- Adolph Menjou, Easy LIving, 1937. Is there a doctor on the set? First Menjou had to withdraw due to ill-health. Then, director Mitchell Leisen required surgery. But eventually Preston Sturgess’ first Paramount gig got moving – owing much more to the great Sturgess script than Vera Caspary’s story.
- Akim Tamiroff, For Whom The Bell Tolls, 1943. Arnold was among the veritable A List for important support roles: Wallace Beery, Lee J Cobb, Albert Dekker, Charles Laughton, Thomas Mitchell and Edward G Robinson. Plus two graduates of Vienna’s Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts: Oscar Homolka and Fritz Kortner – and the Spanish-born opera singer-playwright-novelist-composer Fortunio Bonanova.
- Walter Huston, Dragon Seed, 1943. Insulting! Pearl Buck’s book had a point – exposing Japanese atrocities in China. MGM made it a farce, with the unlikeliest-looking Chinese ever spawned by Hollywood… And could only think of their usual paterfamilias for Ling Tan. Except Arnold, Donald Crisp, Frank Morgan and Walter Pidgeon failed their Eurasian make-up tests. Huston looked about as Chinese at as his daughter. Katharine Hepburn.
- Lionel Barrymore, It’s A Wonderful Life, 1946.
- Chester Morris, The She-Creature, 1956. The veteran Arnold died when due to be the diabolical hypnotist Dr Lombardi, so co-stars Peter Lorre and Mike Connors simply fled . Morris took over, opposite the lousily cast Tom Conway and Lance Fuller. Result: Another Edward L Cahn Z-movie giving schlock a bad name.
Birth year: 1890Death year: 1956Other name: Casting Calls: 5