Lionel Barrymore
3 credits on HibingeTV
American actor from the famous Barrymore theatrical family. He played the villain in The Show (1927) and had a long career spanning silent and sound films, winning an Academy Award for A Free Soul (1931). He is also known for his role as Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life (1946).
Acted In
Horror, Crime
A silent crime-horror film directed by James Young, based on the 1867 French play Le Juif Polonais by Erckmann-Chatrian. Lionel Barrymore stars as Mathias, an innkeeper who murders a wealthy Jewish merchant for his gold on New Year's Eve, then is haunted by the sound of sleigh bells and ghostly visions. Boris Karloff appears in an early role as a sinister mesmerist who arrives to torment Mathias with supernatural visions of hell. The film blends murder melodrama with Gothic horror, and Karloff's menacing presence, years before Frankenstein made him a star, hints at the iconic monster roles to come. The film is in the public domain.
Horror · Crime · Silent
The Bells
1926 - as Mathias
Sci-Fi, Adventure
A 1929 American part-talkie science fiction film directed by Lucien Hubbard, based on Jules Verne's 1874 novel. Photographed largely in two-color Technicolor, the film follows Count Andre Dakkar (Lionel Barrymore), a benevolent scientist who has built a submarine on his volcanic island near the kingdom of Hetvia. When the despotic Baron Falon overruns the island, Dakkar's daughter Sonia and her fiancé Nicolai Roget pilot the submarine on its maiden voyage. Pursued by Falon in a second submarine, both craft dive to the ocean floor and discover a strange land populated by dragons, giant squid, and an undiscovered humanoid race. The film was a lavish MGM production budgeted at over $1 million, with additional direction by Maurice Tourneur and Benjamin Christensen.
Sci-Fi · Adventure · Fantasy
The Mysterious Island
1929 - as Count Andre Dakkar
Drama, Romance
The Show is a Tod Browning film set in a Hungarian carnival, among the performers of a sideshow called the Palace of Illusions. John Gilbert plays Cock Robin, the ballyhoo man who stars in a reenactment of Salome's dance that ends with a staged beheading. Lionel Barrymore is the Greek, a jealous villain who conspires to make the beheading real. Renée Adorée plays Salome, the woman both men want. Browning, who would go on to make Freaks, was drawn to the strange world of carnival performers, and The Show is thick with that atmosphere. The film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2023.
Drama · Romance · Silent
The Show
1927 - as The Greek