
Directing
Robert Stevenson
Born — Died
1905-03-31 — 1986-04-30
Place of birth
Buxton, Derbyshire, England, UK
Known for
Directing
Credits
42 titles
Robert Stevenson (31 March 1905, Buxton, Derbyshire – 30 April 1986) was an English film writer and director. He was educated at Cambridge University where he became the president of both the Liberal Club and the Cambridge Union Society. He moved to California in the 1940s and ended up directing 19 films for The Walt Disney Company in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, Stevenson is best remembered for directing the Julie Andrews musical Mary Poppins, for which Andrews won the Academy Award for Best Actress and Stevenson received a nomination for Best Director Oscar. Stevenson divorced his first wife Cecilie and married actress Anna Lee in 1934. They lived on London's Bankside for five years, movi…
Known for
6.8Four Star Playhouse is an American television anthology series that ran from 1952 to 1956, sponsored in its first bi-weekly season by The Singer Company; Bristol-Myers became an alternate sponsor when it became a weekly series in the fall of 1953. The original premise was that Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino, David Niven, and Dick Powell would take turns starring in episodes. However, several other performers took the lead from time to time, including Ronald Colman and Joan Fontaine. Blake Edwards was among the writers and directors who contributed to the series. Edwards created the recurring character of illegal gambling house operator Willie Dante for Dick Powell to play on this series. The character was later revamped and spun off in his own series starring Howard Duff, then-husband of Lupino. The pilot for Meet McGraw, starring Frank Lovejoy, aired here, as did another episode in which Lovejoy recreated his role of Chicago newspaper reporter Randy Stone, from the radio drama Nightbeat.
Four Star Playhouse
1952
7.5In turn of the century London, a magical nanny employs music and adventure to help two neglected children become closer to their father.
Mary Poppins
1964
6.7The eponymous wraith returns to Earth to aid his descendant, elderly Emily Stowecroft. The villains want to kick Emily and her friends out of their group home so that they can build a crooked casino. Good guy Steve Walker gets caught in the middle of the squabble after evoking Blackbeard's ghost.
Blackbeard's Ghost
1968
6.6Down-on-his-luck race car driver Jim Douglas teams up with a little VW Bug that has a mind of its own, not realizing Herbie's worth until a sneaky rival plots to steal him.
The Love Bug
1968
6.2The living Volkswagen Beetle helps an old lady protect her home from a corrupt developer.
Herbie Rides Again
1974
7.0Three children evacuated from London during World War II are forced to stay with an eccentric spinster. The children's initial fears disappear when they find out she is in fact a trainee witch.
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
1971
Film credits
Series credits
Behind the camera
7.5In turn of the century London, a magical nanny employs music and adventure to help two neglected children become closer to their father.
Mary Poppins
1964
6.7The eponymous wraith returns to Earth to aid his descendant, elderly Emily Stowecroft. The villains want to kick Emily and her friends out of their group home so that they can build a crooked casino. Good guy Steve Walker gets caught in the middle of the squabble after evoking Blackbeard's ghost.
Blackbeard's Ghost
1968
6.6Down-on-his-luck race car driver Jim Douglas teams up with a little VW Bug that has a mind of its own, not realizing Herbie's worth until a sneaky rival plots to steal him.
The Love Bug
1968
6.2The living Volkswagen Beetle helps an old lady protect her home from a corrupt developer.
Herbie Rides Again
1974
7.0Three children evacuated from London during World War II are forced to stay with an eccentric spinster. The children's initial fears disappear when they find out she is in fact a trainee witch.
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
1971
6.9Young Travis Coates is left to take care of the family ranch with his mother and younger brother while his father goes off on a cattle drive in the 1860s. When a yellow mongrel comes for an uninvited stay with the family, Travis reluctantly adopts the dog.
Old Yeller
1957
6.3An eccentric millionaire and his grandchildren are embroiled in the plights of some forest gnomes who are searching for the rest of their tribe. While helping them, the millionaire is suspected of being crazy because he's seeing gnomes! He's committed, and the niece and nephew and the gnomes have to find him and free him.
