Jacques Tourneur

Directing

Jacques Tourneur

Born — Died

1904-11-12 — 1977-12-19

Place of birth

Paris, France

Known for

Directing

Credits

45 titles

Jacques Tourneur (also known as Jack Turner; November 12, 1904 – December 19, 1977) was a French film director known for the classic film noir Out of the Past and a series of low-budget horror films he made for RKO Studios, including Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie and The Leopard Man.

Known for

Film credits

Series credits

Behind the camera

Out of the Past poster
7.7

The peaceful life of a gas station owner is disrupted when a man from his past arrives in town and forces him to return to the dark world he had tried to escape.

Out of the Past

1947

Cat People poster
6.9

A Serbian émigré in Manhattan believes that, because of an ancient curse, any physical intimacy with the man she loves will turn her into a feline predator.

Cat People

1942

Night of the Demon poster
7.0

American professor John Holden arrives in London for a conference on parapsychology only to discover that the colleague he was supposed to meet was killed in a freak accident the day before. It turns out that the deceased had been investigating a cult lead by Dr. Julian Karswell. Though a skeptic, Holden is suspicious of the devil-worshiping Karswell. Following a trail of mysterious manuscripts, Holden enters a world that makes him question his faith in science.

Night of the Demon

1957

The Comedy of Terrors poster
6.5

An undertaker who hasn't had any 'customers' in a long time is forced to pay one year's back-rent. To get money he starts to kill people, which brings absurd results.

The Comedy of Terrors

1964

The Flame and the Arrow poster
6.4

Dardo, a Robin Hood-like figure, and his loyal followers use a Roman ruin in Medieval Lombardy as their headquarters as they conduct an insurgency against their Hessian conquerors.

The Flame and the Arrow

1950

Anne of the Indies poster
6.4

After buccaneer captain Anne Providence spares Pierre LaRochelle and recruits him into her pirate crew, their growing attraction is tested when Captain Blackbeard reveals LaRochelle's true identity as a former French navy officer.

Anne of the Indies

1951

Wichita poster
6.4

Former buffalo hunter and entrepreneur Wyatt Earp arrives in the lawless cattle town of Wichita Kansas. His skill as a gun-fighter makes him a perfect candidate for Marshal, but he refuses the job until he feels morally obligated to bring law and order to this wild town.

Wichita

1955

Nightfall poster
6.9

An innocent man turns fugitive as he reconstructs events that implicate him for a murder and robbery he did not commit.

Nightfall

1956

I Walked with a Zombie poster
6.8

A nurse in the Caribbean turns to voodoo in hopes of curing her patient, a mindless woman whose husband she's fallen in love with.

I Walked with a Zombie

1943

The Giant of Marathon poster
5.2

A Greek soldier leads the fight against an invading Persian army.

The Giant of Marathon

1959

Stars in My Crown poster
7.1

An orphaned man recalls his upbringing with his aunt and her husband, the parson, in a small Western town during the Reconstruction.

Stars in My Crown

1950

Way of a Gaucho poster
5.8

In 1875 Argentina, after killing a man, a gaucho is sentenced to harsh army duty but he deserts the army and becomes a bandit leader.

Way of a Gaucho

1952

The Leopard Man poster
6.5

When a leopard escapes during a publicity stunt, it triggers a series of murders.

The Leopard Man

1943

Great Day in the Morning poster
6.0

After a card game, Southerner Owen Pentecost finds himself the owner of a Denver hotel. Involved with two women, he then has to make even more fundamental choices when, with the start of the Civil War, he becomes one of a Confederate minority in a strongly Unionist town.

Great Day in the Morning

1956

Canyon Passage poster
6.8

In 1850s Oregon, a businessman is torn between his love of two very different women and his loyalty to a compulsive gambler friend who goes over the line.

Canyon Passage

1946

War-Gods of the Deep poster
5.0

A chance discovery leads American mining engineer Ben Harris and acquaintance Harold to discover a lost city under the sea while searching for their kidnapped friend Jill. Held captive in the underwater city by the tyrannical Captain (Vincent Price), and his crew of former smugglers, the three plot to escape...

War-Gods of the Deep

1965

Berlin Express poster
6.3

In post-war Europe, a diverse group of passengers aboard a U.S. Army train to bombed-out Frankfurt becomes involved in a Nazi assassination plot.

Berlin Express

1948

What Do You Think? poster
7.1

The narrator's voice tells of John Dough, who wakes up after a late-night party and prepares to go to work. However, a few interruptions, including thinking for a moment that he sees a woman's body in his bed, having his car key not work, and thinking he hears his mother calling, delay his departure from home by almost a minute. When tragedy strikes close by, John revisits the morning's events. A phone call from his brother in Chicago confirms how odd this morning is. Did John experience telepathy or was it all coincidence? If radio waves can carry a communication, why not a mother's love?

What Do You Think?

