Robert Barrat explained the rules. For four decades he stood at the edge of other people's films, deep-voiced and broad-shouldered, as the commander, the judge, the father and the officer, and did the job reliably.
Fi1m perspective
In Here Comes the Navy (1934), James Cagney breaks a rule and Robert Barrat's Commander Denny tells him what it was. He does this clearly, and he does it often. In Captain Blood (1935) he is Wolverstone, one of Errol Flynn's crew, with a line or two and a hearty laugh. That is the work: to be the solid thing the star is quicker than.
He came to it late and stayed a long time. Stock theatre and vaudeville first, then Broadway from 1918 to 1932, with a few silent films from 1915. From 1932 he was in pictures full-time, around 150 of them, most as stern officials, sailors, fathers, judges and military men. He made seven films with Cagney and three with Michael Curtiz. In the 1930s the parts had some bite: Nick Powers, the abusive father in Baby Face (1933), and Major Walsin-Esterhazy, the treacherous officer in The Life of Emile Zola (1937). In the 1940s he became the studios' historical figure of choice, playing the General in They Were Expendable (1945), which is MacArthur without a word spoken, and Jacques d'Arc, Joan's father, in Joan of Arc (1948). He moved to television in the mid-1950s and retired after an Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode in 1964.
What he had was a voice, low and rough, that he could bend into accents, and a big frame he kept fit enough to use. Those are the tools of a man who is cast for what he looks and sounds like, and he was. We will be honest about the two films we have reviewed: in Captain Blood we tried to tell Flynn's crew apart and could not. That is not his fault. A script that gives a man two lines and a laugh has decided what he is for, and Barrat's misfortune, across most of his career, was scripts that had decided.
The better parts, by reputation, are the unkind ones, the father in Baby Face and the officer in Zola, and we have not seen enough of them to say more than that they exist and are the ones people name. His career slowed after the 1930s.
Watch Captain Blood for Flynn and Here Comes the Navy for Cagney. Barrat is in both, doing the job he did about 150 times.
Biography
Robert Barrat was an American character actor who worked in stage, film and television. He began his career in stock companies and on Broadway in the 1910s and 1920s before moving into motion pictures in the early 1930s.
Barrat appeared in around 150 films over four decades. He is noted for roles including Nick Powers in Baby Face (1933), Wolverstone in Captain Blood (1935), Major Walsin-Esterhazy in The Life of Emile Zola (1937), 'Red' Baxter in Go West (1940) and Jacques d'Arc in Joan of Arc (1948). He appeared in seven films with James Cagney and played several historical figures on screen. His final acting role was in an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1964.
He died in Hollywood in 1970 and was survived by his wife, Mary Dean.
