Leslie Fenton

Leslie Fenton

Birth : 1902-03-12, Liverpool, England, UK

Death : 1978-03-25

History

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Leslie Fenton (12 March 1902 – 25 March 1978) was an English-born American actor and film director. He appeared in 62 films between 1923 and 1945. Fenton was born on 12 March 1902 in Liverpool, Lancashire, England. He moved to America with his mother, Elizabeth Carter, and his brothers when he was six years old. They sailed as steerage passengers on board the R.M.S. Celtic. As a teenager, Leslie worked as an office clerk. He moved to New York and began a career on the stage. His film career began later with Fox Studios. He also directed 19 films between 1938 and 1951. He married American actress Ann Dvorak in 1932. Dvorak (Anna May McKim) moved to Britain with Fenton while he served in the British armed forces during the Second World War. The union was childless and ended in divorce in 1945. Fenton died 25 March 1978 in Montecito, California, aged 76. Some sources, including IMDb, incorrectly cite Frank Fenton, the noted screenwriter and novelist, as his younger brother. Frank Fenton's parents were actually John Fenton and Eveline Edgington (married Liverpool, 1900), as evidenced by the ship's manifest for the RMS Caronia (page 0817, line 0008), aboard which Frank Fenton arrived in the US on 21 April 1906.

Profile

Leslie Fenton

Movies

The Redhead and The Cowboy
Director
Gil Kyle finds himself caught up in the politics and unrest of the American Civil War and soon gets himself framed for a murder. His only alibi is Candace Bronson, who is aiding the Confederate cause and has left the territory to deliver a vital message about a Yankee gold shipment. So he sets off in pursuit, running into desperados, government agents, and guerrilla fighters, who are more interested in profit than ideals. Written by Alfred Jingle
Streets of Laredo
Director
Texas, 1878: cheerful outlaw-buddies Jim, Lorn and Wahoo rescue spunky orphan Rannie Carter from rustling racketeers, then are forced to separate. Lorn goes on to bigger and better robberies, while Jim and Wahoo are (at first reluctantly) maneuvered into joining the Texas Rangers. For friendship's sake, the three try to keep out of direct conflict, but a showdown begins to look inevitable. And Rannie, now grown into lovely young womanhood, must choose between Lorn and Jim
Whispering Smith
Director
Smith is an iron-willed railroad detective. When his friend Murray is fired from the railroad and begins helping Rebstock wreck trains, Smith must go after him. He also seems to have an interest in Murray's wife (and vice versa).
Lulu Belle
Director
Lulu Belle is singing in a cheap dive in Natchez, Mississippi in the early 1900's when she meets rising young attorney George Davis. He gives up his fiancée and career to marry Lulu Bell. When his money runs out, Lulu Belle goes to work in a New Orleans club run by tough gambler Mark Brady. She tries to send George back to Natchez by pretending that she has fallen for prize-fighter Butch Cooper but George, in a fit of jealousy, drives a handful of forks into Butch's face. He is sent to prison and Lulu goes to New York with millionaire Harry Randolph, who makes her the singing sensation of Broadway and asks her to marry him. She refuses when she learns that George has been released from prison, realizing that he is the only man she ever truly loved.
On Our Merry Way
Director
Oliver Pease gets a dose of courage from his wife Martha and tricks the editor of the paper (where he writes lost pet notices) into assigning him the day's roving question. Martha suggests, "Has a little child ever changed your life?" Oliver gets answers from two slow-talking musicians, an actress whose roles usually feature a sarong, and an itinerant cardsharp. In each case the "little child" is hardly innocent: in the first, a local auto mechanic's "baby" turns out to be fully developed as a woman and a musician; in the second, a spoiled child star learns kindness; in the third, the family of a lost brat doesn't want him returned. And Oliver, what becomes of him?
Saigon
Director
After World War II Larry learns that his flying buddy Mike will only live a short time despite the efforts of the doctors. He takes on a profitable flying job for profiteers Maris to finance a good time for his buddy. As the plane takes off he shoves Maris' secretary Susan on board. When Mike falls for her, Larry tells her to play along for Mike's sake. She, of course, falls for Larry.
Pardon My Past
Producer
Eddie York (MacMurray) is mistaken for playboy Francis Pemberton and gets into trouble.
Pardon My Past
Director
Eddie York (MacMurray) is mistaken for playboy Francis Pemberton and gets into trouble.
Tomorrow, the World!
Director
German boy Emil comes to live with his American uncle who tries to teach the former Hitler Youth to reject Nazism.
The Saint's Vacation
Director
While on vacation, the Saint discovers a much-sought-after music box.
The Golden Fleecing
Director
A mild-mannered insurance salesman gets mixed up with gangsters.
The Man from Dakota
Director
A frontier scout, a Boston officer and a Russian girl escape with a map past Confederates.
Stronger Than Desire
Director
An attorney handling a murder case in unaware his own wife played a crucial role in the killing.
Tell No Tales
Director
A newspaper editor turns a kidnapping into the banner headlines and exclusive story that could save his publication.
Boys Town
Dan Farrow
Devout but iron-willed Father Flanagan leads a community called Boys Town, a different sort of juvenile detention facility where, instead of being treated as underage criminals, the boys are shepherded into making themselves better people. But hard-nosed petty thief and pool shark Whitey Marsh, the impulsive and violent younger brother of an imprisoned murderer, might be too much for the good father's tough-love system.
A Criminal Is Born
Director
An entry in MGM's Crime Does Not Pay series, this short tells the true story of how a young man, ignored by his parents, gets into a gang and starts a crime spree which leads to murder.
The Forgotten Step
Director
An American art collector, living in France in the 1870s, who loses his fortune in a stock market crash devises a scheme to get back his wealth through insurance fraud with the added consequence of potentially killing hundreds of people. His scheme is to place his art collection aboard a ship, insure the collection far beyond its value, and place a barrel of dynamite with a clock-piece timed to go off when the ship is at sea.
Miracle Money
Director
In this MGM Crime Does Not Pay series short, doctors scam patients with a fake cure for cancer.
Captain Kidd's Treasure
Director
In this short, a modern-day promoter tries to sell a man the idea of searching for Captain Kidd's buried treasure, claiming he has the original map. A flashback reveals that Kidd was known to be a pirate and also to have had a commission from William III at one time, which instructed him to act as a unit of the British Navy. What became of the fabulous treasure Kidd took from the ship "Kedah Merchant".
Captain Kidd's Treasure
Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
In this short, a modern-day promoter tries to sell a man the idea of searching for Captain Kidd's buried treasure, claiming he has the original map. A flashback reveals that Kidd was known to be a pirate and also to have had a commission from William III at one time, which instructed him to act as a unit of the British Navy. What became of the fabulous treasure Kidd took from the ship "Kedah Merchant".
Soak the Poor
Nick Garvey
This entry in MGM's "Crime Does Not Pay" series deals with racketeers shaking down small grocers and horning in on the relief tickets, forcing prices up with the consumers paying the freight.
China Passage
Anthony Durand
Americans Tommy Baldwin and Joe Dugan are hired to transport a fabulous diamond from Shanghai to San Francisco. They will be paid handsomely on success or killed on failure. The diamond is stolen as they take possession of it.
The House of Secrets
Barry Wilding
Two men stumble into an old mansion, and get involved with a crazed scientist, torture chambers and sinister medical experiments.
The Longest Night
Carl Briggs
Love with a clerk and a robbery by gangsters preoccupy a department store's new owner.
Sworn Enemy
Steve Sherman
A law student poses as a fight promoter to catch a notorious gangster.
Two in the Dark
Stuart Eldredge
Ford Adams regains consciousness in Boston, bloody and suffering from amnesia. Information he eventually uncovers (with the help of Marie Smith) connects him to a well-known producer--who's just been murdered.
White Lies
Dan Oliver
A powerful publisher John Mitchell whose pursuit of sensational headlines at the expense of all else takes a personal toll when his daughter Joan is implicated in a murder.
East of Java
Captain Wong Bo
Survivors of a shipwreck find refuge on a tropical island--but so do the ship's cargo of lions and tigers.
Men Without Names
Monk
A G-man woos a newswoman and corners bank robbers with a hostage in a factory.
Chinatown Squad
Su Quong
Police search for the killer of a man who misused $700,000 intended for the Chinese Communists.
Stolen Harmony
Joe Harris (uncredited)
Band leader Jack Conrad is impressed by prison inmate Ray Ferrera on saxophone. Conrad hires Ray to join his band and tour upon his release. Ray hooks up with Jean, a dancer in the show, and the two become a successful dance act. However, when an ex-inmate buddy of Ray's robs the tour bus, Ray is suspected of wrongdoing by Jack and the others in the group. After a gang of thugs hijacks the tour bus, Ray tries to use his street smarts to redeem his reputation.
Star of Midnight
Tim Winthrop
When a dancer disappears from a theater, Clay Dalzell is asked to investigate, leading him on a trail of murder and deception.
