Melville Cooper, the dough-faced prig with the haughty eyebrows doesn't really excite the senses at first, but I've come to appreciate him so much. From Birmingham, England originally, he got good reviews in the incredibly popular The Farmer's Wife, the touring company of which was the proving ground for most British actors of the time. WWI interrupted his career, and he became a brave, war-proven soldier, captured as a prisoner of war by the Germans. Oddly enough, he made his mark on stage in the anti-war trench drama Journey's End. When I looked up his film credits, I was surprised to find that he had substantial roles in some of the best movies of the 30's and 40's, though I barely remembered him from most, except of course his role in The Adventures of Robin Hood and his turn as the pompous Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice. He also shows up in Rebecca, Tovarich, Father of the Bride, Random Harvest, The Dawn Patrol, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and The Lady Eve. That's pretty impressive! I very much enjoyed the way they described his characters at IMDB:
Lately I've been appreciating him immensely in his lesser known characterizations. In Tovarich he plays the vainglorious and wealthy head of a spoiled family. He has no more wit than a potato, this fellow, but he's rich. He's not cruel, quite benign in fact; his amour-propre makes him rather silly, preening and priding himself on all that Charles Boyer and Claudette Colbert teach him about true class. He's also rather shyly smitten with Colbert, which is charming. Cooper brings such delightful comic skill to his role here that I wondered how I could have overlooked him in other films. His general style of comedy is rather self effacing, setting himself as a piece of an ensemble, rather than as a standout performer, and I have to give him credit for his understatedness, though he can steal a scene well enough. I think this is why he is not more talked about. His character in Tovarich grows as a person, at least somewhat, and becomes endearing, rather than buffoonish. For me, this is Cooper at his best."Britisher Melville Cooper practically cornered the market on disdainful servants. Fortunately he was able to show more range than that and churned out a gallery of usually undesirable types in his nearly three-decade film career -- prigs, cowards, blunderers, con artists, thieves and sniveling turncoats...
I find him funny in a wry way in nearly all the films I've seen him in. In the meh Gold Diggers of Paris (which is not as charming as the other entries in the Gold DIggers series, but benefits from some good supporting actors) Cooper was a relief. He made me chuckle throughout this film more than any of the other cast members. Frankly, I wish that Melville Cooper had all the roles that Hugh Herbert got, he's far funnier, taking common human foibles and turning them into a comic goldmine.
