--- name: "Eric Portman" canonical: "https://film.one/person/eric-portman" fi1m_id: "eric-portman" imdb_id: "nm0692439" tmdb_id: 96994 wikidata_id: "Q1351564" roles: ["Actor"] born: "13 July 1901" died: "7 December 1969" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 82 average_as: "actor" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-20T00:41:23.500320+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Eric Portman ## Identity Eric Portman - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/eric-portman - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** eric-portman - **IMDb ID:** nm0692439 - **TMDB ID:** 96994 - **Wikidata ID:** Q1351564 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Portman, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1351564, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0692439/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/96994 Actor. Born 13 July 1901 in Halifax, Yorkshire. Died 7 December 1969. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 13 July 1901, Halifax, Yorkshire - **Died:** 7 December 1969 - **Active:** 1941–1967 - **Also known as:** Эрик Портман - **Average Fi1m score:** 82, as actor, over 2 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1940s 79 (1), 1960s 84 (1) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Portman, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1351564, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0692439/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/96994 ## Streaming the US now - **Amazon Prime Video:** [*The Prisoner*](https://film.one/tv/the-prisoner.md) (84) - **HBO Max:** [*49th Parallel*](https://film.one/film/49th-parallel.md) (79) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Eric Portman > Eric Portman played men who were certain of something they should not have been, and played them straight. Hirth in *49th Parallel* made him a star; the coldness that frightened us there kept him from the conventional leading parts and made him worth watching. Hirth walks into the trading post in *49th Parallel* (1941) and, for a minute, does nothing. He stands by the stove with his men while the Factor and the trapper look at the guns, and then he begins to quote the Führer at two people who would rather have their supper. We were frightened for them both before anyone had raised a hand, and it was Portman who did it: the stillness, the thin mouth, the certainty that he is the only reasonable man in the hut. Powell and Pressburger's film is episodic and broad in places, and he is the reason it holds. He never plays the Nazi as a fool. He plays him as a competent man who believes every word, which is worse. The voice is polished and slightly reedy at once, with a grit underneath, and it makes a lecture sound like a threat. It had been trained on the stage since 1924, at the Old Vic and in Shakespearean repertory, and it reached the screen in 1933 in small parts. Hirth made him a star at forty. Powell and Pressburger brought him straight back the next year on the other side, as Tom Earnshaw in *One of Our Aircraft Is Missing* (1942), and then gave him Thomas Colpeper, the Kentish magistrate in *A Canterbury Tale* (1944), the part many people reach for first when his name comes up. Three films with those two directors are the spine of the career. What the 1940s asked of him, again and again, was a man with something to hide. The cashiered officer, the struck-off doctor, the blunt Yorkshireman who says the thing nobody wants said: these were his parts, and he did them without asking for sympathy. The pattern ran on into the 1950s, with Colonel Richmond in *The Colditz Story* (1955) and Miller, the discredited doctor of *The Deep Blue Sea* (1955), and he was at his best when set against one other actor and left to argue, as in *The Spider and the Fly* (1949). Lance Comfort directed him three times; Powell and Pressburger, three times. The complaint is that he was cold, remote, not a leading man as the period understood one, and that it kept him from the widest kind of fame. We think that is a fair description and a poor complaint. British wartime cinema had plenty of warmth; it was short of men who could make a villain frightening by being right in his own head, and Portman supplied it. Coldness is a skill when it is used deliberately, and his was. He said once that "an actor should merely regard himself as a parcel of stuff; you either sell it or you don't." It undersells the goods. Start with the hut on Hudson Bay, and watch how long he can stand by a stove before anybody feels safe again. ## Biography Eric Portman (13 July 1901 – 7 December 1969) was an English stage and screen actor. Born in Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire, he began his career on stage in the 1920s and made his film debut in the mid-1930s. He is known for roles in several Powell and Pressburger films of the 1940s, including *49th Parallel* (1941) as Lieutenant Hirth, *One of Our Aircraft Is Missing* (1942) as Tom Earnshaw and *A Canterbury Tale* (1944) as Thomas Colpeper. Other notable film appearances include *The Colditz Story* (1955) as Colonel Richmond, *Freud: The Secret Passion* (1962) as Dr Theodore Meynert and *The Bedford Incident* (1965) as Commodore Wolfgang Schrepke. He also appeared as Number Two in the 1967 television series *The Prisoner*. Portman received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play for his performance in *Separate Tables*. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *The Prisoner* (1967), Fi1m 84, as Number Two — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-prisoner.md) - *49th Parallel* (1941), Fi1m 79, as Lieutenant Hirth — [page](https://film.one/film/49th-parallel.md) ## Complete filmography (53) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Deadfall* (1968), as Moreau - *Assignment to Kill* (1968), as Notary - *The Prisoner* (1967), series, as Number Two — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-prisoner.md) - *The Whisperers* (1967), as Archie Ross - *The Crossfire* (1967), as Dr. David Sorel - *The Spy with a Cold Nose* (1966), as British Ambassador - *The Bedford Incident* (1965), as Commodore Wolfgang Schrepke, Deutsche Marine - *The Man Who Finally Died* (1963), as Inspector Hofmeister - *West 11* (1963), as Richard Dyce - *Freud: The Secret Passion* (1962), as Dr. Theodore Meynert - *The Naked Edge* (1961), as Jeremy Clay - *A Call on Kuprin: Part 2* (1961), as Kuprin - *A Call on Kuprin: Part 1* (1961), as Kuprin - *Sunday-Night Play* (1960), series, as Kuprin - *Naked City* (1958), series, as Jayson Condon - *DuPont Show of the Month* (1957), series, as Dr. Manette - *The Good Companions* (1957), as Jess Oakroyd - *Child in the House* (1956), as Henry Acheson - *The Deep Blue Sea* (1955), as Miller - *Alfred Hitchcock Presents* (1955), series, as Richard Musgrave - *The Last Reunion* (1955), Actor - *The Colditz Story* (1955), as Colonel Richmond - *South of Algiers* (1953), as Doctor Burnet - *His Excellency* (1952), as George Harrison - *The Magic Box* (1952), as Arthur Collings - *Painter and Poet No. 2* (1951), as Narrator - *Cairo Road* (1950), as Col. Youssef Bey - *The Spider and the Fly* (1949), as Fernand Maubert - *The Blind Goddess* (1948), as Sir John Dearing KC - *Daybreak* (1948), as Eddie Tribe - *Corridor of Mirrors* (1948), as Paul Mangin - *Dear Murderer* (1947), as Lee Warren - *The Mark of Cain* (1947), as Richard Howard - *Men of Two Worlds* (1946), as District Commissioner Randall - *Wanted for Murder* (1946), as Victor James Colebrooke - *Great Day* (1945), as Capt. John Ellis - *A Canterbury Tale* (1944), as Thomas Colpeper, JP - *Escape to Danger* (1943), as Arthur Lawrence - *Millions Like Us* (1943), as Charlie Forbes - *We Dive at Dawn* (1943), as L/S Hobson - *Squadron Leader X* (1943), as Erich Kohler - *Uncensored* (1942), as Andre Delage - *One of Our Aircraft Is Missing* (1942), as Tom Earnshaw · Copilot in B for Bertie - *49th Parallel* (1941), as Lieutenant Hirth — Fi1m 79, [page](https://film.one/film/49th-parallel.md) - *The Prince and the Pauper* (1937), as First Lord - *Moonlight Sonata* (1937), as Mario de la Costa - *The Crimes of Stephen Hawke* (1936), as Matthew Trimble - *The Cardinal* (1936), as Giuliano de Medici - *Maria Marten, or The Murder in the Red Barn* (1935), as Carlos, the gypsy - *Abdul the Damned* (1935), as Conspirastor - *Hyde Park Corner* (1935), as Edward Chester - *Old Roses* (1935), as Lou - *The Girl from Maxim's* (1933), Actor ## Gallery - ![Eric Portman](https://film.one/media/person/60770/gallery-d12721870d74.jpg) Eric Portman — Julia cabré, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Eric_Portman.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![There is a pub in the centre of Halifax called "Portman and Pickles" in honour of the gentleman mentioned here and Wilfred Pickles. (2008)](https://film.one/media/person/60770/gallery-8dfe35907933.jpg) There is a pub in the centre of Halifax called "Portman and Pickles" in honour of the gentleman mentioned here and Wilfred Pickles. (2008) — Tim Green from Bradford, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Eric_Portman_%282271866517%29.jpg/1280px-Eric_Portman_%282271866517%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Eric Portman](https://film.one/media/person/60770/gallery-c1ee8a2d7f05.jpg) Eric Portman — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Other awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play 1957: Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play (nominated) *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/eric-portman