James Ellison Trailers
When the Girls Take Over TrailerDead Man's Trail TrailerMan from the Black Hills Trailer
James Ellison (May 4, 1910 - December 23, 1993) was an American actor, born James Ellison Smith in Guthrie Center, Iowa, son of Edward James Smith and Ona Mary Ellis.
Ellison appeared in nearly seventy films between 1932 and 1962.
Ellison worked for a time in a film laboratory and while there was offered a screen test. He developed it himself and when he saw it, decided it was not satisfactory so he would not show it to the director. But he saw it anyway and Ellison got a contract.
Despite his rugged good looks and height of 6 feet 3 inches, Ellison's limited range and somewhat wooden screen presence kept him from the first (or even second) ranks of stardom. He spent much of his career in Westerns, including a stint in the mid-thirties as the sidekick of Hopalong Cassidy in Paramount's successful series. In 1938, he played a charming, romantic character opposite 26 year old Lucille Ball in the comedy, "Next Time I Marry", a film where Ball had her first top billing on screen credits. Before that, in 1936, he played his highest-profile role, as Buffalo Bill in Cecil B. DeMille's The Plainsman, which also starred Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur.
Despite that film's success, Ellison spent most of the remainder of his career shuttling between cowboy pictures and more varied roles, primarily in B movies with titles like Mr. District Attorney in the Carter Case and The Undying Monster. He had a supporting role in 1941's Charley's Aunt (which starred Jack Benny) and played the romantic lead in 1943's The Gang's All Here, a Twentieth Century Fox musical in which he seemed somewhat lost among the vivid antics of Carmen Miranda, Charlotte Greenwood, and Edward Everett Horton (and was the only principal not to sing a note). He also co-starred with Tom Conway and Frances Dee in Val Lewton's production of I Walked with a Zombie, directed by Jacques Tourneur.
Ellison landed another romantic lead role as 'Jerry Gibson' in the musical film Lady, Let's Dance (1944) which starred ice skating sensation 'Belita'.
In the early 1950s, Ellison moved from acting to real estate. Joining fellow veteran Jackie Coogan, Ellison returned to the screen only once to play Axel 'Longhorn' Gates in a picture called When the Girls Take Over (1962).
James Ellison died at age 83 in Monterey, California after suffering a broken neck as the result of a fall.
Most Popular James Ellison Trailers
Total trailers found: 66
19 April 1932
A foreword warns against the peril of yellow journalism, and the story illustrates it by following events in the upstate New York town of Cornwall after prominant financier George Ferguson is killed.
12 March 1943
Roger Hudson, a wealthy businessman who has moved to Washington to work for the government as a "dollar a year man," is late for a radio broadcast about his new department, the Mobilization of Woman Power for War.
06 December 1935
Cattle rustler Nevada dreams of living like an emperor in the West. Hoppy and the Bar 20 boys aim to put an end to his dream.
02 December 1951
A Texas Ranger goes up against the Morrow outlaw gang.
04 December 1942
Drama about military doctors and nurses during wartime.
06 March 1936
Hoppy returns to find Johnny in trouble. Buck Peters has been shot by Porter who made it look like Johnny did it.
08 February 1935
A barber tries to find the winning lottery ticket he hid from his moralistic wife.
11 December 1936
Hoppy, Johnny and Windy are fighting a malicious gang trying to stop a cattle drive from reaching a drought-stricken North.
19 July 1952
Johnny Mack Brown was nearing the end of his starring career when he appeared in the Monogram oater Dead Man's Trail.
18 May 1951
A film director travels to Kentucky to seek out local talent for a hillbilly musical film. There, he gets kidnapped.
29 July 1938
A financially-strapped mother and her children relocate from the city to a small rural town.
24 December 1943
A soldier falls for a chorus girl and then experiences trouble when he is posted to the Pacific.
12 August 1946
Linda Powell, and English girl, stows away on a ship bound for the United States in order to join the G.
31 March 1939
Saving a dog from the pound gets a man mixed up in murder.
14 April 1936
An evil gang is involved in both cattle rustling and the robbing of stagecoaches. Hoppy must stop them without help from the sheriff who turns out be a major outlaw himself.
25 April 1945
A young girl arrives in Hollywood determined to become a star in the movies but finds that attaining stardom is a lot more difficult than she counted on.
27 January 1952
Johnny Mack Brown substitutes brains for brawn during most of Texas City. Cast once more as a U.S. marshal, Johnny investigates when several government gold shipments are hijacked.
29 January 1941
When a gold digger starts to get a little old to ply her trade, she teaches a younger woman all her tricks.
30 April 1962
A comic look...at Cuba after Castro regime take over.
30 June 1950
As a boy, Shamrock's parents were killed. He took possession of a pistol belonging to his father, a famous marshal.
08 August 1947
Young artist Monte Crandell is being sued for an unauthorized caricature. To escape arrest, he disguises himself as a mystic, only to conjure up a genuine ghost during a seance.
09 December 1938
Heiress Nancy Crocker Fleming will only receive her inheritance if she marries a "plain American." Her late father was afraid a foreign gigolo would steal her heart and money.
18 August 1951
Johnny Mack Brown goes up against a lady bank robber in this average Mack Brown series late-entry from Monogram.
21 March 1937
Army training Sgt. Gray makes a bet that he can get himself invited to breakfast with his commanding officer, General Markley.
05 May 1939
A young girl begins to wonder if she really fits into the upper-class sorority she's trying to join.
18 December 1941
Like the first entry, this one is played mostly for laughs, with Radio's Mister District Attorney. James Ellison replacing Dennis O'Keefe as feckless assistant DA P.
24 March 1950
In this remake of No Man's Range (1935), Shamrock travels to the ranch of his stepfather who he has never met and finds himself caught in the middle of a range war.
15 November 1950
A western in which Calamity Jane's rightful ownership of a gambling hall is challenged. She nearly loses the business to a shady crook, but Texas lawyer Ellison puts up a legal battle to help her stay in charge.
13 November 1942
A secretary by the name of Emily Borden comes up with a convoluted plan to get her boss to marry her which backfires after some bad advice.
18 September 1942
In this espionage movie, set in Washington during WW II, the daughter of an ex-senator has become a dress model.
16 November 1936
Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, and Buffalo Bill go up against Indians and a gunrunner.
24 February 1936
Problems come in the form of one of Hopalong Cassidy's neighbors, but the matter is settled when Hoppy roots out the troublemaker.
28 June 1940
Sentimental drama about an ambitious young teacher who arrives in a small town to take the job of vice-principal.
31 January 1947
Around the turn of the century, two young men, Johnnie Bennett, a composer and Steve Adams, an artist, go to New York City to make their fortune.
28 December 1935
Brit Amelia Blake travels to America to join her son Alfred. Fate forces her to hitchhike to California, a perilous journey that she shares with kind young Judy Martin.
27 December 1948
A cowboy must clear himself of a murder he did not commit.
12 March 1932
A young innocent falls for a compulsive gambler.
30 March 1952
As other "B"-western series kept dropping like flies in 1952, Johnny Mack Brown kept grinding 'em out for Monogram.
02 June 1950
An outlaw impersonates Shamrock in order to lease his land to an oil company for $75,000.
12 May 1950
The Shamrock Kid, Lucky, and The Colonel get caught in a feud between outlaws and homesteaders.
21 April 1943
A nurse in the Caribbean turns to voodoo in hopes of curing her patient, a mindless woman whose husband she's fallen in love with.
31 March 1950
Dance-hall owner Dick Lane is in dire need of some big-name acts or he will lose his business. Several country-western stars come to his rescue by agreeing to appear on a TV special to be broadcast from his club.
19 April 1935
A theatrical star, born on the wrong side of the tracks, marries a drunken blue-blood millionaire.
06 October 1951
Johnny Mack Brown was recruited by Chet Norman, the owner of a stagecoach line, to end the heist perpetrated by a mysterious knight who plays strange notes with a hiss of money before robbing them.
01 August 1941
In 1890, two students at Oxford force their rascally friend and fellow student to pose as an aunt from Brazil--where the nuts come from.
08 August 1950
Going undercover as the notorious "Waco Kid," U.S. Army Captain Jeff Packard manages to infiltrate a gang of gold-shipment thieves lead by nasty Walt Anderson.
13 May 1938
College town life gets turned upside down after a button-down botany professor secretly weds a sizzling night-club singer.
19 August 1941
Bob Clemens is a cameraman for newsreels. Assigned to shoot the Swiss ice skater Karen Vadja, he arrives too late, so decides to film a woman skating on a different New York rink and pass her off as Karen.
21 April 1950
Shamrock and Lucky team up to drive the Tulliver Brothers out of Heldorado.
10 September 1937
The adventures of three disparate cadets at the US Naval Academy--one the son of a Navy enlisted man, the other the scion of a wealthy family, the third decent but somewhat slow-witted--and their struggles with the rigors of the academy, women, and each other.
27 November 1942
A werewolf prowls around at night but only kills certain members of one family. It seems like just a coincidence, but the investigating Inspector soon finds out that this tradition has gone on for generations and tries to find a link between the werewolf and the family, leading to a frightening conclusion.
22 September 1939
A wealthy man hires a poor girl to play his mistress in order to get more attention from his neglectful family.
21 April 1939
A modest country doctor in the antebellum South has to contend with his daughter's upcoming marriage and an affectionate medicine show elephant.
23 August 1935
An evil ranch foreman tries to provoke a range war by playing two cattlemen against each other while helping a gang to rustle the cattle.
25 April 1941
A Texas oil millionaire, after failing to secure oil lands in Argentina, seeks out a famous racehorse in Buenos Aires and orders his representative to buy the nag at any price.
03 August 1939
Guests at a women's residence club help a jilted small-town girl turn to modelling.
25 October 1935
When the outlaw El Toro saves Hoppy's life, Hoppy agrees to find his missing grandson.
08 October 1943
Bud Hooper, a cadet at Winsocki Military Academy, sends an invitation to movie star Lucille Ball to come to Winsocki's big dance.
07 July 1944
A young girl rents an apartment from a man who has recently enlisted in the Marines. The trouble is that he's given out keys to a half-dozen of his friends, and they all keep dropping in.
19 January 1935
An embezzler who expects to serve his time in prison and then pick up his buried loot is in for a surprise.