The Gnome-Mobile
1967
6.5Bumbling professor Ned Brainard accidentally invents flying rubber, or "Flubber", an incredible material that gains energy every time it strikes a hard surface. It allows for the invention of shoes that can allow jumps of amazing heights and enables a modified Model-T to fly. Unfortunately, no one is interested in the material except for Alonzo Hawk, a corrupt businessman who wants to steal the material for himself.
The Absent-Minded Professor
1961
5.6Adam McAdam is an old, dour sheepherder whose life is devoted to his faithful dog, the whiskey bottle and his daughter, Jeannie. And a conflict that arises when the other sheep-men of the district try every means within their power to have his dog, accused of being a sheep-killer, destroyed.
Owd Bob
1938
6.7A wily old codger matches wits with the King of the Leprechauns and helps play matchmaker for his daughter and the strapping lad who has replaced him as caretaker.
Darby O'Gill and the Little People
1959
6.6A young woman suspects foul play when her cat comes home wearing a wristwatch. Convincing the FBI, though, and catching the bad guys is tougher than she imagined.
That Darn Cat!
1965
7.3In turn-of-the-century Cincinnati, vibrant shop girl Ray Smith falls in love with banker Walter Saxel, who is engaged to a socially prominent woman. Inadvertently prevented from running away with Walter, Ray remains single but reunites with him five years later. Despite Walter being married and having a son, Ray becomes his mistress, and over the years suffers social ostracism and long stretches of solitude while waiting for their brief interludes together.
Back Street
1941
6.5A Victorian gentleman hopes to find his long-lost son, who vanished while searching for a mysterious Viking community in a volcanic valley somewhere in uncharted Arctic regions. The gentleman puts together an expedition team to go on the search, but when they reach their destination they must escape from some Viking descendants who will kill to keep their existence a secret.
The Island at the Top of the World
1974
5.8Wilby Daniels, a successful lawyer running for District Attorney, suddenly finds himself being transformed into an English sheepdog. Somehow he has to keep his change a secret and find just what is causing it, all the while eluding the local dog catcher.
The Shaggy D.A.
1976
9.0Behind the scenes of Darby O'Gill and the Little People.
I Captured the King of the Leprechauns
1959
6.9After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Edward Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?
Jane Eyre
1943
6.9After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Edward Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?
Jane Eyre
1943
5.8Escaping from China with a microfilm of the formula for the mysterious "Lotus X", Lord Southmere, a Queen's Messenger, is chased by a group of Chinese spies.
One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing
1975
6.1Beleaguered professor Ned Brainard has already run into a pile of misfortunes with his discovery of the super-elastic substance "Flubber." Now he hopes to have better luck with a gravity-busting derivative he's dubbed "Flubbergas." Ned's experiments, constantly hampered by government obstruction, earn the consternation of his wife, Betsy. But a game-winning modification to a football uniform may help Ned make the case for his fantastic new invention.
Son of Flubber
1963
6.5Kidnapped and cheated out of his inheritance, young David Balfour falls in with a Jacobite adventurer, Alan Breck Stewart. Falsely accused of murder, they must flee across the Highlands, evading the redcoats.
Kidnapped
1960
6.5Kidnapped and cheated out of his inheritance, young David Balfour falls in with a Jacobite adventurer, Alan Breck Stewart. Falsely accused of murder, they must flee across the Highlands, evading the redcoats.
Kidnapped
1960
7.5In World War II, American Gates Trimble Pomfret is in London during the Blitz to sell the ancestral family house. The current tenant, Leslie Trimble, tries to dissuade him from selling by telling him the 140-year history of the place and the connections between the Trimble and Pomfret families.
Forever and a Day
1943
5.8College whiz-kid Merlin Jones concocts a method for teaching advanced information to a chimpanzee, then creates a flying machine of his own design, ultimately raising havoc on the campus.
