Robert Stevenson
Birth : 1905-03-31, Buxton, Derbyshire, England, UK
Death : 1986-04-30
History
Robert Stevenson (31 March 1905, Buxton, Derbyshire – 30 April 1986) was an English film writer and director. He was educated at Cambridge University where he became the president of both the Liberal Club and the Cambridge Union Society.
He moved to California in the 1940s and ended up directing 19 films for The Walt Disney Company in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, Stevenson is best remembered for directing the Julie Andrews musical Mary Poppins, for which Andrews won the Academy Award for Best Actress and Stevenson received a nomination for Best Director Oscar.
Stevenson divorced his first wife Cecilie and married actress Anna Lee in 1934. They lived on London's Bankside for five years, moving to Hollywood in 1939, where he remained for many years. They had two daughters, Venetia and Caroline, before divorcing in March 1944.
He married Frances Holyoke Howard on October 8, 1944; they later divorced. They had one son, Hugh Howard Stevenson. Robert Stevenson's widow, Ursula Henderson, appeared as herself in the documentary Locked in the Tower: The Men behind Jane Eyre in 2007.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Stevenson (director), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Director
Wilby Daniels, a successful lawyer running for District Attorney, suddenly finds himself being transformed into an English sheepdog. Somehow he has to keep his change a secret and find just what is causing it, all the while eluding the local dog catcher.
Director
Escaping from China with a microfilm of the formula for the mysterious "Lotus X", Lord Southmere, a Queen's Messenger, is chased by a group of Chinese spies.
Director
A Victorian gentleman hopes to find his long-lost son, who vanished whilst searching for a mysterious Viking community in a volcanic valley somewhere in uncharted Arctic regions. The gentleman puts together an expedition team to go on the search, but when they reach their destination they must escape from some Viking descendants who will kill to keep their existence a secret.
Director
The living Volkswagen Beetle helps an old lady protect her home from a corrupt developer.
Director
Three children evacuated from London during World War II are forced to stay with an eccentric spinster. The children's initial fears disappear when they find out she is in fact a trainee witch.
Director
As ratings for Jack Crandall's lifeless airborne traffic reports plummet, a super-size St. Bernard on the lam stows away in his chopper. Crandall's new co-pilot helps send ratings sky-high, but the canine's chronic kleptomania generates girl trouble, jewel thievery, and loads of laughs.
Director
Down-on-his-luck race car driver Jim Douglas teams up with a little VW Bug that has a mind of its own, not realizing Herbie's worth until a sneaky rival plots to steal him.
Director
The eponymous wraith returns to Earth to aid his descendant, elderly Emily Stowecroft. The villains want to kick Emily and her friends out of their group home so that they can build a crooked casino. Good guy Steve Walker gets caught in the middle of the squabble after evoking Blackbeard's ghost.
Director
An eccentric millionaire and his grandchildren are embroiled in the plights of some forest gnomes who are searching for the rest of their tribe. While helping them, the millionaire is suspected of being crazy because he's seeing gnomes! He's committed, and the niece and nephew and the gnomes have to find him and free him.
Director
A young woman suspects foul play when her cat comes home wearing a wristwatch. Convincing the FBI, though, and catching the bad guys is tougher than she imagined.
Director
College whiz-kid Merlin Jones concocts a method for teaching advanced information to a chimpanzee, then creates a flying machine of his own design, ultimately raising havoc on the campus.
Director
Mr Banks is looking for a nanny for his two mischievous children and comes across Mary Poppins, an angelic nanny. She not only brings a change in their lives but also spreads happiness.
Director
Merlin Jones, a precocious and intelligent high-school boy, experiments with hypnosis and creates a mind-reading machine. However, his experiments land him in deep trouble with the law.
Director
Beleaguered professor Ned Brainard has already run into a pile of misfortunes with his discovery of the super-elastic substance "Flubber." Now he hopes to have better luck with a gravity-busting derivative he's dubbed "Flubbergas." Ned's experiments, constantly hampered by government obstruction, earn the consternation of his wife, Betsy. But a game-winning modification to a football uniform may help Ned make the case for his fantastic new invention.
Director
Two teenagers, Mary (Hayley Mills) and Robert (Keith Hamshere) are lead by Professor Paganel (Maurice Chevalier) on a search expedition for the children's shipwrecked sea captain father. This Disney film was based upon Jules Verne's 1868 adventure novel Captain Grant's Children.
Director
Bumbling professor Ned Brainard accidentally invents flying rubber, or "Flubber", an incredible material that gains energy every time it strikes a hard surface. It allows for the invention of shoes that can allow jumps of amazing heights and enables a modified Model-T to fly. Unfortunately, no one is interested in the material except for Alonzo Hawk, a corrupt businessman who wants to steal the material for himself.
Writer
Kidnapped and cheated out of his inheritance, young David Balfour falls in with a Jacobite adventurer, Alan Breck Stewart. Falsely accused of murder, they must flee across the Highlands, evading the redcoats.
