Basil Rathbone Movies

In the 1920s, when a motion picture featured an Apache, it wasn't referring to Native Americans but to denizens of the Parisian Underworld. By the end of 1925, the Apache theme had been pretty much worn through, but the Parisian settings made a nice backdrop for Mae Murray, who was given the opportunity to show off her dancing skills (which were always far better than her acting talents). Police Prefect Le Cointe (Roy D'Arcy) and American millionaire Grove (Francis X. Bushman) visit a cabaret together. The star performers there are Gaby (Murray) and her partner, an Apache named Antoine (a young but nevertheless sinister-looking Basil Rathbone). Grover does not believe his friend's assertion that Gaby is a thief, and he goes so far as to become engaged to her. Le Cointe, of course, is correct, and Gaby and Antoine are planning to rob Grover blind. Gaby begins to have a change of heart, however, when she realizes how deeply Grover cares for her. Antoine is not so true, and he steals a string of pearls that Grover has given Gaby. Le Cointe captures him and Gaby confesses all. Grover readily forgives Gaby and she finds true happiness with him. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This early talkie was based on Frederick Lonsdale's successful Broadway play. Fay Cheyney (Norma Shearer) is a cunning jewel thief who impersonates a wealthy widow as she travels to Monte Carlo, planning on stealing a fortune in pearls from one Mrs. Webley (Maude Turner Gordon); Fay's henchmen also travel with her, posing as her servants as they help her plan the heist. However, Fay has a change of plans when she meets Lord Arthur Dilling (Basil Rathbone), who is wealthy, handsome, titled, and Mrs. Webley's nephew. Fay and Arthur soon become infatuated with each other, and Fay puts her plans on hold as she begins to travel in his privileged social circle; however, when she's invited to a private soiree at Mrs. Webley's mansion, the temptation is too great, and she attempts to steal the pearls. However, she's caught in the act by Arthur, who offers to make a deal -- if Fay will sleep with him, he won't tell Mrs. Webley that she's a fraud. Fay is taken aback by this affront to her honor, and instead confesses to Mrs. Webley and her assembled guests that she is not who she has purported to be. Shocked, the assembled socialites decide to turn her in to the police, until Lord Elton (Herbert Bunston) admits that he wrote Fay an indiscreet letter that had incriminating information about many of their friends. With Fay in a position to blackmail her blue-blooded acquaintances, they attempt to buy her silence, but Fay proves that despite her criminal history, she has her principles. The Last of Mrs. Cheyney was remade in 1937 (with Joan Crawford in the lead), and again in 1951 as The Law and the Lady, starring Greer Garson. A German version also appeared in 1961. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Ahead of its time for liberated thinking, this is still really just a classic romance with a love triangle thrown in on the side. While on a trip to Paris, a woman meets a man that makes her reconsider her marriage of convenience (she had married her boss to save him from his girlfriend!). ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

In this melodrama, a husband gets on with his life after his wife goes to Europe to get a divorce. Thinking the deed done, the husband marries another. Unfortunately, his first wife returns and tells him that she never went through the procedure and that she has no intention of ever freeing him. His second wife becomes distraught and attempts to kill herself. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Based on Frederick Lonsdale's The High Road, The Lady of Scandal is typical of the "teacup drama" genre so prevalent during the early talkie period. It all begins with down-to-earth musical comedy star Elsie (Ruth Chatterton) visiting the home of her aristocratic fiancee, John (Ralph Forbes. She briefly becomes acquainted with his cousin Edward (Basil Rathbone), an individual of dubious character allegedly nursing an affair with a married woman. In time, two changes occur during Elsie's visit to the stiff and formal household: first, each family member falls under her spell and "loosens up"; Elsie and Edward also become amorously entwined, and in the end - when the husband of Edward's married lover dies, Elsie must make a sacrifice to this woman. In the process, she also realizes that she does not love John and wishes to return to the theater. Extremely stagy and garrulous, the film also incorporates a great deal of humor to offset the prospective melodramatic pitfalls of the material. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The German comedy Opera Ball is the model upon which this film is based. Several seedy adventures erupt, as when Basil Rathbone thinks he is engaging the diplomat's wife in an affair, but it is actually the maid. ~ All Movie Guide