The Monkey's Uncle
1965
6.5Two teenagers, Mary (Hayley Mills) and Robert (Keith Hamshere) are lead by Professor Paganel (Maurice Chevalier) on a search expedition for the children's shipwrecked sea captain father. This Disney film was based upon Jules Verne's 1868 adventure novel Captain Grant's Children.
In Search of the Castaways
1962
7.0A Soho restaurateur's protégé becomes a star.
Greek Street
1930
7.5Will Hay plays a bragging sea captain whose maritime experience actually extends to navigating a coal barge down inland waterways. His tall tales catch him out when he is co-erced into commanding an unseaworthy ship by an unscrupulous shipping agent who means to have it wrecked. This was the first film to couple Will Hay with both Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt.
Windbag the Sailor
1936
6.5Merlin Jones, a precocious and intelligent high-school boy, experiments with hypnosis and creates a mind-reading machine. However, his experiments land him in deep trouble with the law.
The Misadventures of Merlin Jones
1964
6.1When an injury bars him from pursuing his trade, Revolutionary War-era silversmith's apprentice Johnny Tremain finds a new life in the ranks of the Sons of Liberty army, taking part in the Boston Tea Party and Paul Revere's legendary ride.
Johnny Tremain
1957
6.8A young woman finds herself as the intended victim of a murder plot on a transatlantic flight from London to New York.
Non-Stop New York
1937
5.3Communists blackmail a shipping executive into spying for them.
The Woman on Pier 13
1950
5.8Art editor Madeleine Damian carries on numerous loveless affairs. After a failed relationship with advertiser Felix Courtland, the increasingly depressed Madeleine attempts suicide. When Jack Garet, her secretary and former lover, tries to blackmail her, Madeleine resigns and seeks a reclusive life. Neighbor David Cousins befriends Madeleine, but soon Courtland and Garet discover her whereabouts and disrupt her new life.
Dishonored Lady
1947
6.0When newlyweds visit Las Vegas, the wife's shady past comes to the surface.
The Las Vegas Story
1952
6.1Dr. Laurence, a once-respectable scientist, begins to research the origin of the mind and the soul. The science community rejects him, and he risks losing everything for which he has worked. He begins to use his discoveries to save his research and further his own causes, thereby becoming ... a mad scientist, almost unstoppable.
The Man Who Changed His Mind
1936
6.8As ratings for Jack Crandall's lifeless airborne traffic reports plummet, a super-size St. Bernard on the lam stows away in his chopper. Crandall's new co-pilot helps send ratings sky-high, but the canine's chronic kleptomania generates girl trouble, jewel thievery, and loads of laughs.
My Dog, the Thief
1969
4.6Know Your Ally: Britain was a 45-minute propaganda film made in 1944. It was narrated by Walter Huston and produced by the United States War Department and Signal Corp to solidify Anglo-American solidarity within the ranks as well as counter Nazi propaganda aimed at weakening the Alliance.
Know Your Ally: Britain
1944
5.9A treasury agent becomes obsessed with exposing an international drug ring.
To the Ends of the Earth
1948
5.4White hunter Allan Quartermain and his enigmatic guide help a young Irish woman locate her missing father in unexplored Darkest Africa.
King Solomon's Mines
1937
7.4In 1830s England, Tom Brown attends a rugby boys' school, where his moral and personal growth is formed through friendship, bullying–particularly from the cruel Flashman–and the influence of headmaster Dr Thomas Arnold.
Tom Brown's School Days
1940
5.1Fugitive Chris Hale starts over in a small Midwestern town in Ohio, where he befriends Elaine Corelli, a kind-hearted heiress left disabled after a skiing accident. As love blossoms, Hale vows to change his ways, but escaping his past may mean one last job.
Walk Softly, Stranger
1950
5.7One Kris Kringle, a department-store Santa Claus, causes quite a commotion by suggesting customers go to a rival store for their purchases. But this is nothing to the stir he causes by announcing that he is not merely a make-believe St. Nick, but the real thing.
The Miracle on 34th Street
1955

