James Stephenson

James Stephenson

British stage actor James Stephenson made his film debut quite late in life, at the age of 49, in 1937, making four pictures that year. Warner Bros. got a glimpse of this distinguished gent and signed him to a contract where he indulged himself in urbane villainy. Proving a reliable support in such films as Boy Meets Girl (1938), You Can't Get Away with Murder (1939), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), and the classic adventure The Sea Hawk (1940), he was entrusted by director William Wyler and mega-star Bette Davis to play the sympathetic role of the family attorney Howard Joyce in The Letter (1940). It was the role of a lifetime and he didn't let them down for he earned an Oscar nomination in the process. Stephenson was soon on a roll, playing the titular sleuth in Calling Philo Vance (1940) and was first-billed in the above-average "B" movie Shining Victory (1941) when he died suddenly in 1941 of a heart attack at the rather young age of 53. Date of Death:  29 July 1941, Pacific Palisades, California  (heart attack)

  • Title: James Stephenson
  • Popularity: 0.3256
  • Known For: Acting
  • Birthday: 1889-04-13
  • Place of Birth: Selby, Yorkshire, England, UK
  • Homepage:
  • Also Known As:
img

James Stephenson Movies

  • 1939
    imgMovies

    Devil's Island

    Devil's Island

    5.4 1939 HD

    A French doctor sentenced for treason performs brain surgery on the prison commandant's daughter.

    img
  • 1940
    imgMovies

    The Sea Hawk

    The Sea Hawk

    7.164 1940 HD

    Dashing pirate Geoffrey Thorpe plunders Spanish ships for Queen Elizabeth I and falls in love with Dona Maria, a beautiful Spanish royal he captures.

    img
  • 1939
    imgMovies

    King of the Underworld

    King of the Underworld

    6.4 1939 HD

    Physician Carole Nelson, suspected of having ties to notorious gangster Joe Gurney, must prove her innocence or the Medical Board will revoke her license. When Gurney seeks her out for treatment after being shot, it could be the break Nelson needs. Now she has a chance to use her medical know-how to outwit Gurney and his goons and reestablish her professional reputation.

    img
  • 1939
    imgMovies

    Beau Geste

    Beau Geste

    6.935 1939 HD

    When three brothers join the Foreign Legion to escape a troubled past, they find themselves trapped under the command of a sadistic sergeant deep in the scorching Sahara. Now the brothers must fight for their lives as they plot mutiny against tyranny and defend a desert fortress against a brutal enemy.

    img
  • 1939
    imgMovies

    The Old Maid

    The Old Maid

    7.028 1939 HD

    The lives of two cousins are complicated by the return of an ex-boyfriend and an illegitimate child.

    img
  • 1939
    imgMovies

    The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex

    The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex

    6.3 1939 HD

    This period drama frames the tumultuous affair between Queen Elizabeth I and the man who would be King of England.

    img
  • 1938
    imgMovies

    Nancy Drew… Detective

    Nancy Drew… Detective

    6.3 1938 HD

    After a wealthy dowager who has made a substantial donation to her alma mater suddenly disappears, Nancy Drew sets out to solve the mystery.

    img
  • 1940
    imgMovies

    The Letter

    The Letter

    7.275 1940 HD

    After a woman shoots a man to death, a damning letter she wrote raises suspicions.

    img
  • 1940
    imgMovies

    Murder in the Air

    Murder in the Air

    4.667 1940 HD

    Enemy agents are everywhere and they are sabotaging all important war deliveries. The body of a hobo found in a train wreck had a money belt with $50,000 and a tattoo of a circle and arrow. This is a tattoo for saboteurs for hire and Brass must impersonate the dead man to find out what his orders are. As Steve Coe, he meets with the band of enemy agents in California and everything goes well until the wife of the dead 'Hobo' shows up. Luckily, Gabby is able to save Brass and Brass learns what is his assignment. He is to board the USN airship 'Mason', which is testing the super secret Inertia Projector, and destroy the airship.

    img
  • 1939
    imgMovies

    Espionage Agent

    Espionage Agent

    5.9 1939 HD

    When Barry Corvall discovers that his new bride is a possible enemy agent, he resigns from the diplomatic service to go undercover to route out an espionage ring planning to destroy American industrial capability.

    img
  • 1939
    imgMovies

    The Monroe Doctrine

    The Monroe Doctrine

    6.7 1939 HD

    The story of President Monroe's response to attempts by Spain to interfere in South America.

