Writing
Robert Lees
Born 1912-07-10 · San Francisco, California, USA
Acting credits
7.0Guests at a posh Berlin hotel struggle through worry, scandal, and heartache.
Grand Hotel
1932
Documentary about Hollywood.
Hollywood Legenden
2004
7.0The story of the short film from the beginning of the movies in the 1890s, when all movies were shorts, through the 1950s when short subjects virtually disappeared from theaters.
Added Attractions: The Hollywood Shorts Story
2002
Behind the camera
7.1The Wolf Man tries to warn a dimwitted porter that Dracula wants his brain for Frankenstein monster's body.
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein
1948
6.8Two bumbling service station attendants are left as the sole beneficiaries in a gangster's will. Their trip to claim their fortune is sidetracked when they are stranded in a haunted house along with several other strangers.
Hold That Ghost
1941
6.3As novice detectives, Bud and Lou come face to face with the Invisible Man.
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Invisible Man
1951
6.4Two ex-soldiers return from overseas--one of them having smuggled into the country a French orphan girl he has become attached to. They wind up running into their old sergeant--who hates them--and getting involved with a race-car builder who's trying to find backers for a new midget racer he's building.
Buck Privates Come Home
1947
6.4Greedy heirs wait in a mansion for a rich cat lover to die, only to learn her cats come first.
The Black Cat
1941
6.1Al Stewart and Wilbert are magicians doing a stage act when they run into Wilbert's cousin, Dorothy McCoy. They find out that Wilbert's grandfather, Squeeze-box McCoy, had treasure hidden in the hills of Kentucky, which they go to find.
Comin' Round the Mountain
1951
6.0After Flash Fulton and Weejie McCoy take pictures of a bank robbery, they're lured to the mountain resort hideout of the robbers, where they meet an old friend and his band.
Hit the Ice
1943
6.5Nightclub entertainer Hap Smith has a new act since his former partner Chick Allen joined the army. With his lovely new female partner, Hap now plays a clownish parody of a soldier. When Chick organises a soldier show at Fort Benning, he realizes he needs his former partner's help—so, to get onto the base, Hap impersonates a hapless real soldier, but circumstances force them to prolong the masquerade, creating an increasingly tangled Army-sized SNAFU.
Jumping Jacks
1952
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
8.0The lives of three bachelors is disrupted when one of them is left with a baby.
Bachelor Daddy
1941
6.2Chester Wooley and Duke Egan are travelling salesmen who make a stopover in Wagon Gap, Montana while enroute to California. During the stopover, a notorious criminal is murdered, and the two are charged with the crime.
The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap
1947
7.0Modern meteorology and a hard-working government weather team put their science and organization to work as a cold front moves from Alaska toward the citrus groves of Southern California. First, the scientists predict the storm's course, giving several days' warning to farmers and growers. The growers, typified by the Morgan family, prepare the oil-burning pots throughout their grove. Then, as the temperature dips below freezing, they light the pots. The cold snap continues as oil-supplies dwindle; the smoky air slows traffic, including trucks bringing more oil. The scientists strive to predict how long freezing temperatures will last: can the Morgans hold out?
Weather Wizards
1939
6.0Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson are Broadway stars who return to Universal Studios to make another movie. The mere mention of Olsen and Johnson's names evacuates the studio and terrorizes the management and personnel. Undaunted, the comedians hire an assistant director and unknown talent, and set out to make their own movie.
Crazy House
1943
Joe Mason suffers from amnesia and is often in trouble. Catherine Foster befriends him and they marry. After a jolt jogs his memory, he remembers that he is the son of a rich businessman from Chicago, but he can't remember anything recent.
Street of Memories
1940
6.9This Robert Benchley 'How To' comedy short attempts to teach us how to profile criminals by physical characteristics.
How to Be a Detective
1936
7.0Roger Wadsworth is a salesman for a company that supplies jukeboxes with classical music recordings, as Mrs. Horton, chief stockholder of the company hates swing music. Because of that, and the fact that Mrs. Horton is the mother of his fiancée, Genevieve Horton, Roger can only sit by and watch the competitors, who sell swing-and-jive music records get most of the business. Some of the other salesmen play a joke on Roger by getting Charlie Barnet and his orchestra to make a recording which they slip into Roger's packet marked as classical. They also get showgirl Jinx Corey to tell the newspapers that she and Roger are married. Malcolm Hammond goes to Genevieve to plead Roger's case, and tricks her into making a recording as "Jukebox Jenny." This leads to further complications.
Juke Box Jenny
1942
6.3Benchley shows how to budget one's time during lunch hour to get things done efficiently. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned.
An Hour for Lunch
1939
5.6While working as a hotel busboy, aspiring bandleader Carlos Estrada tries to persuade singer Lolita Valdez to join him in a rhumba contest in Havana.
Holiday in Havana
1949
5.9A Night at the Movies is a short film starring Robert Benchley. It was Benchley's greatest success since How to Sleep, and won him a contract for more short films that would be produced in New York. In this comedic short, a man and his wife suffer through a night at the movies. The film was nominated for an Academy Award at the 10th Academy Awards, held in 1937, for Best Short Subject (One-Reel).
A Night at the Movies
1937
7.0A Pete Smith Specialty explaining the finer points of meat carving, shown by an expert.
Culinary Carving
1939
6.2This short film portrays the story of Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806-1873), an American Naval officer who developed the first maps that charted the oceans' winds and currents.
Prophet Without Honor
1939
10.0Musical short about a fraternity and a sorority that call a halt to dating between their houses to improve their grades.
It's in the Stars
1938
6.5Benchley fills in for a music critic on a radio show. His performance is less than stellar.
Music Made Simple
1938
It's Thanksgiving. Newlywed husband Abner Poodlebean faces the turkey his wife has prepared: she wants him to carve it at the table in front of her scowling family, and Abner has no idea how to proceed. The film's narrator has us cut away to the kitchen of chef M.O. Cullen who demonstrates the proper way to carve the bird, spoon out the stuffing, and lay out the platter. Back to Abner, who's missed Cullen's lesson, so he makes a fine mess. Can this marriage survive?
Let's Talk Turkey
1939
