricia, ask him to desist for the sake of his ex-wife, Carlotta Blakeford, he attempts to break his contract with Winston.
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Fury
Title: Fury
Character: Mrs. Whipple
Released: June 5, 1936
Type: Movie
Joe, who owns a gas station along with his brothers and is about to marry Katherine, travels to the small town where she lives to visit her, but is wrongly mistaken for a wanted kidnapper and arrested.
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The Case Against Mrs. Ames
Title: The Case Against Mrs. Ames
Character: Matilda
Released: May 8, 1936
Type: Movie
An attorney falls for the woman he's representing on a murder charge.
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The Farmer in the Dell
Title: The Farmer in the Dell
Character: Ma Boyer
Released: March 27, 1936
Type: Movie
An Iowa farmer's wife makes him move to Hollywood so their daughter can become a star.
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Lady of Secrets
Title: Lady of Secrets
Character: Miss Eccles
Released: February 21, 1936
Type: Movie
Because of a very unhappy affair she had earlier in her life, a woman shuts herself off from the rest of the world.
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Timothy's Quest
Title: Timothy's Quest
Character: Hitty Tarbox
Released: January 31, 1936
Type: Movie
Timothy (Dickie Moore), an orphan, is sent with his sister, Gay (Sally Martin), to a farm run by Vilda Cummins (Elizabeth Patterson, an old maid with a dislike for children. Timothy eventually wins her over, and also pushes along the romance for her niece, Martha (Eleanore Whitney), with David Masters (Tom Keene).
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The Great Impersonation
Title: The Great Impersonation
Character: Mrs. Unthank
Released: December 8, 1935
Type: Movie
The second of the three film versions of the E. Phillips Oppenheim espionage thriller set largely in an old dark house where a tremulous wife wonders if her husband is really his double, a dastardly German spy.
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I Dream Too Much
Title: I Dream Too Much
Character: Mrs. Dilley (uncredited)
Released: November 29, 1935
Type: Movie
Opera student Annette Monard meets composer Jonathan Street, and in a buoyant, alcohol-fueled evening, the couple marries. Sincerely falling in love, Jonathan encourages the talented Annette to sing — yet when his own attempt at an opera fails, Jonathan lashes out at Annette's success. Despite her husband's jealousy, Annette embarks on a successful career that allows her to secretly fund Jonathan's opera, bringing their marriage to a crisis.
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In Old Kentucky
Title: In Old Kentucky
Character: Dolly Breckenridge
Released: November 28, 1935
Type: Movie
Horse trainer Steve Tapley is caught between the feuding Martingale and Shattuck families. He sides with young Nancy Martingale and her grandfather Ezra, and the feud is to be resolved by a horse race between the favorites of each family. Unfortunately, the Martingale's horse, Greyboy, only runs well in mud. And it hasn't rained in a long time.
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Mary Burns, Fugitive
Title: Mary Burns, Fugitive
Character: Kate
Released: November 15, 1935
Type: Movie
A young woman who owns a coffee shop falls for a handsome young customer, unaware that he is a gangster.
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I Live My Life
Title: I Live My Life
Character: Brumbaugh, Mrs. Gage's Housekeeper
Released: October 4, 1935
Type: Movie
A society girl tries to make a go of her marriage to an archaeologist.
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Curly Top
Title: Curly Top
Character: Genevieve Graham
Released: July 26, 1935
Type: Movie
Wealthy Edward Morgan becomes charmed with a curly-haired orphan and her pretty older sister Mary and arranges to adopt both under the alias of "Mr. Jones". As he spends more time with them, he soon finds himself falling in love with Mary.
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Private Worlds
Title: Private Worlds
Character: Matron
Released: April 19, 1935
Type: Movie
At the Brentwood Asylum for the mentally ill, psychiatrist partners Jane Everest and Alex MacGregor are broken up by the new superintendent, Dr. Charles Monet, who has a low regard for women physicians. Jane and Charles clash on patient treatment, and Jane learns that Charles has a sister, Claire, with a mysterious past.
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The Wedding Night
Title: The Wedding Night
Character: Mrs. Kaise Novak
Released: March 8, 1935
Type: Movie
While working on a novel in his country home in Connecticut, married writer Tony Barrett (Cooper) becomes attracted to Manya (Sten), the daughter of a neighboring farmer. Manya is unhappily engaged to Frederik (Bellamy). Due to a snowstorm, Tony and Manya are trapped together in his house overnight. The next day, Manya's father insists her wedding to Frederik take place in spite of Manya's misgivings. Drunkenness and jealousy result in tragedy at the wedding reception that night.
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Crime Without Passion
Title: Crime Without Passion
Character: Miss Keeley (uncredited)
Released: August 30, 1934
Type: Movie
Caddish lawyer Lee Gentry is going out with Katy Costello, but carrying on an affair with dancer Carmen Brown. When he wants to end the dalliance with Carmen, she is so distraught that she becomes suicidal. Seizing the gun from Carmen, he accidentally shoots her, and thinking she's dead, concocts a series of increasingly outlandish alibis to cover his tracks under the guidance of a ghostly apparition that is his alter ego.