Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. John L. Balderston (October 22, 1889 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - March 8, 1954 Los Angeles, California) was an American playwright and screenwriter best known for his horror and fantasy scripts. Balderston began his career as a journalist. He worked as European war correspondent during World War I. He was the editor of Outlook magazine and a correspondent for the New York World. In 1927, he was retained by Horace Liveright to revise Hamilton Deane's ...
Complete Filmography

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
2008
Original Film Writer
Archaeologist Rick O'Connell travels to China, pitting him against an emperor from the 2,000-year-old Han dynasty who's returned from the dead to purs...

The Mummy Returns
2001
Characters
Rick and Evelyn O’Connell, along with their 8-year-old son Alex, discover the key to the legendary Scorpion King’s might: the fabled Bracelet of Anubi...

The Mummy
1999
Original Film Writer
Dashing legionnaire Rick O'Connell stumbles upon the hidden ruins of Hamunaptra while in the midst of a battle to claim the area in 1920s Egypt. It ha...

The Last of the Mohicans
1992
Adaptation
In war-torn colonial America, in the midst of a bloody battle between British, the French and Native American allies, the aristocratic daughter of a B...

Dracula
1979
Theatre Play
Romanticized adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 classic. Count Dracula is a subject of fatal attraction to more than one English maiden lady, as he seek...

The Mummy
1959
Original Film Writer
One by one the archaeologists who discover the 4,000-year-old tomb of Princess Ananka are brutally murdered. Kharis, high priest in Egypt 40 centuries...

Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy
1955
Characters
Stranded in Egypt, Bud and Lou find themselves in the buried tomb of a living mummy.

The Prisoner of Zenda
1952
Screenplay
A kingdom's ascending heir, marked for assassination, switches identities with a lookalike, who takes his place at the coronation. When the real king ...

Red Planet Mars
1952
Writer
Husband-and-wife scientists pick up a pie-in-the-sky TV message supposedly from Mars.

The House in the Square
1951
Theatre Play
Atomic scientist Peter Standish travels back in time to 1784, an era he has read about in his forefather's diaries. He falls in love with his forefath...

The Mummy's Curse
1944
Characters
After being buried in quicksand for the past 25 years, Kharis is set free to roam the rural bayous of Louisiana, as is the soul of his beloved Princes...

The Mummy's Ghost
1944
Original Film Writer
An Egyptian high priest travels to America to reclaim the bodies of ancient Egyptian princess Ananka and her living guardian mummy Kharis. Learning th...

Gaslight
1944
Screenplay
A newlywed fears she's going mad when strange things start happening at the family mansion.

Stand by for Action
1942
Screenplay
U. S. Navy Lieutenant Gregg Masterman, of The Harvard and Boston Back Bay Mastermans, learned about the sea while winning silver cups sailing his yach...

Tennessee Johnson
1942
Screenplay
The tumultuous presidency of 19th-president Andrew Johnson is chronicled in this biopic. The story begins with Johnson's boyhood and covers his early ...

The Mummy's Tomb
1942
Original Film Writer
A high priest of Karnak travels to America with the living mummy Kharis (Lon Chaney Jr.) to kill all those who had desecrated the tomb of the Egyptian...

Smilin' Through
1941
Screenplay
John Carteret has long been depressed and lonely, because, at his wedding years ago, his bride, Moonyean, was murdered. He accepts into his house Kath...

Scotland Yard
1941
Writer
Inspector Cork pursues a bank robber who serves in the army and receives facial injuries. After plastic surgery he shows up as a bank president planni...

Victory
1940
Screenplay
A hermit's idyllic life on an island is disturbed by the arrival of a bunch of cutthroats.

The Mummy's Hand
1940
Original Film Writer
A couple of young, out-of-work archaeologists in Egypt discover evidence of the burial place of the ancient Egyptian princess Ananka. After receiving ...

Little Old New York
1940
Story
Inventor Robert Fulton receives support from a tavern owner and a shipyard worker to help realize his dream of a high-powered steamboat.

The Prisoner of Zenda
1937
Screenplay
A kingdom's ascending heir, marked for assassination, switches identities with a lookalike, who takes his place at the coronation. When the real king ...

Beloved Enemy
1936
Screenplay
In 1921, British Lord Athleigh arrives in Dublin with his daughter, Helen, to engage in peace talks. As wanted Irish rebel leader Dennis Riordan is no...

The Man Who Changed His Mind
1936
Screenplay
Dr. Laurence, a once-respectable scientist, begins to research the origin of the mind and the soul. The science community rejects him, and he risks lo...

The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss
1936
Writer
A bored millionaire wagers his doctor that he can support himself at a working class job for a year without touching his inheritance.

The Last of the Mohicans
1936
Adaptation
The story is set in the British province of New York during the French and Indian War, and concerns—in part—a Huron massacre (with passive French acqu...

Dracula's Daughter
1936
Story
A countess from Transylvania seeks a psychiatrist’s help to cure her vampiric cravings.

Mad Love
1935
Screenplay
An insane surgeon's obsession with an actress leads him to replace her wounded pianist husband's hands with the hands of a knife murderer--hands which...

Mark of the Vampire
1935
Writer
Sir Borotyn, a prominent Prague resident, is discovered murdered in his home, with all indications pointing to a vampire assault. The victim's friend,...

Bride of Frankenstein
1935
Adaptation
Dr. Frankenstein and his monster both turn out to be alive, not killed as previously believed. Dr. Frankenstein wants to get out of the evil experimen...

The Mystery of Edwin Drood
1935
Screenplay
A choirmaster addicted to opium and obsessed with a beautiful young woman will stop at nothing to possess her.

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer
1935
Screenplay
In the Northwest Frontier of India, the 41st Bengal Lancers leaded by the harsh Colonel Tom Stone are having trouble with the rebellious leader Mohamm...

Berkeley Square
1933
Theatre Play, Screenplay
A young American man is transported back to London in the time shortly after the American Revolution and meets his ancestors.

The Mummy
1932
Screenplay
An ancient Egyptian priest named Imhotep is revived when an archaeological expedition finds his mummy and one of the archaeologists accidentally reads...

Dracula
1931
Theatre Play
British estate agent Renfield travels to Transylvania to meet the mysterious Count Dracula, who is interested in leasing a castle in London. After Dra...