By Patrick F. Cannon

I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious the other night. Not one of his masterpieces but diverting enough. It stars Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, in a plot that involves leftover Nazis up to no good in post-World War II Brazil. The supporting cast is headed by the British American actor Claude Rains (1889-1967), who plays one of the Nazis who becomes besotted with Ingrid, unbeknownst to him working undercover for a CIA-like organization.

            It occurred to me while watching it that Rains had appeared in many of my favorite films, starting with 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood, high on my list of all-time adventure classics. He plays the villainous King John, aided and abetted by the evil Sherif of Nottingham, played by fellow Brit Basil Rathbone, later famous as Sherlock Holmes. Interestingly, both had served together in World War I as officers in the London Scottish Regiment, whose ranks also included actors Herbert Marshall, Ronald Coleman, and Cedric Hardwicke. In 1916, Rains was injured in a gas attack, losing 90 percent of the  sight in his right eye.

            Born in London in relative poverty to a minor actor father, he naturally gravitated to the theatre. Vocal training got rid of his cockney accent, and he became a mainstay of the London stage, even becoming an instructor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. John Guilguid and Charles Laughton were two of his more notable students. He was in his mid-40s by the time he made his first movie in Hollywood, The Invisible Man, in which he only appeared intermittingly!

            In 1939, he was cast in Frank Capra’s classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, as a senator who engineers Jimmie Stewart’s (as Mr. Smith) election as the junior senator from his state, believing that the naïve Smith will be easily manipulated. If you’ve seen the film, you know things don’t quite work out as intended, and Rains’s character commits suicide rather than face disgrace. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance but didn’t win.

            He was also nominated for what became his most iconic role, as the witty, cynical, dapper, and corrupt police Captain Louis Renault in Casablanca, which may be the most watched movie of all time. It starred Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, but Rains stood out in a cast that also included Peter Lorre, Paul Henreid, and Sidney Greenstreet.  Who can forget the final scene where he and Bogart walk arm in arm into the mist on their way to join the Free French?

            In a return to the Broadway stage in 1951, Rains won the best actor Tony for his performance as Rubashov, a victim of Stalin’s show trials of the late 1930s. Based on Arthur Koestler’s novel, it was adapted for the stage by Sidney Kingsley. In 1954, he again appeared on Broadway in T.S. Elliot’s verse play, The Confidential Clerk. Although not his last film, the last I saw him in was David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia,  in which he played Mr. Dryden, an amalgam of several British Middle Eastern diplomats and administrators. Not a leading role, but one he carried out with his usual competence.

            All the films I mentioned are readily available on one or more streaming services. If you’re one of the few people who haven’t seen Casablanca, that would be a good place to enjoy a fine actor.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon