Ellen Corby
Ellen Corby (June 3, 1911 – April 14, 1999) was an American actress and screenwriter. She is best remembered for playing the role of Esther "Grandma" Walton on the CBS television series The Waltons, for which she won three Emmy Awards. She was also nominated for an Academy... Read full bio →
Featured Characters
Roles you can spot in Whatthemovie snapshots
Napoleon and Samantha
11-year old Napoleon lives with his grandfather. He has a good friend who is a clown at a circus. When the clown returns to Europe, Napoleon takes care of lion Major. But the grandfather dies and Napoleon runs off with the lion and his friend Samantha.
Support Your Local Gunfighter
A con artist arrives in a mining town controlled by two competing companies. Both companies think he's a famous gunfighter and try to hire him to drive the other out of town.
The Legend of Lylah Clare
A dictatorial film director (Finch) hires an unknown actress (Novak) to play the lead role in a planned movie biography of a late, great Hollywood star.
The Gnome-Mobile
An eccentric millionaire and his grandchildren are embroiled in the plights of some forest gnomes who are searching for the rest of their tribe. While helping them, the millionaire is suspected of being crazy because he's seeing gnomes! He's committed, and the niece and nephew and the gnomes have to find him and free him.
The Night of the Grizzly
Marshall "Big Jim" Cole turns in his badge and heads to Wyoming with his family in order to settle on some land left him by a relative. He faces opposition both from a neighbor who wants that land for his own sons, and from a grizzly bear nicknamed "Satan" who keeps killing Cole's livestock.
The Glass Bottom Boat
Bruce (Rod Taylor), the owner of a aerospace company, is infatuated with Jennifer (Doris Day) and hires her to be his biographer so that he can be near her and win her affections. Is she actually a Russian spy trying to obtain aerospace secrets?
The Family Jewels
A young heiress must choose between six uncles, one of which is up to no good and out to harm the girl's beloved bodyguard who practically raised her.
The Strangler
An overweight lab technician with low self esteem, brought on by his dominant mother, becomes a serial killer of female nurses.
Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte
The arrival of a lost relative, engulfs terror upon an aging southern belle, forever plagued by a horrifying family secret.
The Caretakers
This movie chronicles the trials of the mentally ill and their care-givers in an over-crowded ward of a hospital.
4 for Texas
Frank Sinatra plays a tough guy who hooks up with fellow rat packer Dean Martin to open a casino in this western.
Pocketful of Miracles
How can a drunken beggar in just one night become a High-Society woman? This type of thing only happens in fairytales. Or maybe in Hollywood.
Visit to a Small Planet
The weirdest alien of the galaxy pays a visit to Earth... Jerry Lewis is Kreton, a childish alien who, against his teacher's will leaves his planet to visit the Earth, and lands in the backyard of a famous television journalist who doesn't believe in UFOs and aliens.
Vertigo
An ex-police officer is asked to follow an old friends wife who thinks she is being followed by ghosts. A classic Hitchcock about a man who’s afraid of heights and a woman he must unfortunately follow to great heights.
Macabre
A doctor's daughter is kidnapped and buried alive, and he is given just five hours to find and rescue her.
Night Passage
Grant MacLaine, a former railroad troubleshooter, lost his job after letting his outlaw brother, the Utica Kid, escape. After spending five years wandering the west and earning his living playing the accordion, he is given a second chance by his former boss.
Stagecoach to Fury
A group of stagecoach passengers are held hostage by bandits waiting for a shipment of gold they plan to steal.
Slightly Scarlet
An urban wheeler-dealer gets involved in organized crime, corrupt city politics and graft while falling in love with the fiancée of the newly elected mayor.
Illegal
A hugely successful DA goes into private practice after sending a man to the chair -- only to find out later he was innocent. Now the drunken attorney only seems to represent criminals and low lifes.
The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters
Slip, Sach and the rest of the Bowery Boys enter a haunted house, where they engage in slapstick with a gorilla, a robot and a vampire
Susan Slept Here
On Christmas Eve, suffering from a case of writer's block, screenwriter Mark Christopher and his gofer Virgil get an unexpected visit from Sergeant Maizel.
Sabrina
After her return from school in Paris, a playboy finally takes notice of his family's chauffeur's daughter, who's long had a crush on him, but he questions his more serious brother's motives when he warns against getting involved with her.
Woman They Almost Lynched
Civil War period film about refined young woman Leslie who comes to Western town and learns to tote gun; title tells the rest.
Shane
A weary gunfighter attempts to settle down with a homestead family, but a smouldering settler and rancher conflict forces him to act.
A Lion Is in the Streets
A charismatic peddler from the Bayous finds his true calling in politics. Is he a demagogue in the making?
The Big Trees
A Quaker colony tries to save the giant sequoias from a timber baron.
The Mating Season
Ellen McNulty leaves her New Jersey hamburger stand and heads west to pay a surprise visit to her son and his new bride. When Ellen arrives, her daughter-in-law mistakes her for the maid she has hired for a big party they are throwing. Rather than cause any embarrassment, Ellen goes along with the charade, which leads to many complications.
Here Comes the Groom
Foreign correspondent Pete Garvey has 5 days to win back his former fiancée, or he'll lose the orphans he adopted.
Angels in the Outfield
The short-tempered manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates mends his ways in return for a little divine assistance.
The Gunfighter
The fastest gun in the West tries to escape his reputation.
Harriet Craig
Harriet Craig enjoys married life but constantly tries to control those around her. She does not even trust her husband Walter and always checks up on him.
Edge of Doom
A priest sets out to catch the man who killed one of his colleagues.
Caged
Caged tells the story of a teenage newlywed, who is sent to prison for being an accessory to a robbery. Her experiences while incarcerated, along with the killing of her husband, change her from a very frightened young girl into a hardened convict.
Mighty Joe Young
After being taken from his home in Africa, Gorilla "Joe" is an instant hit in a Hollywood nightclub. This fun and wonderfully entertaining slant on "King Kong" is much better than Kong's 1934 sequel, "Son of Kong". This all ages adventure has superb special effects from Willis O'Brien and his protege, Ray Harryhausen.
Madame Bovary
A provincial doctor's wife's romantic illusions about life and social status lead her to betray her naive husband, take on lovers and run up ruinous debts.
Little Women
The four daughters of a New England family fight for happiness during and after the Civil War.
A Woman's Secret
Susan is laying in the hospital with a bullet near her heart. Marian has told the police that she shot Susan in a rage as Susan was giving up her singing.
The Noose Hangs High
Two window washers mistakenly receive, and lose, $50,000 belonging to a shady bookie, and have only forty-eight hours to retrieve the money.
The Dark Past
A gang hold a family hostage in their own home. The leader of the escaped cons is bothered by a recurring dream that the doctor of the house may be able to analyze.
I Remember Mama
The ups and downs of a Norwegian immigrant family, circa 1910.
They Won't Believe Me
On trial for murdering his girlfriend, philandering stockbroker Larry Ballentine takes the stand to claim his innocence and describe the actual, but improbable sounding, sequence of events that led to her death.
The Unfaithful
Christine Hunter kills an intruder and tells her husband and lawyer that it was an act of self-defense. It's later revealed that he was actually her lover and she had posed for an incriminating statue he created.
The Long Night
City police surround a building attempting to capture a suspected murder. The suspect knows there is no escape but refuses to give in.
The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer
Teenager Susan Turner, with a severe crush on playboy artist Richard Nugent, sneaks into his apartment to model for him and is found there by her sister Judge Margaret Turner. Threatened with jail, Nugent agrees to date Susan until the crush abates.
Railroaded!
A mobster frames an innocent man for the killing of a cop during a bookie joint holdup being run in the back of a beauty salon. Can Police Sgt. Mickey Ferguson be convinced that his girlfriend's brother is being railroaded?
Forever Amber
Amber St Clair means to get on in life and despite a poor background knows she has the assets to do it. Husbands, lovers, prison and a liaison with King Charles II form a tapestry of apparently calculating ups and downs, although in fact the one love of her life, Bruce Carlton, is never far from Amber's thoughts.
Born to Kill
Helen Brent (Claire Trevor) has just received a Reno divorce. That night, she discovers one of her neighbors, Laury Palmer, and a gentleman caller murdered in Palmer's home. The killer is her neighbor's other boyfriend, Sam Wilde (Lawrence Tierney), an insanely jealous man who won't abide anyone "cutting in" on him.
The Locket
A dark personal secret drives a young woman to use every man she encounters.
The Dark Corner
Ex con turned private investigator Bradford Galt (Mark Stevens) suspects someone is following him and maybe even trying to kill him. With the assistance of his spunky secretary, Lucille Ball, he dives deep into a mystery in search of answers.
Sister Kenny
True story of the Australian nurse who fought to gain acceptance for her polio-treatment methods.
It's a Wonderful Life
An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would had been like if he never existed.
From This Day Forward
A young American soldier, with an honorable discharge, returns home from World War II to his bride, whom he married after a short courtship and has not seen for several years. The two come together with many questions, trials and tribulations in trying to preserve their marriage in the post-war years.
Crack-Up
Art curator George Steele experiences a train wreck...which never happened. Is he cracking up, or the victim of a plot?
Bedlam
London, 1761. St. Mary's of Bethlehem, a sinister madhouse, is visited by wealthy people who enjoy watching the patients confined there as if they were caged animals. Nell Bowen, one of the visitors, is horrified by the deplorable living conditions of the unfortunate inhabitants of this godforsaken place, better known as Bedlam.
The Spiral Staircase
A serial killer stalks a mute servant girl in a remote mansion.
Cornered
A World War II veteran hunts down the Nazi collaborators who killed his wife.
Babes in Toyland
Ollie Dee and Stannie Dum try to borrow money from their employer, the toymaker, to pay off the mortgage on Mother Peep's shoe and keep it and Little Bo Peep from the clutches of the evil Barnaby. When that fails, they trick Barnaby, enraging him.
Sons of the Desert
Ollie and Stan deceive their wives into thinking they are taking a medically necessary cruise when they are really going to a lodge convention.