The Great Gildersleeve is a 1942 American comedy film directed by Gordon Douglas. Based on the popular NBC radio series The Great Gildersleeve created by Leonard L. Levinson, which ran from 1941 to 1950, this is the first of four films in the Gildersleeve series produced and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. The screenplay was written by Jack Townley and Julien Josephson, and the film stars Harold Peary and Jane Darwell. Other films in the series are Gildersleeve's Bad Day (1943), Gildersleeve on Broadway (1943) and Gildersleeve's Ghost (1944).