Jules Furthman

Writing

Jules Furthman

Born — Died

1888-03-05 — 1966-09-22

Place of birth

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Known for

Writing

Credits

40 titles

Jules Furthman was a magazine and newspaper writer when he began writing for films in 1915. When the U.S. entered WWI Furthman used the name "Stephen Fox" for his screenplays because he thought his name sounded too German, but he reverted to his real name after the war. Furthman became one of the most prolific, and well-known, screenwriters of his time, and was responsible for the screenplays of some of Hollywood's most highly regarded films, such as Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), To Have and Have Not (1944) and Nightmare Alley (1947).

Known for

Behind the camera

Rio Bravo poster
7.8

A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a disabled man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy.

Rio Bravo

1959

The Big Sleep poster
7.6

Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wealthy General Sternwood regarding a matter involving his youngest daughter Carmen. Before the complex case is over, Marlowe sees murder, blackmail, deception, and what might be love.

The Big Sleep

1946

Mutiny on the Bounty poster
7.4

Fletcher Christian successfully leads a revolt against the ruthless Captain Bligh on the HMS Bounty. However, Bligh returns one year later, hell bent on revenge.

Mutiny on the Bounty

1935

To Have and Have Not poster
7.4

A Martinique charter boat skipper gets mixed up with the underground French resistance operatives during WWII.

To Have and Have Not

1945

Jet Pilot poster
5.5

U.S. Air Force aviator Jim Shannon is tasked with escorting a Soviet pilot claiming -- at the height of the Cold War -- that she wants to defect. After falling in love with and marrying her, Shannon learns from his superiors that she's a spy on a mission to extract military secrets. To save his new wife from prison and deportation, Shannon devises a risky plan.

Jet Pilot

1957

Jet Pilot poster
5.5

U.S. Air Force aviator Jim Shannon is tasked with escorting a Soviet pilot claiming -- at the height of the Cold War -- that she wants to defect. After falling in love with and marrying her, Shannon learns from his superiors that she's a spy on a mission to extract military secrets. To save his new wife from prison and deportation, Shannon devises a risky plan.

Jet Pilot

1957

Morocco poster
6.5

Mogador, Morocco. Late 1920s. A complex romance develops between a womanizing Legionnaire and a disillusioned Parisian cabaret singer.

Morocco

1930

China Seas poster
6.3

Captain Alan Gaskell sails the perilous waters between Hong Kong and Singapore with a secret cargo: a fortune in British gold. That's not the only risky cargo he carries; both his fiery mistress and his refined fiancee are aboard!

China Seas

1935

Nightmare Alley poster
7.2

A roustabout joins a traveling carny and schemes to figure out the mind-reading act of Mademoiselle Zeena and her alcoholic husband.

Nightmare Alley

1947

The Outlaw poster
5.4

Newly appointed sheriff Pat Garrett is pleased when his old friend Doc Holliday arrives in Lincoln, New Mexico on the stage. Doc is trailing his stolen horse, and it is discovered in the possession of Billy the Kid. In a surprising turnaround, Billy and Doc become friends. This causes the friendship between Doc and Pat to cool. The odd relationship between Doc and Billy grows stranger when Doc hides Billy at his girl Rio's place after Billy is shot.

The Outlaw

1943

Blonde Venus poster
6.8

In an effort to be able to afford expensive treatment for her gravely ill American husband, a retired German entertainer returns to the cabaret as Blonde Venus and catches the eye of a wealthy politician.

Blonde Venus

1932

Shanghai Express poster
7.0

A beautiful temptress re-kindles an old romance while trying to escape her past during a tension-packed train journey.

Shanghai Express

1932

Only Angels Have Wings poster
7.3

A traveling performer arrives at a remote South American port town where the head of an air freight service must risk his pilots' lives to earn a major contract.

Only Angels Have Wings

1939

The Shanghai Gesture poster
6.3

A gambling queen uses blackmail to stop a British financier from closing her Chinese clip joint.

