Fritz Leiber
Birth : 1882-01-29, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Death : 1949-10-14
History
Fritz Reuter Leiber Sr. was an American actor. A Shakespearean actor on stage, he also had a successful career in film. He was the father of science fiction and fantasy writer Fritz Leiber Jr., who was also an actor for a time. Leiber and his wife spent much of their time touring in a Shakespearean acting company, known by the 1930s as Fritz Leiber & Co. Leiber made his film bow in 1916, playing Mercutio in the Francis X. Bushman version of “Romeo and Juliet.” With his piercing eyes and shock of white hair, Leiber seemed every inch the priests, professors, musical professors, and religious fanatics that he was frequently called upon to play in films. His many silent-era portrayals included Caesar in Theda Bara's 1917 “Cleopatra” and Solomon in the mammoth 1921 Betty Blythe vehicle “The Queen of Sheba.” He thrived as a character actor in sound films, usually in historical roles. In the film “Champagne Waltz” he portrayed an orchestra maestro; the role required him to play classical music on a violin and jazz on a clarinet. One of Leiber's larger assignments of the 1940s, and his most notable musical role, was as Franz Liszt in the Claude Rains' remake of “Phantom of the Opera” (1943). Leiber appears together with his son Fritz Leiber Jr. in the wedding-feast scene of Greta Garbo's film “Camille” (1936) and in Warner Bros.' “The Great Garrick” (1937). Leiber also appeared with his son Fritz Leiber Jr. in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1939), but Fritz Leiber Jr. was not credited for his small speaking part. Late in his career, Leiber performed briefly opposite Charles Chaplin as the priest who visits Monsieur Verdoux in his prison cell.
Mr. Poole
A Native American Civil War hero returns home to fight for his people.
Lord Sharif
When strongman Samson rejects the love of the beautiful Philistine woman Delilah, she seeks vengeance that brings horrible consequences they both regret. The classic story of Samson and Delilah as told by Cecil B. DeMille.
Emir
An Arab sheik's daughter (Maureen O'Hara) avenges his death, blamed on Hassan (Paul Christian) and his Black Riders.
Filippo
The tiny independent duchy of Ferrara is located between Casare Borgia's Rome and Venice, and Borgia has plans to conquer Venice via Ferrara. He murders his sister's husband and makes it appear that Alfonso D'Este of Ferrara was behind the killing. To avenge herself against Ferrara and D'Este, Lucretia Borgia marries D'Este and intends to poison him. But...she falls in love with him.
Nanaram
Jungle adventure drama about a young man and his wild animal friends attempting to thwart a government-approved hunting expedition.
Dr. Valonius
A killer hides out in a small-town boarding house.
Col. Isham
This 'prequel' to The Little Foxes tells how the ruthless members of the old-South Hubbard family got that way.
D'Anneci
Casanova, a young patriot in 18th-century Sicily, upon learning that his father and sister have been murdered, returns to Palermo and engages in guerilla tactics against the forces of the Governor. Lady Bianca, the Governor's daughter, is in love with one of the patriots, Lorenzo, and desires to escape from the palace. Her lady-in-waiting, Zanetta, enlists the aid of Casanova and he rescues them and takes them to the partisan's camp. The rebels are victorious. Lady Bianca makes plans to marry Lorenzo, and Casanova and Zanetta have similar plans.
Binda Sha
A treasury agent becomes obsessed with exposing an international drug ring.
Father Fareaux
The film is about an unemployed banker, Henri Verdoux, and his sociopathic methods of attaining income. While being both loyal and competent in his work, Verdoux has been laid-off. To make money for his wife and child, he marries wealthy widows and then murders them. His crime spree eventually works against him when two particular widows break his normal routine.
Priest
Love and adventure on the Matterhorn mountain.
Leopold Kroner
A brash young lawyer takes a short-term but high-paid job as bodyguard for a slick business exec being threatened by a former partner, and quickly realizes he may be in over his head.
