Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Sonya Levien (born Sara Opesken; 25 December 1888 – 19 March 1960) was a Russian-born American screenwriter. She became one of the highest earning female screenwriters in Hollywood in the 1930s and would help a number of directors and film stars transition from silent films to talkies. In 1955 she received an Academy Award for her screenplay Interrupted Melody.
Complete Filmography

State Fair
1962
Adaptation
Texan farmers the Frake family head for the Texas State Fair in Dallas. The parents are focused on winning the competitions for livestock and cooking....

Pepe
1960
Story
Mario "Cantinflas" Moreno is a hired hand, Pepe, employed on a ranch. A boozing Hollywood director buys a white stallion that belongs to Pepe's boss. ...

Jeanne Eagels
1957
Screenplay
Biographical film based loosely on the life of 1920s stage star Jeanne Eagels.

Bhowani Junction
1956
Screenplay
Anglo-Indian Victoria Jones seeks her true identity amid the chaos of the British withdrawal from India.

Oklahoma!
1955
Screenplay
In the Oklahoma territory at the turn of the twentieth century, two young cowboys vie with a violent ranch hand and a traveling peddler for the hearts...

Interrupted Melody
1955
Writer
Interrupted Melody is the inspirational filmed biography of world-renowned Australian soprano Marjorie Lawrence. She’s a foremost Wagnerian, equal to ...

Hit the Deck
1955
Screenplay
Sailors on leave in San Francisco get mixed up in love and show business.

The Student Prince
1954
Screenplay
A prince has a romance with a barmaid before he must give up personal happiness for duty.

The Merry Widow
1952
Screenplay
Marshovia, a small European kingdom, is on the brink of bankruptcy but the country may be saved if the wealthy American Crystal Radek, widow of a Mars...

Quo Vadis
1951
Screenplay
After fierce Roman commander Marcus Vinicius becomes infatuated with beautiful Christian hostage Lygia, he begins to question the tyrannical leadershi...

Three Daring Daughters
1948
Screenplay
Three young girls try to help their divorced mother find the right husband.

Cass Timberlane
1947
Adaptation
Judge Cass Timberlane marries a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, Virginia Marshland. A baby is stillborn and she turns more and more to attorne...

The Green Years
1946
Screenplay
An orphaned young boy is guided by his great-grandfather and strives to go to university to become a doctor. However, the boy's harsh grandfather stan...

State Fair
1945
Adaptation
During their annual visit to the Iowa State Fair, the Frake family enjoy many adventures. Proud patriarch Abel has high hopes for his champion swine B...

Rhapsody in Blue
1945
Story
Fictionalized biography of George Gershwin and his fight to bring serious music to Broadway.

The Valley of Decision
1945
Screenplay
Mary Rafferty comes from a poor family of steel mill workers in 19th Century Pittsburgh. Her family objects when she goes to work as a maid for the we...

The Amazing Mrs. Holliday
1943
Story
A missionary tries to outwit the U.S. government and smuggle Chinese orphans into the country.

Ziegfeld Girl
1941
Screenplay
Discovery by Flo Ziegfeld changes a girl's life but not necessarily for the better, as three beautiful women find out when they join the spectacle on ...

The Hunchback of Notre Dame
1939
Screenplay
Paris, France, 1482. Frollo, Chief Justice of benevolent King Louis XI, gets infatuated by the beauty of Esmeralda, a young Romani girl. The hunchback...

Drums Along the Mohawk
1939
Screenplay
Albany, New York, 1776. After marrying, Gil and Lana travel north to settle on a small farm in the Mohawk River Valley, but soon their growing prosper...

The Cowboy and the Lady
1938
Screenplay
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 f...

Kidnapped
1938
Screenplay, Writer
Robert Louis Stevenson's hero David Balfour joins rebel Alan Breck Stewart in 18th-century Scotland.

Four Men and a Prayer
1938
Screenplay
The sons of a disgraced British officer try to clear his name.

In Old Chicago
1938
Screenplay
The O'Leary brothers -- honest Jack and roguish Dion -- become powerful figures, and eventually rivals, in Chicago on the eve of its Great Fire.

Reunion
1936
Writer
Newspapers around the world proclaim the birth in Moosetown, Canada of the 3,000th baby brought into the world by the doctor, John Luke, known for del...

The Country Doctor
1936
Screenplay
A doctor has a rough time obtaining the money for his services in a lumber town until he delivers quintuplets.

Paddy O'Day
1936
Story
A wealthy, eccentric collector of stuffed birds and a beautiful Russian singer provide refuge to an orphaned Irish child who has arrived illegally in ...

Here's to Romance
1935
Story
Kathleen Gerard, a high society wife fed up with her husband's artistic "protegées", decides to take one of her own in Nino, a promising tenor, patron...

Navy Wife
1935
Writer
A Hawaiian naval nurse weds a widowed officer partly because he has a crippled daughter.

Change of Heart
1934
Screenplay
Catherine and Mack and their close friends Chris and Madge graduate from a West Coast college and fly to New York City to find work.

As Husbands Go
1934
Writer
Lucille Lingard and her friend Emmie bid farewell to their European friends on their last night in Paris. Lucille has fallen for the debonair Ronald D...

Mr. Skitch
1933
Writer
After losing their Missouri home during the Great Depression, the Skitch family pulls up stakes and heads west to California to begin life anew. Comed...

Berkeley Square
1933
Screenplay
A young American man is transported back to London in the time shortly after the American Revolution and meets his ancestors.
The Warrior's Husband
1933
Writer
The Warrior's Husband is a satire of the male and female roles in society set in 800 B.C.. Queen Hippolyta (Marjorie Rambeau) rules Pontus with mascul...

State Fair
1933
Screenplay
The children of Iowa farmers find love, with mixed results, at the state fair.

