Claude Rains

I'm a huge classic film buff so I've recently been rewatching a lot of classic films and I've always been struck by how good some of the character actors are especially Claude Rains and I've never seen a movie where he didn't give the best performance in the film he was in. He acted circles around the bland performances of Robert Cummings and Ronald Reagan in Kings Row and even in films with good actors like Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Notorious he stole the movie from them. Even in low budget movies he did later in life like 1960 The Lost World remake he still gives a good performance and didn't phone it in like some actors would have.

I always found him more interesting and engaging and in a movie like The Passionate Friends I couldn't believe Ann Todd's character would cheat on Rains with Trevor Howard. Even in old age Rains was much more attractive and charismatic and I say that as a straight male. Although he had the talent to play leads I feel he had two things against him. He made his film debut at age 45 which was much later than most of his contemporaries who became stars in their 20's and 30's so he was already old enough to play fathers rather than love interests. While popular and still a big star in his own right he never became a box office draw like Robert Taylor or Alan Ladd who are both less talked about today than Rains despite being bigger stars at the time. I really wish he was cast in more lead roles because the few times he had the lead in films such as in The Invisible Man, The Clairvoyant, Crime Without Passion and The 1943 Phantom of the Opera he showed he could carry a film just as well as the stars of his era with the added bonus of having talent that surpassed them.