The Shanghai Gesture

1941

The Docks of New York poster
7.0

A blue-collar worker on New York's depressed waterfront finds his life changed after he saves a woman attempting suicide.

The Docks of New York

1928

Peking Express poster
7.5

A group of refugees fleeing Chinese Communist rule via train are beset by a gang of terrifying outlaws.

Peking Express

1951

Come and Get It poster
6.8

An ambitious lumberjack abandons his saloon girl lover so that he can marry into wealth, but years later becomes infatuated with the woman's daughter.

Come and Get It

1936

Moss Rose poster
6.6

When a music-hall dancer is murdered, a moss rose marks the page of a Bible next to her body. Luckily, another chorus girl saw a gentleman leaving the lodgings. She approaches him directly, saying she'll go to the police if he doesn't meet her demands, but he brushes her off contemptuously. When he learns she's dead serious, he tries to buy her off with a thick wad of pound notes. But it's not money she's after; all she wants is two weeks at his country estate, living the life of a lady.

Moss Rose

1947

The Case of Lena Smith poster
6.0

A peasant girl goes to great lengths to protect her child in 19th century Vienna. The film is considered lost, and only four minutes of footage are known to remain.

The Case of Lena Smith

1929

Strange Idols poster
4.0

While visiting New York, lumberman Angus MacDonald is introduced to cabaret dancer Ruth Mayo by his friend Sinclair. Their romance culminates in marriage, and soon MacDonald takes his bride back to the Northwest. Ruth grows tired of the Northwest, and MacDonald returns with her to New York, where their child is born; but his business does not permit him to remain. One night Ruth returns to the cafe, dances with her old partner, and accepts an agent's offer of a European tour. Six years later, MacDonald learns that his daughter is dancing at the same cafe, and through her a reconciliation is effected between husband and wife.

Strange Idols

1922

Abie's Irish Rose poster
10.0

When a Catholic and a Jew wed they find themselves disowned by both of their families.

Abie's Irish Rose

1928

Spawn of the North poster
6.1

Two 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

Bombshell poster
6.5

A glamorous film star rebels against the studio, her pushy press agent and a family of hangers-on.

Bombshell

1933

Zaza poster
5.7

A seductive music hall star falls in love with a married aristocrat.

Zaza

1939

The Way of All Flesh poster
6.5

The story takes place in Milwaukee during the early 1900s with a bank clerk named August Schiller who is happy with both his job and his family. He is tasked with transporting $1,000 in securities to Chicago. On the train he meets a blond seductress who convinces him to buy her a bottle of champagne, and takes him to a saloon. The next morning he awakes alone in a dilapidated bedroom and without the securities.

The Way of All Flesh

1927

Treasure Island poster
7.0

Young Jim Hawkins is caught up with the pirate Long John Silver in search of the buried treasure of the buccaneer Captain Flint, in this adaptation of the classic novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Treasure Island

1920

The Yellow Ticket poster
5.1

A young Russian girl is forced into a life of prostitution in Czarist Russia, and she and a British journalist find their lives endangered when she reveals to him information regarding the social crimes rampant in her country.

The Yellow Ticket

1931

Over the Hill poster
8.1

In their farm house in a New York village, Ma Shelby prepares breakfast for her four children, Isaac, Tommy, Johnny and Susan, and then awakens them. The racket the boys make as they play and fight awakens their father, who spanks the eldest, Isaac. When a visitor chides Pa for not working, Ma sticks up for her husband, saying that he has a weak back and that he is waiting for a promised government job.

Over the Hill

1931

You'd Be Surprised poster
7.0

A diamond is stolen at a houseboat party given by the district attorney. He gives the thief a chance to return it by putting an empty box on a table and turning out the lights. When the lights are turned back on the box is gone, and the district attorney has a knife in his back and is quite dead. The police and the coroner arrive. There are several attempts made on the life of the coroner. Ruth Whitman is found hiding in a grandfather-clock, holding the gem box. She claims the box was pushed into her hands and she was pushed into the clock. The district attorney's butler/valet tells the coroner he saw who killed his employer and a few minutes later he is also murdered. The mystery deepens.

You'd Be Surprised

1926

St. Elmo poster
7.0

St. Elmo is a man who killed his romantic rival in a brawl. Traveling the world as a confirmed misogynist, St. Elmo returns to home and hearth only to fall in love with the daughter of the local blacksmith. The film is based on the 1867 novel of the same name written by Augusta Jane Evans. Today, St. Elmo is a lost film.

St. Elmo

1923

Any Woman poster
7.0

When Ellen Linden comes back home from finishing school, she finds out that her wealthy father has lost all his money. She must get a job to help support the family, and goes to work as a secretary in the brokerage firm of Phillips and Rand. Both partners find themselves attracted to her, but each has a different approach: Phillipls takes the rough, aggressive route and Rand does the opposite, complimenting and flattering her at every opportunity. However, she falls in love with Tom Galloway, a young inventor who has come up with a new type of soft drink, "Here's How". in which Ellen attempts to interest the brokers. Phillips, however, doesn't take rejection lightly and schemes to break up Ellen and Galloway using his unwitting partner. This film is lost.

Any Woman

1925

Brass Buttons poster
NR

Kingston Hollister admires Bernice Cleveland from afar. He asks Officer Callahan, the policeman on the beat, about her and mistakenly believes she is a lady's maid. So the wealthy Hollister disguises himself as the cop so he can meet her.

Brass Buttons

1919

The Ragged Heiress poster
7.0

Facing a prison term, James Moreton makes provision for the care of his motherless daughter, Lucia, by his brother and sister-in-law; she is cruelly treated by them and runs away with her nurse, Nora Burke. As a young woman, she takes the name Lucia Burke, and after Nora's death she gets a domestic position in the home of her uncle--each unaware of the other's identity.

The Ragged Heiress

1922

Victory poster
6.2

Adaptation of Joseph Conrad novel about lust and violence on a South Seas Island.

Victory

1919

Body and Soul poster
5.4

Andress, Watson and Johnson, pilots with a Royal Air Force squadron in France, are tasked with a deadly mission.

Body and Soul

1931

Where the West Begins poster
8.0

William Russell plays Cliff Redfern, a hard-ridin' Westerner who takes a liking to Easterner Ned Caldwell (Cullen Landis), the dissolute son of a wealthy cattle rancher. Certain that all Caldwell needs to become a "real man" is a dose of frontier life, Cliff kidnaps Ned and brings him back to the wide open spaces.

Where the West Begins

1919

The City Gone Wild poster
10.0

Hard-boiled underworld melodrama, with gang wars and gunfights, in which criminal lawyer turns prosecutor to avenge a friend's death.

The City Gone Wild

1927

Lovebound poster
9.0

Besse Belwin works as a stenographer for district attorney John Mobley. It doesn't take long for Mobley to fall in love with his cute little employee and he proposes. Besse doesn't reveal that her father has a criminal past which he has since renounced.

Lovebound

1923

When a Man Rides Alone poster
NR

Texas Ranger William Sykes, nicknamed "Captain Bonfire," leads a posse in pursuit of Mexican bandits who have hijacked a gold shipment. The lawmen arrive at the Moreno ranch, where the gang leader, known as "the Vulture," has taken refuge with his gang. After convincing the rancher and his pretty daughter Guadalupe, that the Americans are anti-Mexican marauders, the outlaws make their escape. Guadalupe intends to kill William, but she soon realizes her mistake and falls in love with him.

When a Man Rides Alone

1919

Sackcloth and Scarlet poster
7.0

Silent Drama

Sackcloth and Scarlet

1925