Herbert Lom, 1917-2012

As Napoleon in War and Peace, King Vidor, 1956. The great Czech-born actor was 95. Among his many laudable attributes was his willingness, briefly, to work with Jesus Franco. 

Comments

[Lex]

R.I.P. GOD LOM.

So many brilliant moments in the Panther movies, and Dead Zone, and etc etc, but some GENIUS Edwards/Lom virtual throwaway was in TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER where Dreyfus has some dream of a better life with some delightful swimsuit model, then dives onto a pool of Jell-O and wakes up to the reality of his wife in face cream screaming at him.

Genius.

[Not David Bordwell]

The NYT obit doesn't think much of Hammer's 1962 PHANTOM OF THE OPERA remake, but Lom is fantastic in it -- almost as good as Oliver Reed in CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF. PHANTOM holds up better than its reputation would suggest, and Lom owns it (with an excellent assist from the late Michael Gough). Well worth checking out as classic horror-movie season approaches.

[jbryant]

I thought Lom had a rather thankless job in PHANTOM, which except for an extended flashback he has to sell with only one eye and body language. But yeah, the movie is better than I remembered from my childhood.

I also liked Lom in a near-forgotten 1953 Joel McCrea British spy film called SHOOT FIRST. He's a lot of fun as an eccentric Pole working with British Intelligence

[andy]

I was completely mezmerized by him in Night and the City...had no idea he was the Pink Panther eye-twitcher! What opposite poles...

[Jeffrey Higgins]

Jesus, 113 credits on the imdb & I remember him primarily as the guy who worked with Franco. On only 2 films, it turns out!

But then I remember the other stuff - NIght and the City! The Ladykillers! A Shot in the Dark! The Dead Zone! La setta! Etc. What an actor.

[Mr. Milich]

NIGHT AND THE CITY

[Mr. Peel]

Since Lex mentioned a lesser PANTHER I'm going to bring up SON OF THE PINK PANTHER which appears to be Lom's final theatrical film, just as it was the last for Blake Edwards and Henry Mancini so all this seems somehow significant to me in a the-absolute-end-of-an-era sort of way. It's not much of a movie, really it's not, but it always seemed to me that more than ever before the character of Dreyfus is meant to be a stand in for Edwards finally coming to terms with the memory of the comic actor who played Clouseau that he knew for all those years. It's kind of nice to see Lom playing such sympathetic moments as the character, more curious about Roberto Benigni's Clouseau Jr. than enraged, as he develops a relationship with the one and only Claudia Cardinale. He's even given a happy ending or as close to a happy ending as Dreyfus was ever going to get. Herbert Lom deserved that.

[Griff]

Mr. Peel is absolutely correct regarding SON OF THE PINK PANTHER. On many levels -- well, most levels, really -- this is a terrible movie, and I can't imagine ever watching it again, but Lom does have a number of genuinely inspired comic moments, and he and Edwards nimbly take the Dreyfus character to something of a new dimension.