Chief Xeoli
Sue Morgan gets Hoppy and his friends to join their expedition looking for Indian artifacts. Expedition leader Atwood makes a deal with nearby cattle rustler Morgan to loot the Indian treasures instead and sell them. Hoppy is on to their plan and pretending to leave follows them. Not only is he outnumbered by Morgan's men, but California has himself about to be sacrificed in an Indian ritual.
Padre
Gridley is mining silver from an old Mexican mine and bringing it into the USA thru a passage into his worthless mine. Border guard Rogers suspects Gridley and finally finds the secret entrance to the Mexican mine. He sends Lee Madison for help only to have her captured by Gridley. Trigger brings help that takes care of Gridley's men and now Roy has to rescue Madison.
Hagerstrom
A classical musician from a working class background is sidetracked by his love for a wealthy, neurotic socialite.
Prof. Jenner
Reformed racketeer "Lucky" Leeds flees from the police when he thinks they are about to arrest him for a murder he didn't commit. He and his wife Patti fly to his privately-owned remote island and have to crash land. Also on the island is a group of shipwrecked people, including a German professor, his daughter, an English journalist, a wealthy widow, a sailor and a Nazi Agent.
Chemist Who Poisoned Wife (uncredited)
The Devil arranges for a deceased gangster to return to Earth as a well-respected judge to make up for his previous life.
Painter
A smooth-talking French thief wangles his way into an important position as prefect of police.
Evangelist (uncredited)
Cashier and part-time starving artist Christopher Cross is absolutely smitten with the beautiful Kitty March. Kitty plays along, but she's really only interested in Johnny, a two-bit crook. When Kitty and Johnny find out that art dealers are interested in Chris's work, they con him into letting Kitty take credit for the paintings. Cross allows it because he is in love with Kitty, but his love will only let her get away with so much.
Dr. Bailey
At a convention, medical researcher Michel Touzac goes with colleagues to see stage caricaturist Targel, whose assistant Florence recognizes him...and attempts suicide. Saved by Touzac's new technique, Florence is revealed in a flashback as Michel's abandoned wife Karin, whom their daughter Susette thinks is dead. Can Susette cope if they now re-unite?
Bishop
Laurent van Horn is the leader of a band of Dutch refugees on a ship seeking freedom in the Carolinas, when the ship is wrecked on the coast of Cartagene. governed by Don Juan Alvardo, Spainish ruler. Alvarado has Laurent thrown in prison, but the latter escapes, and five-years later is a pirate leader. He poses as the navigator on a ship in which Contessa Francesca, daughter of a Mexican noble, is traveling on her way to marry Alvarado, whom she has never seen. Laurent's pirates capture the ship and Francesa, in order to save another ship, gives her hand-in-marriage to Laurent, who sails her to the pirate hideout. This irks the jealous Anne Bonney and,also, Captain Benjamin Black, who was already irked, anyway. They overpower Laurent and send Francesa to Alvarado, and then Mario du Billar, trusted right-hand man, makes a deal to deliver Laurent to Alvarado also.
The Padre
After several years' dormancy, the "Cisco Kid" western-film series returned to the screen with Monogram's The Cisco Kid Returns. Duncan Renaldo, actually Rumanian, starred as the Mexican "Robin Hood of the Old West", with Martin Garralaga as his corpulent sidekick Pancho. In the tradition of 20th Century-Fox's earlier "Cisco" efforts, our hero comes to the aid of an orphaned child, clears himself of a kidnapping charge, and proves that a "solid citizen" is in fact a criminal mastermind.
Judge (uncredited)
The teens of a defense-plant town hop on the road to juvenile delinquency while their parents are busy with the war.
Dr. Charles Morris
A young gypsy girl turns into a wolf to destroy her enemies.
A man (Jon Hall) tracks his kidnapped bride (Maria Montez) to a jungle island, where her twin is the high priestess.
