C. Henry Gordon

June 17, 1883 - December 3, 1940
Born Henry Racke in New York City, New York, USA

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A Few Favorite Memories of C. Henry Gordon

• As "Captain Mordiconi" in Renegades (1930), directed by Victor Fleming, starring Warner Baxter and Myrna Loy, and featuring a showy pre-Dracula performance from Bela Lugosi as "The Marabout."
  
  
• As "John Ross" in Charlie Chan Carries On (1931), starring Warner Oland and Marguerite Churchill.
  
  
• As "Van Horn" in the Charlie Chan mystery The Black Camel (1931), starring Warner Oland, Bela Lugosi (as "Tarneverro"), Robert Young and Dwight Frye.
  
  
• As French Secret Service Chief "Dubois" in Mata Hari (1931), starring Greta Garbo, Ramon Novarro, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, Karen Morley and Frank Reicher.
  
  
• As "Inspector Ben Guarino," the tough, patient policeman who finally gets his man in Howard Hawks' Scarface (1932), starring Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley, George Raft, Vince Barnett and Boris Karloff (in a flashy small role as a gangster mowed down in a bowling alley — as he bowls a strike).
  
  
• As Russian renegade "Voronsky," leader of the Manchurian bandits threatening a boatload of Westerners in Roar of the Dragon (1932) starring Richard Dix, Gwili Andre, Edward Everett Horton, Arline Judge and Dudley Digges. Script co-written by Merian C. Cooper of King Kong fame.
  
  
• As "Swami Yogadachi," in league with a vengeful half-breed Asian woman to kill her former classmates in the atmospheric thriller Thirteen Women (1932). Starring Myrna Loy (as the hypnotic killer "Ursula Georgi"), Irene Dunne, Ricardo Cortez, Florence Eldredge and Leon Ames.
  
  
• As "Yoganda," leader of the secretive hooded occultists in the comedy The Crooked Circle (1932), directed by H. Bruce Humberstone, and featuring Ben Lyons, Zasu Pitts, James Gleason, Raymond Hatton, Roscoe Karns and Frank Reicher.
  
  
• As "Gregg," aka"Whitehall," the object of Deadlegs' bitter hatred in the jungle / horror melodrama Kongo (1932), a sound remake (just four years later) of Tod Browning's classic West of Zanzibar starring Lon Chaney. Starring Walter Huston (who originated the part on Broadway) as "King 'Deadlegs' Flint," kept alive by his lust for revenge on the man who sneered while he stole his wife and kicked in his spine. With Lupe Velez, Conrad Nagel, Virginia Bruce and Forrester Harvey.
  
  
• As "Grand Duke Igor" in Rasputin and the Empress (1932), directed by Richard Boleslawski, brimming with Barrymores (John, Ethel, and Lionel (as the Mad Monk), and featuring Ralph Morgan, Mischa Auer, Luis Alberni, Reginald Barlow, Brandon Hurst, Eily Malyon, Dave O'Brien and Frank Reicher.
  
  
• As "Nick Diamond," aka "Antone Brilawski," a gangster eradicated by Draconian measures in the presidential fantasy Gabriel Over the White House (1933), directed by Gregory La Cava, and starring Walter Huston (as American's Depression-era chief executive, advised by the angel Gabriel on some very severe Recovery measures), Karen Morley, Arthur Byron, and Samuel S. Hinds.
  
  
• As "Captain Radak" in The Devil's In Love (1933), a Foreign Legion story directed by the great William Dieterle, and starring Victor Jory, Loretta Young, David Manners, Herbert Mundin, J. Carrol Naish, Robert Barrat, John Davidson and (uncredited) Bela Lugosi in a small but important role as the military prosecutor.
  
  
• As "Detective Daly," pursuing the escaped convict hero and the young lady helping him in the comedy / drama Fugitive Lovers, (1934), directed by Richard Boleslawski, and starring Robert Montgomery, Madge Evans, Ted Healy (and his Three Stooges!) and Nat Pendleton.
  
  
• As the suspicious Turkish commander "Ali Bey" in the spy drama Stamboul Quest (1934), directed by Sam Wood and starring Myrna Loy, George Brent, Lionel Atwill, and a fine supporting cast of regular suspects including Rudolph Anders, Mischa Auer, Reginald Barlow, Leo G. Carroll and Michael Mark.
  
  
• As "King Philip II of France" in Cecil B. DeMille's historical epic The Crusades (1935), starring Loretta Young and Henry Wilcoxon, and featuring many familiar faces including Ian Keith, C. Aubrey Smith, Katherine DeMille, Joseph Schildkraut, Alan Hale, Montagu Love, Lumsden Hare, William Farnum, Hobart Bosworth, Pedro de Cordoba, Mischa Auer, Richard Alexander, John Carradine, Emma Dunn, J. Carrol Naish, Ann Sheridan, Josef Swickard and Guy Usher.
  
  
• As "Lt. Petaine" in the action-packed Foreign Legion adventure Under Two Flags (1936), directed by Frank Lloyd, starring Ronald Colman, Victor McLaglen, Claudette Colbert and Rosalind Russell, with a great supporting cast of genre favorites including Gregory Ratoff, Nigel Bruce, Herbert Mundin, John Carradine, J. Edward Bromberg, Onslow Stevens (terrific as the villian, Sidi-Ben Youssiff), Fritz Leiber, Frank Reicher, Steve Clemente, John George and Tor Johnson!
  
  
• As one of the greatest of all Golden Age movie villains — suave, sinister Indian potentate "Surat Khan," slaughtering hundreds of innocents but repaying a debt of honor, stirring up the Crimean War with his treachery, and cooly facing the vengeful wrath of the entire British Army in the thrilling historical epic The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936). Directed by Michael Curtiz (with spectacular "second unit" direction by B. Reeves Eason), inspired by the poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Patric Knowles, Henry Stephenson, David Niven and Donald Crisp, with dauntless supporting players including Nigel Bruce, Robert Barrat, Spring Byington, E.E. Clive, J. Carrol Naish, Lumsden Hare, Holmes Herbert, Brandon Hurst, Frank Lackteen and Michael Visaroff.
  
  
• As "Arthur Hughes" in Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937), directed by H. Bruce Humberstone, and starring Warner Oland, Keye Luke, Katherine DeMille and Allan Lane.
  
  
• As "Prince Poniatowski" in the historical romance Conquest (1937), directed by Clarence Brown, starring Greta Garbo, Charles Boyer (as Napoleon) and Reginald Owen, with great supporting actors including Leif Erickson, Maria Ouspenskaya, Henry Brandon, Harry Cording, D'Arcy Corrigan, Paul Fix, Olaf Hytten, Nobel Johnson, Adia Kuznetzoff, Frank Lackteen, Charles Middleton, John Piccori, Ian Wolfe and George Zucco.
  
  
• As the lecherous villain, "Ben Alleu Bey," trying to abduct the heroine girl for his harem in Tarzan's Revenge (1938), a pretty sad low-budget rendition of Edgar Rice Burrough's immortal Jungle Lord starring 1936 Olympic decathlon champ Glenn Morris, 1932 Olympic gold medal swimmer Eleanor Holm, George Barbier, Hedda Hopper, Joe Sawyer, future cowboy star Bill Elliott, and Blue Washington.
  
  
• As "Nikolai Kamarov" in the crime drama The Invisible Enemy (1938), starring Alan Marshall, Tala Birell and Mady Corell, with a small but notable supporting cast including Dwight Frye, Herbert Mundin and Egon Brecher.
  
  
• As the cruel and oppressive Foreign Legion commander "Captain Savatt" in Adventure in Sahara (1938), with Paul Kelly, Lorna Gray (later Adrian Booth), Marc Lawrence, Dick Curtis and Dwight Frye as "Gravet, 'the Jackal.'"
  
  
• As the infamous Mexican General "Santa Anna" in the Sam Houston biopic Man of Conquest (1939) starring Richard Dix, Gail Patrick and Joan Fontaine, supported by a memorable cast including Ralph Morgan, Edward Ellis (the actual "Thin Man" in that movie, here playing Andrew Jackson), Robert Barrat (Davy Crockett), Victor Jory (Colonel Travis), Robert Armstrong (Jim Bowie), George "Gabby" Hayes, Leon Ames, Ernie Adams, Billy Benedict, Edmund Cobb, Olaf Hytten, Jason Robards Sr., Jim Thorpe and Robert Wilke.
  
  
• As "Prefect of Police J. Romaine" in Charlie Chan in City in Darkness (1939), starring Sidney Toler as Chan, with Lynn Bari , Harold Huber, Pedro de Cordoba, Douglass Dumbrille, Leo G. Carroll and Lon Chaney Jr.
  
  
• As "Dr. Cream" in Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940), starring Sidney Toler and Victor Sen Yung as Charlie and Jimmy Chan, with fine support from Marc Lawrence, Marguerite Chapman, Michael Visaroff and Charles Trowbridge.

Last revised August 20, 2005 by George "E-gor" Chastain.

Maintained by George "E-gor" Chastain (E-mail: chastain@mail.wvnet.edu)