14-09-1889
Birthday
Virgo
Zodiac Sign
-
Genres
98
Total Films
Robert Charles Benchley
Also known as (male)
Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
Place of Birth
14-09-1889
Birthday
Virgo
Zodiac Sign
-
Genres
98
Total Films
Robert Charles Benchley
Also Known As (male)
Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
Place of Birth
actor
98 Works
producer
1 Works
director
45 Works
writer
40 Works
other
4 Works
The Pixar Story
A look at the first years of Pixar Animation Studios - from the success of "Toy Story" and Pixar's promotion of talented people, to the building of its East Bay campus, the company's relationship with Disney, and its remarkable initial string of eight hits. The contributions of John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs are profiled. The decline of two-dimensional animation is chronicled as three-dimensional animation rises. Hard work and creativity seem to share the screen in equal proportions.Year:
2007
Walt Disney's Fables - Vol.6
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.Year:
2004
The Ten-Year Lunch
The story of the legendary wits who lunched daily at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City during the 1920s. The core of the so-called Round Table group included short story and poetry writer Dorothy Parker; comic actor and writer Robert Benchley; The New Yorker founder Harold Ross; columnist and social reformer Heywood Broun; critic Alexander Woollcott; and playwrights George S. Kaufman, Marc Connelly, Edna Ferber and Robert Sherwood.Year:
1987
Showbiz Goes to War
While a few Hollywood celebrities such as James Stewart and Clark Gable saw combat during World War II, the majority used their talents to rally the American public through bond sales, morale-boosting USO tours, patriotic war dramas and escapist film fare. Comedian David Steinberg plays host for this star-studded, 90-minute documentary, which looks at the way Tinseltown helped the United States' war effort.Year:
1982
That's Entertainment, Part II
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.Year:
1976
The Big Parade of Comedy
Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.Year:
1964
Hollywood: The Selznick Years
Henry Fonda hosts this retrospective on the career and films of iconic filmmaker David O. Selznick, who epitomized the era of the auteur producer in the 30s and 40s.Year:
1961
Janie Gets Married
Newlywed Janie's (Joan Leslie) World War II-veteran husband (Robert Hutton) goes to work at her father's (Edward Arnold) newspaper.Year:
1946
The Bride Wore Boots
A bookish husband tries to win back the affections of his horse-breeding wife.Year:
1946
Road to Utopia
While on a ship to Skagway, Alaska, Duke and Chester find a map to a secret gold mine, which had been 'stolen' by thugs. In Alaska to recover her father's map, Sal Van Hoyden falls in with Ace Larson, who secretly wants to steal the gold mine for himself. Duke, Chester, the thugs, Ace and his henchman chase each other all over the countryside—for the map.Year:
1946
The Stork Club
Director Hal Walker's 1945 musical comedy stars Betty Hutton as a hat-check girl at New York City's famous nightclub. The cast also includes Barry Fitzgerald, Don Defore, Andy Russell, Iria Adrian and Robert Benchley.Year:
1945
Snafu
A 14-year-old boy lies about his age and enlists in the United State Marine Corps without his family's consent or knowledge. He is sent into battle in the Pacific war-zone, decorated, and spotted in a newsreel by his family. The family asks the War Department to discharge him and send him home.Year:
1945
Week-End at the Waldorf
Anything can happen during a weekend at New York's Waldorf-Astoria: a glamorous movie star meets a world-weary war correspondent and mistakes him for a jewel thief; a soldier learns that without an operation he'll die and so looks for one last romance with a beautiful but ambitious stenographer; a cub reporter tries to get the goods on a shady man's dealing with a foreign potentate.Year:
1945
Kiss and Tell
Film adaptation of the Broadway hit, about the comic mayhem that erupts in a small town when a 15-year old high-schooler (Shirley Temple) is wrongly suspected of being pregnant.Year:
1945
Hollywood Victory Caravan
A girl is desperate to get to Washington D.C. to be with her lonesome brother, a wounded G.I. She persuades Bing Crosby to let her join his caravan.Year:
1945
Duffy's Tavern
The staff of a record factory drown their sorrows at Duffy's Tavern, while the company owner faces threats of bankruptcy.Year:
1945
Boogie Woogie
While his wife is away, Frederick Stumplefinger lets his kids go out jitterbugging on a school night, only to have his wife return early.Year:
1945
It's in the Bag!
