Kenneth Thomson

Acting

Kenneth Thomson

Born — Died

1899-01-06 — 1967-01-26

Place of birth

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Known for

Acting

Credits

59 titles

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Charles Kenneth Thomson (January 7, 1899 – January 26, 1967) was an American character actor active during the silent and early sound film eras. Born in Pittsburgh, Thomson along with his wife Alden Gay were founding members of the Screen Actors Guild. The group was founded after meetings held at the Thomsons' home during 1933. During his brief twelve-year career in front of the camera, he appeared in over 60 films. After appearing in several Broadway plays during the early and mid-1920s, Thomson would make his film debut with a starring role in 1926's Risky Business. Over the next four years, he would appear in over a dozen films, in either starring o…

Known for

The King of Kings poster
6.4

The King of Kings is the Greatest Story Ever Told as only Cecil B. DeMille could tell it. In 1927, working with one of the biggest budgets in Hollywood history, DeMille spun the life and Passion of Christ into a silent-era blockbuster. Featuring text drawn directly from the Bible, a cast of thousands, and the great showman’s singular cinematic bag of tricks, The King of Kings is at once spectacular and deeply reverent—part Gospel, part Technicolor epic.

The King of Kings

1927

Thirteen Women poster
6.4

Thirteen women who were schoolmates ask a swami to cast their horoscopes. The news they receive is not good for any of them.

Thirteen Women

1932

Behind the Green Lights poster
8.0

A police detective's (Norman Foster) lawyer girlfriend (Judith Allen) works for a crooked criminal lawyer (Sidney Blackmer).

Behind the Green Lights

1935

The Broadway Melody poster
5.1

The vaudeville act of Harriet and Queenie Mahoney comes to Broadway, where their friend Eddie Kerns needs them for his number in one of Francis Zanfield's shows. When Eddie meets Queenie, he soon falls in love with her—but she is already being courted by Jock Warriner, a member of New York high society. Queenie eventually recognizes that, to Jock, she is nothing more than a toy, and that Eddie is in love with her.

The Broadway Melody

1929

Just Imagine poster
5.8

New York, 1980: airplanes have replaced cars, numbers have replaced names, pills have replaced food, government-arranged marriages have replaced love, and test tube babies have replaced ... well, you get the idea. Scientists revive a man struck by lightning in 1930; he is rechristened "Single O". He is befriended by J-21, who can't marry the girl of his dreams because he isn't "distinguished" enough -- until he is chosen for a 4-month expedition to Mars by a renegade scientist. The Mars J-21, his friend, and stowaway Single O visit is full of scantily clad women doing Busby Berkeley-style dance numbers and worshiping a fat middle-aged man.

Just Imagine

1930

Show-Business at War poster
7.0

A multi-studio effort to show the newsreel audience the progress of the Hollywood war effort.

Show-Business at War

1943

Film credits

1930s · 42 titles

Thirteen Women poster
6.4

Thirteen women who were schoolmates ask a swami to cast their horoscopes. The news they receive is not good for any of them.

Thirteen Women

1932

Behind the Green Lights poster
8.0

A police detective's (Norman Foster) lawyer girlfriend (Judith Allen) works for a crooked criminal lawyer (Sidney Blackmer).

Behind the Green Lights

1935

Just Imagine poster
5.8

New York, 1980: airplanes have replaced cars, numbers have replaced names, pills have replaced food, government-arranged marriages have replaced love, and test tube babies have replaced ... well, you get the idea. Scientists revive a man struck by lightning in 1930; he is rechristened "Single O". He is befriended by J-21, who can't marry the girl of his dreams because he isn't "distinguished" enough -- until he is chosen for a 4-month expedition to Mars by a renegade scientist. The Mars J-21, his friend, and stowaway Single O visit is full of scantily clad women doing Busby Berkeley-style dance numbers and worshiping a fat middle-aged man.

Just Imagine

1930

Behold My Wife! poster
8.0

After Michael Carter's fiancée commits suicide, Michael vows to seek revenge on his wealthy family, who sabotaged their marriage. He drives across the country angrily, and lands up at a saloon, where he is shot by an Indian, Pete. Pete's girlfriend, Tonita nurses Michael's wound and falls in love with him. Michael realizes this, proposes marriage to Tonita - a perfect revenge for his prejudice family. They marry and he takes her to New York, in full Indian dress hoping to embarrass the family.

Behold My Wife!

1934

The Little Giant poster
7.0

Prohibition is ending so bootlegger Bugs Ahearn decides to crack California society. He leases a house from down-on-her-luck Ruth and hires her as social secretary. He rescues Polly Cass from a horsefall and goes home to meet her dad who sells him some phony stock certificates. When he learns about this he sends to Chicago for mob help.

The Little Giant

1933

The Doorway to Hell poster
6.5

A vicious crime lord decides that he has had enough and much to the shock of his colleagues decides to give the business to his second in command and retire to Florida after marrying his moll. Unfortunately, he has no idea that she and the man are lovers.

The Doorway to Hell

1930

The Famous Ferguson Case poster
6.6

A foreword warns against the peril of yellow journalism, and the story illustrates it by following events in the upstate New York town of Cornwall after prominant financier George Ferguson is killed. Two types of New York City journalists descend on Cornwall, one interested in facts, the other in getting sensational "news". Mrs. Ferguson is known to have been friendly with a local banker. The Fergusons quarrel the evening he is killed (by "burglars", his wife tells the police later), and she is arrested, spurred on by the "bad" journalists, who also manage to badger the banker's wife into the hospital. Meanwhile, young Bruce Foster runs the Cornwall Courier, and shows the big city reporters how to dig out real news while they attempt to subvert justice for their own ends.

The Famous Ferguson Case

1932

By Whose Hand? poster
6.6

On the night express train from Los Angeles to San Francisco everyone’s a suspect when a jewelry magnate is found stabbed to death and an escaped killer is feared on board. It’s up to newspaper reporter Jimmy Hawley (Ben Lyon) to unravel the secrets of the motley group of passengers and find the killer before he strikes again in this tense and atmospheric whodunit.

By Whose Hand?

1932

Many Happy Returns poster
5.3

Gracie Allen assumes the "management" of the shop owned by her papa Horatio Allen, turning it into a radio station and then an aviary---with the usual Gracie Allen logic---while distracted Papa is trying to get younger daughter, beauty contest winner Florence, married before she can head to Hollywood and get into the movies.

Many Happy Returns

1934

Son of a Sailor poster
6.0

A lovesick fool bumbles into espionage and finds a stolen plane.

Son of a Sailor

1933

Jungle Bride poster
5.5

Four survivors of a ship wreck are stranded on a deserted island, including a woman and the man she believes is responsible for the murder which her brother is in prison for.

Jungle Bride

1933

Man Wanted poster
5.5

Hardworking magazine editor Lois is married to playboy Fred Ames. Her secretary abruptly quits just as salesman Tom Sheridan happens to arrive to hawk his goods. Desperate for assistance, Lois impulsively hires Tom. While Fred continues his philandering ways, a romance blossoms between Tom and Lois. But Tom's fiancée grows suspicious of his bond with Lois, and he decides to resign. Lois won't give Tom up without a fight, though.

Man Wanted

1932

Hold Me Tight poster
7.0

Newly married sweethearts Chuck Evans and Molly Roberts work at Blair's Department Store and Molly plans to quit to be a stay-at-home wife and mother. But Chuck unexpectedly and unfairly gets fired so Molly stays on. She catches the eye of Dolan, the crooked store detective, and he makes a play for her, trying to make Chuck, who is still unemployed, small in her eyes. Meanwhile, Dolan puts into action his plan to steal the store's fur coats by hiring his girlfriend, Trudie Holmes, and Molly to do a sham inventory one night, then hires Chuck to unwittingly drive the contraband away. Dolan arranges with his mugs for Chuck to be the fall guy if anything goes wrong. Molly & Chuck become suspicious and manage to foil the robbery. Blair appoints Chuck the head of the shipping department and the young couple see a bright future ahead.

Hold Me Tight

1933

The Hollywood Gad-About poster
6.0

A parade highlights the Screen Actors Guild's Film Stars Frolic, hosted by Walter Winchell as Master of Ceremonies.

The Hollywood Gad-About

1934

Hop-a-long Cassidy poster
6.5

An evil ranch foreman tries to provoke a range war by playing two cattlemen against each other while helping a gang to rustle the cattle. Each cattleman blames the other for missing cattle. With the help of Bill Cassidy (Hop-along, because of an earlier bullet wound) and Johnny Nelson, the warring cattlemen join forces to do in the outlaws.

Hop-a-long Cassidy

1935

Wild Company poster
7.0

The son of a wealthy politician falls in with a notorious gangster planning to rob a night club.

Wild Company

1930

Sweet Mama poster
6.0

A young girl falls in love with a member of a gang of crooks. She determines to bring the rest of the gang to justice so she can save the man she loves.

Sweet Mama

1930

Female poster
6.3

Alison Drake, the tough-minded executive of an automobile factory, succeeds in the man's world of business until she meets an independent design engineer.

Female

1933

Jim Hanvey, Detective poster
6.5

Jim Hanvey is a genial but top-notch detective who has retired to his country home. An insurance company hires him to find a missing emerald so they won't have to pay out the $100,000 for which the jewel is insured. It doesn't take him long to find the emerald, but he discovers that finding it was the easy part; the difficult part is getting it back to its rightful owner, and he winds up involved in a murder in which an innocent man is framed.

Jim Hanvey, Detective

1937

Movie Crazy poster
6.4

After a mix-up with his application photograph, an aspiring actor is invited to a screen test and goes off to Hollywood.

Movie Crazy

1932

Sweethearts on Parade poster
2.5

Helen and Nita work in a department store to make ends meet while they search for millionaire husbands. They meet Bill and Hank, who make them reconsider whether they really need millionaires to be happy.

Sweethearts on Parade

1930

Fast Life poster
8.5

Two sailors (William Haines and Cliff Edwards) are leaving the US Navy after 10 years. In their spare time, one of them (Haines) invents a carburetor that should increase the speed that powered boats will run, but all they succeed in doing is sinking the Admiral's barge. After discharge, broke and out of work, they find work with a boat builder who wants the fastest race boat in the world. They design the boat, carburetor and the engine but lack of money and the foreclosure of the business hinders their efforts to prove the new design.

Fast Life

1932

Woman Hungry poster
10.0

This film, believed lost, was based on William Vaughn Moody's 1906 play The Great Divide. The story was filmed as a silent film by MGM as The Great Divide (1925) and as an early silent/sound hybrid by First National also called The Great Divide (1929). Judith Temple has come West to Arizona for some excitement. As she says goodbye to her brother and his wife, who are returning to the East, Dr. Neil Cranford, who is in love with her, is called away to tend the broken ribs of a man injured in a barroom brawl.

Woman Hungry

1931

A Notorious Affair poster
4.5

A scheming musician seduces a wealthy woman for love and money.

A Notorious Affair

1930

Cross Streets poster
6.0

A man falls in love with a young woman, only to discover that she's the daughter of an ex-girlfriend who jilted him almost 20 years before.

Cross Streets

1934

Lawyer Man poster
6.1

Idealistic attorney Anton Adam makes headlines when he successfully prosecutes prominent New York City political party boss John Gilmurry. Adam's sudden renown attracts the attention of high-profile legal eagle Granville Bentley, who asks Adam to become a partner in his firm. But Adam's rising career nosedives when he's framed by corrupt Dr. Gresham and a sexy actress in a trumped-up breach of promise suit. The only constant in Adam's life is the loyalty and unrequited love of his secretary, Olga.

Lawyer Man

1932

Change of Heart poster
6.3

Catherine and Mack and their close friends Chris and Madge graduate from a West Coast college and fly to New York City to find work.

Change of Heart

1934

Blackmailer poster
6.5

Dinner party guests become murder suspects when an extortionist they all hated turns up dead.

Blackmailer

1936

Reno poster
10.0

Felicia Brett is married to Alexander W. Brett, a bullying and unfaithful man who openly flaunts his affair with Rita. Pushed to her limit, Felicia travels to Reno, Nevada, to establish residency and file for divorce. While in Reno, Felicia encounters her old childhood flame, Dick Belden. Alexander, desperate to avoid a settlement and gain sole custody of their young son Bobby, follows Felicia to Reno. He attempts to manufacture evidence of adultery by trapping Felicia in a compromising situation with Dick. Alexander initially succeeds in using this falsified evidence to take custody of Bobby. However, the story reaches a melodramatic conclusion when Alexander is killed in a sudden avalanche. Because the divorce had not yet been finalized, Felicia becomes Alexander's widow rather than his ex-wife, which grants her both her son and the freedom to marry Dick.

Reno

1930

Children of Pleasure poster
5.5

A successful songwriter, dazzled by high society, falls for a society girl who is just playing around.

Children of Pleasure

1930

The Other Tomorrow poster
10.0

The Other Tomorrow, a love-triangle drama, is a lost American Pre-Code film, directed by Lloyd Bacon and produced by First National Pictures, a subsidiary of Warner Bros.

The Other Tomorrow

1930

In Old Santa Fe poster
5.8

Gangster Chandler and his accomplice Tracy arrive at a dude ranch. Cowboy Kentucky arrives at the same time. When Tracy double-crosses his boss and has the stage robbed, Kentucky finds the outlaws and brings them in. Tracy frames him for the murder of the driver but his pal Cactus gets him out of jail. He returns just as Chandler shoots Tracy and Kentucky finds himself arrested for another murder.

In Old Santa Fe

1934

From Headquarters poster
6.1

A wealthy Broadway playboy is found dead, and it comes to light that he was a vicious blackmailer. It's up to police lieutenant Jim Stevens to pick the murderer out of several likely candidates. Meanwhile, Stevens embarks on a torrid affair with Lou Ann Winton, who may or may not be involved.

From Headquarters

1933

Her Mad Night poster
3.8

A woman is accused of murdering a man who molested her young daughter.

Her Mad Night

1932

70,000 Witnesses poster
5.7

College football player is asked to dope a star teammate by his crooked gambler brother. He refuses, but they player is doped anyway and collapses and dies. A detective has the whole game re-enacted to find important clues.

70,000 Witnesses

1932

Murder at Midnight poster
5.7

Wealthy Mr. Kennedy shoots his secretary, Channing, during a parlor game, but it turns out the gun was loaded with real bullets. Luckily, criminologist Phillip Montrose is on hand to help the police. When Kennedy quickly ends up dead as well, the police think it's a tidy murder-suicide, but the family lawyer knows of a letter that voiced Kennedy's suspicions about someone who was out to get him. Soon, the cops are on the trail of a ruthless and clever killer who is one step ahead of even Montrose.

Murder at Midnight

1931

Whispering Smith Speaks poster
10.0

O'Brien is "Whispering" Smith, so named because he speaks softly but knows how to fend for himself. The son of a railroad president, Smith is determined to learn the business from the ground up, so he gets a job as a track walker for his dad's rail line. While going about his duties, he meets Nan Roberts (Irene Ware), who is about to sell her Colorado ranch. Smith finds out that there are valuable tungsten deposits on her land and makes certain she won't be cheated by the villains

Whispering Smith Speaks

1935

Lawful Larceny poster
6.5

When Marion Corsey's husband, Andrew, is conned out of a small fortune by Vivian Hepburn, she dedicates herself to recovering the money.

Lawful Larceny

1930

No artwork available
NR

A Marjorie Beebe short comedy where she ends up next to lunatic driver Vernon Dent among other weird situations.

The Bride's Mistake

1931

Daring Daughters poster
7.0

A savvy city girl tries to protect her naive sister, who has just moved from the country, from the temptations--and men--of big-city life.

Daring Daughters

1933

No artwork available
7.0

He Trumped Her Ace is a black-and-white comedy short.

He Trumped Her Ace

1930

Young Onions poster
NR

After several years of dull marriage, Alfred (Forrester Harvey) and Dorothy (Dorothy Granger), Dorothy is yearning for romance while Alfred just turns over and snores. Pete Boyle (Kenneth Thomson), the cad, suggests she take a trip to Mexico. THey fuss and she takes the trip, while Alfred wakes up and goes to Mailbu and chases some surf cuties. A Pre-code short.

Young Onions

1932

1920s · 15 titles

The King of Kings poster
6.4

The King of Kings is the Greatest Story Ever Told as only Cecil B. DeMille could tell it. In 1927, working with one of the biggest budgets in Hollywood history, DeMille spun the life and Passion of Christ into a silent-era blockbuster. Featuring text drawn directly from the Bible, a cast of thousands, and the great showman’s singular cinematic bag of tricks, The King of Kings is at once spectacular and deeply reverent—part Gospel, part Technicolor epic.

