Mellifluous incarnate
By Michael J. Roberts
Claude Rains was my teacher at RADA and beyond all that he was immediately and sensually, handsome, charismatic. What really moved and altered me was his approach to the texts we studied, and which I would continue to study. Claude had an almost religious admiration for the great work… it was Claude who convinced me that intelligence, a constant learning, a constant study of the world and its history and its art and its people, made us better people and, not coincidentally, better actors.” ~ John Gielgud
William Claude Rains was born into a showbiz family and made his stage debut at the age of 10 in 1900 at Haymarket Theatre in London. It would take another 42 years until he achieved screen immortality with his arch turn as Louis Renault in Casablanca, in a full and colourful life that left a lasting legacy in both the theatre and on screen. His theatrical career in London later involved some teaching at RADA, where he made a significant impact on many students, prime amongst them being John Gielgud. Rains made only one silent film in England in 1920 before Broadway again beckoned in 1926 (he’d had a short stint there in 1912 but the war intervened and he returned to England to enlist), which inevitably led to Hollywood where actors with good voices were much in demand post the coming of sound. And what a voice it was – the fact being that as a foot soldier in the trenches in WWI Rains was gassed by the Germans and it damaged his vocal cords, altering the timbre of his voice, as well as causing the loss of most of the vision in his right eye.
After several years working solidly on the Broadway stage, connections led to Universal Studio where Rains was cast as the lead in The Invisible Man, a film where he would be mostly heard and not seen! Rains was sensational as the mad scientist and his distinctive voice added a crucial dimension in a role where he was mostly unseen. The smash hit determined his direction and he worked in several loan outs for Universal – a Ben Hecht project called Crime Without Passion, then in The Man Who Reclaimed His Head opposite Joan Bennett, then in The Mystery of Edwin Drood opposite fellow Brit Valerie Hobson. A brief return to London provided The Clairvoyant before he co-starred with Cary Grant in The Last Outpost in 1935. Warner Brothers took note and sighed Rains to a long term contract and provided him with most of the roles for which he’d become famous.
Warner Bros. used Rains in a string of support roles but house director Michael Curtiz cast him as a lead opposite Kay Francis in Stolen Holiday. William Keighley made fine use of Rains in The Prince and The Pauper, the first time that Rains worked with Warner star Errol Flynn. His stage training made him ideal for the role of the lawyer in Mervyn LeRoy’s crime drama They Won’t Forget and Michael Curtiz tapped Rains for 3 films in 1938, Gold Is Where You Find It (with Olivia De Havilland) Four Daughters and in the immortal The Adventures of Robin Hood as King John, key support for Errol Flynn and Olivia De Havilland. Rains, a renowned stage acting teacher always credited Curtiz for teaching him the nuances of screen acting. On loan to Columbia for a Frank Capra film Rains would gather an Academy Award nomination for Supporting Actor for his brilliant turn as Senator Paine in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.
The next decade saw Rains support new stars like John Garfield (Four Daughters, They Made Me a Criminal, Saturday’s Children) or established stars like Bette Davis (Juarez, Now Voyager, Mr. Skeffington, Deception) and Flynn and Curtiz reliably called again for The Sea Hawk. Always the support now and rarely the star, exceptions being Lady With Red Hair opposite famous blonde Miriam Hopkins and a reboot of Universal horror characters in The Wolf Man opposite Lon Chaney Jnr. He had choice supports in Here Comes Mister Jordan (opposite Robert Montgomery) and Kings Row, featuring journeyman actor Ronald Reagan. Curtiz turned to his reliable support in a wartime drama set in Morocco that the studio held no great hopes for having trouble in casting and with the script. In the end Curtiz created one of the gold standards of Hollywood studio perfection and Rains stole the show in the enduring masterpiece that is Casablanca.
The 1940s was the most acclaimed and productive decade in the screen career of Claude Rains as not only the triumph of Casablanca filled his busy dance card, but saw more Supporting Actor nominations for Casablanca, Mr. Skeffington and Notorious. Universal welcomed him back for a version of The Phantom Of The Opera, where he had the starring role, before it became a musical franchise. He had a meaty part in Moontide, Jean Gabin’s first Hollywood film during the war, a film started by Fritz Lang but completed by Archie Mayo. Curtiz teamed with up again with Bogart (and one of Gabin’s lovers Michèle Morgan) in Passage To Marseilles, hoping for another Casablanca type hit to the point of roping in Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet and the box office was boffo. He went back to London to star in an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra opposite Vivien Leigh, and Alfred Hitchcock reunited him with both Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in one of the master’s finest films, Notorious, where Rains is superb as the ex-Nazi with a mother problem.
The decade also saw some unusual efforts, not least the bizarre Strange Holiday, the former radio play that writer Arch Oboler adapted to the screen about a man who returns to America from a holiday only to find it is now a fascist country. The film is an earnest and tedious lesson in the dangers of fascism, which may have appealed to Rains as his home city had recently been bombed by fascists, but cinema going Americans scratched their heads - and it was only 75 years ahead of its time and blessedly short in its running time.
On far more stable ground was Deception, an excellent three-hander with Bette Davis and Paul Henreid, ably helmed by Irving Rapper – completing the main Now, Voyager team. British director David Lean cast Rains opposite Trevor Howard and Ann Todd (the director’s wife) in the superb drama The Passionate Friends, adapted from an H.G. Wells novel. Casablanca producer Hal Wallis pulled Rains into Rope of Sand, his adventure, desert melodrama to boost new star Burt Lancaster where Rains again worked with old colleagues Paul Henreid and William Dieterle, who directed. Rains again stole the show.
An excellent Film Noir from John Farrow,Where Danger Lives, began the new decade on a high note but good roles and problems with alcohol meant rains worked less and less on screen. A Dana Andrews war film at RKO and an interesting European production, The Man Who Watched Trains Go By, came and went. Back on Broadway he won a Tony Award for Best Actor in 1951 for Darkness At Noon. Ray Milland directed him in Lisbon and Henry King in a fine Rock Hudson drama, This Earth Is Mine, which represented a full circle moment in a Universal film. A pair of in vogue sci-fi entries saw out the decade without distinction – the best of these probably The Lost World by Irwin Allen.
The only other notable entry was David Lean’s 1962 masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia where Rains worked with distinction in august company. George Stevens cast him as Herod in his bloated and corny Jesus biopic, The Greatest Story Ever Told in 1965 and after that Rains duly pulled up stumps on a varied and stellar 65 year career. A chronic alcoholic and six times married he died two years later. Claude Rains may not have been the ideal poster boy for treading the boards, but his footsteps left an indelible mark - as did his singular voice which if you look up the word ‘mellifluous’ in the dictionary there would simply be his picture.