Esther Dale
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Esther Dale (November 10, 1885 – July 23, 1961) was an American actress, best known perhaps for her role as Aunt Genevieve in the 1935 Shirley Temple vehicle, Curly Top.
On the stage, Dale starred in Carrie Nation on Broadway in 1933. Her other Broadway credits include Harvest of Years (1947), And Be My Love (1944), and Another Language (1932).
Dale's first film was Crime Without Passion (1934) in an uncredited role. She was a familiar face in films of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, frequently playing stern, authoritarian characters such as prison matrons and head nurses, although she was equally adept at playing grande dames and ladies of the aristocracy.
Dale played many roles in television over the years. In the 1958-1959 season of The Donna Reed Show, Dale played a job-seeking housekeeper who is frightened from the Stone home by Jeff Stone's pet mouse, and she appeared in the 1957 Maverick episode "According to Hoyle" opposite James Garner.
Known For | Acting |
---|---|
Most Rating | 6.894 |
Birthday | 1885-11-08 |
Place of Birth | Beaufort, South Carolina, USA |
Also Known As | Ester Dale, |
1940
The Mortal Storm
7.1/76
The Roth family leads a quiet life in a small village in the German Alps during the early 1930s. After the Nazis come to power, the family is divided...
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The Mortal Storm
1940
Blondie Has Servant Trouble
7.2/5
Things get under way when Blondie Bumstead demands that her husband request a raise from his boss Mr. Dithers, so that she can afford to hire a maid....
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Blondie Has Servant Trouble
1952
Monkey Business
6.706/247
Research chemist Barnaby Fulton works on a fountain of youth pill for a chemical company. One of the labs chimps gets loose in the laboratory and mixe...
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Monkey Business
1941
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
6.169/198
Happily married for three years, Ann and David Smith live in New York. One morning Ann asks David if he had to do it over again, would he marry her? T...
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Mr. & Mrs. Smith
1949
Holiday Affair
6.9/74
Just before Christmas, department store clerk Steve Mason meets big spending customer Connie Ennis, who's actually a comparison shopper sent by anothe...
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Holiday Affair
1937
Dead End
6.961/117
Mobster "Baby Face" Martin returns home to visit the New York neighborhood where he grew up, dropping in on his mother, who rejects him because of his...
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Dead End
1950
No Man of Her Own
6.9/42
A penniless pregnant woman adopts the identity of a rich woman killed in a train crash.
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No Man of Her Own
1935
Curly Top
6.4/37
Wealthy Edward Morgan becomes charmed with a curly-haired orphan and her pretty older sister Mary and arranges to adopt both under the alias of "Mr. J...
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Curly Top
1937
The Awful Truth
7.2/294
Unfounded suspicions lead a married couple to begin divorce proceedings, whereupon they start undermining each other's attempts to find new romance.
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The Awful Truth
1945
Her Favorite Patient
5.8/5
A beautiful female doctor visits her small hometown on her way back to Chicago. Her overworked uncle, who is the town's doctor, wants her to stay and...
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Her Favorite Patient
1946
A Stolen Life
6.5/44
A twin takes her deceased sister's place as wife of the man they both love.
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A Stolen Life
1941
Dangerously They Live
5.9/8
A doctor tries to rescue a young innocent from Nazi agents.
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Dangerously They Live
1941
All-American Co-Ed
4.2/10
Fraternity brothers enter one of their own into a scholarship lottery after a women's college insults them. Though the Zeta boys are celebrated for th...
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All-American Co-Ed
1950
Walk Softly, Stranger
5/26
A petty crook moves to an Ohio town and courts a factory owner's disabled daughter.
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Walk Softly, Stranger
1942
Maisie Gets Her Man
7/1
Struggling performers, Sothern and Skelton's lives are thrown off gear when they are caught with a bagful of hard cash robbed by a goon. With Skelton...
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Maisie Gets Her Man
1947
The Unfinished Dance
6/5
A young dance student accidentally cripples a teacher she doesn't like.
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The Unfinished Dance
1957
The Oklahoman
5.6/12
After his wife dies in childbirth, a doctor settles down in the small Oklahoma town of Cherokee Wells to raise his newborn daughter. Unfortunately, no...
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The Oklahoman
1943
Murder in Times Square
4.6/5
An actor becomes a suspect in the murders of four New Yorkers injected with rattlesnake venom.
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Murder in Times Square
1935
Private Worlds
5.4/5
At the Brentwood Asylum for the mentally ill, psychiatrist partners Jane Everest and Alex MacGregor are broken up by the new superintendent, Dr. Charl...
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Private Worlds
1946
My Reputation
7.1/19
Tongues begin to wag when a lonely widow becomes romantically involved with a military man. Problems arise when the gossip is filtered down to her own...
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My Reputation
1941
Back Street
7.2/8
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 desi...
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Back Street
1939
Blackmail
6.4/7
A fugitive from a chain gang becomes an oil-well firefighter and meets the man who framed him.
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Blackmail
1946
Margie
6.9/7
A woman reminisces about her teenage years in the 1920s, when she fell in love with her teacher.
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Margie
1939
Broadway Serenade
6.2/4
A married singer, pianist/composer team are struggling to hit it big in New York. Finally, they audition before a Broadway producer, but the producer...
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Broadway Serenade
1940
Convicted Woman
3.7/3
A reporter and a lawyer investigate a women's prison and help an inmate who does not belong there.
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Convicted Woman
1940
And One Was Beautiful
6.2/6
A teenager falls hard for an irresponsible playboy.
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And One Was Beautiful
1941
Aloma of the South Seas
5.7/3
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.
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Aloma of the South Seas
1938
Stolen Heaven
0/0
Two attractive jewel thieves, one female (Olympe Bradna), one male (Gene Raymond) escape together after their latest escapade and hide out in the home...
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Stolen Heaven
1936
The Case Against Mrs. Ames
1/1
An attorney falls for the woman he's representing on a murder charge.
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The Case Against Mrs. Ames
1940
Women Without Names
4.8/3
Joyce and Fred MacNeil's honeymoon comes to an abrupt and unsatisfying halt when Fred is accused of murder. Railroaded into prison through the efforts...
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Women Without Names
1940
Arise, My Love
6.118/17
A dashing pilot and a vivacious reporter have romantic and dramatic adventures in Europe as World War II begins.
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Arise, My Love
1946
Smoky
5.5/4
Clint Barkley first sees Smoky as a runaway, and drives him back to the ranch where he meets the owner, Julie Richards. He is given a job on her ranch...
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Smoky
1939
The Great Man Votes
6.1/6
In 1923, Gregory Vance, a widower with two children, is a former scholar who has turned from book to bottle. He works, slightly, as a night-watchman,...
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The Great Man Votes
1939
6,000 Enemies
6/6
A tough prosecutor who has sent dozens of criminals to prison finds himself framed on a bribery charge and winds up in prison himself.
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6,000 Enemies
1940
Laddie
6/4
Handsome Laddie Stanton courts neighbor Pamela Pryor, meeting opposition from her stern military father, recently immigrated from England.
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Laddie
1935
The Wedding Night
6/22
While working on a novel in his country home in Connecticut, married writer Tony Barrett (Cooper) becomes attracted to Manya (Sten), the daughter of a...
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The Wedding Night
1943
The North Star
6.1/23
A Ukrainian village must suddenly contend with the Nazi invasion of June 1941. Later re-edited and released as "Armored Attack."
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The North Star
1937
Easy Living
7.1/53
J.B. Ball, a rich financier, gets fed up with his free-spending family. He takes his wife's just-bought (very expensive) sable coat and throws it out...
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Easy Living
1938
Condemned Women
6.3/3
A shoplifter gets sentenced to a women's prison.
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Condemned Women
1939
Tell No Tales
5.3/5
A newspaper editor turns a kidnapping into the banner headlines and exclusive story that could save his publication.
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Tell No Tales
1938
Prison Farm
5.7/3
Shirley Ross plays an innocent young girl convicted for complicity in a crime committed by her boy friend (Lloyd Nolan). The male crook is sentence to...
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Prison Farm
1937
Damaged Goods
3.4/5
A groom-to-be contracts syphilis and wrestles with the consequences of his diagnosis.
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Damaged Goods
1938
Girls on Probation
5.9/8
A dizzy young girl falls into crime but wins her lawyer's heart.
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Girls on Probation
1943
Old Acquaintance
6.9/32
Two writers, friends since childhood, fight over their books and lives.
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Old Acquaintance
1939
Made for Each Other
6.2/43
A couple struggle to find happiness after a whirlwind courtship.
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Made for Each Other
1939
A Child Is Born
6.5/3
A pregnant prison inmate shares her problems with the patients in a maternity ward.
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A Child Is Born
1939
The Women
7.1/146
A happily married woman lets her catty friends talk her into divorce when her husband strays.
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The Women
1939
Sergeant Madden
6/1
A dedicated police officer is torn between family and duty when his son turns to a life of crime.
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Sergeant Madden
1939
Swanee River
0/1
Swanee River is a 1940 American biopic about Stephen Foster, a songwriter from Pittsburgh who falls in love with the South, marries a Southern girl, t...
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Swanee River
1935
In Old Kentucky
0/0
Horse trainer Steve Tapley is caught between the feuding Martingale and Shattuck families. He sides with young Nancy Martingale and her grandfather Ez...
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In Old Kentucky
1940
Village Barn Dance
0/0
Dan Martin, an unemployed college graduate, drifts into the town of Lyndale, only to learn that the town and everything in it are dominated by Minerva...
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Village Barn Dance
1936
Fury
7.49/209
Joe, who owns a gas station along with his brothers and is about to marry Katherine, travels to the small town where she lives to visit her, but is wr...
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Fury
1940
Untamed
4.3/3
A courageous doctor braves a fierce blizzard in the Canadian wilderness to save a remote community from a deadly epidemic. He has come North to visit...
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Untamed
1939
Bad Little Angel
4.9/4
A bible-guided Victorian orphan befriends a bootblack in a strange town.
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Bad Little Angel
1936
Hollywood Boulevard
2.5/2
With a full Hollywood background and settings but more an expose of scandal-and-gossip magazines of the era, has-been actor John Blakeford agrees to w...
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Hollywood Boulevard
1955
Betrayed Women
4.7/6
Love-starved gun molls (Carole Mathews, Beverly Michaels) escape from a prison farm where matrons make their lives miserable.
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Betrayed Women
1940
Abe Lincoln in Illinois
6.8/20
Abe Lincoln in Illinois is a 1940 biographical film which tells the story of the life of Abraham Lincoln from his departure from Kentucky until his el...
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Abe Lincoln in Illinois
1936
The Farmer in the Dell
0/0
An Iowa farmer's wife makes him move to Hollywood so their daughter can become a star.
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The Farmer in the Dell
1945
Behind City Lights
0/0
This Republic programmer stars Lynne Roberts as a country gal who is slickered by a couple of city-fied jewel thieves, played by Peter Cookson and Jer...
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Behind City Lights
1942
What's Cookin'?
5.5/2
J. P. Courtney wants to update the music on the radio program he sponsors, but his wife, Agatha Courtney, is the final authority and addicted to the c...
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What's Cookin'?
1937
Wild Money
0/0
A tightwad accountant for a newspaper becomes friends with a reporter. The bookkeeper goes on vacation, and while there he learns of a kidnapping cons...
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Wild Money
1940
Cross-Country Romance
6.4/5
A runaway heiress hides in a doctor's trailer for a rollicking trip to San Francisco.
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Cross-Country Romance
1935
I Live My Life
6.4/8
A society girl tries to make a go of her marriage to an archaeologist.
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I Live My Life
1935
Mary Burns, Fugitive
0/0
A young woman who owns a coffee shop falls for a handsome young customer, unaware that he is a gangster.
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Mary Burns, Fugitive
1942
Blondie Goes to College
6.4/6
Dagwood Bumstead must receive a college diploma or lose his job with the Dithers Construction Company. Not wishing to be separated from her husband, B...
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Blondie Goes to College
1950
Surrender
4.8/4
Violet Barton, a femme-fatale goal-setter, fascinates men and readily returns their affection to obtain the wealth she desires, even to the point of b...
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Surrender
1940
Forty Little Mothers
6.2/4
An out-of-work professor gets a break from an old college buddy to teach at an exclusive girl's school. But events conspire against him: he finds an a...
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Forty Little Mothers
1942
Ten Gentlemen from West Point
5.8/5
This historical drama tells the story of the first class to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. In the early 19th Century, Congress...
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Ten Gentlemen from West Point
1939
Big Town Czar
0/0
When gangster Phil Daley gets rid of his chief Paul Burgess he has everything that money can buy, except the respect of his parents and his sweetheart...
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Big Town Czar
1939
How to Sub-Let
3.5/2
A man fumbles through an apartment sub-let assessment while his wife is away.
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How to Sub-Let
1937
Outcast
0/0
A physician in a small town suddenly finds himself the object of vilification and persecution when one of his patients commits suicide.
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Outcast
1960
North to Alaska
6.6/106
After striking gold in Alaska, the romantic George sends his womanizing partner Sam to bring his fiancée up from Seattle. When Sam finds that she has...
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North to Alaska
1941
Unfinished Business
5.3/2
Starting with a cruel joke – a couple of callow men make a bet that one of them can seduce the woman sharing their train compartment – the film charts...
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Unfinished Business
1942
You're Telling Me
0/0
Hubert Abercrombie Gumm, a flighty, eccentric screwball acquires a job as an executive at a radio station at the insistence of his only-slightly less...
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You're Telling Me
1948
A Song Is Born
6.5/39
The story of seven scholars in search of an expert to teach them about swing music. They seem to have found the perfect candidate in winsome nightclub...
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A Song Is Born
1942
Wrecking Crew
5.5/2
Follows a crew as they work under a deadline set by their boss to complete the demolition of a building. Touches on the lives of several of the crew i...
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Wrecking Crew
1959
The Sound and the Fury
6.6/15
Drama focusing on a family of Southern aristocrats who are trying to deal with the dissolution of their clan and the loss of its reputation, faith, fo...
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The Sound and the Fury
1947
The Egg and I
6.9/38
World War II veteran Bob MacDonald surprises his new wife, Betty, by quitting his city job and moving them to a dilapidated farm in the country. While...
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The Egg and I
1943
Swing Your Partner
0/0
Caroline Bird, the crotchety and stingy owner of Bird Milk Products, is not amused when her employees at the Dairyville factory, the oldest plant in t...
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Swing Your Partner
1952
Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair
5.9/7
Ma and Pa are trying to raise enough money at the county fair to send their daughter Rosie to college. Ma competes in baking and Pa enters a trotter i...
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Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair
1955
Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki
6.8/6
Ma and Pa, along with daughter Rosie, go off to Hawaii in answer to cousin Rodney's call for help running his pineapple farm while he recovers from an...
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Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki
1949
Ma and Pa Kettle
7.2/16
The Kettles and their fifteen children are about to be evicted from their rundown rustic home when Pa wins the grand prize by coming up with a new tob...
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Ma and Pa Kettle
1935
The Great Impersonation
0/0
The second of the three film versions of the E. Phillips Oppenheim espionage thriller set largely in an old dark house where a tremulous wife wonders...
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The Great Impersonation
1945
On Stage Everybody
0/0
Radio's miracle show is on the screen.
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On Stage Everybody
1951
Too Young to Kiss
5/8
Eric Wainwright, a busy impresario, is besieged by hordes of wannabe concert stars, eager for their big break. One of them is Cynthia Potter, a talent...
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Too Young to Kiss
1934
Crime Without Passion
5.8/20
Caddish lawyer Lee Gentry is going out with Katy Costello, but carrying on an affair with dancer Carmen Brown. When he wants to end the dalliance with...
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Crime Without Passion
1953
A Tale of Two Cities
0/0
A dramatization originally for TV on the Plymouth Playhouse. A retelling of the Charles Dickens story.
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A Tale of Two Cities
1936
Lady of Secrets
6/1
Because of a very unhappy affair she had earlier in her life, a woman shuts herself off from the rest of the world.
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Lady of Secrets
1940
Opened by Mistake
0/0
A wise-guy reporter and a tippling sportswriter acquire an unclaimed trunk with a corpse inside.
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Opened by Mistake
1951
On Moonlight Bay
6.4/27
The Winfield family moves into a new house in a small town in Indiana. Tomboy Marjorie Winfield begins a romance with William Sherman who lives across...
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On Moonlight Bay
1943
The Amazing Mrs. Holliday
6.4/7
A missionary tries to outwit the U.S. government and smuggle Chinese orphans into the country.
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The Amazing Mrs. Holliday
1935
I Dream Too Much
4.6/11
Opera student Annette Monard meets composer Jonathan Street, and in a buoyant, alcohol-fueled evening, the couple marries. Sincerely falling in love,...
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I Dream Too Much
1942
A Letter From Bataan
4.5/4
An American soldier pleads to the folks at home to conserve scarce wartime resources.
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A Letter From Bataan
1937
On Such a Night
0/0
When her husband is accused of murder, an actress tries to prove his innocence.
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On Such a Night
1936
Timothy's Quest
3/1
Timothy (Dickie Moore), an orphan, is sent with his sister, Gay (Sally Martin), to a farm run by Vilda Cummins (Elizabeth Patterson, an old maid with...
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