The ringmaster of a flea circus inherits a fortune...if he can find which chair it's hidden in.Year:
1945
Pan-Americana
A New York magazine sends its editors to South America to find beautiful girls.Year:
1945
Practically Yours
In this screwball comedy a WW2 US pilot bombs a Japanese aircraft carrier, is assumed to be dead, and then is misquoted in the press as fondly remembering his days back home walking his dog Piggy. Instead of his dog Piggy he is thought to be in love with Peggy, a girl he worked with. The usual farce ensues after he returns home alive and tries to play along with the mistake to save embarrassment for all.Year:
1944
The National Barn Dance
This film gives a fictionalized version of how the popular real-life radio program of the title began.Year:
1944
Janie
Teenage Janie falls in love with a private from an Army base opposed by her editor father.Year:
1944
Her Primitive Man
An anthropologist unwittingly takes a man disguised as a "primitive man" back to New York as a specimen.Year:
1944
Why Daddy?
When Joe Doakes listens to a quiz show on the radio and knows all the answers, his wife encourages him to go on a quiz show himself. He appears on a new show called "Why Daddy?", where a child and an adult compete against each other, with less than stellar results.Year:
1944
Important Business
Robert takes a train ride to Washington, DC, on "important business."Year:
1944
See Here, Private Hargrove
Journalist Marion Hargrove enters the Army intending to supplement his income by writing about his training experiences. He muddles through basic training at Fort Bragg with the self-serving help of a couple of buddies intent on cutting themselves in on that extra income.Year:
1944
Song of Russia
American conductor John Meredith and his manager, Hank Higgins, go to Russia shortly before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Meredith falls in love with beautiful Soviet pianist Nadya Stepanova while they travel throughout the country on a 40-city tour. Along the way, they see happy, healthy, smiling, free Soviet citizens, blissfully living the Communist dream. This bliss is destroyed by the German invasion.Year:
1944
No News Is Good News
Robert Benchley answers questions ranging from across the political spectrum.Year:
1943
My Tomato
Joe Doakes is lamenting to his wife the lack of variety in his meals. In particular, he misses eating stewed tomatoes, the fruit which he believes incorrectly is being rationed as a war measure. Mrs. Doakes knows that tomatoes aren't rationed, but she doesn't correct him, especially after he announces that he will grow enough tomatoes to feed the entire block. As he proceeds with his tomato garden, he, unaware of what it actually takes to grow tomato plants successfully, accepts advice from the many people who are willing to give it. The problem ends up being that much of the advice is conflicting. But at the end of the process, Joe is pleased with the fact of having grown a fruit to maturity - regardless of the actual yield of the garden - until someone else, or something else, has a say in what happens to that fruit.Year:
1943
Flesh and Fantasy
Anthology film of three tales of the supernatural. The first story is set at the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The second involves a psychic who predicts murder. The third is about a man who literally meets the girl of his dreams.Year:
1943
The Sky's the Limit
Flying Tiger Fred Atwell sneaks away from his famous squadron's personal appearance tour and goes incognito for several days of leave. He quickly falls for photographer Joan Manion, pursuing her in the guise of a carefree drifter.Year:
1943
Show-Business at War
A multi-studio effort to show the newsreel audience the progress of the Hollywood war effort.Year:
1943
Young and Willing
For those, if any, who have wondered why so many Paramount contractees appeared in United Artists' films during the war years, this is another one of the Paramount productions that was sold to United Artists in the early-40's when U.A. was having trouble meeting their exhibitor contracts because of lack of product, mainly due to their loss of production in England. A group of starving, but young and willing, actors band together to share finances and an apartment. Norman Reese (William Holden) orders no love nonsense between the boys and girls till they are set on broadway, but Marge Benson (Barbara Britton) and Tony Dennison (James Beown) are already secretly married. A friend drops in to see Dottie Coburn (Martha O'Driscoll) and is shocked to find the boys and girls sharing the same apartment and insists it is her duty to inform Dottie's father (Jay Fassett.)Year:
1943
I Married a Witch
A 17th-century witch returns to wreak havoc in the life of a descendant of the Puritan witch hunter who burned her.Year:
1942
The Major and the Minor
