- Charles Bickford, This Day And Age, 1932. This is the forgotten Cecil B DeMille film – his only gangster talkie. (Close to his 1929 semi-talkie, The Godless Girl). CB had a tough job finalising his crimelord. Atwill, Walter Houston, Burgess Meredith, Chester Morris, Paul Muni fled. After reading the script? The gangster was to be taken down by LA High School students, no less. CB had (modestly) called it “The FIRST Great Spectacle of Modern Times.”
- Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Invisible Agent, 1941. Late change of Conrad Stauffer for Universal’s latest Invisible Man vehicle – as his grandson fights the Nazis. A scene of the invisible Jon Hall kicking Hitler’s posterior was cut due to a WWII ban on making Hitler, Hirohito and Mussolini… wait for it… “the butt of personal attacks.”
- George Sorel, Lost City of the Jungle, 1946, Atwell was dying from bronchial cancer when shooting began in January 1946. The fatal illness prevented him working beyond February 4. For the rest of the Universal serial, a double took over as Sir Eric Hazarias… who had faked his death for nefarious purposes in the Cold War thriller.
Birth year: 1885Death year: 1946Other name: Casting Calls: 3