
Acting
John Barrymore
Born — Died
1882-02-15 — 1942-05-29
Place of birth
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Known for
Acting
Credits
61 titles
John Sidney Blyth Barrymore (February 15, 1882 – May 29, 1942) was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III. His success continued with motion pictures in various genres in both the silent and sound eras. Barrymore's personal life has been the subject of much writing before and since his passing in 1942. Today John Barrymore is mostly known for his roles in movies like Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1920), Grand Hotel (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Twentieth Century (1934), and Don Juan (1926), the first ever movie to use a Vitaphone soundtra…
Known for
7.5The original concept of the show was to allow the viewer to see the inner workings of a movie studio and featured interviews with MGM stars and explanations of how movies were made. Later, the format changed to show edited versions of MGM films.
MGM Parade
1955
6.8An ambitious New York socialite plans an extravagant dinner party as her businessman husband, Oliver, contends with financial woes, causing a lot of tension between the couple. Meanwhile, their high-society friends and associates, including the gruff Dan Packard and his sultry spouse, Kitty, contend with their own entanglements, leading to revelations at the much-anticipated dinner.
Dinner at Eight
1933
7.0Guests at a posh Berlin hotel struggle through worry, scandal, and heartache.
Grand Hotel
1932
6.7A doctor's research into the roots of evil turns him into a hideous depraved fiend.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
1920
7.3Erstwhile childhood friends, Judah Ben-Hur and Messala meet again as adults, this time with Roman officer Messala as conqueror and Judah as a wealthy, though conquered, Israelite. A slip of a brick during a Roman parade causes Judah to be sent off as a galley slave, his property confiscated and his mother and sister imprisoned. Years later, as a result of his determination to stay alive and his willingness to aid his Roman master, Judah returns to his homeland an exalted and wealthy Roman athlete. Unable to find his mother and sister, and believing them dead, he can think of nothing else than revenge against Messala.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
1925
6.6The young Austrian princess Marie Antoinette is arranged to marry Louis XVI, future king of France, in a politically advantageous marriage for the rival countries. The opulent Marie indulges in various whims and flirtations. When Louis XV passes and Louis XVI ascends the French throne, his queen's extravagant lifestyle earns the hatred of the French people, who despise her Austrian heritage.
Marie Antoinette
1938
Film credits
2010s · 2 titles
7.0The most dreaded NES game has come to life as a major motion picture. See Jekyll fight off an angry mob of villagers, animals, birds, and insects as he slowly walks to the church where his bride to be is. See Mr. Hyde fighting various demons in the alternate world of the village Jekyll resides in.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The Game - The Movie
2015
NRSynthwave and Dr Jekyll together at last! Dr. Henry Jekyll believes that there are two distinct sides to men - a good and an evil side. He believes that by separating the two, man can become liberated. He succeeds in his experiments with chemicals to accomplish this and transforms into Hyde to commit horrendous crimes. When he discontinues use of the drug, it is already too late.
Synthwave Horror: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
2015
2000s · 2 titles
6.9Looks at the stereotype-breaking films of the period from 1929, when movies entered the sound era, until 1934 when the Hays Code virtually neutered film content. No longer portrayed as virgins or vamps, the liberated female of the pre-code films had dimensions. Good girls had lovers and babies and held down jobs, while the bad girls were cast in a sympathetic light. And they did it all without apology.
Complicated Women
2003
Until 1932's Grand Hotel, never had there existed an all-star ensemble cast on film. Conceived by MGM's production genius Irving Thalberg, the film boasted names like Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery and John and Lionel Barrymore and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. This short documentary takes a look at the making of the classic film.
Checking Out: Grand Hotel
2004
1990s · 2 titles
8.3An unprecedented anthology of never-before-told true stories by and about some of Hollywood's most interesting stars, legends, and wannabes, and takes readers inside Hollywood's inner sanctum to show how casting decisions are made, who makes them, and who has the final word.
The Casting Couch
1995
7.6For 50 years radio dominated the airwaves and the American consciousness as the first “mass medium.” In Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, Ken Burns examines the lives of three extraordinary men who shared the primary responsibility for this invention and its early success, and whose genius, friendship, rivalry and enmity interacted in tragic ways. This is the story of Lee de Forest, a clergyman’s flamboyant son, who invented the audion tube; Edwin Howard Armstrong, a brilliant, withdrawn inventor who pioneered FM technology; and David Sarnoff, a hard-driving Russian immigrant who created the most powerful communications company on earth.
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio
1991
1980s · 2 titles
9.0Robert Preston hosts this documentary that shows what people of the 1930s were watching as they were battling the Depression as well as eventually getting ready for another World War.
Going Hollywood: The '30s
1984
8.3A collection of film clips from horror movies and interviews with the actors and directors who made them.
The Horror of It All
1983
1970s · 5 titles
7.0Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.
That's Entertainment, Part II
1976
7.4A documentary about the glorious history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and its decline leading to the sale of its back lot and props. By extension this provides a general history of Hollywood's Golden Age and the legendary studio system.
Hollywood: The Dream Factory
1972
7.5A collection of film clips profiling animal actors.
It's Showtime
1976
3.4A history of horror movies.
The Horror Show
1979
In this made-for-TV production, Vincent Price and his hunchback sidekick (Billy Van) host a pun-filled salute to the horror film genre from its earliest beginnings all the way up to The Exorcist. Featuring clips from classic horror films and interviews with genre greats like Frank Gorshin, John Carradine, John Astin and SFX legend Bill Tuttle, among others.
The Horror Hall of Fame: A Monster Salute
1974
1940s · 5 titles
5.7Kitty 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
6.0This short traces the history of sound in the movies, beginning with French scientist Leon Scott's experiments in 1857. Featured are snippets from early sound pictures.
The Voice That Thrilled the World
1943
6.8An alcoholic film star attempts a comeback. Director Walter Lang's 1940 comedy stars John Barrymore, Mary Beth Hughes, Anne Baxter, John Payne, Lionel Atwill and Edward Brophy.
The Great Profile
1940
NRThe edition of Screen Snapshots celebrates 25 years of production. It looks at the content of edition #1, then a tribute to movie people who have died in those 25 years. Finally there are tributes to the Screen Snapshots series by Cecil De Mille, Walt Disney, Louella Parsons and Rosalind Russell.
Screen Snapshots (Series 22, No. 10)
1942
5.7Lulu Monahan, the press agent for John Barrymore, is attempting to get a sponsor for a radio program. To that end, she and the agent for bandleader Kay Kyser, plant a story that the great Shakespearean actor, over his heartfelt objections, will teach Kyser how to play Shakespeare, which isn't the same as playing Paducah, which soon becomes evident.
Playmates
1941
1930s · 29 titles
6.8An ambitious New York socialite plans an extravagant dinner party as her businessman husband, Oliver, contends with financial woes, causing a lot of tension between the couple. Meanwhile, their high-society friends and associates, including the gruff Dan Packard and his sultry spouse, Kitty, contend with their own entanglements, leading to revelations at the much-anticipated dinner.
Dinner at Eight
1933
7.0Guests at a posh Berlin hotel struggle through worry, scandal, and heartache.
Grand Hotel
1932
6.6The young Austrian princess Marie Antoinette is arranged to marry Louis XVI, future king of France, in a politically advantageous marriage for the rival countries. The opulent Marie indulges in various whims and flirtations. When Louis XV passes and Louis XVI ascends the French throne, his queen's extravagant lifestyle earns the hatred of the French people, who despise her Austrian heritage.
Marie Antoinette
1938
6.3Young love is poisoned by a generations long feud between two noble families.
Romeo and Juliet
1936
7.4An unemployed American showgirl poses as Hungarian royalty to infiltrate Parisian high society.
Midnight
1939
6.9Corrupt alcoholic attorney Tom Cardigan is one of the best lawyers around, commanding the courtroom like a stage and often winning his cases. Mobster Valentine Powers, who employs Cardigan and put him through school, asks him to represent a woman, June Perry, accused of prostitution. Cardigan agrees. But he never expected to fall for her, which is problematic since he's angling to become governor and will need the right kind of wife.
State's Attorney
1932
6.7An egotistical politician believes he can win votes by turning a small college's hapless football squad into a championship team.
Hold That Co-ed
1938
6.8An aging former opera singer looks back on long life, specially on her relationships with her vocal teacher and a music student.
Maytime
1937
5.5The story of corrupt, power-hungry, manipulative Grigori Rasputin's influence on members of the Russian Imperial family and others, and what resulted.
Rasputin and the Empress
1932
6.8A temperamental Broadway producer trains an untutored actress, but when she becomes a star, she proves a match for him.
Twentieth Century
1934
6.4A World War I veteran returns home after fifteen years in an asylum and finds that everything has changed — his daughter is grown and about to marry.
A Bill of Divorcement
1932
6.1A writer takes a job as a secretary because her scrupulous husband isn't bringing in the dough as an attorney. When her new employer is murdered, she can't seem to make up her mind as to whether she "dunnit" or not.
True Confession
1937
5.9Drummond's wedding with Phyllis is interrupted when the inspector guarding their gifts is killed. He tries to trace the killers and uncovers the mystery of diamond counterfeiters.
Bulldog Drummond's Peril
1938
6.1Two Alaskan salmon fisherman find their friendship at risk when one aligns with Russian fish pirates and the other aligns with local vigilantes.
Spawn of the North
1938
7.0A charming and very daring thief known as Arsene Lupin is terrorizing the wealthy of Paris. He even goes so far as to threaten the Mona Lisa. But the police, led by the great Guerchard, think they know Arsene Lupin's identity, and they have a secret weapon to catch him.
Arsène Lupin
1932
5.6Story of South American mail pilots, and the dangers they face flying at night.
Night Flight
1933
5.9A long-absent father is reunited with his daughter, who still holds a grudge that he had deserted his family years earlier.
Long Lost Father
1934
5.6Herman Melville's mad Capt. Ahab (John Barrymore) spends years hunting the white whale that got his leg.
Moby Dick
1930
6.4In 1923, Gregory Vance, a widower with two children, is a former scholar who has turned from book to bottle. He works, slightly, as a night-watchman, and his children, who know him for what he is and what he isn't, are his only admirers. Then, it is discovered that he is the only registered voter in a key precinct and the politicians, from both parties, arrive in droves bearing inducements. What he does about this situation, and the relatives who want to take his children away from him make up the story.
The Great Man Votes
1939
6.3A music maestro uses hypnotism on a young model he meets in Paris to make her both his muse and wife.
Svengali
1931
7.0When a nobleman loses his way in the fog and enters a house where there's a party going on, he's mistaken for a hired butler.
The Man from Blankley's
1930
7.2An exiled archduke (John Barrymore) tries to renew romance with a former lover (Diana Wynyard) now wed to a psychiatrist (Frank Morgan).
Reunion in Vienna
1933
7.0This short shows how Hollywood gets ready for the world premiere of an "important" movie. The film celebrated here is Marie Antoinette (1938), which had its premiere at the Carthay Circle Theatre. We see the street leading to the theatre transformed to suggest a garden that might be seen in a French palace. This includes the placement of trees and other foliage, as well as large statues along the route. Grandstands are set up so fans can see their favorite stars as they arrive for the premiere. Finally, the proverbial "galaxy of stars" arrives in their limousines. Fanny Brice and Pete Smith make remarks at the microphone set up on the carpet outside the theatre.
Hollywood Goes to Town
1938
6.0The boys are stowaways on a train box-car filled with furniture bound for Hollywood where they hope to break into movies and become stars. Arriving at the Carnation Pictures Studios. Fuller Rath, the studio general manager, receives a telegram from the home office telling him that a certain "Mr. Smith and his two assistants" will arrive to take over the supervision of the studios. He mistakes the Stooges as the executives and gives them free reign over the studios, where they proceed to disrupt and destroy the production of a romantic drama.
Movie Maniacs
1936
9.0A 1933 screen test for a proposed, but never filmed, movie version of "Hamlet" in Technicolor, starring John Barrymore - this is the Ghost Scene.
Hamlet, Act I: Scenes IV and V
1933
6.2Drummond's girlfriend is kidnapped by his enemies and he along with his friend Nielsen, an inspector from Scotland Yard, follow the trail and try to rescue her from the kidnappers.
Bulldog Drummond Comes Back
1937
6.0Captain Drummond is travelling to Switzerland to marry his girlfriend. However, when a cargo containing dangerous explosives goes missing from its place, Drummond is forced to delay his plans.
Bulldog Drummond's Revenge
1937
5.2A baritone aids a young servant in making her dream of singing professionally come true.
Romance in the Dark
1938
9.0This film tells the history of the United States from pre-Revolution through 1939.
