Writing

Robert Lees

Born 1912-07-10 · San Francisco, California, USA

Acting credits

Behind the camera

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein poster
7.1

The 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

Hold That Ghost poster
6.8

Two 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

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Invisible Man poster
6.3

As novice detectives, Bud and Lou come face to face with the Invisible Man.

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Invisible Man

1951

Buck Privates Come Home poster
6.4

Two 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

The Black Cat poster
6.4

Greedy heirs wait in a mansion for a rich cat lover to die, only to learn her cats come first.

The Black Cat

1941

Comin' Round the Mountain poster
6.1

Al 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

Hit the Ice poster
6.0

After 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

Jumping Jacks poster
6.5

Nightclub 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

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

Bachelor Daddy poster
8.0

The lives of three bachelors is disrupted when one of them is left with a baby.

Bachelor Daddy

1941

The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap poster
6.2

Chester 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

Weather Wizards poster
7.0

Modern 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

Crazy House poster
6.0

Ole 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

No artwork available
8.0

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

How to Be a Detective poster
6.9

This Robert Benchley 'How To' comedy short attempts to teach us how to profile criminals by physical characteristics.

How to Be a Detective

1936

Juke Box Jenny poster
7.0

Roger 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

An Hour for Lunch poster
6.3

Benchley 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

Holiday in Havana poster
5.6

While 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

A Night at the Movies poster
5.9

A 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

Culinary Carving poster
7.0

A Pete Smith Specialty explaining the finer points of meat carving, shown by an expert.

Culinary Carving

1939

Prophet Without Honor poster
6.2

This 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

It's in the Stars poster
10.0

Musical 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

Music Made Simple poster
6.5

Benchley fills in for a music critic on a radio show. His performance is less than stellar.

Music Made Simple

1938

No artwork available
6.3

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