Franz Liszt
Pit violinist Claudin hopelessly loves rising operatic soprano Christine Dubois (as do baritone Anatole and police inspector Raoul) and secretly aids her career. But Claudin loses both his touch and his job, murders a rascally music publisher in a fit of madness, and has his face etched with acid. Soon, mysterious crimes plague the Paris Opera House, blamed on a legendary "phantom".
Dr. Aanrud
Merle Oberon plays a Norwegian resistance figure in a small town, married to a Nazi commandant. When his superiors begin to suspect her, the Allies land an assassin to kill him -- an assassin who happens to be her former lover.
Foreign Minister Deval (uncredited)
A French diplomat who's recovered from amnesia is blackmailed over crimes he can't remember.
High Priest
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.
Mr. Foster
An actress hopes to regain her lost son by making it to the top.
Inquisitor
Dashing pirate Geoffrey Thorpe plunders Spanish ships for Queen Elizabeth I and falls in love with Dona Maria, a beautiful Spanish royal he captures.
Abbe Gallard
When lovely and virtuous governess Henriette Deluzy comes to educate the children of the debonair Duc de Praslin, a royal subject to King Louis-Philippe and the husband of the volatile and obsessive Duchesse de Praslin, she instantly incurs the wrath of her mistress, who is insanely jealous of anyone who comes near her estranged husband. Though she saves the duchess's little son from a near-death illness and warms herself to all the children, she is nevertheless dismissed by the vengeful duchess. Meanwhile, the attraction between the duke and Henriette continues to grow, eventually leading to tragedy.
Max
Paul Kriza is a cashier of a bank in a small town, and the happy husband of Anna and the father of four children. He is sent to New York to deliver some securities for the bank. There, he is tagged as easy-pickings by a con-game gang and Mary Brown, gang accomplice, proves he is. Waking up in the morning he discovers he has been robbed of the securities and, when he confronts the gang, he is hit on the head and taken out to be left on a railroad track. He comes to, struggles with the henchman and the man is killed when a train comes roaring by. Paul escapes but his watch is found and he is reported as the dead man. But he can't go home again.
Old Nobleman
Paris, France, 1482. Frollo, Chief Justice of benevolent King Louis XI, gets infatuated by the beauty of Esmeralda, a young Romani girl. The hunchback Quasimodo, Frollo's protege and bell-ringer of Notre Dame, lives in peace among the bells in the heights of the immense cathedral until he is involved by the twisted magistrate in his malicious plans to free himself from Esmeralda's alleged spell, which he believes to be the devil's work.
Pierre Ferrand
Three American soldiers help a young girl deliver a secret message across enemy lines.
Sadi Kirschen
British nurse Edith Cavell is stationed at a hospital in Brussels during World War I. When the son of a former patient escapes from a German prisoner-of-war camp, she helps him flee to Holland. Outraged at the number of soldiers detained in the camps, Edith, along with a group of sympathizers, devises a plan to help the prisoners escape. As the group works to free the soldiers, Edith must keep her activities secret from the Germans
Dr. Krull
When her brother is killed by sabotage, Irene Eaton (Sally Eilers) joins the secret service and goes undercover to unroot the culprits.
Dr. Weilander
Irish immigrant meets returning war correspondent on a liner bound for New York. When she resists the amours of another passenger, charges result in her being detained at Ellis Island.
Ti-Ana
When headstrong pilot Bill Kellogg disobeys orders and takes a plane to photograph potential landing fields in uncharted Latin American country, he ends up running out of gas and crashing. The members of a nearby tribal village save Bill from the wreckage, but arent willing to help him get home.
John Morrow
A reporter covering a murder trial guesses that the murderer of a ruthless businessman is her ex-fiancé and persuades him to confess and clear the innocent man on trial.
Horatio in 'Hamlet'
A British actor insults a French acting group only to fall victim to a prank that might destroy his career.
