Edward G. Robinson

Actors

Edward G. Robinson (born Emanuel Goldenberg; Yiddish: ײמאַנועל גאָלדענבערג‎; December 12, 1893 – January 26, 1973) was a Romanian American actor of stage and screen during Hollywood’s Golden Age. He appeared in 30 Broadway plays and more than 100 films during a 50-year career and is best remembered for his tough-guy roles as gangsters in such films as Mervyn LeRoy’s Little Caesar (1931), with with Glenda Farrell and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.; and John Huston‘s Key Largo (1948), with Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, and Claire Trevor. One of his earliest films was Robert Florey’s The Hole in the Wall (1929), with Claudette Colbert.

Films in the 30’s include Smart Money (1931), with James Cagney; Five Star Final (1931), with Aline MacMahon and Boris Karloff; William A. Wellman’s The Hatchet Man (1932), with Loretta Young; Roy Del Ruth’s The Little Giant (1933), with Mary Astor; John Ford‘s The Whole Town’s Talking (1935), with Jean Arthur; Howard Hawks‘ Barbary Coast (1935), with Miriam Hopkins; William Keighley‘s Bullets or Ballots (1936), with Joan Blondell, Barton MacLane, and Bogart; Michael Curtiz‘s Kid Galahad (1937), with Bette Davis and Bogart; Edward Ludwig’s The Last Gangster (1937), with James Stewart; Anitole Litvak’s The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938), with Claire Trevor and Bogart; and H.C. Potter’s Blackmail (1939), with Ruth Hussey and Gene Lockhart.

Films in the 40s include William Dieterle’s Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940), with Ruth Gordon; Raoul Walsh’s Manpower (1941), with Marlene Dietrich and George Raft; Michael Curtiz‘s The Sea Wolf (1941), with Ida Lupino, John Garfield, and Alexander Knox; LeRoy’s Unholy Partner’s (1941), with Laraine Day, Edward Arnold, and Marsha Hunt; Larceny, Inc. (1942), with Jane Wyman, Broderick Crawford, and Jack Carson; Tampico (1944), with Lynn Bari, Victor McLaglen, Marc Lawrence; Billy Wilder‘s Double Indemnity (1944), with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck; Fritz Lang‘s The Woman in the Window (1944), with Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, and Dan Duryea; The Stranger (1946), with Orson Welles (who also directed) and Young; John Farrow‘s The Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948), with Gail Russell and John Lund; All My Sons (1948), with Burt Lancaster; and Joseph L. Mankiewicz‘s House of Strangers (1949), with Susan Hayward and Richard Conte.

Films in the 50s include Gregory Ratoff’s My Daughter Joe (1950), with Peggy Cummins and Richard Greene; Actors and Sin, with Eddie Albert and Marsha Hunt; Vice Squad (1953), with Paulette Goddard; Robert Aldrich‘s Big Leaguer (1953), with Vera-Ellen; Black Tuesday (1954), with Peter Graves and Jean Parker; Tight Spot (1955), with Ginger Rogers and Brian Keith; Illegal (1955), with Nina Foch, Hugh Marlowe, and Jayne Mansfield; Cecil B. DeMille‘s The Ten Commandments (1956), with Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, Yvonne De Carlo, Debra Paget, John Derek, and Vincent Price; and Frank Capra‘s A Hole in the Head (1959), with Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, Keenan Wynn, Carolyn Jones, Thelma Ritter, Dub Taylor, Ruby Dandridge, Eddie Hodges, and Joi Lansing.

Roles in the 60s include Henry Hathaway‘s Seven Thieves (1960), with Rod Steiger, Joan Collins and Eli Wallach; My Geisha (1962), with Shirley MacLaine, Yves Montand, and Bob Cummings; The Prize (1963), with Paul Newman; David Swift‘s Good Neighbor Sam (1964), with Jack Lemmon, Romy Schneider, Dorothy Provine, and Michael Connors; Ford’s Cheyenne Autumn (1964), with Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, Karl Malden, Sal Mineo, and Ricardo Montalban; Martin Ritt‘s The Outrage (1964), with Newman, Laurence Harvey, Claire Bloom, and William Shatner; Norman Jewson’s The Cincinnati Kid (1965), with Steve McQueen, Ann-Margret, and Tuesday Weld; Grand Slam (1967), with Klaus Kinski and Janet Leigh; The Biggest Bundle of Them All (1968), with Robert Wagner, Raquel Welch, Danny Kaye, and Vittorio De Sica; Never a Dull Moment (1968), with Dick Van Dyke, Dorothy Provine, Henry Silva, Joanna Cook Moore, Tony Bill, and Slim Pickens; and Mackenna’s Gold (1969), with Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif, Telly Savalas, Ted Cassidy, Camilla Sparv, and Julie Newmar.

Robinson’s final performance was in Richard Fleischer’s science-fiction story Soylent Green (1973), with Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young, Joseph Cotten, and Chuck Connors. He received an Academy Honorary Award for his work in the film industry, which was awarded two months after he died in 1973. He is ranked number 24 in the American Film Institute’s list of the 25 greatest male stars of Classic American cinema. During the 1930s and 1940s, he was an outspoken public critic of fascism and Nazism, which were growing in strength in Europe leading up to World War II. His activism included contributing over $250,000 to more than 850 organizations involved in war relief, along with cultural, educational and religious groups.

Each review will be linked to the title below.

