Erskine Sanford

Acting

Erskine Sanford

Born 1885-11-19 · Trinidad, Colorado, USA

Erskine Sanford was an American actor on the stage, in radio and motion pictures. As a member of Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre company he appears in several of Welles's films, most notably as the bumbling, perspiring newspaper editor Herbert Carter in Citizen Kane!

Acting credits

Citizen Kane poster
8.0

Newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.

Citizen Kane

1941

Jane Eyre poster
6.9

After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Edward Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?

Jane Eyre

1943

Spellbound poster
7.4

When Dr. Anthony Edwardes arrives at a Vermont mental hospital to replace the outgoing hospital director, Dr. Constance Peterson, a psychoanalyst, discovers Edwardes is actually an impostor. The man confesses that the real Dr. Edwardes is dead and fears he may have killed him, but cannot recall anything. Dr. Peterson, however is convinced his impostor is innocent of the man's murder, and joins him on a quest to unravel his amnesia through psychoanalysis.

Spellbound

1945

The Best Years of Our Lives poster
7.7

It's the hope that sustains the spirit of every GI: the dream of the day when he will finally return home. For three WWII veterans, the day has arrived. But for each man, the dream is about to become a nightmare.

The Best Years of Our Lives

1946

The Lady from Shanghai poster
7.3

A romantic drifter gets caught between a corrupt tycoon and his voluptuous wife.

The Lady from Shanghai

1947

Mr. Skeffington poster
6.8

A beautiful but vain woman who rejects the love of her older husband must face the loss of her youth and beauty.

Mr. Skeffington

1944

Letter from an Unknown Woman poster
7.8

A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember. As she tells the story of her lifelong love for him, he is forced to reinterpret his own past.

Letter from an Unknown Woman

1948

The Stranger poster
7.2

An investigator from the War Crimes Commission travels to Connecticut to find an infamous Nazi, who may be hiding out in a small town in the guise of a distinguished professor engaged to the Supreme Court Justice’s daughter.

The Stranger

1946

The Magnificent Ambersons poster
7.3

The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.

The Magnificent Ambersons

1942

The Company She Keeps poster
6.2

A lady con artist sets out to steal her parole officer's fiance.

The Company She Keeps

1951

Macbeth poster
7.3

Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth commits a treasonous act and takes the throne for himself.

Macbeth

1948

Possessed poster
6.9

After being found wandering the streets of Los Angeles, a severely catatonic woman tells a doctor the complex story of how she wound up there.

Possessed

1947

Angel on My Shoulder poster
6.5

The Devil arranges for a deceased gangster to return to Earth as a well-respected judge to make up for his previous life.

Angel on My Shoulder

1946

Wake of the Red Witch poster
5.8

Captain Ralls fights Dutch shipping magnate Mayrant Sidneye for the woman he loves, Angelique Desaix, and for a fortune in gold aboard the Red Witch.

Wake of the Red Witch

1948

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn poster
7.5

In Brooklyn circa 1900, the Nolans manage to enjoy life on pennies despite great poverty and Papa's alcoholism. We come to know these people well through big and little troubles: Aunt Sissy's scandalous succession of "husbands"; the removal of the one tree visible from their tenement; and young Francie's desire to transfer to a better school...if irresponsible Papa can get his act together.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

1945

Without Reservations poster
6.3

Kit Madden is traveling to Hollywood, where her best-selling novel is to be filmed. Aboard the train, she encounters Marines Rusty and Dink, who don't know she is the author of the famous book, and who don't think much of the ideas it proposes. She and Rusty are greatly attracted, but she doesn't know how to deal with his disdain for the book's author.

Without Reservations

1946

Ministry of Fear poster
6.9

Stephen Neale is released into WWII England after two years in an asylum, but it doesn't seem so sane outside either. On his way back to London to rejoin civilization, he stumbles across a murderous spy ring and doesn't quite know to whom to turn.

Ministry of Fear

1944

Impact poster
6.1

After surviving a murder attempt, an auto magnate goes into hiding so his wife can pay for the crime.

Impact

1949

Night Unto Night poster
5.4

A bleak mansion sits ominously on a cliff above the sea somewhere on Florida's east coast. In its shadows, two people meet: a scientist haunted by incurable illness and a beautiful woman haunted by the voice of her dead husband.

Night Unto Night

1949

Appointment for Love poster
5.8

Charming Andre Cassil woos physician Jane Alexander and the two impulsively get married. The honeymoon ends very quickly when Jane voices her progressive views on marriage which include the two having separate apartments. Andre then tries to make his wife jealous in order to lure her into his bedroom.

Appointment for Love

1941

Mourning Becomes Electra poster
6.1

Near the end of the Civil War, the proud residents of Mannon Manor await the return of shipping tycoon Ezra Mannon and son Orin. Meanwhile Ezra’s conniving wife Christine and daughter Lavinia vie for the love of a handsome captain with a dark secret while well-meaning neighbor Peter sets his sights on Lavinia.

Mourning Becomes Electra

1947

From This Day Forward poster
5.4

A young American soldier, with an honorable discharge, returns home from World War II to his bride, whom he married after a short courtship and has not seen for several years. The two come together with many trials and tribulations in trying to preserve their marriage in the post-war years.

From This Day Forward

1946

Too Much Johnson poster
5.4

This film was not intended to stand by itself, but was designed as the cinematic aspect of Welles' Mercury Theatre stage presentation of William Gillette's 1894 comedy about a New York playboy who flees from the violent husband of his mistress and borrows the identity of a plantation owner in Cuba who is expecting the arrival of a mail order bride. The film component of the performance was ultimately never screened due to the absence of projection facilities at the venue. Long-believed to be lost, a workprint was discovered in 2008 and the film had its premiere in 2013.

Too Much Johnson

2013

Uncertain Glory poster
6.7

In occupied France, a convicted thief and murderer escapes the guillotine when a bombing raid strikes the prison, but is quickly re-captured by the inspector of the Surete responsible for his original arrest. Fearing the guillotine more than his actual death, the convict inveigles the inspector to help him with a plan to rescue 100 Frenchmen taken by the Gestapo following an act of sabotage: he will confess to being the saboteur and allow himself to be executed by firing squad, the Gestapo's method of execution, thus freeing the 100 men.

Uncertain Glory

1944