The Casino Murder Case
Dr. Kane
When Philo Vance receives a note that harm will befall Lynn at the casino that night, he takes the threat seriously while the DA dismisses it. At the casino owned by Uncle Kinkaid, Lynn is indeed poisoned under the watchful eye of Philo. However, he recovers, but the same cannot be said for Lynn's wife Virginia, who is at the family home. Only a family member could have poisoned Lynn and Virginia and everyone has their dark motives. Philo will follow the clues and find the perpetrator.
Marie Galante
General Saki Tenoki
On the French coast, unlucky Marie Galante is abducted and forced to board an American cargo ship bound for the Panama Canal. When an escape attempt leaves Marie high and dry in the Yucatan, she takes work as a nightclub singer to earn her safe passage to the Canal region. But Marie faces bigger problems when she gets mixed up in a destructive plot against the U.S. Naval fleet, and so she accepts the kindly assistance of secret agent Dr. Crawbett.
Fugitive Road
Frank Riker
An Austrian officer must face up to the good and evil aspects of his own personality as he becomes involved in a war.
Take the Stand
Hugh Halliburton
A radio columnist is threatened by gangsters and later murdered during a broadcast. A detective sets out to find the killers.
I Believed in You
Russell Storm
an aspiring writer and her boyfriend, a professional agitator head off to the Big Apple in search of good fortune. Unfortunately, the agitator soon finds himself in trouble with the cops. Meanwhile the writer attempts to become a Greenwich Village Bohemian type. She and her new friends are all starving for their art until a kindly gent offers them financial assistant. They refuse on principle. Tragedy pays a call when the writer learns that her boyfriend has been untrue.
Lady Killer
Duke
An ex-gangster tries to resist his old cohorts' criminal activities after he accidentally becomes a movie star.
Night Flight
Jules' Radio Operator / Co-Pilot
Story of South American mail pilots, and the dangers they face flying at night.
F.P.1
Capt. B.E. Droste
Urged by famous airman Ellissen the Lennartz Company puts into reality the project proposed by his friend Droste: F.P.1, a huge floating platform in the Atlantic that makes long-distance flights viable. Ellissen is in love with company heiress Claire, but when he returns from his adventures to save the endangered F.P.1 he finds out that he has lost her to Droste. English version of F.P.1 antwortet nicht with Conrad Veidt replacing Hans Albers as the jaded pilot Ellissen.
Air Mail
Tony Dressel
Level headed Mike Miller runs Desert Airport, an air mail base full of daring young pilots risking their lives to get the mail through-regardless of the weather. Following the death of one pilot in a horrific crash, Miller is forced to engage the wild and arrogant, yet skillful, Duke Talbot. When pilot Dizzy Wilkins crashes and dies in a storm, Talbot runs off with the young Mrs.Wilkins, leaving Miller to complete the last leg of Wilkins' mail run. Miller crashes on a mountain. Alive but in an inaccessible location, Miller tries to endure his injuries while futile attempts are made by air mail pilots to rescue him. Hearing of the impossibility of reaching Miller's crash site in time to save him, Talbot can't resist the challenge of trying an airborne rescue himself.
Thunder Below
Webb
Tallulah Bankhead's first Hollywood movie was this romantic-drama, in which she plays Susan, the unhappy wife of oil rigger Walt (Charles Bickford), who labors in a Central American oil field. The bored Susan falls in love with Walt's good friend Ken (Paul Lukas) but keeps her husband in the dark about her feelings... until he's plunged into darkness for real when he loses his eyesight. Susan finds her attentions then wandering yet another man, Davis (Ralph Forbes), and Ken urges her to return to Walt.
The Strange Love of Molly Louvain
Nick 'Nicky' Grant
A fast-talking reporter befriends a young woman and her male companion who are wanted for a policeman's shooting.
The Famous Ferguson Case
Perrin
A foreword warns against the peril of yellow journalism, and the story illustrates it by following events in the upstate New York town of Cornwall after prominant financier George Ferguson is killed. Two types of New York City journalists descend on Cornwall, one interested in facts, the other in getting sensational "news". Mrs. Ferguson is known to have been friendly with a local banker. The Fergusons quarrel the evening he is killed (by "burglers", his wife tells the police later), and she is arrested, spurred on by the "bad" journalists, who also manage to badger the banker's wife into the hospital. Meanwhile, young Bruce Foster runs the Cornwall Courier, and shows the big city reporters how to dig out real news while they attempt to subvert justice for their own ends.
The Hatchet Man
Harry En Hai