    img
  • 1941
    imgMovies

    Flight from Destiny

    Flight from Destiny

    5.375 1941 HD

    After his doctor informs him he will die in six months, Professor Henry Todhunter decides to spend his last days killing someone who contributes nothing but harm to society. When Henry learns that his friend Betty's husband, Michael, has been painting forgeries of ancient paintings for gallery owner Ketti Moret, he investigates the fraudulent dealer's life. Judging that Ketti is truly evil, Henry prepares to murder her.

    img
  • 1940
    imgMovies

    Wolf of New York

    Wolf of New York

    7 1940 HD

    A New York attorney defends a young man with a criminal past who has been accused of murdering a police inspector.

    img
  • 1939
    imgMovies

    Secret Service of the Air

    Secret Service of the Air

    5.625 1939 HD

    Brass Bancroft and his sidekick Gabby Watters are recruited onto the secret service and go undercover to crack a ruthless gang that smuggles illegal aliens.

    img
  • 1939
    imgMovies

    On Trial

    On Trial

    5.5 1939 HD

    An ambitious attorney (Edward Norris) tries to prove a man (John Litel) who killed to protect his wife's (Margaret Lindsay) honor was justified.

    img
  • 1940
    imgMovies

    River's End

    River's End

    6 1940 HD

    An escaped criminal pretends to be a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in order to prove his innocence of murder. Star Dennis Morgan plays two roles.

    img
  • 1940
    imgMovies

    Calling Philo Vance

    Calling Philo Vance

    5.9 1940 HD

    Philo is in Vienna working for the US Government to see if Archer Coe is selling aircraft designs to foreign powers. He grabs the plans with Archer's signature, but is captured by police before he can escape. Deported he comes back to America and plans to confront Archer, but Archer is found dead in his locked bedroom with a gun in his hand. While it looks like a suicide, Vance knows better and the coroner finds that Archer has been shot, hit with a blunt instrument and stabbed - making suicide unlikely. But Vance is on the case and is looking to see if government secrets have been sold and who has murdered Coe. This is a remake of "The Kennel Murder Case" using aircraft designs and espionage instead of Chinese porcelain and dog shows.

    img
  • 1939
    imgMovies

    The Adventures of Jane Arden

    The Adventures of Jane Arden

    5.7 1939 HD

    Reporter Jane Arden goes undercover to try to expose a gang of jewel thieves and smugglers. Her mission becomes more dangerous when her identity is discovered early on by one of the gang leaders.

    img
  • 1938
    imgMovies

    When Were You Born

    When Were You Born

    5 1938 HD

    A San Francisco astrologer correctly predicts a ship passenger's death and then helps the police look for the murderer.

    img
  • 1941
    imgMovies

    Shining Victory

    Shining Victory

    5.9 1941 HD

    In a Scottish sanitarium, a brilliant research psychiatrist works on a treatment for dementia praecox. He falls for his altruistic female lab assistant and they begin a passionate, tragic relationship.

    img
  • 1939
    imgMovies

    Sons of Liberty

    Sons of Liberty

    6.2 1939 HD

    Set during the American Revolution, this colorful 2 reel short tells the story of Haym Salomon, American patriot and financier of the American Revolution.

    img
  • 1938
    imgMovies

    White Banners

    White Banners

    5.8 1938 HD

    A homeless woman named Hannah drifts into the lives of the kindly Ward family, in a small Indiana town in 1919. Hannah makes herself useful as a cook and housekeeper and stays with the Wards... but her real interest is in meeting their neighbor, teenager Peter Trimble. It turns out that Peter is the son she bore out of wedlock and gave up for adoption, and now Hannah has returned to town to see what sort of young man her son has become.

    img
  • 1939
    imgMovies

    Wanted by Scotland Yard

    Wanted by Scotland Yard

    1 1939 HD

    A safecracker, just released from prison, falls in love with a young woman who wants him to go straight. He finds, however, that going straight is easier said than done.

    img
  • 1938
    imgMovies

    Cowboy from Brooklyn

    Cowboy from Brooklyn

    4.5 1938 HD

    A singing cowboy turns out to be a tenderfoot.

    img
  • 1938
    imgMovies

    Boy Meets Girl

    Boy Meets Girl

    6.5 1938 HD

    Two lazy screenwriters need a story for the studio's cowboy star. A studio waitress turns out to be pregnant. This gives them the idea for a movie about a cowboy and a baby. The waitress's baby becomes the star. The cowboy and his agent run off with the waitress and her valuable asset. The writers retaliate by hiring an unemployed extra to impersonate the baby's father. But the extra already knows the waitress...

    img
  • 1940
    imgMovies

    South of Suez

    South of Suez

    4 1940 HD

    Greedy diamond mine owner Eli Snedeker, resentful that his ex-foreman John Gamble stopped him from taking over kindly, but drunken, mine owner Roger Smythe's mine just as he was about to strike it rich, kills Smythe and blames it on Gamble. Grabbing the diamonds, Gamble flees Africa to England where he changes his name and begins a new life. What he hasn't counted on, though, is meeting and falling in love with Smythe's daughter Katherine, who falls in love with him but can't marry him until she can deal with her hatred of John Gamble, the man she believes killed her father.

    img
  • 1937
    imgMovies

    You Live and Learn

    You Live and Learn

    1 1937 HD

    American chorus-girl Mamie Wallace (Farrell) travels to Paris with a ramshackle touring musical revue. The company runs out of money, and it looks as though Mamie and her dancing colleagues are going to be stranded in Europe with no way home. Luckily, she meets a handsome, well-spoken Englishman Peter Millett (Hulbert), who falls in love with her and proposes marriage. Under the impression that he is a man of means, she readily accepts, imagining an entrée to English high society. The couple return to England and Mamie discovers to her horror that not only is her new home a decrepit farmhouse out in the sticks, but that Peter is a widower and his three children also come as part of the package.

    img
  • 1939
    imgMovies

    Confessions of a Nazi Spy

    Confessions of a Nazi Spy

    6 1939 HD

    FBI agent Ed Renard investigates the pre-War espionage activities of the German-American Bund.

    img
  • 1939
    imgMovies

    We Are Not Alone

    We Are Not Alone

    6.7 1939 HD

    A British doctor and his son's Austrian governess have an affair and are accused of killing his wife.

    img
  • 1938
    imgMovies

    Heart of the North

    Heart of the North

    4 1938 HD

    A two-fisted Canadian Mountie leads lawmen in pursuit of the thieves who stole an Edmonton-bound freighter's cargo.

    img
  • 1939
    imgMovies

    Torchy Blane in Chinatown

    Torchy Blane in Chinatown

    6 1939 HD

    Torchy Blane joins her police-detective fiance to solve a series of murders involving a set of Chinese grave tablets taken and sold to a collector and death-threats written in Chinese characters.

    img
  • 1940
    imgMovies

    A Dispatch from Reuters

    A Dispatch from Reuters

    6.115 1940 HD

    German Julius Reuter sends 19th-century news by carrier pigeon and then by wire, founding a news agency.

    img
  • 1937
    imgMovies

    Transatlantic Trouble

    Transatlantic Trouble

    1 1937 HD

    Max Miller plays a boxer's manager who fails to get fights for his simple-minded boxer. The manager sets up a scene in an American nightclub whereby his fighter gets the chance to knock down the reigning champion. The ruse fails to get the fighter a job but a female acquaintance of the champion takes a fancy to his opponent. The plot develops aboard a ship back to England.

    img
  • 1938
    imgMovies

    The Dark Stairway

    The Dark Stairway

    1 1938 HD

    “Professional jealousy over the discovery of a formula for an anaesthetic leads to murder in a hospital.” - BFI.

    img
  • 1937
    imgMovies

    The Man Who Made Diamonds

    The Man Who Made Diamonds

    1 1937 HD

    “Professor Calthrop, actuated only by scientific motives, and his assistant, out for his own gain, have invented a system for the manufacture of diamonds.” - BFI.

    img
  • 1941
    imgMovies

    International Squadron

    International Squadron

    5.5 1941 HD

    The true story of the exploits of the RAF's (Royal Air Force) foreign legion battling the German Luftwaffe (Nazi Germany's Air Force) during the early months of 1941 during WWII before America officially entered the war at the end of the year when Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan and Hitler declared war on the United States. The United States then drafted all of their airmen and fighter pilot aces into the United States Air Force for their own combat missions against the Luftwaffe

    img
  • 1938
    imgMovies

    Mr. Satan

    Mr. Satan

    1 1938 HD

    img