Director
Kidnapped and cheated out of his inheritance, young David Balfour falls in with a Jacobite adventurer, Alan Breck Stewart. Falsely accused of murder, they must flee across the Highlands, evading the redcoats.
Director
A wily old codger matches wits with the King of the Leprechauns and helps play matchmaker for his daughter and the strapping lad who has replaced him as caretaker.
Director
Behind the scenes of Darby O'Gill and the Little People.
Director
Young Travis Coates is left to take care of the family ranch with his mother and younger brother while his father goes off on a cattle drive in the 1860s. When a yellow mongrel comes for an uninvited stay with the family, Travis reluctantly adopts the dog.
Director
"The Best Doggoned Dog in the World" is an episode of Disneyland which aired on November 20, 1957. It was directed by Robert Stevenson and Larry Lansburgh. This episode provides a preview of Old Yeller, and also features Arizona Sheepdog.
Director
When an injury bars him from pursuing his trade, Revolutionary War-era silversmith's apprentice Johnny Tremain (Hal Stalmaster) finds a new life in the ranks of the Sons of Liberty army, taking part in the Boston Tea Party and Paul Revere's legendary ride. Based on the novel by Ester Forbes, this Disney classic was originally crafted for "Walt Disney Presents" in two segments, which have been blended into a single film for viewing.
Director
Walt Disney presents a combination live-action and animated drama of America's historical fight for freedom. Includes a segment from Johnny Tremain, depicting the Boston Tea Party and the battle at Concord, and is followed by Ben and Me.
Director
One Kris Kringle, a department-store Santa Claus, causes quite a commotion by suggesting customers go to a rival store for their purchases. But this is nothing to the stir he causes by announcing that he is not merely a make-believe St. Nick, but the real thing.
Director
Drama showing the reactions of citizens of a small town to the construction of a nuclear energy plant in their community, and their acceptance of the peaceful aspects of atomic energy.
Director
When newlyweds visit Las Vegas, the wife's shady past comes to the surface.
Director
An 1890s New Orleans heiress tries to buy a married doctor's love with her tainted family fortune.
Assistant Clerk (uncredited)
A young doctor falls in love with a disturbed young woman and apparently becomes involved in the death of her husband. They head for Mexico trying to outrun the law.
Director
A petty crook moves to an Ohio town and courts a factory owner's disabled daughter.
Director
Communists blackmail a shipping executive into spying for them.
Director
A treasury agent becomes obsessed with exposing an international drug ring.
Director
Art editor Madeleine Damian carries on numerous loveless affairs. After a failed relationship with advertiser Felix Courtland, the increasingly depressed Madeleine attempts suicide. When Jack Garet, her secretary and former lover, tries to blackmail her, Madeleine resigns and seeks a reclusive life. Neighbor David Cousins befriends Madeleine, but soon Courtland and Garet discover her whereabouts and disrupt her new life.
Director
Know Your Ally: Britain was a 45-minute propaganda film made in 1944. It was narrated by Walter Huston and produced by the United States War Department and Signal Corp to solidify Anglo-American solidarity within the ranks as well as counter Nazi propaganda aimed at weakening the Alliance.
Screenplay
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.
Director
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.
Director
In World War II, American Gates Trimble Pomfret is in London during the Blitz to sell the ancestral family house. The current tenant, Leslie Trimble, tries to dissuade him from selling by telling him the 140-year history of the place and the connections between the Trimble and Pomfret families.
Director
An RAF squadron is brought down over occupied France. The flyers get to Paris in spite of the fact that the youngest, Baby, is injured. He must be hidden and his wounds cared for. The Gestapo has already issued orders for their arrest.
Director
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.
Screenplay
A classic British thriller set in a sinister old house, based on a story by Edgar Wallace.
Additional Dialogue
When private tutor Thomas Arnold (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) becomes headmaster at Rugby, a boy's preparatory school in England, he puts into place a policy of strict punishment for unruliness and bulying. Arnold finds an ally in Tom Brown (Jimmy Lydon), a new student who is subjected to hazing and abuse by a group of older boys and is pressured by his friends to keep quiet about it. Fed up, he leads his fellow classmates in an underground rebellion against their tormentors. But certain unspoken rules still apply at the school and Brown loses his hero status when he is accussed of breaking the Rugby code of silence.
Director
When private tutor Thomas Arnold (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) becomes headmaster at Rugby, a boy's preparatory school in England, he puts into place a policy of strict punishment for unruliness and bulying. Arnold finds an ally in Tom Brown (Jimmy Lydon), a new student who is subjected to hazing and abuse by a group of older boys and is pressured by his friends to keep quiet about it. Fed up, he leads his fellow classmates in an underground rebellion against their tormentors. But certain unspoken rules still apply at the school and Brown loses his hero status when he is accussed of breaking the Rugby code of silence.
Screenplay
Robert Maine is torn between returning to the glamour of Hollywood and working with a small theatre company in England.