Father Andrew
Two boys – the prince Edward and the pauper Tom – are born on the same day. Years later, when young teenage Tom sneaks into the palace garden, he meets the prince. They change clothes with one another before the guards discover them and throw out the prince thinking he's the urchin. No one believes them when they try to tell the truth about which is which. Soon after, the old king dies and the prince will inherit the throne.
Stonewall Jackson
Set in the springtime of 1863 in Chancellorsville, Virginia during the War Between the States, this colorful short profiles the heroic Confederate General Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson the night before he would meet his fate in battle.
Franz Strauss
n Vienna, a new jazz club featuring American trumpeter Buzzy Bellew threatens the existence of its neighbor, the Waltz Palace, run by Franz Strauss and featuring his granddaughter, singer Elsa. Smitten by Elsa, Buzzy hides his identity and association with the club -- whose owner intends to buy out the Palace property. When Elsa accidentally learns who Buzzy really is, it appears he may have to return to America alone.
Ouvrard
Based on the novel by Hervey Allen, this expansive drama follows the many adventures of the eponymous hero, Anthony Adverse. Abandoned at a convent by his heartless nobleman father, Don Luis, Anthony is later mentored by his kind grandfather, John Bonnyfeather, and falls for the beautiful Angela Giuseppe. When circumstances separate Anthony and Angela and he embarks on a long journey, he must find his way back to her, no matter what the cost.
Father Prior
Austrian church bell ringer Freyman loves music and wants his two sons (both played by Ameche) to love it too. The first goes to America and the second is born deaf-mute but gains hearing during WWI bombing.
Gregory Pappas
Greek sponge divers in Tarpon Springs, Florida duel over diving methods and fight over the same girl, and only one will survive.
Capt. John Ericsson
Best friends Kenneth Reynolds and Raymond Jordan are U.S. Navy officers, and Kenneth is engaged to Raymond's sister. But the eruption of the Civil War divides them, as Raymond stands by his native Virginia while Kenneth remains on duty as a Northern officer. Kenneth's uncle, John Ericsson, designs a new kind of ship, an ironclad he calls the Monitor. Eventually the war pits Kenneth, on board the Monitor, against his friend Raymond, serving aboard the South's own ironclad, the Merrimac (as it is called here). A naval battle ensues, one that will go down in history.
Dr. Charbonnet
A true story about Louis Pasteur, who revolutionized medicine by proving that much disease is caused by microbes, that sanitation is paramount and that at least some diseases can be cured by vaccinations.
Gaspard
The exciting story of Dr. Manette, who escapes the horrors of the infamous Bastille prison in Paris. The action switches between London and Paris on the eve of the revolution where we witness 'the best of times and the worst of times' - love, hope, the uncaring French Aristocrats and the terror of a revolutionary citizen's army intent on exacting revenge.
King Solomon
The story of the ill-fated romance between Solomon, king of Israel, and the Queen of Sheba.
Jerry Wendover
Jerry Wendover, disfigured since childhood after his act of heroism in saving a little girl from a fire scarred his face, secludes himself in an old house in the Backwater district of Florida. One night he finds Barbara Seaforth, a young blind girl, lost in the swamps and takes her home. The two unfortunates fall in love, marry, and have a child. One day, a visiting doctor tells Jerry that Barbara's sight can be restored. The operation is performed successfully, but the doctor warns his patient to shield her eyes from the light or risk reversal of the surgery. Barbara, realizing her husband's dread of exposing his disfigurement to her, looks at her child and then permanently blinds herself by staring into the light, thus sacrificing her sight for the love of her husband.
Louis XI
J. Gordon Edwards silent adventure melodrama about a famous poet who is allowed to rule France for a week!
Caesar
The story of Cleopatra, the fabulous queen of Egypt, and the epic romances between her and the greatest men of Rome, Julius Caesar and Antony.
Mercutio
Shakespeare's tragedy of two young people who fall desperately in love despite the ancient feud between their two families, and how the sins of the fathers bring disaster to their children.