The King of Kings

1927

The Broadway Melody poster
5.1

The vaudeville act of Harriet and Queenie Mahoney comes to Broadway, where their friend Eddie Kerns needs them for his number in one of Francis Zanfield's shows. When Eddie meets Queenie, he soon falls in love with her—but she is already being courted by Jock Warriner, a member of New York high society. Queenie eventually recognizes that, to Jock, she is nothing more than a toy, and that Eddie is in love with her.

The Broadway Melody

1929

Turkish Delight poster
8.0

A New York rug merchant inherits a harem.

Turkish Delight

1927

Say It with Songs poster
5.5

Joe Lane, radio entertainer and songwriter, learns that the manager of the studio, Arthur Phillips, has made improper advances to his wife, Katherine. Infuriated, Lane engages him in a fight, and the encounter results in Phillips' accidental death. Joe goes to prison for a few years, and when he is released he visits his son, Little Pal, at school and is begged by him to run away together.

Say It with Songs

1929

The Girl from Havana poster
10.0

Joan Anders, a girl detective for a jewelers' protective association, poses as a chorus girl in a musical comedy troupe to capture a gang of jewel thieves.

The Girl from Havana

1929

Man Bait poster
8.0

Madge Dreyer is a sales girl in a large department store whose street-wise past long ago taught her how to handle any situation. A small adventure with her boss leads to her getting fired. She takes a job as a taxi-dancer in a dime-a-dance joint, and meets and falls in love with a rich playboy, Jeff Sanford, and he with her. Jeff is now faced with convincing his society-parents that he has made a wise choice.

Man Bait

1927

The Street of Illusion poster
10.0

Directed by Erle C. Kenton. With Virginia Valli, Ian Keith, Harry Myers, Kenneth Thomson.

The Street of Illusion

1928

The Veiled Woman poster
9.0

A woman tells a girl who's just been rescued from a notorious rake, four stories of men from her own life, one of whom she had to kill to protect herself.

The Veiled Woman

1929

The Secret Hour poster
7.0

An Elderly fruit grower sends a photo of his foreman, not himself, to a waitress he wishes to marry. She falls in love with the foreman.

The Secret Hour

1928

White Gold poster
6.5

A sheep farmer brings his new wife to his father's ranch and the old man takes an instant dislike to her.

White Gold

1927

Risky Business poster
7.0

A domineering mother sets out to break up the romance and possible marriage of her daughter, Cecily Stoughton, with Ted Pyncheon by several contrived devices and bringing in other candidates more to her liking.

Risky Business

1926

The Careless Age poster
8.0

Sir John Hayward, a noted surgeon, decides that his son Wyn, a medical student, needs a vacation as a temporary diversion from his studies. At Como, Wyn meets and falls in love with Rayetta Muir, an unprincipled actress who trifles with him. In London, Rayetta avoids seeing Wyn, ready to forget him. Wyn is crazed when he learns that Rayetta is intimate with both Lord Durhugh, an old roué, and Le Grand, a French boxer; and in a rage he chokes Rayetta and leaves her for dead. He then confesses to his father that he has killed her. Preparing to take the blame, Sir John, accompanied by Wyn, goes to Rayetta's apartment to find that she did not die after all. A lost film.

The Careless Age

1929

No artwork available
4.0

The Bellamy Trial is a 1929 American drama film directed by Monta Bell and written by Monta Bell and Joseph Farnham.

The Bellamy Trial

1929

Almost Human poster
8.3

John Livingston is a rich mama's-boy, who owns a blooded dog named Paul. Paul meets Maggie Mutt, and Paul, being a pedigree canine and somewhat of a cad, lures trusting Maggie to the barn to have his way. He then departs for his palatial doghouse at the Livingston estate. Meanwhile Maggie is broken-hearted and also finds that she is in a "family way", and gives birth to a pup she names Hank. Maggie tells Hank to find his "human ", and departs the scene. Hank goes to the park, meets a "human" named Mary Kelly, who is a homeless waif and sweetheart of poverty, and the two adopt each other. Later on in the park Paul comes strolling along with his 'human', John. A child falls into the lake and Paul and Hank team up to save her.

Almost Human

1927

Corporal Kate poster
NR

Frequently cited as one of the first war films to feature the female angle, “Corporate Kate” is the story of a pair of Brooklyn manicurists who go to France during WWI to entertain the troops with a song-and-dance act. Both girls struggle not only with the brutalities of war but also with their love for the same man.

Corporal Kate

1926