
Acting
J. Farrell MacDonald
Born 1875-06-05 · Waterbury, Connecticut, USA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia John Farrell MacDonald (June 6, 1875 – August 2, 1952) was an American character actor and director. He played supporting roles and occasional leads. He appeared in over 325 films over a 41-year career from 1911 to 1951, and directed forty-four silent films from 1912 to 1917. MacDonald was the principal director of L. Frank Baum's Oz Film Manufacturing Company, and he can frequently be seen in the films of Frank Capra, Preston Sturges and, especially, John Ford. Early in his career, MacDonald was a singer in minstrel shows, and he toured the United States extensively for two years with stage productions. He made his first silent film in 1911, a dramatic short entitled The Scarlett Letter made by Carl Laemmle's Independent Moving Pictures Company (IMP), the forerunner of Universal Pictures,. He continued to act in numerous films each year from that time on, and by 1912 he was directing them as well. The first film he directed was The Worth of a Man, another dramatic short, again for IMP, and he was to direct 43 more films until his last in 1917, Over the Fence, which he co-directed with Harold Lloyd. MacDonald had crossed paths with Lloyd several years earlier, when Lloyd was an extra and MacDonald had given him much-needed work – and he did the same with Hal Roach, both of whom appearing in small roles in The Patchwork Girl of Oz, which MacDonald directed in 1914. When Roach set up his own studio, with Lloyd as his principal attraction, he hired MacDonald to direct. By 1918, MacDonald, who was to become one of the most beloved character men in Hollywood, had given up directing and was acting full-time, predominantly in Westerns and Irish comedies. He first worked under director John Ford in 1919's A Fight for Love. In all, Ford would use MacDonald on twenty-five films between 1919 and 1950. With a voice that matched his personality, MacDonald made the transition to sound films easily, with no noticeable drop in his acting output – if anything, it went up. In 1931, for instance, MacDonald appeared in 14 films – among them the first version of The Maltese Falcon, in which he played "Detective Tom Polhaus" – and in 22 of them in 1932. Although he played laborers, policemen, military men and priests, among many other characters, his roles were usually a cut above a "bit part". His characters usually had names, and he was most often credited for his performances. A highlight of this period was his performance as the hobo "Mr. Tramp" in Our Little Girl with Shirley Temple (1935). In the 1940s, MacDonald was part of Preston Sturges' unofficial "stock company" of character actors, appearing in seven films written and directed by Sturges. MacDonald appeared in Sullivan's Travels, The Palm Beach Story, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, The Great Moment, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, Unfaithfully Yours and The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend, Sturges' last American film. Earlier, MacDonald had also appeared in The Power and the Glory, which Sturges wrote. His work on Sturges' films was generally uncredited. He was notable in 1946 in John Ford's My Darling Clementine in which he played "Mac," the bartender in the town saloon. MacDonald also had uncredited roles in It's a Wonderful Life and Here Comes The Groom.
Acting credits
8.3George Bailey has spent his entire life giving to the people of Bedford Falls. All that prevents rich skinflint Mr. Potter from taking over the entire town is George's modest building and loan company. But on Christmas Eve the business's $8,000 is lost and George's troubles begin.
It's a Wonderful Life
1946
6.7In 1922, a would-be classical composer gets involved with people putting on a musical revue.
Greenwich Village
1944
4.3In this remake of No Man's Range (1935), Shamrock travels to the ranch of his stepfather who he has never met and finds himself caught in the middle of a range war.
Hostile Country
1950
7.5Three brothers stop off for a night in the town of Tombstone. The next morning they find one of their brothers dead and their cattle stolen. They decide to take revenge on the culprits.
My Darling Clementine
1946
7.8A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
1927
6.5An unemployed drifter, Eric Stanton wanders into a small California town and begins hanging around the local diner. While Eric falls for the lovely waitress Stella, he also begins romancing a quiet and well-to-do woman named June Mills. Since Stella isn't interested in Eric unless he has money, the lovelorn guy comes up with a scheme to win her over, and it involves June. Before long, murder works its way into this passionate love triangle.
Fallen Angel
1945
6.8Frank Johnson, a sole witness to a gangland murder, goes into hiding and is trailed by Police Inspector Ferris, on the theory that Frank is trying to escape from possible retaliation. Frank's wife, Eleanor, suspects he is actually running away from their unsuccessful marriage. Aided by a newspaperman, Danny Leggett, Eleanor sets out to locate her husband. The killer is also looking for him, and keeps close tabs on Eleanor.
Woman on the Run
1950
6.5Expert lineman Red takes Farm-boy Slim under his wing and teaches him the dangerous, migratory trade of putting up transmission lines. They both love their work, and the same girl, who hates their dangerous profession.
Slim
1937
5.0A modest country doctor in the antebellum South has to contend with his daughter's upcoming marriage and an affectionate medicine show elephant.
Zenobia
1939
6.9Teenager Susan Turner, with a severe crush on playboy artist Richard Nugent, sneaks into his apartment to model for him and is found there by her sister Judge Margaret Turner. Threatened with jail, Nugent agrees to date Susan until the crush abates.
The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer
1947
7.7Born Ruby Stevens, she was orphaned when she was four. A chance audition led to a chorus job. By 17 she was a Ziegfeld Girl. At 20 she earned excellent reviews for a bit part in a Broadway play — and she had a new name: Barbara Stanwyck.
Barbara Stanwyck: Straight Down the Line
1997
7.3As a parting shot, fired reporter Ann Mitchell prints a fake letter from unemployed "John Doe," who threatens suicide in protest of social ills. The paper is forced to rehire Ann and hires John Willoughby to impersonate "Doe." Ann and her bosses cynically milk the story for all it's worth, until the made-up "John Doe" philosophy starts a whole political movement.
Meet John Doe
1941
6.9Ordinary man-in-the-street Arthur Ferguson Jones leads a very straightforward life. He's never late for work and nothing interesting ever happens to him. One day everything changes: he oversleeps and is fired as an example, he's then mistaken for evil criminal killer Mannion and is arrested. The resemblance is so striking that the police give him a special pass to avoid a similar mistake. The real Mannion sees the opportunity to steal the pass and move around freely and chaos results.
The Whole Town's Talking
1935
7.0Director William C. McGann's 1935 film stars Gloria Stuart and Ross Alexander as a young couple in love who face economic woes once they're wed.
Maybe It's Love
1935
8.0The Jewish Nate Cohen and the Irish-Catholic Patrick Kelly are business partners who are constantly fighting. When they find out that Nate's daughter Sadye and Patrick's son Pat Jr. are getting married in Paris, the two and their wives take an ocean liner to France to stop the marriage. When they get there, they find that the situation has radically changed, and not for the better.
The Cohens and the Kellys in Paris
1928
6.8A small-town girl with a soft spot for American soldiers wakes up the morning after a wild farewell party for the troops to find that she married someone she can't remember.
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
1944
6.4The Florida Keys in 1840, where the implacable hurricanes of the Caribbean scream, where the salvagers of Key West, like the intrepid and beautiful Loxi Claiborne and her crew, reap, aboard frail schooners, the harvest of the wild wind, facing the shark teeth of the reefs to rescue the sailors and the cargo from the shipwrecks caused by the scavengers of the sea.
Reap the Wild Wind
1942
7.6A millionaire automaker retires upon the advice of his doctor, but becomes so bored he buys half interest in a gas station and works it on the sly.
The Millionaire
1931
6.4Inspired by Churchill's Dunkirk speech, brash, undisciplined Canadian bush pilot Brian MacLean and three friends enlist in the RCAF.
Captains of the Clouds
1942
6.4When transplanted Texan Bob Seton arrives in Lawrence, Kansas he finds much to like about the place, especially Mary McCloud, daughter of the local banker. Politics is in the air however. It's just prior to the civil war and there is already a sharp division in the Territory as to whether it will remain slave-free. When he gets the opportunity to run for marshal, Seton finds himself running against the respected local schoolteacher, William Cantrell. Not is what it seems however. While acting as the upstanding citizen in public, Cantrell is dangerously ambitious and is prepared to do anything to make his mark, and his fortune, on the Territory. When he loses the race for marshal, he forms a group of raiders who run guns into the territory and rob and terrorize settlers throughout the territory. Eventually donning Confederate uniforms, it is left to Seton and the good citizens of Lawrence to face Cantrell and his raiders in one final clash.
