Hamilton MacFadden
Directing
Biography
Hamilton MacFadden (April 26, 1901 – January 1, 1977) was an American actor, screenwriter and film director. MacFadden's parents were Rev. Robert A. MacFadden and Edith Hamilton MacFadden. His father died in 1909, leaving his mother to support herself and four children. In 1928, she became the first woman to file papers to run for governor of Massachusetts. MacFadden was a 1925 graduate of Harvard University. Soon after graduating, he became producer of the American Theatre Company, which presented plays for 10 weeks in the Boston area. The project was backed by Michael Strange, a writer who made her professional stage debut in the productions. He also served as director of the Community Arts Association in Santa Barbara, California, and the Theatre Guild School of Acting in New York. Plays that MacFadden produced on Broadway included Gods of the Lightning and La Gringa. After starting out on Broadway in the 1920s, he moved into filmmaking in Hollywood. During the early 1930s he was a contract director at Fox. McFadden made a number of films for them including several early entries in the Charlie Chan series such as Charlie Chan Carries On (1931). He was released from his Fox contract following the 1934 merger with Twentieth Century Pictures. Thereafter he mixed occasional directing jobs with a number of small supporting appearances in films. Later in his career, MacFadden was associate chief of the United States Department of State's international motion picture division.
Known For
Private eye Mike Shayne encounters a large amount of trouble while attempting to guard a murder witness.
Sleepers West
Humorist Robert Benchley attempts to find Walt Disney to ask him to adapt a short story about a gentle dragon who would rather recite poetry than be ferocious. Along the way, he is given a tour of Walt Disney Studios, and learns about the animation process.
The Reluctant Dragon
J. Carrol Naish plays a slimy villain again; this time he's running a casino on a ship and smuggling furs past the Coast Guard.
Sea Racketeers
President Franklin Roosevelt appoints a theatrical producer as the new Secretary of Amusement in order to cheer up an American public still suffering through the Depression. The new secretary soon runs afoul of political lobbyists out to destroy his department.
Stand Up and Cheer!
Two classic animated shorts from the Disney studios. In 'The Reluctant Dragon' (1941), a young boy and a famous dragon fighter team up to teach a docile dragon the art of being a force to be reckoned with. In 'Mickey and the Beanstalk' (1947), Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck confront the fearsome Willie the Giant to try to retrieve the magical singing harp to Happy Valley.
Walt Disney's Fables - Vol.6
A detective's wedding is postponed when gunshots are heard nearby.
Dressed to Kill
Mary Whitman has gone to Reno to obtain a divorce. While there she is arrested on suspicion of murdering a fellow guest at her hotel (which specializes in divorcers). There are many others at the hotel who wanted the victim out of the way. Charlie comes from his home in Honolulu to solve the murder.
Charlie Chan in Reno
Newspaperman (Whalen) looks into the deaths of bond-carriers while romancing a show girl (Rogers).
While New York Sleeps
When a jury member takes in the defendant he couldn't convict, she has a bad influence on his son.
The Lady in Question
Charlie's visit to Paris, ostensibly a vacation, is really a mission to investigate a bond-forgery racket. But his agent, apache dancer Nardi is killed before she can tell him much. The case, complicated by a false murder accusation for banker's daughter Yvette, climaxes with a strange journey through the Paris sewers.
Charlie Chan in Paris
Bob Carter, a member of the Foreign Legion, is glad to see his brother, Don, for the first time in ten years but is sorry that Don has joined the Legion. Bob, Don and Bob's buddies, Muggsy and Bilgey, go to a café and there Don falls for Nina, a singer in love with Bob. Bob doesn't know this and thinks she is Garccia's girl, and warns Don to have nothing to do with her. Don disregards the warning and Garcia discovers Nina and Don together and provokes Don into hitting him. Don is arrested and thrown into the company brig. Nina, with the aid of an Arabian sheik, Ul Ahmed, helps Don escape. Bob, Muggsy and Bilgey follow but are captured and taken to Ul Hamid's headquarters. The sheik tortures Don to force Bob to work some captured machine guns for him. Ah Hamid and his tribe attack the fort, but Bob manages to turn the machine guns against his captors, and the fort is saved.
The Legion of Missing Men
Runyonesque crooks on the lam hide out on blind man's pastoral farm and decide to go straight.
Escape by Night
A movie company making a film about a famous sheriff hires his grandson as a stand-in for the lead.
Shooting High
Addie Fippany, her father Jean Paul Batiste Fippany, her mother Josephine and her sister Cecile roam the country-side in a mule-drawn wagon, trading trinkets to farmers for chickens which they sell in the cities. Addie and her father love the care-free life, but Mrs. Fippany and Cecile want to settle down in New York City. As soon as the "chicken wagon family" reaches New York, Addie gets into mischief and a policeman, Matt Hibbard, helps her and falls in love with Cecile. He helps the family settle into a deserted firehouse which is up for public sale.
Chicken Wagon Family
In Rio de Janiero to arrest a nightclub singer on suspicion of a murder in Hawaii, Charlie Chan becomes involved with the Rio police in solving the singer's own murder.
Charlie Chan in Rio
Millionaire sportsman Hiram Brighton hires gumshoe Michael Shayne to keep his spoiled daughter Phyllis away from racetrack betting windows and roulette wheels. After Phyllis slips away and continues her compulsive gambling, Shayne fakes the murder of her gambler boyfriend, who is also romancing the daughter of casino owner Benny Gordon, in order to frighten her. When the tout really ends up murdered, Shayne and Phyllis' Aunt Olivia, an avid reader of murder mysteries, both try to find the identity of the killer.
Michael Shayne: Private Detective
Movie star Shelah Fane is seeing wealthy Alan Jaynes while filming in Honolulu, Hawaii, but won't marry him without consulting famed psychic Tarneverro first. Enter inspector Charlie Chan of the Honolulu Police, investigating the unsolved murder, three years earlier, of a Hollywood actor.
The Black Camel
An "imaginative biography" of Anton Cermak, mayor of Chicago who was killed in the line of fire during an assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in Miami on February 15, 1933.
The Man Who Dared
Young America is a 1942 American drama film directed by Louis King and written by Samuel G. Engel. The film stars Jane Withers, Jane Darwell, Lynne Roberts, Robert Cornell, William Tracy and Roman Bohnen. The film was released on February 6, 1942, by 20th Century Fox.
Young America
Dorothy Mackaill stars in this old-fashioned melodrama set in the Basque country of Spain. She is Emily Stanley, betrothed to foppish Englishman Sir Harry Congers, but in love with Basque peasant Esteban Cristera. Deciding on a final fling before wedlock, Emily goes to Esteban's village in the mountains, but is wounded in a car accident. Recuperating, she learns about the hardships endured by Basque women from Esteban's grandmother and former girlfriend, Stancia, and decides to return to Sir Harry in Biarritz.