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 and John Barrymore on the right, 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 was in real life a mild Cornell math professor who acted on the stage occasionally just for fun. He got serious about it at the urging of John and Lionel Barrymore who 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, who instigated a mutiny on a rich man's yacht. You feel sorry for the silly 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 everybody and take all the women. Wolheim was brilliant in it.
Unfortunately Wolheim died of cancer in the early sound era.
