Arthur Shields

Acting

Arthur Shields

Born 1896-02-15 · Dublin, Ireland

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Arthur Shields (15 February 1896 - 27 April 1970) was an Irish stage and film actor. Born into an Irish Protestant family in Portobello, Dublin, he started acting in the Abbey Theatre when still a young man. He was the younger brother of actor Barry Fitzgerald. An Irish nationalist, he fought in the Easter Uprising of 1916. He was captured and was interned in Frongoch, North Wales. He afterwards returned to the Abbey theatre. In 1936 John Ford brought him to the United States to act in a film version of The Plough and the Stars. He later returned to the U.S. and for health reasons, he decided to reside in California. He died at his home in Santa Barbara, California, aged 74. Some of his memorable roles were in John Ford films. Shields portrayed the Reverend Playfair in Ford's The Quiet Man, opposite John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara and his brother, Barry Fitzgerald. He played Dr. Laughlin in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon with Wayne and Joanne Dru, and appeared yet again with Wayne and Barry Fitzgerald in Ford's Long Voyage Home. His other films include: Little Nellie Kelly, The Keys of the Kingdom, The Fabulous Dorseys, Gallant Journey, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, Drums Along the Mohawk, Lady Godiva, National Velvet and The River. Description above from the Wikipedia article Arthur Shields, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia

Acting credits

How Green Was My Valley poster
7.3

Huw Morgan, the academically inclined youngest son in a proud family of Welsh coal miners, witnesses the tumultuous events of his young life during a period of rapid social change. At the dawn of the 20th-century, a miners' strike divides the Morgans: the sons demand improvements, and the father doesn't want to rock the boat.

How Green Was My Valley

1941

The Black Swan poster
6.5

When notorious pirate Henry Morgan is made governor of Jamaica, he enlists the help of some of his former partners in ridding the Caribbean of buccaneers. When one of them apparently abducts the previous governor's pretty daughter and joins up with the rebels, things are set for a fight.

The Black Swan

1942

River of No Return poster
6.7

An itinerant farmer and his young son help a heart-of-gold saloon singer search for her estranged husband.

River of No Return

1954

Never Say Goodbye poster
6.3

Phil and Ellen Gayley have been divorced for a year, and their 7-year old daughter, Flip, is very unhappy that her parents are not together. Flip starts a correspondence with a Marine, sending a picture of her beautiful mother as the author of Flip's flirtatious letters. When the Marine shows up to meet his pen pal, Ellen takes the opportunity to make her ex-husband jealous.

Never Say Goodbye

1946

The Quiet Man poster
7.3

An American man returns to the village of his birth in Ireland, where he finds love and conflict.

The Quiet Man

1952

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon poster
6.9

On the eve of retirement, Captain Nathan Brittles takes out a last patrol to stop an impending massive Indian attack. Encumbered by women who must be evacuated, Brittles finds his mission imperiled.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

1949

Lassie Come Home poster
6.7

Hard times come for the Carraclough family and they are forced to sell their dog, Lassie, to the rich Duke of Rudling. Lassie, however, is unwilling to remain apart from young Carraclough son Joe and sets out on a long and dangerous journey to rejoin him.

Lassie Come Home

1943

The Keys of the Kingdom poster
7.1

A young priest, Father Chisholm is sent to China to establish a Catholic parish among the non-Christian Chinese. While his boyhood friend, also a priest, flourishes in his calling as a priest in a more Christian area of the world, Father Chisholm struggles. He encounters hostility, isolation, disease, poverty and a variety of set backs which humble him, but make him more determined than ever to succeed.

The Keys of the Kingdom

1944

The River poster
7.2

Director Jean Renoir’s entrancing first color feature—shot entirely on location in India—is a visual tour de force. Based on the novel by Rumer Godden, the film eloquently contrasts the growing pains of three young women with the immutability of the Bengal river around which their daily lives unfold. Enriched by Renoir’s subtle understanding and appreciation for India and its people, The River gracefully explores the fragile connections between transitory emotions and everlasting creation.

The River

1951

Gentleman Jim poster
7.2

As bare-knuckled boxing enters the modern era, brash extrovert Jim Corbett uses new rules and dazzlingly innovative footwork to rise to the top of the boxing world.

Gentleman Jim

1942

The Corn Is Green poster
7.2

When a teacher reads an essay written by Morgan Evans, one of the boys, moved by his rough poetry she decides to hold classes in her house and believes that Morgan is smart enough to attend Oxford.

The Corn Is Green

1945

The People Against O'Hara poster
5.8

A defense attorney jeopardizes his career to save his client.

The People Against O'Hara

1951

The Valley of Decision poster
7.2

Mary Rafferty comes from a poor family of steel mill workers in 19th Century Pittsburgh. Her family objects when she goes to work as a maid for the wealthy Scott family which controls the mill. Mary catches the attention of handsome scion Paul Scott, but their romance is complicated by Paul's engagement to someone else and a bitter strike among the mill workers.

The Valley of Decision

1945

Lady Godiva of Coventry poster
5.5

Fictionalized account of events leading up the famous nude ride (alas, her hair covers everything) of the militant Saxon lady.

Lady Godiva of Coventry

1955

Tap Roots poster
6.9

Set at the beginning of the Civil War, Tap Roots is all about a county in Mississippi which chooses to secede from the state rather than enter the conflict. The county is protected from the Confederacy by an abolitionist and a Native American gentleman. The abolitionist's daughter is courted by a powerful newspaper publisher when her fiance, a confederate officer, elopes with the girl's sister. The daughter at first resists the publisher's attentions, but turns to him for aid when her ex-fiance plans to capture the seceding county on behalf of the South.

Tap Roots

1948

Jack and the Beanstalk poster
5.7

Two down-on-their-luck loafers take a job babysitting, with a bedtime story of the titular tale turning into a wacky Abbott and Costello-faced musical retelling involving stolen cows, terrible giants, and the heroic boy with an opportunistic butcher in a castle above the clouds.

Jack and the Beanstalk

1952

Drums Along the Mohawk poster
6.5

Albany, New York, 1776. After marrying, Gil and Lana travel north to settle on a small farm in the Mohawk River Valley, but soon their growing prosperity and happiness are threatened by the sinister sound of drums that announce dark times of revolution and war.

Drums Along the Mohawk

1939

The Long Voyage Home poster
6.6

The crew of the merchant ship Glencairn hope to survive a transatlantic crossing during World War II. Adapted from four Eugene O'Neill one-act plays.

The Long Voyage Home

1940

National Velvet poster
7.2

Mi Taylor is a young wanderer and opportunist who finds himself in the quiet English countryside home of the Brown family. The youngest daughter, Velvet, has a passion for horses and when she wins the spirited steed Pie in a town lottery, Mi is encouraged to train the horse.

National Velvet

1945

The Man from Down Under poster
7.0

An Australian blowhard raises two orphaned children as his own in the years leading up to WWII.

The Man from Down Under

1943

The Plough and the Stars poster
5.7

A husband clashes with his wife over his membership to the Irish citizen army during the Easter rebellion.

The Plough and the Stars

1936

The Sign of the Cross poster
6.4

A Roman soldier becomes torn between his love for a Christian woman and his loyalty to Emperor Nero.

The Sign of the Cross

1932

This Above All poster
6.8

In 1940 England, aristocratic Prudence Cathaway alarms her snobbish parents by joining the WAF service branch. She soon meets and falls in love with the brooding Clive Briggs, despite his prejudice against the upper classes, and agrees to spend a week with him at a Dover hotel. When Clive's soldier friend, Monty, arrives to retrieve him, Prudence learns that Clive went AWOL after Dunkirk, and urges him to recall why England must fight the war.

This Above All

1942

Phantoms, Inc. poster
6.0

This Crime Does Not Pay entry focuses on fake spiritualists. A mother is worried about her son, who is missing in action. Over time, she gives a con man all of the family savings to find reassurance that her son is all right. When she can no longer pay, events take a tragic turn.

Phantoms, Inc.

1945