Land of Liberty
1939
1920s · 7 titles
6.7A doctor's research into the roots of evil turns him into a hideous depraved fiend.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
1920
7.3Erstwhile childhood friends, Judah Ben-Hur and Messala meet again as adults, this time with Roman officer Messala as conqueror and Judah as a wealthy, though conquered, Israelite. A slip of a brick during a Roman parade causes Judah to be sent off as a galley slave, his property confiscated and his mother and sister imprisoned. Years later, as a result of his determination to stay alive and his willingness to aid his Roman master, Judah returns to his homeland an exalted and wealthy Roman athlete. Unable to find his mother and sister, and believing them dead, he can think of nothing else than revenge against Messala.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
1925
6.6If there was one thing that Don Juan de Marana learned from his father Don Jose, it was that women gave you three things - life, disillusionment and death. In his father's case it was his wife, Donna Isobel, and Donna Elvira who supplied the latter. Don Juan settled in Rome after attending the University of Pisa. Rome was run by the tyrannical Borgia family consisting of Caesar, Lucrezia and the Count Donati. Juan has his way with and was pursued by many women, but it is the one that he could not have that haunts him. It will be for her that he suffers the wrath of Borgia for ignoring Lucrezia and then killing Count Donati in a duel. For Adriana, they will both be condemned to death in the prison on the river Tigre.
Don Juan
1926
6.3A nobleman studying for the priesthood abandons his vocation in 18th Century France when he falls in love with a beautiful, but reluctant, courtesan.
When a Man Loves
1927
6.6Now hear this. The studio that gave the cinema its voice offered 1929 audiences a chance to see and hear multiple silent-screen favorites for the first time in a gaudy, grandiose music-comedy-novelty revue that also included Talkie stars, Broadway luminaries and of course, Rin-Tin-Tin. Frank Fay hosts a jamboree that, among its 70+ stars, features bicyclers, boxing champ Georges Carpentier, chorines in terpsichore kickery, sister acts, Myrna Loy in two-strip Technicolor as an exotic Far East beauty, John Barrymore in a Shakespearean soliloquy (adding an on-screen voice to his legendary profile for the first time) and Winnie Lightner famously warbling the joys of Singing in the Bathtub. Watch, rinse, repeat!
The Show of Shows
1929
6.2Sherlock Holmes is a master at solving the most impenetrable mysteries, but he has his work cut out for him on his latest case. As the famed detective investigates an alleged theft, he’s brought face to face with his most devious adversary yet — Professor Moriarty.
Sherlock Holmes
1922
10.0Part of a 7-part series exploring all aspects of Hollywood.
Life in Hollywood No. 4
1927
1910s · 4 titles
Little Albert Mills, eight years old, reads in the paper the accounts of the abduction of children and holding them for ransom. He conceives the idea of playing the game on his little sister, Henrietta. He writes a note reading, "I have your children. Put four thousand dollars under the stone on front porch and I will bring them back. They are now hanging by the hair. Blue Beard." He then tells Henrietta to look the other way, and he takes her dolls out of the doll buggy and hides them in the garden. Then he places the note in the rural delivery mailbox at the front gate. A little later a young fellow brings an auto up to the gate and the children plead for a ride. After a little hesitancy he consents and the children are carried away to the park. Mrs. Mills misses the children and finds the note in the mail box. She takes the matter seriously, and gathering a lot of neighbors and a policeman, gives chase to the auto.
Just Pretending
1912
3.0Frank Perry's wife Helen is away visiting her mother, and he uses this "free time" for a night of drinking at a nightclub. Unfortunately, when he tries to return home, he enters the wrong house and is nearly arrested When Helen comes back he tells her that the "incident" was actually an initiation rite of the Masons, knowing that his wife has always wanted him to join the group. She excitedly tells her father about Frank's becoming a Mason, since her father is also a Mason. What neither she nor Frank know is that her father has actually been doing the same thing Frank is--pretending to be a Mason when he actually isn't. Complications ensue.
Are You a Mason?
1915
8.0A young man with little means wants to marry a rich girl, and thinks up a scheme to get rich.
Here Comes the Bride
1919
8.0The National Red Cross Pageant (1917) was an American war pageant that was performed in order to sell war bonds, support the National Red Cross, and promote a positive opinion about American involvement in World War I.
National Red Cross Pageant
1917


