Gerald Mohr brought a firm baritone and cool authority to crime films, often leaving a little doubt about the man doing the talking. We rate his assurance, though the hard-boiled manner could grow familiar.
Fi1m perspective
Gerald Mohr’s baritone gives his crime-film characters an authority that his cool delivery does little to soften. He is persuasive as a man accustomed to being listened to, though less revealing about what that man might feel. In Gilda (1946), he plays Captain Delgado, a small supporting part in a film whose chief attraction is Rita Hayworth. We were drawn in by Hayworth and the unsettling depth of Rudolph Maté’s shadows, even when the plotting strained our patience. It is a useful place to meet Mohr, provided he is not the sole reason for the visit.
There was a concentrated run of leading parts as Michael Lanyard in three Columbia Lone Wolf films in 1946–47, beginning with The Notorious Lone Wolf (1946). That casting makes sense: Mohr’s suave assurance was well suited to crime stories and men with uncertain motives. The supporting work continued with Tami Giacoppetti in Detective Story (1951) and Sergeant Joe Ferris in The Sniper (1952). He was useful on either side of the law, though the repeated crime roles left little distance between one assignment and the next.
The voice also sustained his Philip Marlowe through 119 radio episodes of The Adventures of Philip Marlowe (1948–1951). From the early 1950s, television guest work became his main screen occupation, including appearances in Perry Mason, Bonanza and Maverick. The limitation is apparent in the detached newscaster of Invasion U.S.A. (1952): coolness can become an over-familiar response to whatever happens. We value the assurance, but would not claim that it makes every character distinct.
His final film role, Branca in Funny Girl (1968), puts him inside another picture that belongs chiefly to its leading woman. William Wyler builds a long musical around Barbra Streisand, and she justifies the attention; the film loses momentum when the songs give way to the marriage. Mohr is not the reason we recommend it, any more than he displaces Hayworth in Gilda. There is no need to pretend otherwise to take his work seriously. Start with Gilda for the film, then try The Notorious Lone Wolf if it is Mohr himself who interests you.
Biography
Gerald Mohr was an American actor who worked extensively in radio, film and television. Born in New York City, he began in radio in the 1930s and appeared on Broadway with Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre before moving into films in the late 1930s.
He appeared in more than 70 films, including Gilda (1946) and Funny Girl (1968) as Branca, and over 100 television series, among them multiple episodes of Perry Mason and Bonanza, as well as I Love Lucy (1951). Mohr also featured in numerous radio plays and serials. He died in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1968.