A classy woman has an affair with a rake after she learns that she has a terminal disease in this British melodrama. When the cad dumps her, the woman's husband soon learns of her shenanigans, but he forgives her. She then gets even better news when her doctor tells her that they have finally found a cure for her disease. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

When MGM remade its 1935 film Kind Lady in 1951, the earlier picture was retitled House of Menace to avoid confusion. The 1935 version stars Aline MacMahon, previously cast as wisecracking golddiggers, as a wealthy unmarried Londoner who befriends a charming but untalented artist (Basil Rathbone). The artist gains entrance to Aline's home by preying upon her basic kindliness, then slowly begins moving his own confederates in and taking over the household, the better to pilfer the lady's valuable collection of paintings. When Aline catches on, she is plied with drugs and locked up in her attic; the artist and his gang convince outsiders that the imprisoned woman is hopelessly insane. In the original Hugh Walpole short story, the lady of the house is ultimately murdered; in the play and film versions, she manages to outwit her captors and summon help. The 1951 version of Kind Lady starred Ethel Barrymore and Maurice Evans as fly and spider respectively. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

RKO Radio's spectacular production The Last Days of Pompeii utilizes the title but precious little else of the famous Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton historical novel (at least the film admits as much in the opening credits). Preston S. Foster stars as Marcus, a happy-go-lucky Ancient Roman blacksmith who is plunged into the depths of despair when his wife and child are killed by a hit-and-run chariot. Undergoing a radical personality change, Marcus becomes obsessed with money and prestige, and to achieve these he becomes a mighty gladiator. While on a visit to Judea, Marcus takes orphaned boy Flavius (David Holt) under his wing and also spends some time with governor Pontius Pilate (Basil Rathbone), who is presently preoccupied with the execution of a subversive young rabbi named Jesus Christ. Witnessing Christ's march to Calvary, Marcus is moved by His plight, but does nothing to help the man and indeed dismisses the whole notion of Christianity as superstitious nonsense. Years later, an ageing Marcus takes up residence in a lavish villa in the resort town of Pompeii, while his grown-up foster son, Flavius (now played by John Wood), gets involved in the burgeoning Christian movement. Arrested by the authorities, Flavius and his fellow Christians are sentenced to death in the arena, much to the dismay of Marcus. Still, it takes the eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii for Marcus to undergo his long-overdue religious awakening, and in the moments before he himself is engulfed by lava he arranges the escape of Flavius and the young man's sweetheart, Clodia (Dorothy Wilson). The climactic volcanic holocaust is a triumph of special effects, but that was to be expected from the production team of Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, the same folks responsible for King Kong. Though Preston S. Foster delivers one of his finest performances in The Last Days of Pompeii, the film's acting honors go to Basil Rathbone as Pilate, who transforms from a swaggering young skeptic to a conscience-stricken old man. On its original release, the film lost 237,000 dollars, but in the long run made a profit via periodic reissues. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This second filmization of Leo Tolstoy's novel is widely regarded as the best version. Greta Garbo plays the title character, the sheltered wife of Czarist official Rathbone. Intending to dissuade Rathbone's brother (Reginald Owen) from a life of debauchery, Garbo is sidetracked by her own fascination with dashing military officer Fredric March. This indiscreet liaison ruins Garbo's marriage and position in 19th century Russian society; she is even prohibited from seeing her own son (Freddie Bartholomew). In keeping with the censorial strictures of 1935 Hollywood, Anna Karenina is extremely careful in the staging of its final suicide sequence, allowing the audience to determine for itself whether or not Garbo's desperate act of throwing herself under wheels of a train is intentional. Outside of the expected superb performances of Garbo and March, the film's most fascinating characterization is offered by Basil Rathbone, whose cold cruelty in banishing his wife is shown to be the by-product of his own broken heart (though Rathbone never allows himself to descend into cheap sentiment). The first film version of Anna Karenina was the 1927 silent feature Love, also starring Garbo, which substituted an imbecilic happy ending for Tolstoy's bleak denouement (there would be an acceptable third version in 1948, starring Vivien Leigh. The 1935 Anna Karenina is arguably the finest accomplishment of the felicitous 1930s alliance between star Greta Garbo, director Clarence Brown and cinematographer William Daniels. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It is a tale known well, filmed many times over the years, but never better than this early black and white version from the MGM Studios, David O. Selznick producing. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"-- Charles Dickens juxtaposes England and France, George and Louis, tradition and revolution. One of the most beloved of Dickens' stories, finding not only countries and conditions compared, but also two individuals thrown up in stark contrast to one another: -- the dissolute barrister Sydney Carton (Ronald Colman) and the young, somewhat callow aristocrat Charles Darnay (Donald Woods), both in love with Lucie (Elizabeth Allan), daughter of a victim of the French Regime. Their lives intertwine until the violent revolution that overtook an entire nation engulfs them all as well.

