
Birthday:
03-30-1897
Deathday:
09-20-1955 (58 years)
Birthplace:
New York City, New York, USA
Biography
From Wikipedia
Robert Riskin (March 30, 1897–September 20, 1955) was an American screenwriter and playwright, best known for his collaborations with director-producer Frank Capra.
Robert Riskin (March 30, 1897–September 20, 1955) was an American screenwriter and playwright, best known for his collaborations with director-producer Frank Capra.
Read morearrow_drop_down
Their works
- Release swap_vert
- Title swap_vert
- Ratings swap_vert
close
Rough and Ready Reggie
Act like Boxing Extra
event1917
top_panel_open
After effeminate Reggie is picked on by the men at his club, a rough and ready ancestor appears to him and inspires him to become the ultimate he-man.
It Happened One Night
Screenplay
event1934 star_border 7.8
top_panel_open
A runaway heiress makes a deal with the rogue reporter trailing her but the mismatched pair end up stuck with each other when their bus leaves them behind.
Lost Horizon
Screenplay
event1937 star_border 7
top_panel_open
British diplomat Robert Conway and a small group of civilians crash land in the Himalayas, and are rescued by the people of the mysterious, Eden-like valley of Shangri-la. Protected by the mountains from the world outside, where the clouds of World War II are gathering, Shangri-la provides a seductive escape for the world-weary Conway.
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Screenplay
event1936 star_border 7.5
top_panel_open
Longfellow Deeds lives in a small town, leading a small town kind of life. When a relative dies and leaves Deeds a fortune, Longfellow moves to the big city where he becomes an instant target for everyone. Deeds outwits them all until Babe Bennett comes along. When small-town boy meets big-city girl anything can, and does, happen.
Meet John Doe
Screenplay
event1941 star_border 7.3
top_panel_open
As a parting shot, fired reporter Ann Mitchell prints a fake letter from unemployed "John Doe," who threatens suicide in protest of social ills. The paper is forced to rehire Ann and hires John Willoughby to impersonate "Doe." Ann and her bosses cynically milk the story for all it's worth, until the made-up "John Doe" philosophy starts a whole political movement.
Platinum Blonde
Dialogue
event1931 star_border 6.7
top_panel_open
Anne Schuyler is an upper-crust socialite who bullies her reporter husband into conforming to her highfalutin ways. The husband chafes at the confinement of high society, though, and yearns for a creative outlet. He decides to write a play and collaborates with a fellow reporter.
You Can't Take It with You
Screenplay
event1938 star_border 7.5
top_panel_open
Alice, the only relatively normal member of the eccentric Sycamore family, falls in love with Tony Kirby, but his wealthy banker father and snobbish mother strongly disapprove of the match. When the Kirbys are invited to dinner to become better acquainted with their future in-laws, things don't turn out the way Alice had hoped.
The Thin Man Goes Home
Story
event1944 star_border 7.1
top_panel_open
On a trip to visit his parents, detective Nick Charles gets mixed up in a murder investigation.
Lady for a Day
Screenplay
event1933 star_border 7
top_panel_open
Never-wed, poor, rough around the edges Apple Annie has always written to her daughter, Louise, in Spain that she is married and a member of New York's high society. Upon receiving unexpected word from Louise (who hasn't seen Annie since infancy) that she is en route to America with her new fiancé and his father, a count, so the three of them can meet her, Annie panics, despairing that her beloved daughter will be destroyed by the deception.
Ex-Lady
Story
event1933 star_border 6.3
top_panel_open
Although free spirit Helen Bauer does not believe in marriage, she consents to marry Don, but his infidelities cause her to also take on a lover.
The Whole Town's Talking
Screenplay
event1935 star_border 6.8
top_panel_open
Ordinary man-in-the-street Arthur Ferguson Jones leads a very straightforward life. He's never late for work and nothing interesting ever happens to him. One day everything changes: he oversleeps and is fired as an example, he's then mistaken for evil criminal killer Mannion and is arrested. The resemblance is so striking that the police give him a special pass to avoid a similar mistake. The real Mannion sees the opportunity to steal the pass and move around freely and chaos results.
