Eugene Pallette

your fiend mr. jones

28Sep10

By sheer presence of bulk (not always though… he started out as a leading man in silents) and a voice like what you will hear if the Angel Gabriel speaks with a foghorn on Judgment Day, Pallette makes an entrance. The barrel-chested father in “My Man Godfrey” and “The Lady Eve”, the Oklahoma-accented Friar Tuck to Flynn’s Robin Hood and a member of Edward Arnold’s media machine in “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington”, Eugene always comes in with a full head of steam. Probably from his stage training, he knows how to bring the eyes to him and keep them there, even when he is reacting to the madness of screwball heroines or how this young upstart in green could mistake him for a simple friar. Like a lot of character actors, the movie didn’t need him to be good. But how could it be great without him?