Dark Command
1940
6.7Madcap couple George and Marion Kerby are killed in an automobile accident. They return as ghosts to try and liven up the regimented lifestyle of their friend and bank president, Cosmo Topper. When Topper starts to live it up, it strains relations with his stuffy wife.
Topper
1937
4.6Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell struggles to free his country from English rule, but his relationship with married Katie O'Shea threatens to ruin all his dreams of freedom.
Parnell
1937
4.6Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell struggles to free his country from English rule, but his relationship with married Katie O'Shea threatens to ruin all his dreams of freedom.
Parnell
1937
5.3Reporters Clark Kent and Lois Lane arrive in the small town of Silsby to witness the drilling of the world's deepest oil well. The drill, however, has penetrated the underground home of a race of small, furry people who then come to the surface at night to look around. The fact that they glow in the dark scares the townfolk, who form a mob, led by the vicious Luke Benson, intent on killing the strange people. Only Superman has a chance to prevent this tragedy.
Superman and the Mole Men
1951
Behind the camera
10.0Samson, an Israelite whose enormous strength is legendary, falls in love with Zorah, a Philistine, and marries her, overcoming his father Manoah's objections.
Samson
1914
7.0At the death of Burke, the bulk of his fortune goes to his only son, Rory, a baby in arms. The child is in the keeping of his uncle. Sir Everett, who had a son of Rory's age. That his own son might inherit the fortune Everett causes Rory to be kidnapped.
Rory o' the Bogs
1913
5.1Ojo and Unc Nunkie are out of food, so they decide to journey to the Emerald City where they will never starve. Along the way, they meet Mewel, a waif and stray (mule) who leads them to Dr. Pipt, who has been stirring the powder of life for nine years. Ojo adds plenty of brains to Margolotte's Patchwork servant before she is brought to life with the powder. When Scraps does come to life, she accidentally knocks the liquid of petrifaction upon Unc Nunkie, Margolotte, and Danx (daughter Jesseva's boyfriend). So all go on separate journeys to find the ingredients to the antidote.
The Patchwork Girl of Oz
1914
5.9Snitch steals Ginger's (stolen) baseball tickets and takes Ginger's girl to the game. Finding himself without tickets, Ginger dresses as a baseball player and wins the game. A possible debut of the "Glasses" or "Boy" character.
Over the Fence
1917
NRLuke, a street tramp, is taken to a dance contest by a pretty millionairess, but when he is ejected, he returns with a gun and wreaks havoc.
Lonesome Luke, Social Gangster
1915
4.4The fairies of Oz gather in the forest of Burzee one evening and weave a magic cloak that gives the wearer one wish, so long as it has not been stolen.
The Magic Cloak of Oz
1914
5.6A wicked king has taken over the Emerald City, and wants his daughter, Princess Gloria to marry the horrid courtier Googly-Goo, though she loves Pon, the Gardener's Boy. The camera follows two farmers placing a Scarecrow upon a pole in a cornfield. Pon rescues a Kansas girl named Dorothy from the evil witch Mombi, whom Princess Gloria has been taken to by King Krewl to freeze her heart so she will no longer love Pon. An Indian princess has a ceremony to bring the Scarecrow to life. Pon rescues the cold-hearted princess and they flee for help, discovering the Scarecrow, who promptly falls in love with the princess, and Button-Bright, a lost boy from America. They come to the castle of the Tin Emperor, Nick Chopper, and after oiling him, he falls in love with Gloria. After a bit of a chase aided by the Sawhorse and the Wizard, Mombi turns Pon into a Kangaroo, and a slough of Fred Woodward's animals battle it out.
His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz
1914
A young widow and her baby find refuge with a miserly backslider after being evicted. While the miser is away, criminals invade, mistreating the mother. The miser returns, pleading for their safety, and upon their rescue, his adoption of the baby reveals his true Christian nature, despite his church absence.
The Backslider
1914