When he's forced to kill his best friend, a Chinese hit man adopts the man's daughter.
The Guilty Generation
Joe Palmero
The children of feuding gangsters fall in love and fight to escape their parents' notoriety.
The Pagan Lady
Gerald 'Gerry' Willis
Dot starts out as a bartender in Havana when in walks Dingo Mike (Charles Bickford) and orders up a drink that sounds like something you'd consume on a dare. He drinks the concoction down in one swallow and also manages to outsmart Dot's boss and his rum-running hooligans. You see, Dingo is a bootlegger himself. He literally sweeps the lady off her feet and they set up housekeeping in a tropical hotel full of colorful characters, some of whom are in the bootlegging business too.
Murder at Midnight
Walter Grayson
Wealthy Mr. Kennedy shoots his secretary, Channing, during a parlor game, but it turns out the gun was loaded with real bullets. Luckily, criminologist Phillip Montrose is on hand to help the police. When Kennedy quickly ends up dead as well, the police think it's a tidy murder-suicide, but the family lawyer knows of a letter that voiced Kennedy's suspicions about someone who was out to get him. Soon, the cops are on the trail of a ruthless and clever killer who is one step ahead of even Montrose.
Kick In
Charlie
Chick Hewes is released from prison and finds work as an accountant. Two years later, Chick's crooked friend, Benny LaMarr, to whom he is indebted for past kindnesses, steals a diamond necklace from the home safe of the district attorney. When the district attorney threatens to accuse the police of inefficiency in crime fighting, Garvey, who is campaigning for the office of police commissioner, promises to catch the thief in twenty-four hours.
The Public Enemy
Samuel 'Nails' Nathan
Two young Chicago hoodlums, Tom Powers and Matt Doyle, rise up from their poverty-stricken slum life to become petty thieves, bootleggers and cold-blooded killers. But with street notoriety and newfound wealth, the duo feels the heat from the cops and rival gangsters both. Despite his ruthless criminal reputation, Tom tries to remain connected to his family, however, gang warfare and the need for revenge eventually pull him away.
The Man Who Came Back
Baron le Duc
A spoiled carefree rich kid gets into too much trouble for his father who sends him out on his own to prove himself capable of making a respectable man of himself.
Dynamite
Young 'Vulture'
Wealthy Cynthia is in love with not-so-wealthy Roger, who is married to Marcia. The threesome is terribly modern about the situation, and Marcia will gladly divorce Roger if Cynthia agrees to a financial settlement. But Cynthia's wealth is in jeopardy because her trust fund will expire if she is not married by a certain date. To satisfy that condition, Cynthia arranges to marry Hagon Derk, who is condemned to die for a crime he didn't commit. She pays him so he can provide for his little sister. But at the last minute, Derk is freed when the true criminal is discovered. Expecting to be a rich widow, Cynthia finds herself married to a man she doesn't know and doesn't want to.
The Last Performance
Buffo
A middle-aged magician is in love with his beautiful young assistant. She, on the other hand, is in love with the magician's young protege, who turns out to be a bum and a thief.
Woman Trap
Eddie Evans
In Woman Trap, Hal Skelly is hard-bitten police sergeant Dan Malone, whose mission in life is to rid his community of gangsters. The revelation that Dan's own brother Ray (Chester Morris) is the secret head of all local criminal activities does not weaken Dan's resolve in the least. The barely relevant title is a reference to "heroine" Kitty Evans (Evelyn Brent), the wife of a minor gang functionary. Screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz, presumably on a dare, makes a brief appearance as a crime reporter.
Paris Bound
Richard Parrish
Jim Hutton and Mary Archer are two liberals who are content to remain faithful to each other in spirit only. They are married with all the ritual of a church wedding, the bride believing that each should be allowed perfect freedom in personal contacts. Complications arise when these ideals are put into practice.
Broadway
'Scar' Edwards
A naive young dancer in a Broadway show innocently gets involved in backstage bootlegging and murder.
The Man I Love
Carlo Vesper
Wellman’s first all-talkie, scripted by Herman Mankiewicz, with arrogant boxer Richard Arlen romancing Mary Brian, then falling for temptress Olga Baclanova (Freaks) on the eve of the big fight.
A Dangerous Woman
Peter Allerton
The commissioner of an African outpost lives with a woman who drives the white men to their deaths with her seductive ways. The commissioner learns that his brother will be his next assistant, and the woman begins working her wiles on him....
The Office Scandal
Andrew 'Andy' Corbin
Haver, a newspaper reporter persuades a judge to release the suspected killer of a wealthy racetrack owner.
