Joan Fontaine Trailers
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Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland (October 22, 1917 – December 15, 2013), known professionally as Joan Fontaine, was an English-American actress who is best known for her starring roles in Hollywood films during the "Golden Age". She was born in Tokyo, Japan, in what was known as the International Settlement. Her father was a British patent attorney with a lucrative practice in Japan, but due to Joan and older sister Olivia de Havilland's recurring ailments the family moved to California in the hopes of improving their health. Mrs. de Havilland and the two girls settled in Saratoga while their father went back to his practice in Japan. Joan's parents did not get along well and divorced soon afterward. Mrs. de Havilland had a desire to be an actress but her dreams were curtailed when she married, but now she hoped to pass on her dream to Olivia and Joan.
While Olivia pursued a stage career, Joan went back to Tokyo, where she attended the American School. In 1934 she came back to California, where her sister was already making a name for herself on the stage. Joan likewise joined a theater group in San Jose and then Los Angeles to try her luck there. After moving to L.A., Joan adopted the name of Joan Burfield because she didn't want to infringe upon Olivia, who was using the family surname. She tested at MGM and gained a small role in No More Ladies (1935), but she was scarcely noticed and Joan was idle for a year and a half. During this time she roomed with Olivia, who was having much more success in films.
In 1937, this time calling herself Joan Fontaine, she landed a better role as Trudy Olson in You Can't Beat Love (1937) and then an uncredited part in Quality Street (1937). Although the next two years saw her in better roles, she still yearned for something better. In 1940 she garnered her first Academy Award nomination for Rebecca (1940). Although she thought she should have won, (she lost out to Ginger Rogers in Kitty Foyle (1940)), she was now an established member of the Hollywood set. She would again be Oscar-nominated for her role as Lina McLaidlaw Aysgarth in Suspicion (1941), and this time she won.
Joan was making one film a year but choosing her roles well. In 1942 she starred in the well-received This Above All (1942). The following year she appeared in The Constant Nymph (1943). Once again she was nominated for the Oscar, she lost out to Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette (1943). By now it was safe to say she was more famous than her older sister and more fine films followed. In 1948, she accepted second billing to Bing Crosby in The Emperor Waltz (1948).
Joan took the year of 1949 off before coming back in 1950 with September Affair (1950) and Born to Be Bad (1950). In 1951 she starred in Paramount's Darling, How Could You! (1951), which turned out badly for both her and the studio and more weak productions followed. Absent from the big screen for a while, she took parts in television and dinner theaters. She also starred in many well-produced Broadway plays such as Forty Carats and The Lion in Winter. Her last appearance on the big screen was The Witches (1966) and her final appearance before the cameras was Good King Wenceslas (1994). She is, without a doubt, a lasting movie icon.
Most Popular Joan Fontaine Trailers
Total trailers found: 60
12 November 1949
A film's art director is in charge of the set, from conception to construction to furnishing. This short film walks the viewer through art directors' responsibilities and the demands on their talents.
02 March 1946
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.
21 November 1966
Following a nervous breakdown, Gwen takes up the job of head teacher in the small village of Haddaby.
10 September 1982
Documentary profile of singer-actress Eartha Kitt.
15 May 1939
The story of Sam Houston, hero of the Texas revolution, statesman, and first president of the Republic of Texas.
23 March 1956
A wealthy woman discovers a vineyard worker with a beautiful operatic singing voice. She helps make him a star but then breaks his heart.
23 March 1940
Story of a young woman who marries a fascinating widower only to find out that she must live in the shadow of his former wife, Rebecca, who died mysteriously several years earlier.
31 July 1958
A pretty Parisian law student falls in love with her boyfriend's uncle.
20 November 1953
At the Tangier airport, a group of people await the arrival of a mysterious plane from behind the Iron Curtain.
01 September 1939
A happily married woman lets her catty friends talk her into divorce when her husband strays.
24 December 1943
After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Edward Rochester.
31 July 1952
Sir Walter Scott's classic story of the chivalrous Ivanhoe who joins with Robin of Locksley in the fight against Prince John and for the return of King Richard the Lionheart.
19 January 1962
1920s, the French Riviera: wealthy expatriate Nicole Warren's mental illness strains her marriage to psychiatrist Dick.
01 October 1978
A beautiful girl from a small town with dreams of making it in Hollywood marries an actor whose career is fading, then schemes to get him back into the big time - and her with him.
26 March 1937
In the 1810s, an old maid poses as her own niece in order to teach her onetime beau a lesson.
21 September 1950
Christabel Caine has the face of angel and the heart of a swamp rat. She'll step on anyone to get what she wants, including her own family.
14 November 1941
A sheltered heiress falls for a charming playboy and elopes with him, but soon discovers his gambling vice and mounting debts.
22 July 1938
Given the job of training young pilots for important post-war cargo flights, hard-boiled Col. Stockton forces ex-officer Stag Cahill back into the military to be his aide at the academy.
03 December 1953
San Francisco businessman Harry Graham and his wife and business partner, Eve, are in the process of adopting a child.
07 March 1952
Advertising executive Alan Miller, a recovered alcoholic who now does interventions on behalf of Alcoholics Anonymous, is called to help Broadway actress Jenny Carey whose developing career is threatened by an increasing dependence on alcohol.
14 June 1935
A society girl tries to reform her playboy husband by making him jealous.
03 March 1938
A millionaire's son works as a milkman for a month to win a bet with his father. While delivering milk he falls in love with a young debutante whom he mistakes for a maid.
07 April 1954
Italy 1757, Pippo Popolino, a lowly tailor, disguises himself as the great Casanova in order to romance the attractive widow Francesca.
28 April 1948
A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember. As she tells the story of her lifelong love for him, he is forced to reinterpret his own past.
25 June 1937
The film begins with a knuckle-head playboy (Preston Foster) working on a road crew dressed in a tux in order to win a bet.
26 June 1947
When Ivy, an Edwardian belle, begins to like Miles, a wealthy gentleman, she is unsure of what to do with her husband, Jervis, or her lover, Dr.
27 June 2000
A reclusive millionaire who owed his fortune to his father, Howard Hughes staked his fame on many things, including his credits as a producer, director and aviator.
12 July 1961
The crew of an atomic submarine battle to save the world from global destruction.
28 November 1951
Manipulated by his jealous ensign Iago, the Moorish general Othello is driven to believe that his new wife Desdemona is unfaithful, setting in motion a chain of deception, jealousy, and violence that leads to tragedy.
31 December 1942
Flubs and bloopers that occurred on the set of some of the major Warner Bros. pictures of 1942.
26 January 1939
British army sergeants Ballantine, Cutter and MacChesney serve in India during the 1880s, along with their native water-bearer, Gunga Din.
12 May 1942
In 1940 England, aristocratic Prudence Cathaway alarms her snobbish parents by joining the WAF service branch.
02 April 1937
Young Jim Stanton is a conscientious surgeon, but spends too many off-duty hours pursuing his passion for aviation to suit his stuffy father.
19 November 1937
Lady Alyce Marshmorton must marry soon, and the staff of Tottney Castle have laid bets on who she'll choose, with young Albert wagering on 'Mr.
14 October 2011
In the aftermath of Stonewall, a newly politicized Vito Russo found his voice as a gay activist and critic of LGBTQ+ representation in the media.
13 September 1956
A newspaper publisher, wanting to prove a point about the insufficiency of circumstantial evidence, talks his possible son-in-law Tom into a hoax in an attempt to expose ineptitude of the city's hard-line district attorney.
08 October 1957
Four sisters in New Zealand fall for soldiers en route to the Pacific theater in WWII.
30 October 1948
Bill Saunders, a former prisoner of war living in England, whose experiences have left him unstable and violent, gets into a bar fight in which he kills a man and then flees.
13 January 1953
Italian poet Boccaccio (Louis Jourdan) hides in the court of Fiammetta (Joan Fontaine) and tells three tales of love and lust.
02 July 1948
A brash American gramophone salesman tries to get Emperor Franz Joseph's endorsement in turn-of-the-century Austria.
23 May 2017
For the first time one of Hollywood's greatest stars tells his own story, in his own words. From a childhood of poverty to global fame, Cary Grant, the ultimate self-made star, explores his own screen image and what it took to create it.
23 June 1943
The daughter of a musical mentor adores a promising composer, who is quite fond of the adolescent. When her father dies, an uncle arrives with his own grown daughter, who begins a romance with the composer which culminates in marriage but creates an emotional rivalry that affects the three.
23 August 1986
A woman hired to write the history of a wealthy family stays at the family's estate in Oregon. She discovers that she strongly resembles a long-dead ancestor in the family, and finds things happening to her that happened to--and led to the death of--that woman.
08 August 1951
Two absentee American parents get to know their three children again after spending five years in Panama.
08 July 1945
Susan is about to be married, but the wedding may get called off after her fiancé summons three former beaus.
17 June 1938
Socially prominent Michael Ashburn, chief assistant for a London loan broker makes a large loan during a closing time to a man for a pair of earrings.
12 June 1957
A scandalous tale of politics, social inequality, interracial romance, and murder set on a fictitious British-owned Caribbean island.
31 December 1961
Henry Fonda hosts this retrospective on the career and films of iconic filmmaker David O. Selznick, who epitomized the era of the auteur producer in the 30s and 40s.
20 September 1944
An English lady falls in love with a French pirate after he kidnaps her from her ancestral home on the coast of Cornwall and sweeps her off her feet into a world of adventure.
18 October 1950
An industrialist and a pianist meet on a trip and fall in love. Through a quirk of fate, they are reported dead in a crash though they weren't on the plane.
08 October 1937
An Italian immigrant singer, Nino, hoping to succeed in Hollywood, falls in with a gang of crooks who use his talent to distract everyone at a party while they steal the jewels.
28 October 1948
Indecisive heiress Dee Dee Dillwood is pushed into marrying her sixth fiancée, but unable to face the wedding night, she flees into the adjacent hotel room of commercial pilot Marvin Payne, who just wants to sleep.
29 December 1938
A cocky new West Point cadet from Cambridge is given the cold shoulder by his classmates because of his rule-breaking antics.
09 February 1976
A particular reading of the hard years of famine, repression and censorship after the massacre of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), through popular culture: songs, newspapers and magazines, movies and newsreels.
26 November 1994
Based upon the true story that inpired the Christmas carol about a young king's care for his people.
23 January 1999
Paying homage to two of Hollywood's central icons, the film creates an unparalleled portrait of two very different personalities amidst the demise of the studio system.
07 September 2004
A documentary on Alfred Hitchcock's 1941 film, "Suspicion".
05 May 1982
Rare footage reveals how stars were created and motion pictures sold, and how the the advent of sound and color changed movies.
31 December 1936
The son of a disgraced Olympic decathlete prepares to become a star in his own right. His quest is complicated by a beautiful girl and a bitter rival.
30 July 1939
Joan Fontaine's screen test for Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca" (1940).
