Gertrude Purcell

Writing

Gertrude Purcell

Born — Died

1895-06-14 — 1963-05-01

Place of birth

New York City, New York, USA

Known for

Writing

Credits

33 titles

Purcell (who was described by a friend as a "masculine, funny, and hard-drinking woman") worked as a freelancer for much of her career, penning scripts for most of the major studios. During the McCarthy era she became an important informer due to her communist past, but before the process she attempted suicide. She then retired from her cinema career, but lived a decade more.

Known for

Destry Rides Again poster
7.2

Tom Destry, son of a legendary frontier peacekeeper, doesn’t believe in gunplay. Thus he becomes the object of widespread ridicule when he rides into the wide-open town of Bottleneck, the personal fiefdom of the crooked Kent.

Destry Rides Again

1939

The Invisible Woman poster
5.7

Kitty Carroll, an attractive store model, volunteers to become a test subject for a machine that will make her invisible so that she can use her invisibility to exact revenge on her ex-boss.

The Invisible Woman

1940

Music for Madame poster
6.3

An Italian immigrant singer, Nino, hoping to succeed in Hollywood, falls in with a gang of crooks who use his talent to distract everyone at a party while they steal the jewels.

Music for Madame

1937

One Night in the Tropics poster
5.8

Jim "Lucky" Moore, an insurance salesman, comes up with a novel policy for his friend, Steve: a 'love insurance policy', that will pay out $1-million if Steve does not marry his fiancée, Cynthia. The upcoming marriage is jeopardized by Steve's ex-girlfriend, Mickey, and Cynthia's disapproving Aunt Kitty. The policy is underwritten by a nightclub owner, Roscoe, who sends two enforcers - Abbott and Costello - to ensure that the wedding occurs as planned.

One Night in the Tropics

1940

Love Before Breakfast poster
6.1

Scott is a very rich businessman who hangs out with a snooty, silly Countess, but has the hots for Kay who is already engaged to Bill. Scott pursues Kay like crazy, going so far as to buy Bill's oil company so that he can banish him to Japan, leaving Kay unmoored.

Love Before Breakfast

1936

Hitting a New High poster
5.5

A Paris cabaret singer dreams of becoming a Metropolitan Opera singer. A press agent arranges her Manhattan debut by way of Africa.

Hitting a New High

1937

Behind the camera

Destry Rides Again poster
7.2

Tom Destry, son of a legendary frontier peacekeeper, doesn’t believe in gunplay. Thus he becomes the object of widespread ridicule when he rides into the wide-open town of Bottleneck, the personal fiefdom of the crooked Kent.

Destry Rides Again

1939

The Invisible Woman poster
5.7

Kitty Carroll, an attractive store model, volunteers to become a test subject for a machine that will make her invisible so that she can use her invisibility to exact revenge on her ex-boss.

The Invisible Woman

1940

Music for Madame poster
6.3

An Italian immigrant singer, Nino, hoping to succeed in Hollywood, falls in with a gang of crooks who use his talent to distract everyone at a party while they steal the jewels.

Music for Madame

1937

One Night in the Tropics poster
5.8

Jim "Lucky" Moore, an insurance salesman, comes up with a novel policy for his friend, Steve: a 'love insurance policy', that will pay out $1-million if Steve does not marry his fiancée, Cynthia. The upcoming marriage is jeopardized by Steve's ex-girlfriend, Mickey, and Cynthia's disapproving Aunt Kitty. The policy is underwritten by a nightclub owner, Roscoe, who sends two enforcers - Abbott and Costello - to ensure that the wedding occurs as planned.

One Night in the Tropics

1940

Love Before Breakfast poster
6.1

Scott is a very rich businessman who hangs out with a snooty, silly Countess, but has the hots for Kay who is already engaged to Bill. Scott pursues Kay like crazy, going so far as to buy Bill's oil company so that he can banish him to Japan, leaving Kay unmoored.

Love Before Breakfast

1936

Hitting a New High poster
5.5

A Paris cabaret singer dreams of becoming a Metropolitan Opera singer. A press agent arranges her Manhattan debut by way of Africa.

