Charles Lederer

Writing

Charles Lederer

Born — Died

1906-12-31 — 1976-03-05

Place of birth

New York City, New York, USA

Known for

Writing

Credits

33 titles

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Charles Lederer (December 31, 1906 – March 5, 1976) was an American screenwriter and film director. He was born into a prominent theatrical family in New York, and after his parents divorced, was raised in California by his aunt, Marion Davies, mistress to newspaper publisher William Randolf Hearst. A child prodigy, he entered college at age 13, but dropped out after a few years to work as a journalist with Hearst's newspapers. Lederer is recognized for his comic and acerbic adaptations and collaborative screenplays of the 1940s and early 1950s. His screenplays frequently delved into the corrosive influences of wealth and power. His comedy writing was …

Known for

Ocean's Eleven poster
6.4

Danny Ocean and his gang attempt to rob the five biggest casinos in Las Vegas in one night.

Ocean's Eleven

1960

Mutiny on the Bounty poster
7.1

The Bounty leaves Portsmouth in 1787. Its destination: to sail to Tahiti and load bread-fruit. Captain Bligh will do anything to get there as fast as possible, using any means to keep up a strict discipline. When they arrive at Tahiti, it is like a paradise for the crew, something completely different than the living hell aboard the ship. On the way back to England, officer Fletcher Christian becomes the leader of a mutiny.

Mutiny on the Bounty

1962

His Girl Friday poster
7.4

Walter Burns is an irresistibly conniving newspaper publisher desperate to woo back his paper’s star reporter, who also happens to be his estranged wife. She’s threatening to quit and settle down with a new beau, but, as Walter knows, she has a weakness: she can’t resist a juicy scoop.

His Girl Friday

1940

Monkey Business poster
6.7

Research chemist Barnaby Fulton works on a fountain of youth pill for a chemical company. One of the labs chimps gets loose in the laboratory and mixes chemicals, but then pours the mix into the water cooler. When trying one of his own samples, washed down with water from the cooler, Fulton begins to act just like a twenty-year-old and believes his potion is working. Soon his wife and boss are also behaving like children.

Monkey Business

1952

The Thing from Another World poster
6.7

Scientists and US Air Force officials fend off a blood-thirsty alien organism while investigating at a remote arctic outpost.

The Thing from Another World

1951

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes poster
7.3

Lorelei Lee is a beautiful showgirl engaged to be married to the wealthy Gus Esmond, much to the disapproval of Gus' rich father, Esmond Sr., who thinks that Lorelei is just after his money. When Lorelei goes on a cruise accompanied only by her best friend, Dorothy Shaw, Esmond Sr. hires Ernie Malone, a private detective, to follow her and report any questionable behavior that would disqualify her from the marriage.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

1953

Behind the camera

Ocean's Eleven poster
6.4

Danny Ocean and his gang attempt to rob the five biggest casinos in Las Vegas in one night.

Ocean's Eleven

1960

Mutiny on the Bounty poster
7.1

The Bounty leaves Portsmouth in 1787. Its destination: to sail to Tahiti and load bread-fruit. Captain Bligh will do anything to get there as fast as possible, using any means to keep up a strict discipline. When they arrive at Tahiti, it is like a paradise for the crew, something completely different than the living hell aboard the ship. On the way back to England, officer Fletcher Christian becomes the leader of a mutiny.

Mutiny on the Bounty

1962

His Girl Friday poster
7.4

Walter Burns is an irresistibly conniving newspaper publisher desperate to woo back his paper’s star reporter, who also happens to be his estranged wife. She’s threatening to quit and settle down with a new beau, but, as Walter knows, she has a weakness: she can’t resist a juicy scoop.

His Girl Friday

1940

Monkey Business poster
6.7

Research chemist Barnaby Fulton works on a fountain of youth pill for a chemical company. One of the labs chimps gets loose in the laboratory and mixes chemicals, but then pours the mix into the water cooler. When trying one of his own samples, washed down with water from the cooler, Fulton begins to act just like a twenty-year-old and believes his potion is working. Soon his wife and boss are also behaving like children.

Monkey Business

1952

The Thing from Another World poster
6.7

Scientists and US Air Force officials fend off a blood-thirsty alien organism while investigating at a remote arctic outpost.

The Thing from Another World

1951

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes poster
7.3

Lorelei Lee is a beautiful showgirl engaged to be married to the wealthy Gus Esmond, much to the disapproval of Gus' rich father, Esmond Sr., who thinks that Lorelei is just after his money. When Lorelei goes on a cruise accompanied only by her best friend, Dorothy Shaw, Esmond Sr. hires Ernie Malone, a private detective, to follow her and report any questionable behavior that would disqualify her from the marriage.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

1953

Can-Can poster
6.7

A Parisian nightclub owner known for her performances of the can-can attracts the ire of a self-righteous judge. He hatches a plot to photograph her in the act but ends up falling for her — much to the chagrin of her lawyer boyfriend.

Can-Can

1960

Kiss of Death poster
7.1

An ex-con trying to go straight must face a crazed criminal out for revenge.

Kiss of Death

1947

I Was a Male War Bride poster
6.9

After marrying an American lieutenant with whom he was assigned to work in post-war Germany, a French captain attempts to find a way to accompany her back to the States under the terms of the War Bride Act.

I Was a Male War Bride

1949

I Love You Again poster
7.2

Boring businessman Larry Wilson recovers from amnesia and discovers he's really a con man...and loves his soon-to-be-ex wife.

