Wiard B. Ihnen

Birth : 1897-08-04, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA

Death : 1979-06-22

History

Wiard B. “Bill” Ihnen was an American art director. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of an architect, he first studied his father's profession at Columbia University. He later attended the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. Ihnen was married to Edith Head from 1940 until his death in 1979, aged 81.

Movies

The King and Four Queens
Production Design
Opportunistic con man Dan Kehoe ingratiates himself with the cantankerous mother of four outlaws and their beautiful widows in order to find their hidden gold.
Our Mr. Sun
Set Designer
One entry in a series of films produced to make science accessible to the masses—especially children—this film describes the sun in scientific but entertaining terms.
The Indian Fighter
Art Direction
A scout leading a wagon train through hostile Indian country gets involved with a Sioux chief's daughter.
This Is My Love
Production Design
A single woman tries to keep her sister from another man by framing her for her husband's murder.
A Lion Is in the Streets
Production Design
A charismatic peddler from the bayous finds his true calling in politics. Is he a demagogue in the making?
I, the Jury
Art Direction
Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer in his first film adventure. Originally screened in 3D.
Rancho Notorious
Production Design
A man in search of revenge infiltrates a ranch, hidden in an inhospitable region, where its owner, Altar Keane, gives shelter to outlaws fleeing from the law in exchange for a price.
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
Production Design
Ralph Cotter, a ruthless criminal, escapes violently from a farm prison. Then, he seduces a dead inmate’s sister, gets back quickly into the crime business, faces corrupt local cops who run the city’s underworld and meets a powerful tycoon’s whimsical daughter.
The Time of Your Life
Production Design
Joe spends a lot of his time at Nick's Pacific Street Saloon. Tom, who credits Joe with once saving his life, stops by regularly to run errands for Joe. Today, Tom notices a woman named Kitty when she comes into Nick's, and he quickly falls in love with her. Meanwhile, a distraught young man repeatedly calls his girlfriend, begging her to marry him. Nick himself muses on all the various persons who come into his bar, some to ask for work and others just to pass the time.
Tomorrow Is Forever
Production Design
In 1918, Elizabeth MacDonald learns that her husband, John Andrew, has been killed in the war. Elizabeth bears John's son and eventually marries her kindly boss. Unknown to her, John has survived but is horribly disfigured and remains in Europe. Years later, on the eve of World War II, Elizabeth refuses to agree to her son's request to enlist and is stunned when an eerily familiar stranger named Kessler arrives from abroad and becomes involved.
Along Came Jones
Art Direction
An easy-going cowboy is mistaken by the townsfolk for a notorious gunman. The cowboy decides it would be best to leave town, until he meets the gunman's girlfriend.
It's a Pleasure
Art Direction
A star hockey player with the Wildcats is barred from Hockey for hitting a referee. Through the actions of Chris, Don is able to get a job with Buzz Fletcher's ice-show as the novelty act.
Wilson
Art Direction
The political career of Woodrow Wilson is chronicled, beginning with his decision to leave his post at Princeton to run for Governor of New Jersey, and his subsequent ascent to the Presidency of the United States. During his terms in office, Wilson must deal with the death of his first wife, the onslaught of German hostilities leading to American involvement in the Great War, and his own country's reticence to join the League of Nations.
Jane Eyre
Art Direction
After a harsh childhood, orphan Jane Eyre is hired by Edward Rochester, the brooding lord of a mysterious manor house to care for his young daughter.
Crash Dive
Art Direction
A US Navy submarine, the USS Corsair, is operating in the North Atlantic, hunting German merchant raiders that are preying on Allied shipping. Its new executive officer, Lt. Ward Stewart, has been transferred back into submarines after commanding his own PT boat. At the submarine base in New London, Connecticut, he asks his new captain, Lt. Cmdr. Dewey Connors, for a weekend leave to settle his affairs before taking up his new assignment. On a train bound for Washington D.C., Stewart accidentally encounters New London school teacher Jean Hewlett and her students. Despite her initial resistance to his efforts, he charms her and they fall in love.
China Girl
Art Direction
Two-fisted newsreel photographer Johnny Williams is stationed in Burma and China in the early stage of WW II. Captured by the Japanese, he escapes from a concentration camp with the aid of beautiful, enigmatic 'China Girl' Miss Young. The two arduously make their way back to friendly lines so that Johnny can deliver the vital military information he's managed to glean from his captors.
Roxie Hart
Art Direction
A café in Chicago, 1942. On a rainy night, veteran reporter Homer Howard tells an increasing audience the story of Roxie Hart and the crime she was judged for in 1927.
Moon Over Miami
Art Direction
After losing nearly all of an inheritance to taxes, sisters Kay (Betty Grable) and Barbara Latimer (Carole Landis), waitresses at a drive-in restaurant in Texas, scheme to find rich husbands. With the aid of their aunt Susan (Charlotte Greenwood), the sisters take the last of their money and head to a well-known Miami resort where they soon meet two wealthy young men, Phil (Don Ameche) and Jeff (Robert Cummings), who begin a fierce rivalry for Kay, not realizing that Barbara has fallen in love with one of them.
Man Hunt
Art Direction
British hunter Thorndike vacationing in Bavaria has Hitler in his gun sight. He is captured, beaten, left for dead, and escapes back to London where he is hounded by German agents and aided by a young woman.
Tall, Dark and Handsome
Art Direction
Robin Hoodish gangster in 1929 Chicago is an object of affection, kind to New York hood and bad to a bad crook.
Hudson's Bay
Art Direction
Highly fictionalized early history of Canada. Trapper/explorer Radisson imagines an empire around Hudson's Bay. He befriends the Indians, fights the French, and convinces King Charles II to sponsor an expedition of conquest.
The Return of Frank James
Art Direction
Farmer Frank and his ward hunt brother Jesse's killers, the back-shooting Fords.
Maryland
Art Direction
A woman tormented by the hunting death of her husband forbids her son to have anything to do with horses. But when he falls for the daughter of his father's trainer, he defies his mother by entering the Maryland Hunt.
The Blue Bird
Art Direction
An ungrateful girl and her little brother are transported in their dreams by a fairy to a wonderland, tasked with finding the mythical blue bird of happiness, meeting friends and foes along the way.
Hollywood Cavalcade
Art Direction
Starting in 1913 movie director Connors discovers singer Molly Adair. As she becomes a star she marries an actor, so Connors fires them. She asks for him as director of her next film. Many silent stars shown making the transition to sound.
Every Day's a Holiday
Art Direction
When a turn-of-century confidence trickster poses as a famous French chanteuse to avoid arrest, she manages to expose the crooked police chief and smooth the path for the reform mayoral candidate.
Midnight Madonna
Art Direction
A habitual gambler comes to the aid of a desperate woman after her daughter inherits a fortune and is underhandedly taken by her estranged father.
Go West Young Man
Art Direction
Mavis Arden is a sensational movie star. Her following spans the world and her personal appearance tours prove her popularity. On her way home from one such appearance, Arden's car breaks down. She orders her publicity man to find her a place to stay, suspicious that he planned the break down to keep her away from a man. However, she soon finds herself mooning over an attractive repairman in town and listening to his ideas about inventing equipment for film.
Dancing Pirate
Art Direction
Jonathan Pride is a mild-mannered dance instructor in 1820 Boston. En route to visit relatives, Jonathan is shanghaied by a band of zany pirates and forced to work as a galley boy. When the pirate vessel arrives at the port of Las Palomas, Jonathan, clad in buccaneer's garb, makes his escape. Everyone in Las Palomas, including Governor Alcalde (Frank Morgan) and fetching senorita Serafina (Steffi Duna), assumes that Jonathan is the pirate chieftain, leading to a series of typical comic-opera complications.
Becky Sharp
Assistant Art Director
The first feature length film to use three-strip Technicolor film. Adapted from a play that was adapted from William Makepeace Thackeray's book "Vanity Fair", the film looks at the English class system during the Napoleonic Wars era.
Thirty Day Princess
Art Direction
A European princess arrives in New York City to secure a much-needed loan for her country. She contracts the mumps, and an actress who looks exactly like her is hired to impersonate her.
The Trumpet Blows
Art Direction
In Mexico, a former bandit settles down and picks out a beautiful young dancer to be his wife. His younger brother also comes home after having spent years in the U.S., and falls in love with his brother's intended fiancé. Rather than cause problems, the younger brother goes to Mexico City to become a matador. While there, he gets word that the police, who have been hunting his brother, have finally captured him.
Cradle Song
Art Direction
In a deeply cloistered convent, nun Dorothea Wieck (Mädchen in Uniform) raises a foundling to be Evelyn Venable. But at 17, what if, guided by a kindly doctor, she sees the world and finds love?
Duck Soup
Art Direction
Rufus T. Firefly is named president/dictator of bankrupt Freedonia and declares war on neighboring Sylvania over the love of wealthy Mrs. Teasdale.
Terror Aboard
Art Direction
An ocean liner is found at sea with everyone on board dead. An investigation is begun to find out what happened.
Blonde Venus
Art Direction
American chemist Ned Faraday marries a German entertainer and starts a family. However, he becomes poisoned with Radium and needs an expensive treatment in Germany to have any chance at being cured. Wife Helen returns to night club work to attempt to raise the money and becomes popular as the Blonde Venus. In an effort to get enough money sooner, she prostitutes herself to millionaire Nick Townsend.
Potash and Perlmutter
Art Direction
The film is based on an ethnic Jewish comedy with characters created by Montague Glass and Charles Klein.
The Right to Love
Art Direction
An adulterous aristocrat plans to murder his American wife.