Returning to her hometown from New York, Susan Applegate learns that she hasn't enough for the train fare and disguises herself as a twelve-year-old to travel for half the price. She hides from the conductors in the compartment of Major Philip Kirby, a military school instructor, who takes the "child" under his wing.Year:
1942
Keeping in Shape
Robert Benchley lectures on physical witness in middle age.Year:
1942
Syncopation
A young trumpeter rises through the jazz world and finds love.Year:
1942
Take a Letter, Darling
A struggling painter takes a job as a secretary to a female advertising executive. While working to obtain an account from a tobacco company, they end up falling in love.Year:
1942
Nothing But Nerves
After some investigation, Robert Benchley finds his nerves are in a bad state. He has the jitters so bad he can't hold his cup still enough to drink his coffee, and he thinks the arrival of some plumbers is just a giant conspiracy to keep him unnerved.Year:
1942
The Witness
As Joe Doakes is reading the newspaper, he begins to talk to himself. Questioned by his wife, he explains that he is disturbed by the paper's account of the ways that a government investigative committee has been interrogating its witnesses. Joe then nods off, and imagines that he is being questioned by the committee. He envisages how satisfying it would be to turn the tables on the investigators.Year:
1942
Bedtime Story
A Braodway playwright wants to keep on writing plays for his wife to star in, but all she wants is to retire to Connecticut and, following a few 'worlds-apart" discussion of the issue, they get a divorce. The actress marries a banker in a fit of pique only to quickly discover the divorce was not valid. She communicates this information to her not-yet ex-husband and he, to prevent consummation of the invalid marriage rescues her by sending plumbers, waiters, porters, chambermaids, bellhops, desk clerks, exterminators and, finally, a crowd of roistering conventioneers to the suite to ensure no bedtime story would take place thereYear:
1941
Three Girls About Town
Faith and Hope Banner, sisters, are "convention hostesses" in a hotel. A body is discovered next door as the magician's convention is leaving and the mortician's convention is arriving, and the sisters, with help from manager Wilburforce Puddle, try to hide it. Complicating matters, Hope's boyfriend, Tommy, is a newspaper reporter in the hotel covering some labor negotiations.Year:
1941
How to Take a Vacation
In this Robert Benchley instructional video, he demonstrates the pitfalls of a homebody husband attempting to take a vacation apart from his wife.Year:
1941
You'll Never Get Rich
A Broadway choreographer gets drafted and coincidentally ends up in the same army base as the boyfriend of his object of affection.Year:
1941
The Reluctant Dragon
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.Year:
1941
The Forgotten Man
Robert Benchley's wry forerunner to "Father of the Bride" detailing his perspective of the upcoming nuptials.Year:
1941
Crime Control
A police officer alerts his audience to the fact that inanimate objects can be as dangerous as human criminals. He then displays several offenders that have recently been brought in. Shoelaces, for example, have an objectionable habit of breaking at crucial moments. The officer proceeds to call attention to window shades, bedroom slippers, and other menaces. He also answers his critics who advocate reasoning with these objects rather than punishing them.Year:
1941
Nice Girl?
Jane is a nice girl and has had her eyes on a young man who seems more interested in his hand-built car than in Jane. She decides to shed her "nice girl" image when an associate of her father comes to town on his way to study Australian Aboriginal tribes.Year:
1941
Waiting for Baby
Robert Benchley aims his keen observational skills toward expectant fathers.Year:
1941
The Trouble with Husbands
Benchley, in his own unique way, starts to drive his wife crazy. First he waits until just as she is serving dinner before he goes to wash his hands and shave. Then she sends him to the store for some butter, and he comes back with everything - except butter. Finally, he decides to install a small shelf on the wall - and makes a major production out of it.Year:
1940
Hired Wife
Ad man Stephen Dexter asks his secretary Kendall to marry him as a loophole in order to protect his finances during an important business deal. Once the deal is completed, he asks Kendall for a divorce and is dismayed when she refuses.Year:
1940
Foreign Correspondent
American crime reporter John Jones is reassigned to Europe as a foreign correspondent to cover the imminent war. When he walks into the middle of an assassination and stumbles on a spy ring, he seeks help from a beautiful politician’s daughter and an urbane English journalist to uncover the truth.Year:
1940
Home Movies
A comedy short staring Robert Benchley. He tries to show us how to make our own movies.Year:
1940
That Inferior Feeling
Joe Doakes, like most men, is unable to cope with personal emergencies or those in a position of authority (real or imagined).Year:
1940
See Your Doctor
A lecturer tells the audience that it is National Take Care Week. He tells the story of a man who gets stung in his garden and the problems the man has when he seeks treatment at the doctor's office.Year:
1939
The Day of Rest
Joe Doakes tries to take a day off.Year:
1939
How to Eat
Humorist Robert Benchley discusses the issue of food and how different situations can affect one's ability to consume and digest food, using his stock everyman and slightly bumbling character Joe Doakes to dramatize such situations. Situations that can impede digestion include receiving bad news resulting in stress, being in love, and feeling scared. Snacking or nibbling between meals can ruins one's appetite at meal time. Having the correct posture while eating is important for digestion; finding the right posture can be difficult in certain circumstances, such as being on a picnic or eating in bed (specifically for men when using trays). Sharing tables with staring strangers may also impede digestion. And it's difficult to digest food when one can't get any of it.Year:
1939
Home Early
A businessman goes home early to surprise his family and is treated with suspicion, mostly by his wife's bridge club.Year:
1939
Dark Magic
A man buys a magic set for his son, but the tricks worked better in the store than they do at home.Year:
1939
An Hour for Lunch
Benchley shows how to budget one's time during lunch hour to get things done efficiently. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned.Year:
1939
How to Sub-Let
A man fumbles through an apartment sub-let assessment while his wife is away.Year:
1939
Mental Poise
In this comedic short, a psychoanalyst encounters a patient who eerily resembles himself.Year:
1938
Opening Day
The City Treasurer stands in for the mayor, throwing out the first pitch on Opening Day.Year:
1938
How to Watch Football
Humorist Robert Benchley illustrates the fine points of attending an American football game.Year:
1938
How to Read
Robert Benchley offers a humorous lecture on how to avoid different types of strain during reading.Year:
1938
The Courtship of the Newt
Robert Benchley revamps his pre-code classic "Sex Life of the Polyp" for a new generation.Year:
1938
How to Raise a Baby
American humorist Robert Benchley provides a comedic look at the difficulty in being a father.Year:
1938
An Evening Alone
Robert Benchley's everyman spends an evening home alone.Year:
1938
Music Made Simple
Benchley fills in for a music critic on a radio show. His performance is less than stellar.Year:
1938
How to Figure Income Tax
A man humorously attempts to give an overview of income taxes.Year:
1938
How to Start the Day
Benchley tries his best to demonstrate the routine one should follow to start the day right.Year:
1937
A Night at the Movies
A Night at the Movies is a short film starring Robert Benchley. It was Benchley's greatest success since How to Sleep, and won him a contract for more short films that would be produced in New York. In this comedic short, a man and his wife suffer through a night at the movies. The film was nominated for an Academy Award at the 10th Academy Awards, held in 1937, for Best Short Subject (One-Reel).Year:
1937
Live, Love and Learn
A starving, uncompromising artist and an heiress fall in love on first sight and immediately get married. She loves his outrageous behaviour, his strange room-mate and the best apartment poverty can buy.Year:
1937
Sunday Night at the Trocadero
A series of vignettes with a loose plot. Featured are Frank Morgan, Groucho Marx, Frank McHugh, Robert Benchley and The Brian Sisters. Not bad, more interesting for the historical significance than for entertainment.Year:
1937
Broadway Melody of 1938
Steve Raleight wants to produce a show on Broadway. He finds a backer, Herman Whipple and a leading lady, Sally Lee. But Caroline Whipple forces Steve to use a known star, not a newcomer. Sally purchases a horse, she used to train when her parents had a farm before the depression and with to ex-vaudevillians, Sonny Ledford and Peter Trott she trains it to win a race, providing the money Steve needs for his show.Year:
1937
The Romance of Digestion
A brief, illustrated lecture on digestion. Aburdist humor is the hallmark of this pseudo-scientific description of biting, chewing, swallowing, and digesting food. The on-screen narrator begins with teeth, "little sentinels" as he calls them, and the tongue. Then it's on to the stomach: he describes the stomach's workings as if it were an office or a factory. He uses an illustration of the side view of a human torso, with mouth, esophagus, and stomach visible, saying it's a photograph of a man with a visible digestive tract.Year:
1937
How to Be a Detective
This Robert Benchley 'How To' comedy short attempts to teach us how to profile criminals by physical characteristics.Year:
1936
How to Vote
A candidate has laryngitis, so his assistant must make a speech in his place. Both the speaker and his audience are soon befuddled.Year:
1936
Piccadilly Jim
Jim's father wants to marry Eugenia, but her sister Netta refuses to allow it. When Jim sees Ann at a club, he falls for her even though she is with Lord Priory. He meets her the next day at the riding path, but she quickly loses him. He searches all over for her, not knowing that his father's hopeful fiancée is her Aunt. As his caricature work suffers as he searches, he is fired from his paper. But he makes a comeback with the comics 'Rags to Riches' which is based upon the Pett's. But this upsets the Pett's so much that they go back to New York, and he follows, being careful not to let them know that he is the one who draws the strip that parodies them.Year:
1936
Sunkist Stars at Palm Springs
Winners of the Lucky Stars National Dance Contest - one woman from each state of the United States - are welcomed to Palm Springs. Palm Springs being the desert playground for the movie stars, the women are introduced to the cavalcade of stars vacationing in Palm Springs at the time.Year:
1936
How to Train a Dog
This comedic short provides a lesson in how NOT to train a dog.Year:
1936
How to Behave
Two men working below a manhole cover wonder what they would do if a woman was to fall in. This leads to one of the workers saying that Robert Benchley always has the best advice about any social situation. Hilarity ensues.Year:
1936
How to Sleep
A lecturer seated at a desk promises an informative film about how to sleep; it's a sequel to and inspired by "How to stay awake," which put his audience to sleep. He plans to examine the causes of sleep, the causes of insomnia, and recent research on sleep, including a time-lapse film of a man changing positions 55 times during an 8-hour rest: why exercise, he asks, when you can sleep like a top? The film instructs one on how to get a drink of water during the night without waking completely, and other useful skills for the insomniac.Year:
1935
China Seas
Captain Alan Gaskell sails the perilous waters between Hong Kong and Singapore with a secret cargo: a fortune in British gold. That's not the only risky cargo he carries; both his fiery mistress and his refined fiancee are aboard!Year:
1935
How to Break 90 at Croquet
Robert Benchley shows how to successfully play croquet.Year:
1935
David O. Selznick: Your New Producer
Clip-filled promotional short by MGM Studios celebrating the body of work by producer David O. Selznick.Year:
1935
Social Register
Chorus girl Patsy Shaw crashes a high-society party, meets playboy Charlie Breen, they fall in love, and are on their merry way to wedded bliss. However, Charlie's snobbish, ever-loving mama doesn't think that Patsy is worthy and sets out to prove it.Year:
1934
Dancing Lady
Janie lives to dance and will dance anywhere, even stripping in a burlesque house. Tod Newton, the rich playboy, discovers her there and helps her get a job in a real Broadway musical being directed by Patch. Tod thinks he can get what he wants from Janie, Patch thinks Janie is using her charms rather than talent to get to the top, and Janie thinks Patch is the greatest. Steve, the stage manager, has the Three Stooges helping him manage all the show girls. Fred Astaire and Nelson Eddy make appearances as famous Broadway personalities.Year:
1933
Rafter Romance
A working girl shares her apartment with an artist, taking the place in shifts.Year:
1933
Headline Shooter
A newsreel photographer neglects his love life to get the perfect shot.Year:
1933
Your Technocracy and Mine
Robert Benchley explains Technocracy with visual aids in his classic befuddled manor.Year:
1933
The Sport Parade
Two Dartmouth football players fall in love with the same girl following college graduation.Year:
1932
Stewed, Fried and Boiled
Stewed, Fried and Boiled is a 1929 comedy short.Year:
1929
Lesson No. 1
Lesson No. 1 is a 1929 comedy short.Year:
1929
Furnace Trouble
Furnace Trouble is a 1929 comedy short.Year:
1929
The Spellbinder
The Spellbinder is a comedy short.Year:
1928
The Sex Life of the Polyp
Dr. Benchley is addressing the Ladies Club on the subject of the reproductive habits of the polyp, a small aquatic organism. Although he is not able to display his live specimens, he has prepared a series of pictures of his subjects. He explains that the subject is made more complicated by the fact that polyps are able to change their sex from time to time. Then he presents some of the pictures of his specimens and the experiments that he has done with them.Year:
1928
The Treasurer's Report
Assistant Treasurer Benchley reports on the annual expenditures of the club for its home for "boys between the ages of 14", and other projects.Year:
1928