The First Kiss
Carol Talbot
The Talbots, formerly one of the Eastern Shore's first families, have gone to seed: Pap is a drunk, soddenly decaying in his ruined ancestral home, and three of his sons (William, Carol, and Ezra) are lazy, shiftless young men. Mulligan, Pap's second son who supports the entire family by oyster fishing, falls in love with wealthy Anna Lee, but when he first kisses her, she calls him "white trash."
The Drag Net
Shakespeare
A 1928 silent film crime drama produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures, directed by Josef von Sternberg from an original screen story and starring George Bancroft and Evelyn Brent.
The Showdown
Kilgore Shelton
Passions run hot in the tropics as men fight over oil wells and a woman.
The Gateway of the Moon
Jim Mortlake
John Griffith Wray silent South America romantic melodrama starring Dolores Del Rio, Walter Pidgeon, Anders Randolf, Lesle Fenton, and Noble Johnson.
What Price Glory
Lt. Moore
U.S. Marine sergeants Quirt and Flagg are inveterate romantic rivals on peacetime assignments in China and the Philippines. In 1917, W.W. I brings them to France, where Flagg, now a captain, takes up with flirtatious Charmaine, inn-keeper's daughter. Of course, Quirt has to arrive and spoil his fun. But the harsh realities of war and the threat of a shotgun marriage give the two men a common cause...
Black Paradise
James Callahan
In San Francisco, Sylvia Douglas and her fiancée, James Callahan, a reformed crook, make their getaway after Jim, disgusted with his inability to find a job, un-reforms and steals a diamond necklace. Graham, a detective, gives chase to a desolate island in the South Pacific where a rum-running gangster, Murdock, holds him captive. Callahan becomes infatuated with a native girl, Leona, and Sylvia turns to Graham for protection against the offensive Murdock. A volcano eruption causes problems for all.
The Shamrock Handicap
Neil Ross
Because he refuses to collect rent payments from his impoverished tenants, kindly Irish nobleman Sir Miles Gaffney is in danger of losing his estate. He is forced to sell off part of his racing stable to a wealthy American, who takes along Gaffney's jockey Neil Ross as part of the bargain. When Neil is crippled in a racing accident, Sir Miles and his daughter Sheila sail to America with their prize horse "Dark Rosaleen" in tow. The first film having an Irish motif that John Ford directed, a six reel delight set in Eire's County Kildare and in the United States, with a steeplechase background, mixing charged elements of comedy and sentimental drama.
Sandy
Douglas Keith
Sandy McNeil adopts strictly unconventional jazz ethics and against the wishes of her parents runs with a fast young set. An auto breakdown after a party places her in a compromising situation, and she grudgingly marries a wealthy suitor of her father's choice. When her husband's cruelty results in the death of her child, she leaves him and meets Ramon, an architect with whom she becomes infatuated. The return of his former mistress causes her to seek refuge with her cousin Judith, where she falls in love with Douglas, Judith's sweetheart. As Sandy refuses to return to Ramon, he shoots her and then kills himself. Douglas, taking the blame for her sake, is tried for murder, but Sandy rises from her sickbed and confesses in court; she succumbs after restoring Judith to Douglas.
The Road to Glory
David Hale
May McAvoy is a woman who is blinded in an auto accident and relies on prayer to regain her sight.
The Ancient Mariner
Joe Barlow
Doris Matthews, a beautiful, innocent young girl, forsakes her sweetheart, Joel Barlowe, in favor of Victor Brant, a wealthy roué. On the night before they are to elope, an old sailor gives Brant a strange potion to drink and then unfolds before his eyes "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Deeply touched by this story about the consequences of the wanton destruction of innocent beauty, Brant leaves without Doris. After some time, he returns and finds to his pained satisfaction that Doris, having overcome her infatuation for him, has again turned her tender attentions toward Joel.
East Lynne
Richard Hare
This most famous of Victorian melodramas was more than half a century old, and had already been filmed several times when it came to the screen once again in 1925. Director Emmett J. Flynn had an all-star cast and kept close to the original story.
Lazybones
Dick Ritchie
Steve Tuttle, the titular lazybones, takes on the responsibility of raising a fatherless girl, causing a scandal in his small town. Many years later, having returned from World War I, he discovers that he loves the grown-up girl.
Thunder Mountain
Sam Martin
Sam Martin grows up in the Kentucky hills with a preacher as his closest friend and father figure. The young man goes away and gets an education, and when he returns home, he wants to build a school so that others can learn, too.