Charles Laughton Movies

Just before making his talkie directorial debut with Atlantic, director E.A. DuPont dashed off the silent "backstage" drama Piccadilly. By the time the film was released in 1929, talking pictures had taken a firm hold of the British film industry, obliging DuPont to reshoot much of the picture with dialogue. American screen favorites Anna May Wong and Gilda Gray (the girl who popularized the "shimmy dance") head the cast, the former as Shosho, a dishwasher in the London nightclub where the latter, cast as dancer Mabel Greenfield, performs nightly. Jealous of Mabel's dancing partner Victor Smiles (Cyril Ritchard), club owner Wilmot (Jameson Thomas) fires Victor, whereupon business drops off dramatically. In desperation, Wilmot takes Shosho out of the kitchen and puts her on stage, where she scores a big success. Feeling threatened by Shosho, Mabel heads to her rival's apartment with blood in her eye. A shot rings out, Shosho falls dead, and Mabel is accused of murder. But during the trial, it turns out that Shosho was done in by her Chinese sweetheart Jim (Kim Ho Chang). In his first feature film appearance, Charles Laughton performs an outrageous bit as a rowdy night club patron; also seen in a minuscule role is young Ray Milland. The talkie version of Piccadilly wasn't released in the U.S. until 1932. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A smuggling organization leader hides his identity as a Dutch-Chinese tramp steamer skipper until he is discovered by a customs agent. ~ All Movie Guide

This first film version of H.G. Wells' Island of Dr. Moreau stars Charles Laughton as Dr.Moreau, a dedicated but sadly misguided scientist who rules the roost on a remote island. Shipwrecked sailor Edward Parker Richard Arlen finds himself on Moreau's island, agreeing to stick around until another boat can come along and take him home. But that's not quite what Moreau has in mind: he'd rather Parker stay on the island and marry the exotic Lota (Kathleen Burke), who curiously possesses the characteristics of the panther. In fact, all the island's natives seem more animal than human, especially the hirsute Bela Lugosi. And why not? They are animals who've been transformed by Moreau into humanlike creatures via surgery. Moreau's plans to mate Parker and Lota are complicated by the arrival of Parker's fiancee Leila Hyams, who has been brought to the island by ship's captain Stanley Fields, one of Moreau's flunkies. When Moreau kills Fields for this insubordination, he makes the mistake of breaking one of the rules he himself has imposed on the island: That no creature shall kill another. Island of Lost Souls does its job of inducing goosebumps so well that one can forgive the cherubic excesses of Charles Laughton in his portrayal of Dr. Moreau. The film would be remade under Wells' original title in 1978, with Burt Lancaster in the Laughton role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It's a wildly varied group that takes shelter from a raging English storm in the forbidding mansion of the Femm family. Among the reluctant guests are stuffed-shirt Philip Waverton (Raymond Massey): Philip's sensitive wife Margaret (Gloria Stuart); their mutual friend, disillusioned war veteran Roger Penderell (Melvyn Douglas); vulgar self-made millionaire Sir William Porterhouse (Charles Laughton); and Porterhouse's no-better-than-she-ought-to-be lady friend Gladys DuCane (Lillian Bond). Under the baleful eyes of ungracious, atheistic host Horace Femm (Ernst Thesiger) and Horace's religious-zealot sister Rebecca (Eva Moore), the group sits around conversing, slowly coming to the realization that first impressions are most deceiving. Normally, that would be the whole story-except that the old dark house houses a deep dark secret involving 101-year-old Sir Roderick Femm (played by "John Dudgeon", actually an actress named Elspeth Dudgeon) and pyromaniac Saul Femm (Brember Wills). Lumbering ominously throughout the proceedings is top-billed Boris Karloff, playing Morgan, the mute, alcoholic family butler (the opening credits felt obligated to tell 1932 filmgoers that yes, this was the same Karloff who'd portrayed the Monster in the previous season's Frankenstein). Directed with sinister verve by James Whale and brimming with unforgettable dialogue, The Old Dark House is one of the most enjoyable and least formularized of the Universal "scare" pictures of the early 1930s. The film was based on J. B. Priestly's Benighted, though Priestly's hero dies in the book and does not in the film (this appears to have been a last-minute decision--and a wise one). Long thought lost, The Old Dark House was rediscovered in the early 1970s; copyright problems with the lukewarm 1963 remake kept it off television until 1994, at which time a sparkling new print was struck, replacing the washed-out dupes with which film buffs were all too familiar. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this adaptation of Jeffrey Dell's play, Charles Laughton recreates his stage role as a seemingly meek bank clerk. To make good his debts, Laughton ingratiates himself with his wealthy Australian nephew (Ray Milland), then poisons the lad and buries the body in his garden. Using the money the nephew had on his person, Laughton invests wisely and becomes rich himself. He rapidly goes to seed, deserting his wife (Dorothy Peterson) for a "woman of the world" (Verree Teasdale) and drinking himself into unconsciousness. Laughton's distraught wife figures out the extent of her husband's crimes, and grimly arranges for Laughton to accidentally kill her--with enough circumstantial evidence planted to convict the husband of murder. Payment Deferred was a particularly vivid experience for supporting actor Ray Milland, who watched in amazement as Charles Laughton got away with some of the ripest "ham" ever seen on film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this campy "adult-oriented" drama from the early 1930s, the ruthless manager of a Malaysian rubber plantation marries a singer facing deportation. He offers her a miserable existence of abuse and loneliness. She finds a bright spot with a handsome plantation worker. Unfortunately, her jealous husband sends him into headhunter country. When the man returns unscathed, the bullying supervisor is surprised for he figured the worker for a coward. The natives then revolt and an escaped convict helps the lovers make it to safety. The manager and the fugitive then play poker. The owner has a terrific hand, but never gets to lay it down, because his opponent is gored by a spear and dies. The ruthless overseer soon joins him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The 1932 publication of Charles Nordhoff and James Norton Hall's Mutiny on the Bounty sparked a revival of interest in the titular 1789 ship mutiny, and this 1935 MGM movie version won the Oscar for Best Picture. Clark Gable stars as Fletcher Christian, first mate of the infamous HMS Bounty, skippered by Captain William Bligh (Charles Laughton), the cruelest taskmaster on the Seven Seas. Bligh's villainy knows no bounds: he is even willing to flog a dead man if it will strengthen his hold over the crew. Christian despises Bligh and is sailing on the Bounty under protest. During the journey back to England, Bligh's cruelties become more than Christian can bear; and after the captain indirectly causes the death of the ship's doctor, the crew stages a mutiny, with Christian in charge. Bligh and a handful of officers loyal to him are set adrift in an open boat. Through sheer force of will, he guides the tiny vessel on a 49-day, 4000-mile journey to the Dutch East Indies without losing a man. Historians differ on whether Captain Bligh was truly such a monster or Christian such a paragon of virtue (some believe that the mutiny was largely inspired by Christian's lust for the Tahitian girls). The movie struck gold at the box office, and, in addition to the Best Picture Oscar, Gable, Laughton, and Franchot Tone as one of the Bounty's crew were all nominated for Best Actor (they all lost to Victor McLaglan in The Informer). The film was remade in 1962 and adapted into the "revisionist" 1984 feature The Bounty with Mel Gibson as Fletcher Christian and Anthony Hopkins as Captain Bligh. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Previously filmed in 1918 and 1923, Harry Leon Wilson's novel achieved movie classic status when it was remade by Leo McCarey in 1935. The story opens in Paris, circa 1908. Ruggles, beautifully underplayed by Charles Laughton, is the ultra-obedient manservant to the bibulous Earl of Burnstead (Roland Young). During one of the Earl's nocturnal forays, nouveau riche American cattle baron Egbert Floud (Charles Ruggles) wins Ruggles in a poker game. Terrified at the prospect of being bundled off to the Wild West, Ruggles' resolve is weakened somewhat when he and the raucous but ingratiating Egbert spend a wild night on the town. (The besotted butler's periodic exclamations of "Whoopee!" are priceless.) Back in the frontier "boom town" of Red Gap, a misunderstanding obliges Egbert's social-climbing wife Effie (Mary Boland) to pass off Ruggles as an aristocratic British army officer, immediately arousing the suspicions of priggish social arbiter Charles Belknap-Jackson (Lucien Littlefield). The longer he spends in America, the more Ruggles grows to like the concept of democracy and self-determination. Of the film's many highlights, two are standouts: the scene in which Ruggles silences a rowdy saloon crowd with his recitation of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and the droll, semi-improvised vignette in which dancehall girl Nell Kenner (Leila Hyams) teaches the Earl of Burnstead how to play the drums. Ruggles of Red Gap was filmed for a fourth time in 1950 as the Bob Hope-Lucille Ball musical Fancy Pants. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After befriending talented dancer and pickpocket Libby (Vivien Leigh), street performer Charles (Charles Saggers) strikes up a partnership with the gifted young performer and invites Libby to join his act. With Libby's graceful moves steadily drawing an audience to Charles' dramatic act, the performers soon catch the eye of theater magnate Harley (Rex Harrison), who is so mesmerized by the performance that he invites Libby and her fellow performers to a post-play party. When Libby arrives at the party alone, her career rapidly ascends, as Charles and the rest of the performers remain behind to toil amongst the famished masses. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Few will argue with the contention that RKO Radio's 1939 adaptation of Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame was the best of the many screen versions of the Hugo classic. We say this even allowing for certain liberties taken with the source material-liberties calculated by scenarists Sonya Levien and Bruno Frank to draw parallels between 15th century Paris and 20th century Europe. Thus, Claude Frollo (Cedric Hardwicke), the villain of the piece, is no longer merely a religious hypocrite unable to control his own carnal desires. Instead, Frollo is a bush-league Hitler, warning that the invention of the printing press is dangerous in that it will encourage the rabble to think for themselves, and plotting the persecution and destruction of the "undesirable" gypsies. In the same vein, Gringoire the Poet (Edmond O'Brien in his film debut) has been transformed into an agit-prop "Group Theatre" activist, bent on bringing the unvarnished truth to the ignorant Parisians. Many of Hugo's subplots have been dispensed with, the better to concentrate on the grotesquely deformed Quasimodo (Charles Laughton), bell-ringer of Notre Dame Cathedral, and his puppylike loyalty towards imperiled gypsy dancer Esmerelda (Maureen O'Hara, in her first American film appearance). The schism between the haves and have-nots in the walled city of Paris is illustrated in broad, visually dynamic strokes by director William Dieterle. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Like its predecessors, this third cinema version of Sidney Hoiward's Pulitzer Prize-winning play They Knew What They Wanted suffers from Hollywood censorship. Still, this story of the grim consequence of a misbegotten mail-order marriage has much to offer. Carole Lombard is superb as the waitress who lies about herself while carrying on a romance by correspondence with the Italian-born owner of a Napa Valley vineyard. Equally fine (if a shade too effusively hammy) is Charles Laughton as the grape grower, who also misrepresents himself in his letters, going so far as to pass off a photograph of handsome hired hand William Gargan as a picture of himself. Vowing to be loyal to her new husband Laughton, despite her distaste for him, Lombard nonetheless enters into an affair with Gargan. For the most part, the film moves along harmoniously. It falters only in the censor-dictated alterations (why is Lombard crying at the end?) and the horrendous performance by Frank Fay as a sanctimonious priest. Keep an eye peeled during the engagement party for a young, unbilled Karl Malden and Tom Ewell. Previous versions of They Knew What They Wanted included The Secret Hour (1928) and A Lady in Love (1930). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Tales of Manhattan is a sumptuous multipart film centered around a formal tailcoat. The coat is specially designed for stage actor Charles Boyer, who wears it during a rendezvous with his lady friend (Rita Hayworth). The lady's husband (Thomas Mitchell) shoots Boyer, thus the tailcoat is damaged merchandise and sold at a discount to a bridegroom (Cesar Romero). When the groom's peccadillos catch up to him, the bride (Ginger Rogers) chooses to marry the best man (Henry Fonda) instead, and the coat is shipped off to a second hand store. It is purchased by a would-be composer (Charles Laughton), who wears it the night that he is to conduct his first symphony; alas, the coat is too tight and tears apart, nearly ruining the conductor's debut. Stitched back together, the coat is donated to a skid row mission, wherein the kindly proprietor gives the coat to a down and out drunkard (Edward G. Robinson) so that the shabby gentleman can attend his 25th college reunion. Later on, the coat is stolen by a crook (J. Carroll Naish) in order to gain entrance to a fancy charity ball. The crook holds up the ball and stuffs the loot in the pockets of the coat, but while escaping in an airplane he loses the outer garment. The coat floats down to an impoverished African American shanty community; a farmer (Paul Robeson) decides to distribute the "money from heaven" amongst his needy neighbors. At the end, the tattered coat adorns the shoulders of a scarecrow. Tales of Manhattan is one of the best "portmanteau" dramas turned out by Hollywood; it was directed by French expatriate Julien Duvivier, a past master of the multi-story technique. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide