Herbert Lom, 1917-2012

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• Lex says:

  September 27, 2012 at 9:21 am

  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 says:

  September 28, 2012 at 10:57 am

  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 says:

  September 28, 2012 at 1:43 pm

  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 says:

  September 28, 2012 at 7:33 pm

  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 says:

  September 29, 2012 at 1:51 am

  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 says:

  September 29, 2012 at 11:35 am

  NIGHT AND THE CITY

• Mr. Peel says:

  September 30, 2012 at 12:58 pm

  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 says:

  September 30, 2012 at 5:41 pm

  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.