1937

Stranger on Horseback poster
5.8

A circuit judge in the old west attempts to bring a suspected killer to justice. The judge runs afoul of the killer's rich cattle baron father in the process.

Stranger on Horseback

1955

Days of Glory poster
5.9

A heroic guerilla group fights back against impossible odds during the 1941 Nazi invasion of Russia.

Days of Glory

1944

Easy Living poster
5.7

A football halfback has a heart condition, a nagging wife and a team secretary who loves him.

Easy Living

1949

The Face Behind the Mask poster
5.6

This dramatized short film describes the historical mystery of France's "man in the iron mask". King Louis XIV imprisoned a man who was never identified, but who was forced to wear an iron mask for the length of his captivity, which ended only in his death. Several candidates for the identity of the man are investigated.

The Face Behind the Mask

1938

Experiment Perilous poster
5.8

In 1903, Doctor Huntington Bailey meets a friendly older lady during a train trip. She tells him that she is going to visit her brother Nick and his lovely young wife Allida. Once in New York, Bailey hears that his train companion suddenly died. Shortly afterward, he meets the strange couple and gets suspicious of Nick's treatment of his wife.

Experiment Perilous

1944

Fury River poster
6.2

Rogers Rangers fight the French & Indians in Canada while searching for a waterway which will lead to this ocean.

Fury River

1961

Killer Dog poster
5.6

A dog accused of murdering sheep is brought to trial.

Killer Dog

1936

Timbuktu poster
4.8

An American wheeler-dealer woos a colonel's wife amid danger at a French Foreign Legion fort.

Timbuktu

1958

They All Come Out poster
5.9

A down on his luck young man stumbles into a gang of robbers who all get landed in prison. Will he be reformed, or is he ensnared into a life of crime?

They All Come Out

1939

Appointment in Honduras poster
5.9

On a tramp steamer off Central America are Mr. and Mrs. Sheppard, five prisoners en route to a Nicaraguan prison, and Corbett, an American carrying money for a Honduran counter-revolution. Denied permission to land in Honduras, Corbett releases the prisoners and with their aid hijacks the ship. They land, taking the wealthy Sheppards as hostages, and start the arduous trip upriver to Corbett's rendezvous, meeting jungle hazards

Appointment in Honduras

1953

The Ship That Died poster
5.9

This MGM An Historical Mystery short traces the final voyage of the Mary Celeste, a ship discovered at sea, in December 1872, devoid - for no discernible reason - of crew, passengers and captain. At "the famed nautical court of Gibraltar", investigators propose three hypotheses.

The Ship That Died

1938

Doctors Don't Tell poster
5.2

Dr. Ralph Snyder and Dr. Frank Blake open an office together but soon split over a rivalry for nightclub singer Diana Wayne and a difference over ethics.

Doctors Don't Tell

1941

Yankee Doodle Goes to Town poster
8.0

Made just before America would be forced into the Second World War, this short subject is a brief dramatized history of American democracy. It targets a perceived threat to democracy from board room and soapbox fascists who advocated a government based upon contemporaneous European models.

Yankee Doodle Goes to Town

1939

The Boss Didn't Say Good Morning poster
5.2

Carey Wilson narrates this MGM Miniature short in which an average office worker suffers all week-end because his boss, who had a bad case of indigestion, didn't speak to him when he came to work on Friday and is convinced he is going to get fired.

The Boss Didn't Say Good Morning

1937

Nick Carter, Master Detective poster
6.0

Detective Nick Carter is brought in to foil spies at the Radex Airplane Factory, where a new fighter plane is under manufacture.

Nick Carter, Master Detective

1939

Circle of Danger poster
6.5

An American comes to Britain to investigate the murky circumstances of his brother's death that occurred during a WW2 commando raid.

Circle of Danger

1951

Reward Unlimited poster
7.5

Short film about nurse service in wartime. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.

Reward Unlimited

1944

Frontier Rangers poster
4.0

A pastiche of three episodes from the 1958 TV series Northwest Passage, stitched together as a feature and released theatrically in Europe.

Frontier Rangers

1959

The Fearmakers poster
6.2

A Korean War veteran returns to Washington D.C. only to discover his business partner had died and their public-research business sold, so he works there undercover to find out the truth.

The Fearmakers

1958

What Do You Think? Tupapaoo poster
8.8

An American trader disrupts life on a Polynesian island.

What Do You Think? Tupapaoo

1938

The King Without a Crown poster
5.6

This short explores the possibility that Louis XVII, son of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, escaped death during the French Revolution and was raised by Indians in America.

The King Without a Crown

1937

Dragon by the Tail poster
NR

Josephine Little, an expatriate American importer-exporter of sometimes unscrupulous dealings, is recruited by Central Intellegence Agency operatives in Hong Kong to help recover an American born scientist away from the communists, holding him him in North Viet Nam. She goes through with the dangerous mission, in hopes of securing a scrap metal deal with the U.S. government.

Dragon by the Tail

1961