Monte Blue brings an imposing build and a preference for small gestures to parts that might invite bluster. We value that restraint, though his quietness can leave a villain short of menace and a supporting figure easy to overlook.
Fi1m perspective
In Orphans of the Storm (1921), Monte Blue plays Danton in a film that tells us firmly what to feel. Blue has the build for such an authoritative figure, yet his usual method is quieter than grand historical melodrama might suggest: small gestures, expressions, relatively little bluster. We value that restraint, though the film's strongest emotional work belongs to Lillian Gish. D.W. Griffith supplies suspense and emphatic storytelling, but the presence of Danton and Sidney Herbert's Robespierre should not be mistaken for reliable history.
Danton was his breakthrough, followed by a stretch as a rugged romantic lead in the mid-1920s, often opposite Marie Prevost at Warner Bros. White Shadows in the South Seas (1928), with Blue as Dr Matthew Lloyd, gives a better idea of the substantial leading roles behind the later supporting work. Its doctor calls for sincerity as well as physical presence, and those are qualities Blue could supply without fuss. By the mid-1930s he was a Warner Bros. contract character actor, having made the transition to sound with a cultivated voice.
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) shows how little such employment could ask of him. Hathaway's adventure is brisk, handsome and worth an evening for Cooper and Tone, but Blue's Hamzulla Khan is scarcely allowed a personality. We were more bothered than we expected by a film that gives its officers personalities and barely bothers to imagine the people facing them. Blue, Akim Tamiroff and J. Carrol Naish are all put in brown make-up; none is allowed comparable individuality. This is a limit imposed by the part, not a reason to dismiss the actor.
The quieter approach has limits of its own: a serial villain sometimes needs more theatrical menace than Blue supplies. As Sheriff Ben Wade in John Huston's Key Largo (1948), he belongs to the line of lawmen and officials for which his size and steadiness proved useful. Such parts suit him, even when they do not make him especially memorable. Start with Orphans of the Storm for the earlier, larger opportunity, but allow Gish to remain the principal attraction.
Biography
Monte Blue was an American actor. Born Gerard Montgomery Bluefeather in Indianapolis, Indiana, he attended Purdue University and worked in a variety of jobs before entering films as a stuntman and extra.
He appeared in The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916), gained a breakthrough role as Danton in Orphans of the Storm (1921), and became a romantic lead in the silent era opposite actresses including Clara Bow and Gloria Swanson. Blue continued as a character actor after the transition to sound, with credits including The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) as Hamzulla Khan, an uncredited part in Casablanca (1943), Sheriff Ben Wade in Key Largo (1948) and Geronimo in Apache (1954). He worked in films until 1954 and in television until 1960.