I Love You Again

1940

Ride the Pink Horse poster
7.2

A con man tries to blackmail a Mexican gangster.

Ride the Pink Horse

1947

Love Crazy poster
6.8

Circumstance, an old flame and a mother-in-law drive a happily married couple to the verge of divorce and insanity.

Love Crazy

1941

Kismet poster
5.6

A silver-tongued poet and self-proclaimed "King of the Beggars" searches old Baghdad for a rich bachelor to marry his dreamy daughter, Marsinah. Along the way, he poses as the renowned sorcerer Hajj and gets in and out of scrapes with an elderly thief, a dim-witted wazir, and his wife. Meanwhile, his daughter develops feelings for a handsome caliph.

Kismet

1955

Follow That Dream poster
6.1

When the Kwimper family car runs out of fuel on a new Florida highway and an officious state supervisor tries to run them off, Pop digs in his heels and decides to do a little homesteading. He, his son Toby and their 'adopted' children—Holly, Ariadne, and the twins—start their own little community along a strip of the roadside.

Follow That Dream

1962

Fingers at the Window poster
5.7

In Chicago, an unemployed actor aims to solve the mystery concerning a string of ax murders, apparently committed by a lunatic.

Fingers at the Window

1942

It Started with a Kiss poster
5.7

While on leave in New York, a serviceman both weds a chorus girl and wins a red convertible in a charity raffle. Both his wife and the car turn out to be problematic.

It Started with a Kiss

1959

Within the Law poster
6.5

Shopgirl Mary Turner, sentenced to prison for someone else's theft, is released and takes revenge upon those who wronged her in powerful but lawful ways.

Within the Law

1939

Fearless Fagan poster
5.2

A young man brings his pet lion with him when he's drafted into the U.S. Army.

Fearless Fagan

1952

Slightly Dangerous poster
6.0

Small-town soda-jerk Peggy Evans quits her dead-end job and moves to New York where she invents a new identity.

Slightly Dangerous

1943

Double or Nothing poster
6.8

A philanthropist's will dictates that four people receive $5,000 apiece, with the stipulation that the first one who can double the amount -- without dishonesty-- will win a cool million. Hindering the four are the avaricious relatives of the late millionaire.

Double or Nothing

1937

Her Husband's Affairs poster
5.6

Bill Weldon is an Ad man who craves his wife Margaret's approval of his work, instead he gets constructive (and on-target) feedback, which he hates. Things get really strange when Bill creates advertising for a wacky inventor's embalming fluid.

Her Husband's Affairs

1947

Comrade X poster
6.1

An American reporter smuggling news out of Soviet Moscow is blackmailed into helping a beautiful Communist leave the country.

Comrade X

1940

Wabash Avenue poster
5.3

Andy Clark discovers he was cheated out of a half interest in partner Mike's business, now a thriving dance hall in 1892 Chicago. Unable to win it back, Andy schemes to make Mike's position untenable. He also hopes to turn Ruby Summers, Mike's motor-mouthed burlesque queen, into a classier entertainer, and incidentally to make her his own. But at the last minute, Andy's revenge comes unravelled.

Wabash Avenue

1950

Gaby poster
7.3

A French ballerina falls in love with an American paratrooper on a two day pass in London near the end of World War II.

Gaby

1956

Cock of the Air poster
7.7

An opera diva sets her sights on a womanizing army officer.

Cock of the Air

1932

Tip on a Dead Jockey poster
6.6

Broke and about to divorce his wife, a pilot joins a smuggling scheme in postwar Madrid.

Tip on a Dead Jockey

1957

The Youngest Profession poster
5.3

Best friends Joan and Patricia are teenage autograph seekers who spend most of their day bumping into and having tea with movie stars like Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon. Based on disinformation from a meddling governess, Joan also devotes some time to working on the no-problem marriage of her parents.

The Youngest Profession

1943

Broadway Serenade poster
6.6

A married singer, pianist/composer team are struggling to hit it big in New York. Finally, they audition before a Broadway producer, but the producer only wants the singer, leaving the husband without a job and feeling a failure.

Broadway Serenade

1939

Never Steal Anything Small poster
8.2

Director Charles Lederer's 1959 musical stars James Cagney as an unscrupulous longshoreman who'll resort to every dirty trick in the book to win his union's presidency.

Never Steal Anything Small

1959

Never Steal Anything Small poster
8.2

Director Charles Lederer's 1959 musical stars James Cagney as an unscrupulous longshoreman who'll resort to every dirty trick in the book to win his union's presidency.

Never Steal Anything Small

1959

A Global Affair poster
5.3

Bob Hope becomes surrogate father to a baby found abandoned at the United Nations. Director Jack Arnold's 1964 comedy also stars Yvonne De Carlo, Robert Sterling, John McGiver and Lilo Pulver.

A Global Affair

1964

Mountain Music poster
6.0

Mary Beamish, a folksy Ozark girl, yearns for the glitter of show business and for a man. She knows she is anything but gorgeous, but figures her enthusiasm offsets that small deficit.

Mountain Music

1937

On the Loose poster
6.6

After years of living in her selfish parents' (Melvyn Douglas and Lynn Bari) egotistical shadows, desperate teenager Jill Bradley (Joan Evans) makes a last-ditch play for attention by attempting suicide. Jill's guilt-ridden father tries at last to help her and to cheer her up but new problems arise.

On the Loose

1951