Alan Mowbray : Alan Mowbray, 1896 - 1969: God Bless Our Happy Butler

Alan Mowbray was an example of a good all around actor. Though frequently seen in comic parts, like Topper's butler (hence the "Subject" line reference),
he could play dramatic roles - even (early in his career, a romantic role.
He was Rawdon Crawley, the slightly stupid army officer who marries Becky Sharp (Miriam Hopkins) in the 1935 Rouben Mamoulian film BECKY SHARP. Rawdon, as given to us by William Thackeray, is a gambler and wastrel, who is able to catch Becky's eye because she is looking for the main chance - he is heir to a selfish, wealthy woman who seems to like Becky as well. But when Miss Crawley learns of their elopement she cuts Rawdon out of her will. He is not immediately affected by this because Napoleon's return from Elba leads to remobilization. Rawdon fights at Waterloo. Later he and Becky set up in London (the movie does not go into it, but Becky and Rawdon's lifestyle is described by Thackeray as - How to Live Well on Nothing a Year). Becky, in the novel, has a son by Rawdon. The son and the husband are increasingly ignored by her as she plays around with the powerful Marquis of Steyne (Cedric Hardwicke in the film). Mowbray, who repeatedly tries to rekindle the love he once thought Hopkins had for him, finds her and Hardwicke together and beats Hardwicke. After that Mowbray walks out on Hopkins, who (in the film version) belatedly realizes he was a worthy man to marry. I believe it was Mowbray's only attempt at a romantic figure, and he does well with it.

He was also good as an occasional villain. In the Sherlock Holmes series film,
TERROR BY NIGHT, Mowbray is Major Duncan Bleek, whom Watson knew in India. He is actually Colonel Sebastian Moran, the former second-in-command to Professor Moriarty in the latter's gang. Mowbray is suitably sinister, killing an associate with an air pistol, when the associate is no longer of any use in stealing a valuable jewel on a train. Similarly Mowbray played the hotel manager Melton, in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE KILLER, BORIS KARLOFF. In a hotel full of red herring suspects (including Karloff as a fake "swami"), Mowbray is the actual murderer of a crooked lawyer. At first he is constantly harping on Costello as the actual killer, requesting and re-requesting that Lou(who was an incompetent bellhop) be arrested (Lou had threatened the dead man).
But towards the end when Lou briefly suggests to the cops another suspect, note how smoothly Mowbray starts suggesting maybe Costello is right.

My favorite non-comic performance by Mowbray was his turn in THAT HAMILTON WOMAN, as Sir William Hamilton, art collector, His Majesty King George III's Ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples, and husband of Emma Hamilton (Vivian Leigh). He is a remarkably tolerant cuckold, realizing that his wife's love affair with Admiral Horatio Nelson (Laurence Olivier) is necessary for the morale of England's most important military figure. But his life was really tied up to his great art collection. Unfortunately it was lost when being transported to England by ship in a storm. The final haunting moment of Mowbray's performance in the film is when, half demented by his losses, he lies dying on his bed, requesting his butler shift a non-existant canvas "which is crooked" on the wall (the butler, looking very sad, complies with the request).

His comic bits are well recalled too - his psychiatrist in the film DESIRE with Marlene Dietrich, who (with Ernest Cossart) is tricked to assist unwittingly in a jewel robbery. The only non-committal comments Mowbray makes to his patients are "that's good", "that's bad". Or his college chum of William Powell's in MY MAN GODFREY, who has to explain (out of thin air) why he "fired" Powell as his butler after some mild non-sensical comment. Or his director Don Avery in FOOTLIGHT FEVER, stumbling across the theatre stage of the play he is supposed to direct after having had less than one or two hours of sleep in two days of dating the play's idiot dramatist. Mowbray was good in all his work, dramatic, tragic, comic. But it is probably the comic Mowbray that people will always remember with deepest affection.

Mowbray was a fine talent too often wasted in minor films. He even appeared in some Columbia two-reelers in the forties! John Ford used him to good effect a couple of times. One of my favorite Mowbray performances is his portrayal of the neurotic actor, Robin Ray, in the early noir I Wake Up Screaming (1941). He's both funny and a little sad in this one, and plays well with Victor Mature and Allyn Joslyn. Mowbray was one of those actors without him the Hollywood movie scene of the thirties and forties would have been a vastly duller place. It's nice to see him remembered by at least some of us who post on the IMDB.

Alan Mowbray was excellent as "Granville Thorndyke", the inebriated, itinerant actor in My Darling Clementine. I love the scene in which he recites the soliloquy "To be or not to be" and then Victor Mature finishes it. It's such a touching moment of rapport between two characters who have seen better days and known better things.

He's also good and suitably dapper in a small part in Hitchcock's remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much as one of Jo's friends.

And I just saw him in a B picture, The Phantom of 42nd Street, again playing an actor. He did a few lines from Julius Caesar, wonderfully well, I thought.

Incapable of turning in a bad performance and despite not being leading man handsome, often more interesting than the leads he played with. A delightful actor.

"The night was sultry."

To me, his career shows how misleading type-casting can be. Often he was cast as snobs or twits of one variety or another, and excelled at them. But, checking out his real life, he was both a war hero (WWI) and a stalwart in winning better work conditions for Hollywood actors hardly a snob or a twit. I'll try not to make that mistake again.

Just watched him in Captain From Castillenot a twit or a snob. Great role! Great actor!

A radio bit he did with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy led me to his IMDB bio. I'd seen him often but never really appreciated him. Yes, God bless Alan Mowbray!