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The Motion Pictures of Robert Benchley

The most comprehensive listing of Robert Benchley's motion pictures, books, essays, newspaper writings, and drama criticism is Robert Benchley: An Annotated Bibliography compiled by Robert Benchley Society Director Mr. Gordon Ernst, Jr..

The Internet Movie Database has information on Benchley's motion pictures. RBS Secretary Mrs. David (Sharon) Lyon has put together a list of Benchley's Hollywood "short subjects". Finally, there is a website tv-now.com which has a search capability to find Benchley movies on television in the coming month.

In addition to starring in some 50 Hollywood short subjects Benchley played significant supporting roles in several feature-length films.

Benchley's on screen running commentary in the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby picture Road to Utopia (1946) beats any of today's DVD commentary tracks.

The most typical Benchley role is the tippling comic relief in a drama such as Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940). It's a role he takes on again in the 1942 I Married a Witch, based on the story by humorist Thorne Smith originally titled The Passionate Witch and familiar to later generations from the television version, Bewitched.

Benchley neither sang nor danced, but that didn't keep him out of the musicals, such as in the 1945 Stork Club. In You'll Never Get Rich (1941), Benchley is comic relief for Fred Astaire in this Cole Porter musical.

Benchley teamed up with fellow Massachusetts native Fred Allen for It's in the Bag.

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