1940s

David O. McKay Library at Brigham Young University created a list of films that feature librarians or libraries. The films in the list below are part of Group A, where: "Someone says or does something that clearly identifies himself or herself (or some other character) as a librarian. This person may be a professional, a clerk, a student assistant, a director or some other type of 'librarian.' Some have major roles, others have barely a dozen words to speak." All of the films in the Group A category were originally listed in alphabetical order (not chronological). The films listed below were taken from that list but are limited to those films released during the period of 1940-1949. You can find the complete list of films at http://emp.byui.edu/RAISHM/films/introduction.html

The possible errors in these statistics are as follows:

I have not actually seen most of these films because most are unavailable. I looked up many items on the Internet Movie Database but was still unable to determine the precise role the librarian played in the film or her marital status. Also, some films have multiple librarians in them, which is why there are more librarians than there are films. There is also simple human error. Finally, since I haven't see the films because they were unavailable, I may have determined that a woman was a spinster when she was not and vice versa.

PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940). Jimmy Stewart asks the Quaker librarian (Hilda Plowright) if they have any local history materials. She replies that he should check with her colleague in the other room. He then asks the perennial library question, "Dost thou have a washroom?" The librarian, engaged in the popular movie past time of placing handfuls of books onto empty shelves without consulting the call numbers, continues her work while pointing to the restroom door. Stewart then encounters Katherine Hepburn and they are shushed by the librarian while they discuss his "poetic writings."


CITIZEN KANE (1941). Orson Welles' masterpiece contains a short scene with the world's meanest archivist (Georgia Backus), a woman with her hair in a bun and an intimidating stare on her face, a real dragon lady at the gates of knowledge.


QUIET PLEASE, MURDER (1942). Nazis and art thieves cause a high death rate in a public library. Lynne Roberts, the librarian, is the de-facto heroine of the film. She helps private eye Richard Denning nab the forgers who are trying to loot the rare books room. Byron Foulger is the head librarian, a mousy little fellow who does an about-face when the air-raid sirens go off -- he is also an air-raid warden and in that capacity is as fearless as he is cowardly while wearing his "bookworm" hat. Frank O'Connor is a library guard.


THE HUMAN COMEDY (1943). The children's librarian, a bookish older woman (Adeline De Walt Reynolds), says "I've been reading books for seventy years." In another scene a boy takes a younger boy to the library for the first time and, as he gestures to the rows and rows of books that they pass, repeats, "All these, all these." The awe is comical today, but it's also inspirational.


SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943). A woman researches a murder in the Santa Rosa, California, public library. She rushes to the library just as it is closing. The librarian (played by Eily Malyon) is a severe old lady with her hair in a bun. She gives her a strict lecture about making exceptions and lets her know of her displeasure, but does eventually let her in "for five minutes."


IT HAPPENED TOMORROW (1944). Dick Powell is a cub reporter who is befriended by the paper's veteran librarian (John Philliber). After the librarian dies, his ghost returns to give Powell copies of the next day's paper for three successive days.


MASK OF DIMITRIOS (1944). A mystery writer researching the tangled past of a master criminal whose body washed up on the shore near Istanbul visits a municipal archive in an eastern European country. He encounters a helpful, if somewhat servile, archivist (uncredited in the cast list).


ADVENTURE (1945). Clark Gable is a seagoing roustabout who takes a fellow sailor into the library to find a book. He has little regard for libraries in general and pokes fun of the mottos, such as "Wisdom is Peace," that are carved on the building's facade. He gives the gorgeous librarian (Greer Garson) a rough time, and she returns the favor.


A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN (1945). Peggy Ann Garner goes to the library where she is involved in a project to read all the books in order of the card catalog. Lillian Bronson is the children's librarian.


WONDER MAN (1945). Danny Kaye plays both Buzzy Bellew, a nightclub singer who is murdered because he witnessed a mob killing, and his twin brother, Edwin Dingle, a brilliant, bookish scholar who spends his days at the library writing with both hands. There he meets and falls in love with the beautiful, young librarian, Virginia Mayo.


THE BIG SLEEP (1946). An excellent Humphrey Bogart / Lauren Bacall mystery. A librarian (Carole Douglas) and an antiquarian bookseller (Dorothy Malone) figure in the convoluted plot. Remade in 1978.


IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946). Jimmy Stewart is given an opportunity to see what life would have been like had he never been born. His wife (Donna Reed) is beautiful in their real life, but when he sees her as a single woman she is a librarian with glasses and a bun, and quite shy. Stereotype city but a happy ending.


GOOD NEWS (1947). June Allyson is working her way through college in the 1920s as an "assistant librarian." She falls for the football hero, Peter Lawford, and together they sing "The French Lesson" in the college library, dancing through the stacks as she reshelves books with little attention to call numbers. In a later scene she wants to dress up to impress him and asks her girlfriend's opinion of her outfit. "You sure don't look like a librarian," she says.


SO WELL REMEMBERED (1947). Martha Scott is a librarian in a public library who seems to be meek, but is really aggressive and ruthless. Another librarian is played by Roddy Hughes.


APARTMENT FOR PEGGY (1948). One scene takes place in what appears to be the campus library, with students chatting noisily. A librarian (Crystal Reeves) offers William Holden and Jeanne Crain (Peggy) a book and says, "Here's something that might help."


LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN (1948). A young lady haunts the "Musik" section of a Vienna library trying to find information about the man she loves, a famous pianist and composer. A librarian turns from his work to watch her step down from a ladder after pulling books from a shelf. He is irritated with her because she has returned a large book by hammering it into place with the heel of her hand.

Creator: Jenny Freed
Created: 10/23/05