Cavalcade
1933
Continuity
A cavalcade of English life from New Year's Eve 1899 until 1933 is seen through the eyes of well-to-do Londoners Jane and Robert Marryot. Amongst even...

Tess of the Storm Country
1932
Writer
When Captain Howland decides that his daughter Tess is getting a bit to old to continue to go to sea with him, they move into a small cottage on the c...

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
1932
Screenplay
A young girl from Sunnybrook goes to live with her wealthy relatives and falls in love with a doctor. Adapted from Kate Douglas Wiggin's famous novel...

After Tomorrow
1932
Screenplay
In the Depression, Pete and Sidney are good kids, working hard, giving money to their parents, and engaged for three years while they save to get marr...

Delicious
1931
Writer
A comic group of Europeans coming to the USA have romantic and immigration troubles.

Surrender
1931
Writer
Story of French prisoner in Germany who falls in love with a German general's daughter. From the novel "Axelle" by Pierre Benoit.

The Brat
1931
Writer
A society novelist brings a brash young chorus girl home in order to study her for inspiration for his new novel. His family is distraught, but soon h...

Daddy Long Legs
1931
Writer
Wealthy Jervis Pendleton acts as benefactor for orphan Judy Abbott, anonymously sponsoring her in her boarding school. But as she grows up, he finds h...

The Man Who Came Back
1931
Writer
A spoiled carefree rich kid gets into too much trouble for his father who sends him out on his own to prove himself capable of making a respectable ma...

Lightnin'
1930
Writer
Lightnin' and Mary Jones are co-owners of a hotel built right on a state border, used by divorcing wives so they can pretend to be in California while...

Liliom
1930
Screenplay, Dialogue
A carousel barker falls in love with a young woman. Both are fired from their jobs, and when the young woman becomes pregnant, the carousel barker tri...

So This Is London
1930
Screenplay
Hiram Draper is an all-American self-made man with a profound distaste for everything British. Yet he must travel to London with his family. When Juni...

Song o' My Heart
1930
Screenplay
Broken hearts in Ireland. Sean is a great tenor, in semi-retirement, living in a village close to Mary, the woman he’s always loved. Mary’s aunt convi...

South Sea Rose
1929
Writer
A French girl raised in the south seas is brought to prim and proper New England by her New England born and bred sea captain husband. She wears short...

Frozen Justice
1929
Writer
Drama set in Alaska

They Had to See Paris
1929
Scenario Writer
Oklahoma mechanic Pike Peters finds himself part owner of an oil field. His wife Idy, hitherto content, decides the family must go to Paris to get "cu...

Lucky Star
1929
Writer
Mary, a poor farm girl, meets Tim just as word comes that war has been declared. Tim enlists in the army and goes to the battlefields of Europe, where...

Behind That Curtain
1929
Writer
Sir George hires Hillary Gatt to find out more about Eric who wants to marry Lois. Gatt is murdered and the couple, married, run off to India. Old fri...

Trial Marriage
1929
Screenplay
Constance Bannister enters into a trial marriage contract with Dr. Thorvald Ware and finds happiness with him. She defies his wishes by dancing at a c...

The Younger Generation
1929
Screenplay
Soap-opera about a social-climbing Jewish man and his old-world parents who are heartbroken by his rejection of them. Young Morris Goldfish follows hi...

The Power of the Press
1928
Writer
The naive newspaper cub Clem lands a scoop when he's sent out to cover a murder. In his enthusiasm he writes that the main suspect is Jane. When she c...

A Ship Comes In
1928
Writer
Film which tells the story of immigrants coming to the United States.

A Harp in Hock
1927
Writer
A Harp in Hock, also known as The Samaritan, is a lost 1927 American silent melodrama film directed by Renaud Hoffman, produced by DeMille Pictures, a...

The Heart Thief
1927
Writer
Paul Kurt, embittered and disillusioned by war, returns to Budapest and devotes his life to roistering and gambling. He falls in love with Anna Galamb...

The Princess from Hoboken
1927
Writer
To enliven their business, the O'Tooles, restaurant owners in Hoboken, New Jersey, transform their restaurant into the Russian Inn when they hear that...

Christine of the Big Tops
1926
Writer
When her circus-performer parents die in an accident, Christine (Pauline Garon) is raised by other circus-performers, including Hagan, a balloon-vende...

Why Girls Go Back Home
1926
Screenplay
Trusting country girl Marie Downey falls in love with touring stage-actor Clifford Dudley. As he becomes a matinee idol on Broadway, she turns a chor...

Salome of the Tenements
1925
Writer
A young East Side Jewish reporter gets into a sticky situation when she finds that her new beau is indicting a banker she owes money to.

The Exciters
1923
Writer
Ronnie Rand, Required to marry before she is 21 or lose her inheritance, Ronnie Rand meets Pierre Martel, member of a gang of thieves, and, convinced ...

Pink Gods
1922
Writer
The owner of vast diamond mines, John Quelch is constantly fearful of theft and convinced that any woman will "sell her soul" for diamonds, he deals h...

The Top of New York
1922
Story
Hilda lives in a tenement apartment with her aunt, Mrs. Brady, and her crippled younger brother Micky, and works in a department store where her boss ...

First Love
1921
Story
The O'Donnells are a typical, everyday family -- Tad (George Hernandez) is a sensible working man, his wife (Fannie Midgely) is a good mother and thei...

Cheated Love
1921
Writer
Sonya Schnoema, a Jewish girl, comes to the United States as an immigrant and works in her father's ghetto grocery store, where she gains the affectio...

Who Will Marry Me?
1919
Story
Rosie Sanguinetti's parents arrange her marriage, against her will, to Antonio Mosconi, "Tony the Barber." At the wedding ceremony in her Little Italy...