(*seen originally in theaters)

(**seen rereleased in theaters)

Arms and the Woman (1916) – directed by George Fitzmaurice
The Bright Shawl (1923) – directed by John S. Robertson
The Hole in the Wall (1929) – directed by Robert Florey
Night Ride (1930) – directed by John S. Robertson
A Lady to Love (1930) – directed by Victor Sjöström
Die Sehnsucht jeder Frau (1930) – directed by Victor Sjöström
Outside the Law (1930) – directed by Tod Browning
East Is West (1930) – directed by Monta Bell
The Widow from Chicago (1930) – directed by Edward F. Cline
Little Caesar (1931) – directed by Mervyn LeRoy
The Stolen Jools (1931) – directed by William C. McGann – short
Smart Money (1931) – directed by Alfred E. Green
Five Star Final (1931) – directed by Mervyn LeRoy
The Hatchet Man (1932) – directed by William A. Wellman
Two Seconds (1932) – directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Tiger Shark (1932) – directed by Howard Hawks
Silver Dollar (1932) – directed by Alfred E. Green
The Little Giant (1933) – directed by Roy Del Ruth
I Loved a Woman (1933) – directed by Alfred E. Green
Dark Hazard (1934) – directed by Alfred E. Green
The Man with Two Faces (1934) – directed by Archie Mayo
The Whole Town’s Talking (1935) – directed by John Ford
Barbary Coast (1935) – directed by Howard Hawks
Bullets or Ballots (1936) – directed by William Keighley
Thunder in the City (1937) – directed by Marion Gering
Kid Galahad (1937) – directed by Michael Curtiz
The Last Gangster (1937) – directed by Edward Ludwig
A Slight Case of Murder (1938) – directed by Lloyd Bacon
The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) – directed by Anatole Litvak
I Am the Law (1938) – directed by Alexander Hall
Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) – directed by Anatole Litvak
Blackmail (1939) – directed by H.C. Potter
Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940) – directed by William Dieterle
Brother Orchid (1940) – directed by Lloyd Bacon
A Dispatch from Reuter’s (1940) – directed by William Dieterle
The Sea Wolf (1941) – directed by Michael Curtiz
Manpower (1941) – directed by Raoul Walsh
Unholy Partners (1941) – directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Larceny, Inc. (1942) – directed by Lloyd Bacon
Tales of Manhattan (1942) – directed by Julien Duvivier – anthology
Flesh and Fantasy (1943) – directed by Julien Duvivier
Destroyer (1943) – directed by William A. Seiter
Tampico (1944) – directed by Lothar Mendes
Double Indemnity (1944) – directed by Billy Wilder
Mr. Winkle Goes to War (1944) – directed by Alfred E. Green
The Woman in the Window (1944) – directed by Fritz Lang
Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945) – directed by Roy Rowland
Journey Together (1945) – directed by John Boulting
Scarlet Street (1945) – directed by Fritz Lang
The Stranger (1946) – directed by Orson Welles
The Red House (1947) – directed by Delmer Daves
All My Sons (1948) – directed by Irving Reis
Key Largo (1948) – directed by John Huston
Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948) – directed by John Farrow
House of Strangers (1949) – directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
It’s a Great Feeling (1949) – directed by David Butler – uncredited cameo as himself
Operation X (1950) – directed by Gregory Ratoff – aka My Daughter Joy
Actors and Sin (1952) – directed by Ben Hecht & Lee Garmes – anthology
Vice Squad (1953) – directed by Arnold Laven
Big Leaguer (1953) – directed by Robert Aldrich
The Glass Web (1953) – directed by Jack Arnold
Black Tuesday (1954) – directed by Hugo Fregonese
For the Defense (1954) – directed by James Neilson – TV short/pilot
The Violent Men (1955) – directed by Rudolph Maté
Tight Spot (1955) – directed by Phil Karlson
A Bullet for Joey (1955) – directed by Lewis Allen
Illegal (1955) – directed by Lewis Allen
Hell on Frisco Bay (1955) – directed by Frank Tuttle
Nightmare (1956) – directed by Maxwell Shane
The Ten Commandments (1956) – directed by Cecil B. DeMille
A Hole in the Head (1959) – directed by Frank Capra
Seven Thieves (1960) – directed by Henry Hathaway
The Right Man (1960) – directed by Burt Shevelove – TV movie
Pepe (1960) – directed by George Sidney – cameo as himself
My Geisha (1962) – directed by Jack Cardiff
Two Weeks in Another Town (1962) – directed by Vincente Minnelli
Sammy Going South (1963) – directed by Alexander Mackendrick – aka A Boy Ten Feet Tall
The Prize (1963) – directed by Mark Robson
Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964) – directed by Gordon Douglas – uncredited
Good Neighbor Sam (1964) – directed by David Swift
Cheyenne Autumn (1964) – directed by John Ford
The Outrage (1964) – directed by Martin Ritt
Who Has Seen the Wind? (1965) – directed by George Sidney – TV movie
The Cincinnati Kid (1965) – directed by Norman Jewison
The Blonde from Peking (1967) – directed by Nicolas Gessner
Grand Slam (1967) – directed by Giuliano Montaldo
Operation St. Peter’s (1967) – directed by Lucio Fulci
The Biggest Bundle of Them All (1968) – directed by Ken Annakin
Never a Dull Moment (1968) – directed by Jerry Paris
It’s Your Move (1968) – directed by Robert Fiz
Mackenna’s Gold (1969) – directed by J. Lee Thompson
The Old Man Who Cried Wolf (1970) – directed by Walter Grauman – TV movie
Song of Norway (1970) – directed by Andrew L. Stone
Mooch Goes to Hollywood (1971) – directed by Richard Erdman – TV movie – uncredited cameo as himself
Neither by Day Nor by Night (1972) – directed by Steven Hilliard Stern
Soylent Green (1973) – directed by Richard Fleischer

Share this: