A Gathering Of Laughton Admirers


If you’re a regular visitor to Greenbriar Picture Shows, this group will need no introduction. I suspect Charles Laughton was working on The Caine Mutiny Court Martial at the time this group photo was made, and these backstage well wishers are gathered with Laughton and two of his Broadway cast members, Lloyd Nolan and Henry Fonda. That was 1953. Tyrone Power, Ann Baxter, and Raymond Massey would work with Laughton the same year in his stage adaptation of John Brown’s Body. A year later, The Caine Mutiny on screen would feature Humphrey Bogart as Captain Queeg (Nolan’s part in the play) and Fred MacMurray in Fonda’s role. Two years after this photo was taken, John Hodiak would die suddenly (in October 1955). Dick Powell undoubtedly worked with several of these players in his capacity as a television producer of dramatic anthologies. Charles Laughton’s talents as a director were such that every one wanted to work with him. His own stage appearances and dramatic readings were generally recognized as works of genius. He did movies like Abbott and Costello Meets Captain Kidd in order to finance these ventures. He would go on to direct Night Of The Hunter in 1955. Laughton would say at the end of his life that his chief regret in dying was the fact that he would no longer be able to enjoy the arts, and there was still so much he hadn’t seen or read. What a talent.