Dickens' story has stood the test of time; remade frequently since the release of this1935 version. It is this version by director Jack Conway's that is best remembered and to which all others are compared. The settings, cinematography, and direction are all right on the mark, recreating the streets of London and of Paris with great skill and realism. The supporting cast, filled with faces we have grown to cherish-- Reginald Owen, Edna May Oliver, Claude Gillingwater, Walter Catlett, H. B. Warner, Basil Rathbone, and E. E. Clive-comes through with crystalline performances which add substance to the inexorable stream of events. Blanche Yurka's bravura turn as Therese de Farge delights us even as we shudder at her intensity. Second unit directors Jacques Tourneur and Val Lewton, who would both go on to memorable careers as leading directors in their own right, staged the storming of the Bastille and other "revolutionary" scenes brilliantly, managing to combine fervor with panache. It is, however, Colman's portrayal of the lonely man redeemed by love and sacrifice which stands at the center of the story.

Sydney Carton first saves Charles Darnay from a charge of treason, thereby meeting those who care for him: the beautiful Lucie Manette, her father, Doctor Manette (Henry B. Walthall), released from the Bastille after many years of unjust incarceration; Lucie's servant Miss Pross, (Oliver) and Mister Lorry (Claude Gillingwater), an functionary of Tellson's Bank. His relationship with this circle of kind friends grows rocky when Darnay marries Lucie, whom Carton has loved from afar, but even this turn of events cannot change his feelings for them all and he grows to love them even more when daughter Lucie comes along. He reforms, leaving old ways behind and enjoying a familial warmth he has never known. This happy life is shattered when Darnay returns to France during the first revolutionary struggles, intent on saving his old tutor from the guillotine. He soon finds himself behind bars and facing the blade instead. The Revolution does not forget an aristocrat, even one who has recanted and lived life abroad as a commoner. The whole family makes the channel crossing to come to the young man's aid and Carton seeks a way to save him, discovering only one path to free Darnay and return everyone to safety. It is a sacrifice easily promised and quickly made.

Ronald Colman had long wanted to make a film of this story and, when he finally got his chance, he happily shaved off his signature mustache in an appropriate gesture to historical realism. Reviews of his work indicate his portrayal of Sydney Carton surpassed all his previous endeavors; he had been accused of walking through light parts, once he started making "talkies," and not putting his many talents to good use. "A Tale of Two Cities" put rest to those complaints. He dominates completely the scenes he which he does appear, and his skill gives substance to a literary achievement, a melancholy man of intelligence and wit, given to drink and despair, whose life seems to attain meaning only when it is given up for someone else. It is one of the portrayals for which Ronald Colman has come to be remembered.

There are various remake versions of A Tale of Two Cities. Dirk Bogarde played Carton in 1958 and Chris Sarandon starred in a television remake in 1980. While these and other versions have all been good films, none has achieved the stature of the 1935 version and its excellent combination of star power, technical brilliance and great storytelling. ~ All Movie Guide