Charles Marquis Warren in a play entitled "No Sun, No Moon", which was staged at Princeton University. Warren decided to go to Hollywood in 1933 when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer took an option on the play. With the help of his godfather, Warren secured a position as a staff writer for the studio. His early assignments included working on the scripts for "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1935) starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable, and "Top Hat" (1935) with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. He made the latter film on loan out to RKO Radio Pictures. Warren eventually left Hollywood for New York where he found success
Charles Laughton best of the 1950s, and has been selected by the United States National Film Registry for preservation in the Library of Congress. At the time of its original release it was a critical and box-office failure, and Laughton never directed again. The documentary "Charles Laughton Directs The Night of the Hunter" by Robert Gitt (2002) features preserved rushes and outtakes with Laughton's audible off-camera direction. Laughton made his London stage debut in Gogol's "The Government Inspector" (1926). He appeared in many West End plays in the following few years and his earliest successes on the stage were as Hercule Poirot