Charles Walters Movies
Charles Walters' earliest Broadway years were spent as a chorus dancer. His made his screen bow as a performer in RKO's Seven Days Leave (1942), then forsook acting to serve as choreographer for such MGM musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) and Ziegfeld Follies (1945). Though he directed certain scenes of the latter film without credit, Walters' "official" directorial... (read more) debut was the 1947 remake of Good News. He subsequently directed and helped choreograph such musical films as Easter Parade (1948), The Barkeleys of Broadway (1949), Lili (1952), Jumbo (1962), and The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964); he also helmed the non-musical efforts Torch Song (1953) (in which he appeared onscreen as Joan Crawford's clumsy dance partner), Don't Go Near the Water (1957), and Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960). After spending virtually his entire cinematic life at MGM, Walters bade "adios" to movies with Columbia's Walk, Don't Run (1966), which was also the final film of Cary Grant. Charles Walters emerged from a long retirement to direct a brace of 1970s TV specials starring Lucille Ball. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
The Couch Trip
R 1988
Michael Ritchie's The Couch Trip follows a long line of Hollywood films (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Disorderly Orderly) in which the psychos are seen as...
Colors
R 1988
Colors stars Robert Duvall and Sean Penn as partners on the LAPD's gang crime division. Duvall had hoped to spend more time with his family, but he's pulled back into...
Walk, Don't Run
NR 1966
Cary Grant made his last film appearance before retiring from the screen in this agreeable piece of fluff based on the 1943 comedy The More the Merrier, which dealt with the...
The Unsinkable Molly Brown
1964
Meredith Willson's second Broadway hit (the first and biggest was The Music Man) proved a lucrative vehicle for the equally unsinkable Debbie Reynolds. Based on a true...
Billy Rose's Jumbo
1962
Inasmuch as the spectacular Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart Broadway musical Jumbo was written in 1935, this 1962 film version can't help but seem a little quaint. Still,...
Two Loves
1961
Released in Great Britain as The Spinster, this romantic drama is based on a novel by Sylvia Ashton-Warner. Shirley MacLaine plays Anna Vorontosov, a Pennsylvania-born...
Please Don't Eat the Daisies
1960
In this entertaining comedy by Charles Walters, everyone seems to get in on the act, even the dog and especially the four overactive kids in a wildly challenging family....
Ask Any Girl
1959
Viewers know they're in a 1959 comedy film early in the proceedings of Ask Any Girl, when secretary Shirley MacLaine is advised by her new supervisor Jim Backus to wear a...
Don't Go Near the Water
1957
Obviously inspired by such service comedies as Mister Roberts and Operation Mad Ball, Don't Go Near the Water is a tribute to those "unsung heroes" of WW2: the men and...
High Society
1956
High Society is a glossy Technicolor-and-VistaVision musical remake of Philip Barry's The Philadelphia Story (1940), decked out with million-watt star power and a...
The Tender Trap
1955
Max Shulman and Robert Paul Smith's Broadway hit The Tender Trap is transformed into a beguiling Frank Sinatra film vehicle. Sinatra plays a Manhattan showbiz...
The Glass Slipper
1955
The Glass Slipper is a charming retelling of the Cinderella story, eminently suitable for both kids and adults. Leslie Caron plays Ella, the plain-Jane stepsister of...
Dangerous When Wet
1953
Esther Williams stars in this button-cute musical about a health-conscious family of swimmers who fall in with con man Windy Weebe (Jack Carson). The Higgins family...
Easy to Love
1953
The Cole Porter title tune is but one of the musical highlights in the (literally) splashy Esther Williams musical Easy to Love. Reshuffling plot devices utilized in...
Torch Song
1953
Joan Crawford's first Technicolor feature has come to be known as a textbook example of "high camp." Crawford stars as musical comedy luminary Jenny Stewart, who has been...
Lili
G 1953
Based on the story by Paul Gallico, Lili stars Leslie Caron as the title character, a 16-year-old waif who runs off to join a carnival. Embittered, crippled puppeteer...
The Belle of New York
1952
A lesser Fred Astaire effort, Belle of New York is set during the turn of the century. Astaire plays a footloose and fancy-free playboy who falls in love with Salvation...
Texas Carnival
1951
MGM's new musical screen team of Esther Williams and Howard Keel were given plenty to do in the pleasant if unambitious songfest Texas Carnival. Williams plays Debbie...
Three Guys Named Mike
1951
Pretty stewardess Marcy Lewis (Jane Wyman) must choose between Three Guys Named Mike in this frothy MGM concoction. There's Mike Lawrence (Van Johnson), a science student...
Summer Stock
1950
Summer Stock represented Judy Garland's swan song at MGM. Garland plays the owner of a New England farm which entrepreneur Gene Kelly hopes to convert into a summer...