Hitting a New High

1937

If You Could Only Cook poster
7.4

An auto engineer and a professor's daughter pose as married servants in a mobster's mansion.

If You Could Only Cook

1935

In Old California poster
5.3

Boston pharmacist Tom Craig comes to Sacramento, where he runs afoul of local political boss Britt Dawson, who exacts protection payment from the citizenry. Dawson frames Craig with poisoned medicine, but Craig redeems himself during a Gold Rush epidemic.

In Old California

1942

Follow the Boys poster
5.7

During World War II, all the studios put out "all-star" vehicles which featured virtually every star on the lot--often playing themselves--in musical numbers and comedy skits, and were meant as morale-boosters to both the troops overseas and the civilians at home. This was Universal Pictures' effort. It features everyone from Donald O'Connor to the Andrews Sisters to Orson Welles to W.C. Fields to George Raft to Marlene Dietrich, and dozens of other Universal players.

Follow the Boys

1944

Super-Sleuth poster
5.6

A movie actor playing a detective gets carried away with his role and starts trying to solve real-life crimes.

Super-Sleuth

1937

She Was a Lady poster
8.0

Before his daughter can formally claim her rightful title, her father dies. Now her blue-blooded American suitor finds that his father refuses to allow the two to marry as she is not a high-born lady.

She Was a Lady

1934

A Little Bit of Heaven poster
4.5

A child from the New York tenements sings on a radio quiz show and is eventually hired to a big-bucks contract, which allows her and her family to move into a posh apartment, with all the usual problems that accompany sudden wealth.

A Little Bit of Heaven

1940

Make Way for a Lady poster
5.5

An imaginative teenager decides to play matchmaker for her widowed father. Director David Burton's 1936 comedy stars Herbert Marshall, Anne Shirley, Gertrude Michael, Margot Grahame, Clara Blandick, Frank Coghlan Jr., Willie Best and Maxine Jennings.

Make Way for a Lady

1936

Reckless Age poster
9.0

Linda Wadsworth rebels against her millionaire grandfather, J. H. Wadsworth, and runs away from home. Unknown to Mr. Wadsworth, she gets a job at one of his many five-and-ten-cents stores as a clerk.

Reckless Age

1944

Cocktail Hour poster
5.3

Cynthia Warren, independently wealthy through her ability as an illustrator and poster artist, rebels against the premise that every woman is destined for matrimony and motherhood and decides she has as much right as a man to play around.

Cocktail Hour

1933

Follow the Leader poster
4.9

A kooky waiter and sometimes vaudevillian promises to get his employer's daughter into a Broadway show. When he kidnaps the show's star, she gets her opportunity, as the understudy, to play the role and become a star herself.

Follow the Leader

1930

The Night Mayor poster
7.0

Opportunistic film seeking to capitalize on a scandal in New York mayor Jimmy Walker's office before his name was out of the newspapers. Tracy plays a mayor who has a penchant for the night life, sports, the theater, and an actress, Knapp. When scandal rocks his administration, Tracy has his girl friend marry Dillaway, a writer friend, so that the press will leave him alone.

The Night Mayor

1932

The Lady and the Mob poster
6.8

Hattie Leonard sets out to break a criminal gang controlling the dry cleaning business.

The Lady and the Mob

1939

The Royal Family of Broadway poster
5.9

Julie Cavendish comes from a family of great Broadway actors. Her mother Fanny staunchly continues acting. Her boisterous brother Tony is fleeing a breach of promise suit in Hollywood. Her daughter Gwen must decide between going on stage, or settling down in a conventional marriage. Julie is just thinking that it would be nice to retire and get married, when who should turn up but her old beau, Gilmore Marshall, the platinum magnate from South America.

The Royal Family of Broadway

1930

The Girl Habit poster
8.0

A man's inability to control his flirting gets him into trouble after he uses his charms on a mobster's wife.

The Girl Habit

1931

Mother Carey's Chickens poster
6.0

A financially-strapped mother and her children relocate from the city to a small rural town.

Mother Carey's Chickens

1938

The Sap from Syracuse poster
5.5

Ellen Saunders is an heiress on a cruise to Europe being pursued by a day laborer mistaken for a prominent mining engineer. During the cruise, he foils two crooks trying to get their hands on her lucrative nickel mine.

The Sap from Syracuse

1930

Ellery Queen and the Murder Ring poster
5.6

The benefactor of the Stack Memorial Hospital dies after an operation. Ellery Queen investigates when it is revealed the cause of death was murder by strangulation.

Ellery Queen and the Murder Ring

1941

The Girl Friend poster
7.0

An actor and two songwriters become rural con men.

The Girl Friend

1935

Paris Underground poster
6.2

Constance Bennett both produced and starred in the espionager Paris Underground. Bennett and Gracie Fields play, respectively, an American and an English citizen trapped in Paris when the Nazis invade. The women team up to help Allied aviators escape from the occupied city into Free French territory. The screenplay was based on the true wartime activities of Etta Shiber, who engineered the escape of nearly 300 Allied pilots. British fans of comedienne Gracie Fields were put off by the scenes in which she is tortured by the Gestapo, while Constance Bennett's following had been rapidly dwindling since the 1930s; as a result, the heartfelt but tiresome Paris Underground failed to make a dent at the box-office. It would be Constance Bennett's last starring film--and Gracie Fields' last film, period.

Paris Underground

1945

Ice Capades Revue poster
6.0

Promoter Ann Porter decides to start her own Ice Show despite the efforts of ex-racketeer Duke Baldwin who owns a rival show. Jeff Stewart, a rich, suave young Broadwayite, falls in love with Ann and aids her in her fight against Baldwin.

Ice Capades Revue

1942

Winter Wonderland poster
5.2

A farm girl has a romance with a ski instructor.

Winter Wonderland

1946

The Witness Chair poster
6.6

Late one night, secretary Paula Young (Ann Harding) leaves the office of her boss, Stanley Whittaker (Douglas Dumbrille, locking the door and taking the stairs to avoid being seen by the elevator operator (Frank Jenks). The next morning, the cleaning lady finds Whittaker's dead body, an apparent suicide. Police Lieutenant Poole (Moroni Olsen) finds a letter signed by Whittaker in which the deceased states he embezzled $75,000. Soon, however, he suspects otherwise and, after investigating, arrests widower James "Jim" Trent (Walter Abel), the vice president of Whittaker.

The Witness Chair

1936

Child of Manhattan poster
7.2

Paul Vanderkill is extraordinarily wealthy because his grandfather happened to buy farmland in what was to become Midtown Manhattan. The Loveland Dance Hall is one of the tenants of the Vanderkill estates. To reassure his aunt Sophie, Vanderkill visits Loveland to determine whether it is as disreputable as Sophie suspects. There he meets a dime-a-dance girl, Madeleine MacGonagal, who charms him with her quaint proletarian accent. They begin a secret affair, which turns into a secret marriage when pregnancy ensues. When the baby fails to survive, Madeleine decides that since he had married her only for the baby's sake, she should make haste to Mexico to secure a divorce. There she meets Panama Canal Kelly, a former suitor who now owns a silver mine. Her plans for divorce and quick remarriage are complicated when Vanderkill arrives to confront her.

Child of Manhattan

1933

Service de Luxe poster
6.6

Glamorous and efficient Helen Murphy runs a service that will provide any type of assistance to wealthy customers, but what she's really looking for is a man who can take care of himself.

Service de Luxe

1938

Palooka poster
3.6

Joe Palooka is a naive young man whose father Pete was a champion boxer, but his lifestyle caused Joe's mother Mayme to leave him and to take young Joe to the country to raise him.

Palooka

1934

Vanity Street poster
7.1

A New York policeman helps a hungry and penniless young woman start life anew by arranging to get her a job in "The Follies".

Vanity Street

1932

No More Orchids poster
6.7

Despite loving another man, a young woman is talked into marrying a wealthy and boorish prince in order to help her financially-strapped father.

No More Orchids

1932