Director
Robert Maine is torn between returning to the glamour of Hollywood and working with a small theatre company in England.
Director
An aristocrat falls in love with a human cannonball
Director
An aristocrat won't economize, then his rich brother in law is found murdered in the grounds of the aristocrat's house
Director
Adam McAdam is an old, dour sheepherder whose life is devoted to his faithful dog, the whiskey bottle and his daughter, Jeannie. And a conflict that arises when the other sheep-men of the district try every means within their power to have his dog, accused of being a sheep-killer, destroyed.
Writer
A chorus girl is mistaken for a millionaire's girlfriend.
Director
A young woman finds herself as the intended victim of a murder plot on a transatlantic flight from London to New York.
Director
Adventurer Allan Quartermain leads an expedition into uncharted African territory in an attempt to locate an explorer who went missing during his search for the fabled diamond mines of King Solomon.
Director
In this he's on the dole, hungry and ready to do any job but quickly light-heartedly scams his way into society and a highly regarded position at a bank next to the beleaguered Robertson Hare. Here he invents a fraudulent business plan (Merrivale - you remember it surely?), the manager and chairman and another finance company are suck(er)ed in and it all snowballs from there. With of course a love interest as a dynamo.
Director
Dr. Laurence, a once-respectable scientist, begins to research the origin of the mind and the soul. The science community rejects him, and he risks losing everything for which he has worked. He begins to use his discoveries to save his research and further his own causes, thereby becoming... a Mad Scientist, almost unstoppable...
Writer
The tragic story of Lady Jane Grey, the young queen who reigned in England for nine days before she was executed.
Director
The tragic story of Lady Jane Grey, the young queen who reigned in England for nine days before she was executed.
Associate Producer
A girl becomes an unwilling witness in her parents' scandalous divorce case.
Director
A British officer in the Camel Corps in Egypt goes undercover to investigate a gang of drug smugglers. He enlists the aid of a female pilot to help break up the gang.
Writer
The Battle is a 1934 Franco-British co-production English language drama film directed by Nicolas Farkas and Viktor Tourjansky, and starring Charles Boyer, Merle Oberon and John Loder. It was adapted from a novel by Claude Farrère. In 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War, a Japanese naval officer gets his wife to seduce a British atachee in order to gain secrets from him. Things begin to go wrong when she instead falls in love with him.
Assistant Director
English-language version of Ich und die Kaiserin. 'Germany, 1890. Duke falls in love with voice which is not that of empress, but of hairdresser.' (British Film Catalogue)
Screenplay
In this comedy, two rival reporters vie for the scoop on the whereabouts of a missing heiress. They find her in Switzerland. One of the journalists falls in love with her and saves her from marrying an aristocrat. His rival gets to write the story as a consolation prize.
Director
In this comedy, two rival reporters vie for the scoop on the whereabouts of a missing heiress. They find her in Switzerland. One of the journalists falls in love with her and saves her from marrying an aristocrat. His rival gets to write the story as a consolation prize.
Director
Two window cleaners help a girl who is trying to get to Hollywood.
Screenplay
A department store assistant becomes publicity conscious.
Scenario Writer
Herbert Marshall and Edna Best, husband and wife in 1933, star in the British drama Faithful Hearts. Best plays the daughter of Marshall, who years earlier had run out on his family. When Edna re-enters Marshall's life, it causes him to reassess his values-and to end his engagement to his judgmental fiancee. When Faithful Hearts was released in the US, all the voices were redubbed by American actors; even Herbert Marshall, a fixture in Hollywood films since the dawn of the talkie era, was submitted to this electronic augmentation. Original titled The Faithful Heart (Americans must have more of everything!), the film was based on a play by Monckton Hoffe.
Writer
A steward inherits the estate of an earl. To repel the advances of an unwanted fiancee, he pretends that he has regressed to childhood behaviors.
Scenario Writer
Sunshine Susie was a remake of the German film The Private Secretary, and retained many of the originals general characteristics. Renete Muller who starred in the original, was again cast as the country girl seeking fame and fortune in the big city. She takes a secretarial job at a bank, and sets about catching the heart of her boss, Herr Hasel (Jack Hulbert).
Writer
A young bride is deserted by her husband but finds happiness with another man. They contract a bigamous marriage for the sake of their child....
Scenario Writer
A young couple live under a café in Paris that, unknown to them, is owned by a brutal blackmailer. When he is murdered, they fall under suspicion. However, the husband's father, an amateur detective, believes in their innocence and sets out to find who really killed the blackmailer.
Writer
Scotland Yard detectives hunt for a dangerous criminal who has recently returned to England.
Writer
A Soho restaurateur's protégé becomes a star.
Scenario Writer
A British army officer is cashiered, and re-enlists as Private to take part in the Crimean War. He succeeds in capturing a top Russian spy which results in the famous Charge of the Light Brigade to take the Balaclava Heights.