Magic Town
Story
event1947 star_border 6.7
top_panel_open
Rip Smith's opinion-poll business is a failure...until he discovers that the small town of Grandview is statistically identical to the entire country. He and his assistants go there to run polls cheaply and easily, in total secrecy (it would be fatal to let the townsfolk get self-conscious). And of course, civic crusader Mary Peterman must be kept from changing things too much. But romantic involvement with Mary complicates life for Rip; then suddenly everything changes.
When You're in Love
Director
event1937 star_border 6.7
top_panel_open
An Australian opera singer hires a husband so she can work in the U.S. Moore sings "Minnie the Moocher" in one scene.
Broadway Bill
Screenplay
event1934 star_border 6.1
top_panel_open
Tycoon J.L. Higgins controls his whole family, but one of his sons-in-law, Dan Brooks, and his daughter Alice are fed up with that. Brooks quits his job as manager of J.L.'s paper box factory and devotes his life to his racing horse Broadway Bill, but his bankroll is thin and the luck is against him. He is arrested because of $150 he owes somebody for horse food, but suddenly a planned fraud by somebody else seems to offer him a chance...
Virtue
Screenplay
event1932 star_border 6.8
top_panel_open
Given a second chance after her arrest for prostitution, Mae decides to go straight. Mae is soon befriended by kindly cab driver Jimmy Doyle who gets her work at a diner, where she meets Gert, another former prostitute. Mae and Jimmy fall in love, marry and save to buy a small business. Gert then pleads for money from Mae, which results in her unwitting involvement in a crime. Believing Mae has lied and cheated him, Jimmy threatens to leave her.
Arizona
Adaptation
event1931 star_border 4.5
top_panel_open
A West Point graduate jilts his girlfriend but runs into her later at an Army outpost.
Mister 880
Screenplay
event1950 star_border 6.9
top_panel_open
The Skipper is a charming old man loved by all his neighbors. What they don't know is that he is also Mr. 880, an amateurish counterfeiter who has amazingly managed to elude the Secret Service for 20 years.
Riding High
Screenplay
event1950 star_border 5.8
top_panel_open
A horse trainer who has fallen on hard times looks to his horse, Broadway Bill, to finally win the big race.
Half Angel
Screenplay
event1951 star_border 5.6
top_panel_open
Nurse Nora Gilpin plans are to marry building contractor Tim McCarey and settle down. But one night a sleepwalking Nora slips into a provocative dress and goes to the home of startled lawyer John Raymond, for whom she doesn't care much during the day. She does not reveal her name and he cannot figure out where they have met, but they spend several hours together until she gets away before John notices.
The Real Glory
Associate Producer
event1939 star_border 6.3
top_panel_open
Fort Mysang, southern Philippine Islands, under US rule, 1906. A small group of army officers and native troops resist the fierce and treacherous attacks of the ruthless Alisang and his fanatical followers.
Men in Her Life
Writer
event1931 star_border 6
top_panel_open
A wealthy ex-bootlegger comes to the rescue of a formerly rich society girl after her gold-digging fiancé leaves her stranded when he finds out she's broke. The bootlegger proposes a deal: he will settle her debts if she teaches him how to be "a gentleman".
Three Wise Girls
Writer
event1932 star_border 5.5
top_panel_open
Romantic comedy drama about three friends in New York. Cassie has come to New York and goes to work as a model where her friend Gladys works. She falls in love with wealthy young Jerry who is already married. Gladys has the same probelm with her man Phelps.
Ann Carver's Profession
Writer
event1933 star_border 5.5
top_panel_open
Newlyweds experience marital problems when the wife's highly successful job as an attorney overshadows her husband's stagnant career.
The Big Timer
Story
event1932 star_border 3.5
top_panel_open
Loud-mouth hamburger flipper, Cooky, thinks he can box. His big chance comes when everyone else quits the gym when it is inherited by a dame.
You Can't Run Away from It
Screenplay
event1956 star_border 4.3
top_panel_open
A reporter stumbles on a runaway heiress whose story could salvage his career.
Shopworn
Dialogue
event1932 star_border 6.7
top_panel_open
A waitress falls for a wealthy young man but has to fight his mother to find happiness.
Here Comes the Groom
treatment
event1951 star_border 5.2
top_panel_open
Foreign correspondent Pete Garvey has 5 days to win back his former fiancée, or he'll lose the orphans he adopted.
The Night Club Lady
Writer
event1932 star_border 6.2
top_panel_open
A police commissioner investigates the murder of a nightclub owner who was under police protection.
The Miracle Woman
Theatre Play
event1931 star_border 6.6
top_panel_open
After an unappreciated minister dies, his daughter loses her faith in God, prompting her to open a phony temple with a con man. Can the love of a blind aviator restore her faith and happiness?
American Madness
Story
event1932 star_border 7.1
top_panel_open
Socially-conscious banker Thomas Dickson faces a crisis when his protégé is wrongly accused of robbing the bank, gossip of the robbery starts a bank run, and evidence suggests Dickson's wife had an affair... all in the same day.
Carnival
Writer
event1935
top_panel_open
"Chick" Thompson is a puppet-master in a traveling carnival whose wife dies in childbirth and leaves him with an infant son he names "Poochy." His father-in-law and the baby's grandfather sues him for custody of the baby and Chick takes his son and hides out for a couple of years. He joins his former assistants, Daisy and "Fingers", in a circus act only to find that the persistent grandfather is still on his trail.
Pocketful of Miracles
Original Film Writer
event1961 star_border 7.3
top_panel_open
A New York gangster and his girlfriend attempt to turn street beggar Apple Annie into a society lady when the peddler learns her daughter is marrying royalty.
The Cowboy and the Lady
Additional Writing
event1938 star_border 6.1
top_panel_open
Mary Smith decides after a lifetime of being a shut-in to do something wild while her father is out campaigning for the presidency, so she takes off for the family's home in West Palm Beach and inadvertently becomes romantically entangled with earnest cowboy Stretch Willoughby. Neither the dalliance nor the cowboy fit with the upper class image projected by her esteemed father, forcing her to choose.
The Cummington Story
Producer
event1945
top_panel_open
War refugees begin new lives in a small Massachusetts town.
They Shall Have Music
Associate Producer
event1939 star_border 6
top_panel_open
The future is bleak for a troubled boy from a broken home in the slums. He runs away when his step father breaks his violin, ending up sleeping in the basement of a music school for poor children.
Illicit
Theatre Play
event1931 star_border 5.8
top_panel_open
Ann, a young woman with outrageously advanced ideas, has been living in sin with Dick, her lover, because of her conviction that marriage would destroy their love; but social pressure ends up paying off, so Ann and Dick get married.
Library of Congress
Producer
event1945 star_border 5.8
top_panel_open
A 1945 Oscar nominated short documentary about the Library of Congress. It is one of 26 documentary shorts produced between 1942 and 1945 by the U.S. Overseas Film Bureau, and intended to show foreign viewers something about America and it's values, this one focuses on the important institution in Washington D.C. which preserves written and other works that have been copyrighted, as part of the country's heritage.
Many a Slip
Writer
event1931
top_panel_open
Comedy centering on the question of whether a man's wife is or isn't pregnant.
Mr. Deeds
Original Film Writer
event2002 star_border 5.9
top_panel_open
When Longfellow Deeds, a small-town pizzeria owner and poet, inherits $40 billion from his deceased uncle, he quickly begins rolling in a different kind of dough. Moving to the big city, Deeds finds himself besieged by opportunists all gunning for their piece of the pie. Babe, a television tabloid reporter, poses as an innocent small-town girl to do an exposé on Deeds.
Show more expand_more
keyboard_double_arrow_down