Francis Lederer Movies

A Woman of Distinction serves as a tailor-made vehicle for Rosalind Russell. The star is cast as Susan Middlecott, a highly respected college dean. As can be expected, Susan is too busy for romance -- at least until handsome professor Alec Stevenson (Ray Milland) enters the picture. At first, the dean and the prof are thrown together by the overzealous machinations of a press agent, and they're none too pleased about it. No matter how hard they try to keep their distance from each other, Susan and Alec constantly find themselves in embarrassing situations in full view of the public. It takes the behind-the-scenes maneuvers of Susan's puckish papa (Edmund Gwenn) to straighten things out. Appearing in unbilled cameos are Lucille Ball as herself, and Ball's future TV cohort Gale Gordon as a railroad ticket agent. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bold for its time (just prior to World War II), Confessions of a Nazi Spy is an expose of a genuine Nazi espionage ring operating in the United States. Dedicated National Socialist Paul Lukas arrives in America to conduct Bund rallies and enlist German-Americans in the service of Hitler. His rabble-rousing speeches inspire a blue collar worker (Francis Lederer) to join a Bund, and then participate in spy activities. FBI agent Edward G. Robinson is assigned to investigate. Extracting a confession from the not-too-bright Lederer, Robinson traces the espionage activities to Lukas. The Nazi official's notoriety and his undesirability as a security risk compels the German secret police to kidnap Lukas and spirit him back to the Fatherland, presumably to face liquidation. The spy ring is rounded up, but Robinson realizes that this is only the beginning. Confessions of a Nazi Spy may seem dated today, but in 1939 it packed a real wallop, especially since most filmmakers of that era chose to ignore the Nazis lest they lose the valuable European market. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on the novel by Octave Mirbeau, Diary of a Chambermaid is a noble experiment: a "Continental" sex drama with a virtually all-Anglo cast. Paulette Goddard plays the title character, a saucy servant named Celestine whose forthrightness has a curious effect on a wealthy Parisian household. Determined to elevate her lot in life, Celestine uses her unsubtle charms to beguile her wishy-washy master, Monsieur Lanlaire (Reginald Owen), and Lanlaire's wastrelly son, Georges (Hurd Hatfield). She also inadvertently inspires the lovesick valet Joseph (Francis Lederer) to steal from the family and kill Georges. Burgess Meredith, Goddard's then-husband, delivers an astonishing performance as Mauger, the Lanlaires' bizarre, shell-shocked neighbor (he also wrote the screenplay and co-produced). Diary of a Chambermaid was remade by Luis Buñuel in 1964, with Jeanne Moreau in the lead. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This silent-screen classic, like many others produced near the end of the silent era, was both a theatrical extravaganza boasting an original orchestral score and an item which languished in obscurity for many years. When Carlo Piccardi took what was left of the score by Maurice Jaubert and re-created it, the existing footage was restored and paired with a new orchestral performance which was shown in Paris in 1988. The film's story concerns the travails of a woman who has been living quite comfortably as the mistress of a colonel in the Tsar's army in Russia. However, she eventually encounters a penniless young lieutenant and falls madly in love with him, as he does with her. Despite her best intentions of remaining with the colonel, and his intention to avoid trouble with his fellow soldiers, they cannot forswear this relationship, and tragedy is the inevitable result. The title refers to a moving incident in the story, and translates as "the wonderful lie of Nina Petrovna." ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Ihre Majestaet die Liebe (Her Majesty, Love) stars Kaethe von Nagy as a charming Berlin barmaid, in love with aristocratic Franz Lederer. The hero's stuffy businessman brother disapproves of the romance and tries to buy the girl off, while her ex-vaudevillian father Szoeke Sakall (later known as S. Z. Sakall) does his best to marry the girl off to a wealthy baron. Thanks to a series of unfortunate misunderstandings, the heroine ends up as the baron's bride, but the couple comes to the mutual agreement that the marriage is a mistake, and the baron gives the girl a divorce -- making her a baroness in the process and thus a suitably "high born" bride for the faithful Lederer. Ihre Majestaet die Liebe was remade in Hollywood as Her Majesty Love, with Marilyn Miller as the heroine and W. C. Fields as her father. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed on location, Lisbon was the second directorial endeavor of actor Ray Milland. The story revolves around a Portugal-based American smuggler, Capt. Robert John Evans (Milland). Hired by attractive Sylvia Merrill (Maureen O'Hara), Evans agrees to sneak behind the Iron Curtain to locate Sylvia's husband Lloyd Merrill (Percy Marmont). It is understood that Evans is to bring Merrill back dead so that Sylvia can collect her husband's vast fortune, but the tables are turned on Sylvia and her wily co-conspirator, Aristide Mavros (Claude Rains). Put simply, the film is Casablanca and To Have and Have Not in reverse. Other participants in the film's various and sundry intrigues are Francis Lederer as the last-reel dispenser of justice, and Yvonne Furneaux as Rains' buxom mistress. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Czech leading man Francis Lederer made his Hollywood film debut in the appropriately titled Man of Two Worlds. Based on the novel by Ainsworth Morgan, the film casts Lederar as Algo, a naïve Eskimo hunter introduced to civilization by avuncular English sportsman Sir Basil (Henry Stephenson). Unschooled in the ways of British society, Algo falls in love with Joan (Elissa Landi), unaware that her friendliness is merely a courtesy and nothing more. Ultimately disillusioned, the sadder-but-wiser Algo returns to the snowy wastes whence he came. Apparently audiences weren't as captivated by Francis Lederer as RKO Radio had hoped they would be: Man of Two Worlds ended up posting a $220,000 loss at the box office. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Paramount's screwball comedy Midnight is the first collaboration between director Mitchell Leisen and screenwriting duo Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. The film merges Brackett and Wilder's early emphasis on repartee and masquerade with ex-costume designer Leisen's flair for high style and sophistication. American Eve Peabody (Claudette Colbert), a wily ex-showgirl, must impersonate Hungarian royalty in order to infiltrate the Parisian jet set. Midnight begins during a midnight rainstorm as Eve arrives penniless at Paris' Gare de L'Est, owning only the gold lamé gown on her back. She attracts the attention of Hungarian cab driver, Tibor Czerny (Don Ameche), but walks out on their budding romance; Eve will no longer make the mistake of dating for love rather than money. Instead, she finds shelter from the downpour by crashing a socialite's late-night soirée using a pawnticket and a pseudonym, the Baroness Czerny (the cab driver's surname). There, Eve meets aristocrat Georges Flammarion (John Barrymore), who entices her with a place in society if she agrees to remain disguised as the Baroness and seduce his wife's playboy lover. Meanwhile, Tibor Czerny has not given up his search for Eve. When he locates her whereabouts and discovers the fact that she is using his name, Tibor also travels to the Flammarion estate -- to win back Eve, and to pose as her husband, the Baron. What ensues is quintessential screwball comedy, full of deception, love, quadruple entendre, and outright farce. Midnight remains Leisen's most heralded directorial effort, as well as one of Brackett and Wilder's earliest successes. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide

Under the guise of an LSD addict, US secret agent Vincent Deane (Jacques Denbeaux) has managed to hide some top-secret information in one of his "doped" sugar cubes. Unfortunately, Deane is arrested and placed in a Communist-controlled rehabilitation clinic. Posing as Deane's wife, Cinnamon infiltrates the clinic, hoping to retrieve the cube, while Rollin, impersonating Deane's contact, has himself arrested and placed in the selfsame clinic. Veteran Czech character actor Francis Lederer appears as Brobin. Written by William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter, "A Cube of Sugar" first aired on April 1 1967. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A remake of the French comedy Monsieur Sans-Gene, One Rainy Afternoon gets under way when film-actor Phillippe Martin (Francis Lederer) heads to a darkened Parisian movie theater for a romantic rendezvous with his married sweetheart Yvonne (Countess Live de Margaret). But our hero sits in the wrong seat and kisses the wrong young lady: Monique Pelerin (Ida Lupino), the daughter of a powerful publisher Joseph Cawthorn. This innocent mistake snowballs into a national scandal, fomented by the hatchet-faced president (Eily Malyon) of the Purity League, with Phillippe earning the onus of "The Kissing Monster." It all culminates in one of those zany courtroom trails which proliferated in screwball comedies of the 1930s, wherein Phillippe defends himself by insisting that it is in a Frenchman's nature to be romantic, even with perfect strangers -- and as a result he becomes an international hero! One Rainy Afternoon was the first of a handful of United Artists talkies personally produced by studio vice-president Mary Pickford. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this cornball musical comedy, a hillbilly gal and her uncle struggle to keep sly city slickers from getting their land. It is an uphill battle as their farm is located on Fifth Avenue, New York City. The slickers then resort to trickery by offering the girl a phony singing gig on the radio. Unfortunately for them, something goes wrong and the girl's heartfelt singing is heard all over the town. Of course she is a big hit. Songs include: "Hey Junior", "You're Telling I", "Manhattan Holiday", and "Puddin' Head" (all by Eddie Cherkose, Sol Meyer, Jule Styne). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this drama, an Austrian taxi driver dreams of going to the US, but cannot as he has no papers nor identification. One day, an American businessman is waiting for his cab, when another man kills him. The quick-thinking cabbie grabs the dead man's papers and takes over his identity. Later he falls in love with the wife of the killer who thinks that the cab driver is the killer. He finally convinces her that he is innocent, and together they try to flee to America with the killer in hot pursuit. Both the cabby and the killer are captured but the former receives a small sentence. His new love decides to wait for him and happiness ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide