Charles Vidor

Charles Vidor

Birth : 1900-07-26, Budapest, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary]

Death : 1959-06-04

History

Charles Vidor (July 27, 1900 – June 4, 1959) was a film director. Born Károly Vidor to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, he served in the Hungarian Army during World War I. He first came to prominence during the final years of the silent film era. Among his film successes are The Bridge (1929), Cover Girl (1944), A Song to Remember (1945), Gilda (1946), The Loves of Carmen (1948), Love Me or Leave Me (1955), The Swan (1956), The Joker Is Wild (1957), and A Farewell to Arms (1957). He was married four times, to Frances Varone (1927–1931), actress Karen Morley (1932–1943), actress Evelyn Keyes (1943–1945), and Doris Warner (1945-1959, until his death), daughter of Warner Bros. President Harry Warner.

Profile

Charles Vidor
Charles Vidor

Movies

Song Without End
Director
The romantic story of Hungarian pianist Franz Liszt, whose scandalous love affair forced him to abandon his adoring audiences.
A Farewell to Arms
Director
An English nurse and an American soldier on the Italian front during World War I fall in love, but the horrors surrounding them test their romance to the limit.
The Joker Is Wild
Director
Prohibition-era nightclub crooner Joe E. Lewis has his career and nearly his life cut short when his throat is slashed as payback for leaving the employ of Chicago mob boss Georgie Parker. A broken alcoholic, Joe is brought back from the abyss by his faithful piano player, Austin Mack, who helps turn the former singer into a successful stand-up comedian. But Joe's demons plague his romantic life even as he reaches new heights of success.
The Swan
Director
Princess Beatrice's days of enjoying the regal life are numbered unless her only daughter, Princess Alexandra, makes a good impression on a distant cousin when he pays a surprise visit to their palace. Prince Albert has searched all over Europe for a bride and he's bored by the whole courtship routine. He is more interested in the estate's dairy than Alexandra's rose garden. And then he starts playing football with the tutor and Alexandra's brothers. Invite the tutor to the ball that night and watch how gracefully Alexandra dances with him.
Love Me or Leave Me
Director
A fictionalized account of the career of jazz singer Ruth Etting and her tempestuous marriage to gangster Marty Snyder, who helped propel her to stardom.
Rhapsody
Director
A rich, young beauty, Louise Durant, follows the man she loves and hopes to marry to Zurich where he studies violin at the conservatory. A piano student at the conservatory falls madly in love with Louise. The violinist loves his music first and Louise second. The pianist loves Louise first and his music second. Louise must ultimately choose which man she wants.
Hans Christian Andersen
Director
A small-town shoemaker with a knack for spinning yarns, Hans encounters happiness and heartbreak on his road to becoming a full-fledged writer.
Thunder in the East
Director
During India's first years of independence from Britain, Steve Gibbs lands his armaments loaded plane in Ghandahar province hoping to get rich. Pacifist Prime Minister Singh hopes to reach an agreement with guerilla leader Khan, the maharajah is a fool, and the British residents are living in the past. Steve's love interest is Joan Willoughby, the blind daughter of a parson.
It's a Big Country
Director
Comprised of eight unrelated episodes of inconsistent quality, this anthology piece of American propaganda features some of MGM Studios' best directors, screenwriters and actors; it is narrated by Louis Calhern. Stories are framed by the lecture of a university professor. In one tale a Boston resident becomes angry when the census forgets to record her presence. Another sketch chronicles the achievements of African Americans while still another pays tongue-in-cheek tribute to Texas.
The Loves of Carmen
Producer
Gypsy Carmen drives men wild in 1820s Spain, especially the dragoon Don Jose.
The Loves of Carmen
Director
Gypsy Carmen drives men wild in 1820s Spain, especially the dragoon Don Jose.
Gilda
Director
A gambler discovers an old flame while in Argentina, but she's married to his new boss.
Over 21
Director
A woman screenwriter lives in a shabby bungalow in order to be near her husband, a 39-year-old newspaper editor who has just joined the army.
A Song to Remember
Director
Prof. Joseph Elsner guides his protégé Frydryk Chopin through his formative years to early adulthood in Poland. The professor takes him to Paris, where he eventually comes under the wing and influence of novelist George Sand and rises to prominence in the music world, to the exclusion of his old friends and patriotic feelings towards Poland.
Together Again
Director
Anne Crandall is the mayor of a small town in Vermont. Her deceased husband had been the mayor for years and when he died, she was left to carry on and to raise his daughter from his first marriage. She lives with the daughter, her father-in-law and a housekeeper. In the town square, there was a statue of her late husband and every year since his death, they have an anniversary celebration there. This year during a thunderstorm, the statue is hit by lightning and the head falls off. The daughter insists that a new statue be erected instead of patching the old one. Mayor Crandall is sent to New York to interview the prospective sculptor, George Corday.
Cover Girl
Director
A nightclub dancer makes it big in modeling, leaving her dancer boyfriend behind.
The Desperadoes
Director
Popular mailcoach driver Uncle Willie is in fact in league with the town's crooked banker. They plan to have the bank robbed after emptying it, and when Willie's choice for this doesn't show in time, he gets some local boys to do it. When his man does turn up he decides to stick around, as he is pals with the sheriff and also takes a shine to Willie's daughter Allison. This gives the bad men several new problems.
The Tuttles of Tahiti
Director
