LOUIS WOLHEIM

Maybe I should have called this post, "John K Does It Again." John has a knack for discovering...or rather, rediscovering... wonderful live action cartoon characters in old films. Here's (above) his latest discovery, Louis Wolheim.

That's Wolheim on the left, listening to John Barrymore, from a 1920s version of "Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde." Wow, two great faces in the same shot! 

If I have the story right, Wolheim started out as a mild-mannered math professor who acted on the stage occasionally just for fun. He got serious about it when John and Lionel Barrymore told him, "With that face you can make a million dollars!"

I've only seen Wolheim in one starring role, "The Ship from Shanghai" where he played Ted the Steward, a mutineer on a rich man's yacht.  It was great! You feel sorry for the frivolous rich people in the story because the man they hired to serve up their drinks was a force of nature: a born malcontent, a sort of mean Elmer Fudd. He just wanted to kill all the men and take all the women. Wolheim was brilliant in it.

Unfortunately Wolheim died of cancer in the early sound era.