Well, crap.
You know you’ve created an indelible comedy character when you’re more remembered for that instead of playing such genre characters as The Phantom of the Opera (admittedly, in one of Hammer’s lamer movies) and Captain Nemo (in the rather more spectacular Mysterious Island). Yet Mr. Lom will surely always be best remembered for playing the perennially irked and rapidly homicidal Chief Insp. Dreyfus in the Pink Panther films opposite Peter Sellers.
Dreyfus was introduced in the second film in the series (and, in my opinion, the best one), A Shot in the Dark, along with his fellow supporting character Kato. Toss in Blake Edward’s impeccible comic direction and another gorgeous score by Henry Mancini–including the brilliant Inspector Clouseau Theme, which is generally lost in the shadow of his Pink Panther Theme–and you have one of the great comedies. I HIGHLY recommend it for anyone who hasn’t seen it.
Meanwhile, the series entry with the biggest belly laughs (“Does your dog bite?”) was the fourth film, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, which was actually built around Dreyfus. In that entry, he actually makes himself into a globe-threatening supervillain in his efforts to kill the inept but indestructible Clouseau. The opening, when Clouseau appears at the insane asylum Dreyfus is hoping to be released from that morning, is one of the funniest stretches of movie you’ll ever see. Mr. Lom continued to play Dreyfus all the way up to Son of the Pink Panther.
Other great films to catch Mr. Lom in include The Ladykillers (opposite Alec Guinness and, again, Peter Sellers); the Henry Fonda version of War and Peace, in which Mr. Lom played Napoleon, a part he played on a couple of other occasions; the Michael Caine heist film Gambit; and the extremely fun spy flick Hopscotch, starring Walter Matthau.
Toss in such genre films as Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, Mark of the Devil, the 1970 Dorian Gray, the 1971 Murders in the Rue Morgue, Asylum, And Now the Screaming Starts, Dark Places, The Dead Zone, King Solomon’s Mines and Jess Franco’s typically woeful version of Count Dracula, in which Mr. Lom played Van Helsing opposite Christopher Lee’s Dracula. He appeared in two different versions of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians.
Mr. Lom also starred in a British medical series in the ’60s called The Human Jungle. He retired from acting in 2004.
Mr. Lom was 95 at the time of passing.