After a long absense from the island, Chester Tuttle returns to Tahiti to find that little has changed. His large family, particularly his scheming Uncle Jonas, would rather dance and romance than earn a living. When Jonas loses the family plantation in a cockfight, Chester saves the day by towing in a large ship abandoned at sea and claiming the salvage. But opening a joint bank account in the name of the Tuttle clan may not have been a wise decision.
New York Town
Director
Victor Ballard, a happy-go-lucky albeit impoverished sidewalk photographer, shares a New York City studio apartment with Polish immigrant painter Stefan Janowski. The big city doles out joy and misery indiscriminately: In the apartment below Victor and Steve, Gus Nelson learns that his wife has given birth to quintuplets, while the lonely tenant in the apartment below Gus has given up on life and committed suicide.
Ladies in Retirement
Director
Ellen Creed is a housekeeper who looks after Leonora Fiske, a retired actress living in the English countryside. When Ellen's eccentric sisters visit their sibling at Leonora's home, tensions soon lead to murder.
The Lady in Question
Director
When a jury member takes in the defendant he couldn't convict, she has a bad influence on his son.
My Son, My Son!
Director
A self-made success is determined to give his son the lavish upbringing he himself was denied. Not surprisingly, the son grows up to be spoiled rotten, causing grief and pain to everyone who loves him.
Those High Grey Walls
Director
Dr. MacAuley, a kindly, beloved country doctor, is sent to Fillmore Prison. His crime was for removing a bullet from a young man who was escaping from the police.
Blind Alley
Director
A gangster takes a doctor and his family hostage.
Romance of the Redwoods
Director
June Martin is a dishwasher in a California logging camp boarding house. Steve Blake fights Jed Malone for her and loses, thus casting suspicion on himself when Malone dies under cloudy circumstances.
She's No Lady
Director
Alden "Bill" Carter III sees a beautiful woman, Jerry, dining alone at the Park Savoy in New York, and after a brief flirtation, introduces himself. After he entreats her to be his "mystery woman" to make his girl friend jealous, Jerry agrees to attend a reception that night with him at the Douglas home. This plays right into Jerry's plans, as she is a jewel thief who intends to steal the Douglas jewels with her cohorts, Uncle John and Jeff...
The Great Gambini
Director
A millionaire is found murdered in his apartment. Suspicion falls on a variety of suspects, including his fiancée and her parents, the butler, and a professional mentalist known as The Great Gambini.
A Doctor's Diary
Director
A Doctor's Diary is told through the eyes of Dr. Dan Norris (John Trent), resident physician in a private hospital. In his search for a cure for spinal meningitis, Norris recklessly runs roughshod over the feelings of his colleagues. The doctor's older, wiser supervisor, Dr. Clem Driscoll (George Bancroft), tries to curb Norris' impatience, pointing out that nothing takes place overnight. Angrily, Norris accuses Driscoll of malpractice and is forced to resign from the clinic -- just when a meningitis epidemic breaks out.
Muss 'em Up
Director
Famous private detective Tip O'Neil is summoned by telegram to the estate of old friend Paul Harding, but finds the telegram was sent by Paul's attractive secretary, Amy Hutchins. Paul admits his dog was shot by extortionists to show they mean business, and shows Tip some threatening notes they sent. That night, Paul's ward, Corinne, is kidnapped by two gangsters and her driver is found dead the next morning. The kidnappers contact Tip demanding $200,000, which is delivered according to instructions. Awaiting the return of Corrine, Tip learns her fiancé, Gene Leland, is an ex-convict, and he also investigates why a thug, Maratti, was found prowling around the grounds, and why Paul's brother-in-law, Jim Glenray, was seen leaving the estate late the night before. And when the chauffeur is murdered with Amy's gun as he was about to confess some complicity, Tip has to piece together various clues to pinpoint the culprits.
His Family Tree
Director
A father leaves his native Ireland and travels to America to visit the son he hasn't heard from in many years.
The Arizonian
Director
Clay Tallant comes to Silver City, Arizona in the 1880s and encounters wide-spread lawlessness and disorder, unscrupulous politicians, outlaws galore and brow-beaten citizens. He accepts the position of town marshal and, with his brother and a reformed outlaw , Tex Randolph, who comes over to his side, sets out to bring law-and-order where none exists. He also wins the hand of the singer appearing at the Opera House.
Strangers All
Director
Domestic drama about an elderly woman and her four squabbling adult children.
Double Door
Director
A domineering money-bags whose suppressed incestuous urges go into overdrive when her half-brother brings a new bride home to the family’s gloomy Fifth Avenue mansion. The title refers to a secret soundproofed chamber that the villainess uses to entrap her enemies.
Sensation Hunters
Director
Dale Jordan is first accepted by the aristocratic first-cabin passengers on a south-bound Panama-Pacific liner until they discover she is a member of a troupe of cabaret girls led by Trixie Snell en route for the Bull Ring Cabaret in Panama City.
Me and My Gal
Writer
Jaunty young policeman Danny Dolan falls in love with waterfront cafe waitress Helen Riley.
The Mask of Fu Manchu
Producer
The villainous Dr. Fu Manchu races against a team of Englishmen to find the tomb of Ghengis Khan, because he wants to use the relics to cause an uprising in the East to wipe out the white race.
The Bridge
Screenplay
A condemned man manages to avoid being hanged from a bridge over a river when the rope breaks, so that he falls and sinks into the water…
The Bridge
Director
A condemned man manages to avoid being hanged from a bridge over a river when the rope breaks, so that he falls and sinks into the water…