Mitchell Leisen

Directing

Mitchell Leisen

Born — Died

1898-10-06 — 1972-10-28

Place of birth

Menominee, Michigan, USA

Known for

Directing

Credits

46 titles

Mitchell Leisen (October 6, 1898 – October 28, 1972) was an American director, art director, and costume designer. He is known for directing the films Remember the Night, Midnight, and Easy Living.

Known for

Remember the Night poster
7.3

Unexpected love blossoms when an assistant district attorney agrees to take a recidivist shoplifter home so she doesn't have to spend Christmas alone in jail.

Remember the Night

1940

Death Takes a Holiday poster
6.3

After years of questioning why people fear him, Death takes on human form so he can mingle among the mortals and find an answer. However, events soon spiral out of control as he falls in love with the beautiful young Grazia, the only woman not afraid of him. As he falls in love with her, her father sees him for what he is and begs him to return to his duties. Death must decide whether or not to seek his own happiness or sacrifice it so that Grazia may live.

Death Takes a Holiday

1934

Midnight poster
7.4

An unemployed American showgirl poses as Hungarian royalty to infiltrate Parisian high society.

Midnight

1939

Swing High, Swing Low poster
5.3

In Panama, Maggie King meets soldier Skid Johnson on his last day in the army and reluctantly agrees to a date to celebrate. The two become involved in a nightclub brawl which causes Maggie to miss her ship back to the States. Now stranded, she's forced to move in with Skid and his pal Harry. She soon falls in love with Skid. Skid gets a job playing the trumpet at a local club and becomes a big success. Fame and fortune go to his head which eventually destroys his relationship with Maggie and his career.

Swing High, Swing Low

1937

Hold Back the Dawn poster
6.7

Romanian-French gigolo Georges Iscovescu wishes to enter the USA. Stopped in Mexico by the quota system, he decides to marry an American, then desert her and join his old partner Anita, who's done likewise. But after sweeping teacher Emmy Brown off her feet, he finds her so sweet that love and jealousy endanger his plans.

Hold Back the Dawn

1941

No Time for Love poster
7.0

An upper-class female reporter is (despite herself) attracted to a hulking laborer digging a tunnel under the Hudson River.

No Time for Love

1943

Film credits

1940s · 3 titles

1930s · 3 titles

Behind the camera

Remember the Night poster
7.3

Unexpected love blossoms when an assistant district attorney agrees to take a recidivist shoplifter home so she doesn't have to spend Christmas alone in jail.

Remember the Night

1940

Remember the Night poster
7.3

Unexpected love blossoms when an assistant district attorney agrees to take a recidivist shoplifter home so she doesn't have to spend Christmas alone in jail.

Remember the Night

1940

Death Takes a Holiday poster
6.3

After years of questioning why people fear him, Death takes on human form so he can mingle among the mortals and find an answer. However, events soon spiral out of control as he falls in love with the beautiful young Grazia, the only woman not afraid of him. As he falls in love with her, her father sees him for what he is and begs him to return to his duties. Death must decide whether or not to seek his own happiness or sacrifice it so that Grazia may live.

Death Takes a Holiday

1934

Midnight poster
7.4

An unemployed American showgirl poses as Hungarian royalty to infiltrate Parisian high society.

Midnight

1939

Swing High, Swing Low poster
5.3

In Panama, Maggie King meets soldier Skid Johnson on his last day in the army and reluctantly agrees to a date to celebrate. The two become involved in a nightclub brawl which causes Maggie to miss her ship back to the States. Now stranded, she's forced to move in with Skid and his pal Harry. She soon falls in love with Skid. Skid gets a job playing the trumpet at a local club and becomes a big success. Fame and fortune go to his head which eventually destroys his relationship with Maggie and his career.

Swing High, Swing Low

1937

Hold Back the Dawn poster
6.7

Romanian-French gigolo Georges Iscovescu wishes to enter the USA. Stopped in Mexico by the quota system, he decides to marry an American, then desert her and join his old partner Anita, who's done likewise. But after sweeping teacher Emmy Brown off her feet, he finds her so sweet that love and jealousy endanger his plans.

Hold Back the Dawn

1941

No Time for Love poster
7.0

An upper-class female reporter is (despite herself) attracted to a hulking laborer digging a tunnel under the Hudson River.

No Time for Love

1943

No Time for Love poster
7.0

An upper-class female reporter is (despite herself) attracted to a hulking laborer digging a tunnel under the Hudson River.

No Time for Love

1943

Captain Carey, U.S.A. poster
5.8

Near the end of World War II, a secret American raid on an enemy transportation hub goes very wrong when a turncoat warns the enemy. Led by Capt. Webster Carey, the mission causes the deaths of many bystanders -- among them, Carey believes, his Italian girlfriend, Giulia de Graffi. Back home, Carey stumbles across evidence that might uncover the identity of the informant. But, when he returns to Italy to get even, Carey is stunned by what he finds.

Captain Carey, U.S.A.

1950

The Lady Is Willing poster
6.5

Bold, eccentric Broadway performer Elizabeth Madden befuddles her handlers by coming home with a baby she picked up on the street. She wants to keep the baby but has to find a husband to make adoption viable. She offers her new obstetrician Dr. McBain help with his research on rabbits in exchange for marriage - and he accepts. The marriage of convenience turns into a marriage of real love until Dr. McBain's ex-wife comes looking for money.

The Lady Is Willing

1942

Easy Living poster
7.2

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 the window, it lands on poor hard-working girl Mary Smith. But it isn't so easy to just give away something so valuable, as he soon learns.

Easy Living

1937

Darling, How Could You! poster
7.2

Two absentee American parents get to know their three children again after spending five years in Panama.

Darling, How Could You!

1951

No Man of Her Own poster
6.9

A penniless pregnant woman adopts the identity of a rich woman killed in a train crash.

No Man of Her Own

1950

No Man of Her Own poster
6.9

A penniless pregnant woman adopts the identity of a rich woman killed in a train crash.

No Man of Her Own

1950

Arise, My Love poster
6.5

A dashing pilot and a vivacious reporter have romantic and dramatic adventures in Europe as World War II begins.

Arise, My Love

1940

Hands Across the Table poster
7.0

A manicurist and an engaged loafer, both planning to marry money, meet and fall in love.

Hands Across the Table

1935

Murder at the Vanities poster
5.7

Shortly before the curtain goes up the first time at the latest performance of Earl Carroll's Vanities, someone is attempting to injure the leading lady Ann Ware, who wants to marry leading man Eric Lander. Stage manager Jack Ellery calls in his friend, policeman Bill Murdock, to help him investigate. Bill thinks Jack is offering to let him see the show from an unusual viewpoint after he forgot to get him tickets for the performance, but then they find the corpse of a murdered woman and Bill immediately suspects Eric of the crime.

Murder at the Vanities

1934

Take a Letter, Darling poster
6.6

A struggling painter takes a job as a secretary to a female advertising executive. While working to obtain an account from a tobacco company, they end up falling in love.

Take a Letter, Darling

1942

Kitty poster
5.7

Pickpocket Kitty's life changes when painter Thomas Gainsborough makes her portrait. The artwork gains the attention of Sir Hugh Marcy, who later decides to use her for his benefit.

Kitty

1945

Kitty poster
5.7

Pickpocket Kitty's life changes when painter Thomas Gainsborough makes her portrait. The artwork gains the attention of Sir Hugh Marcy, who later decides to use her for his benefit.

Kitty

1945

Young Man with Ideas poster
5.2

A Montana lawyer gets distracted after moving to California with his wife and children.

Young Man with Ideas

1952

To Each His Own poster
7.0

During World War I, small-town girl Josephine Norris has an illegitimate son by an itinerant pilot. After a scheme to adopt him ends up giving him to another family, she devotes her life to loving him from afar.

To Each His Own

1946

Golden Earrings poster
6.2

A British colonel escapes from the Gestapo to the Black Forest and poses as a Gypsy's mate.

Golden Earrings

1947

The Mating Season poster
6.6

Ellen McNulty leaves her New Jersey hamburger stand and heads west to pay a surprise visit to her son and his new bride. When Ellen arrives, her daughter-in-law mistakes her for the maid she has hired for a big party they are throwing. Rather than cause any embarrassment, Ellen goes along with the charade, which leads to many complications.

The Mating Season

1951

Masquerade in Mexico poster
6.0

An American singer stranded in Mexico is hired by a banker to distract a Mexican matador who is making a play for the banker's wife. They hatch a scheme whereby she pretends to be a Spanish countess.

Masquerade in Mexico

1945

Bride of Vengeance poster
5.4

The tiny independent duchy of Ferrara is located between Casare Borgia's Rome and Venice, and Borgia has plans to conquer Venice via Ferrara. He murders his sister's husband and makes it appear that Alfonso D'Este of Ferrara was behind the killing. To avenge herself against Ferrara and D'Este, Lucretia Borgia marries D'Este and intends to poison him. But...she falls in love with him.

Bride of Vengeance

1949

Practically Yours poster
7.0

In this screwball comedy a WW2 US pilot bombs a Japanese aircraft carrier, is assumed to be dead, and then is misquoted in the press as fondly remembering his days back home walking his dog Piggy. Instead of his dog Piggy he is thought to be in love with Peggy, a girl he worked with. The usual farce ensues after he returns home alive and tries to play along with the mistake to save embarrassment for all.

Practically Yours

1944

13 Hours by Air poster
5.2

Womanizer and airline pilot Jack Gordon must fly the world's fastest airliner from New York to California while dealing with dangerous jewel thieves on the run from the law.

13 Hours by Air

1936

The Big Broadcast of 1938 poster
6.3

The Bellows family causes comic confusion on an ocean liner, with time out for radio-style musical acts.

The Big Broadcast of 1938

1938

Frenchman's Creek poster
5.8

An English lady falls in love with a French pirate after he kidnaps her from her ancestral home on the coast of Cornwall and sweeps her off her feet into a world of adventure.

Frenchman's Creek

1944

Behold My Wife! poster
8.0

After Michael Carter's fiancée commits suicide, Michael vows to seek revenge on his wealthy family, who sabotaged their marriage. He drives across the country angrily, and lands up at a saloon, where he is shot by an Indian, Pete. Pete's girlfriend, Tonita nurses Michael's wound and falls in love with him. Michael realizes this, proposes marriage to Tonita - a perfect revenge for his prejudice family. They marry and he takes her to New York, in full Indian dress hoping to embarrass the family.

Behold My Wife!

1934

The Girl Most Likely poster
3.3

Dodie dreams of marrying a millionaire so that she can live 'the life'. Buzz, her boyfriend, however, is not rich as he is a salesman for a housing development. He proposes and Dodie accepts. Dodie next meets Pete, who she thinks is rich, but she soon finds out that he is just a boat mechanic. They have fun on their date and Pete proposes and Dodie accepts. Then Dodie meets Neil Patterson who is rich. They go to Mexico on his yacht and have fun on their date. Neil proposes and Dodie accepts. Now she has to choose.

The Girl Most Likely

1958

Suddenly It's Spring poster
4.2

A WAC officer returns from the war to find her husband wants a divorce.

Suddenly It's Spring

1947

I Wanted Wings poster
5.6

Told in flashback, this drama follows the training and personal lives of three recruits in the Army Air Corps: a wealthy playboy, a college jock, and an auto mechanic. Love interest is supplied by a female photographer and a sultry blonde.

I Wanted Wings

1941

No artwork available
NR

An adaptation of Henry Van Dyke's classic tale of Artaban, a Persian believer who spends 33 years seeking the Christ child only to finally reach him at the time of the Crucifixion.

The Other Wise Man

1953

Lady in the Dark poster
4.7

A neurotic editor sees a psychoanalyst about the advertising man, movie star and other man in her life.

Lady in the Dark

1944

Artists and Models Abroad poster
4.8

Buck Boswell and his all-girl troupe are stranded in Paris, but Buck manages to con the manager of the 'Hotel de Navarre' in furnishing accommodations for his group, but the proprietor's wife locks them out. In his search for funds, Buck meets Patricia Harper, the fourth-richest girl in the world, but he isn't aware of that and thinks she is penniless. Patricia joins his troupe as a lark, and her father, James Harper, also pretends he is broke. Through some chicanery, Buck gets jobs for the girls as models at the Palace of Feminine Arts at the Paris International Exposition. James Harper borrows the priceless Napoleaon necklace to have a copy made for his daughter, but Buck thinks he stole it.

Artists and Models Abroad

1938

Song of Surrender poster
7.0

In 1906 in Connecticut, Elisha Hunt, the 55-year-old curator of a small government museum, marries Abigail, the 19-year-old daughter of a local farmer. In addition to the differences in their ages in this May-to-December union, Elizha is a man of culture while Abigail is uneducated. Bruce Edridge, young, handsome and wealthy, comes into her life, and they fall in love. Abigail is now faced with two choices; the chance of wealth versus her present mediocre circumstances, or her love for Bruce versus her loyalty to Elisha.

Song of Surrender

1949

Four Hours to Kill! poster
5.7

A detective who has "four hours to kill" before delivering his prisoner, an escaped killer, spends the time in the lobby of a Broadway theater where a musical is playing. The film focuses on the relationship between the two men, and also between various characters in the theater audience, staff and cast.

Four Hours to Kill!

1935

Bedevilled poster
6.0

A seminary student helps a nightclub singer sought by Paris police for killing her married lover.

Bedevilled

1955