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18-452: Young "Lord" Geoffrey Braemer (Freddie Bartholomew) is supposedly an English aristocrat. In fact, he is an orphan and willing accomplice to con artists Jim Hampstead ( George Zucco ) and Doris Clandon ( Gale Sondergaard ), who took him in when his parents died in a train wreck. He conveniently faints in a jewelry store, distracting the employees and allowing Jim to steal a valuable necklace. However, an astute insurance investigator catches him. He

36-722: A civil engineer in Angoulême until 1881, when he became master of requests in the Council of State . The next year, he was elected as a republican deputy for the arrondissement of Saint-Calais ( Sarthe ). In 1885–1886, he was undersecretary for war in the Henri Brisson ministry, and he served in the cabinet of Émile Loubet (1892) as Minister of Marine and of the Colonies . He had exchanged his moderate republicanism for radical views before he became War Minister in

54-633: A dressmaking business. His father, George De Sylla Zucco, was a Greek merchant from Corfu who became a naturalised British subject in 1865. Zucco debuted on the Canadian stage in 1908 in a stock theater company. He returned to the UK and served as a lieutenant in the British Army 's West Yorkshire Regiment during the First World War. He lost the use of two fingers when he was shot in

72-499: A fight, takes him back to school. Unfortunately, it is very late, and Terry is caught sneaking into the dormitory. When he refuses to inform on Geoff to excuse his actions, he is stripped of his rank and, worse, loses his chance of getting one of five coveted jobs offered the boys on the luxury liner RMS Queen Mary . Geoff smugly refuses to reveal his part, angering the other boys, who " put the chill " on him, refusing to speak to him at all. The bleak isolation of not being spoken to by

90-786: A reputation as a bespectacled, nefarious character in films such as After the Thin Man , Fast Company , Arrest Bulldog Drummond , Charlie Chan in Honolulu , The Cat and the Canary , and My Favorite Blonde . During the 1940s, he took every role he was offered, landing himself in B-films and Universal horror films, including The Mummy's Hand (1940), The Mummy's Tomb (1942), The Mad Monster (1942), The Mad Ghoul (1943), Dead Men Walk (1943), The Mummy's Ghost (1944), House of Frankenstein (1944), and Tarzan and

108-405: Is not interested in fitting in; he only wants to return to London to be reunited with Doris and Jim, although he waits in vain for a letter from them. He antagonizes all of the other boys, with the exception of the irrepressibly cheerful Albert Baker ( Terry Kilburn ). When the boys are given liberty at a banquet in the town, Geoff uses the opportunity to run away. Terry tracks him down and, after

126-515: Is sent to Russell-Cotes, a mercantile marine school, one of many vocational schools run by Dr. Barnardo's home for orphaned boys , with the warning that if he does not behave himself, he will be transferred to a reformatory . The school is headed by Captain Briggs ( Charles Coburn ). Briggs assigns longtime "honor boy" Terry O'Mulvaney ( Mickey Rooney ) to take Geoff under his wing. Despite excelling in sea knowledge from his previous education, Geoff

144-679: The Mermaids (1948). He was reunited with Basil Rathbone in another Sherlock Holmes adventure, Sherlock Holmes in Washington , this time playing not Moriarty, but a Nazi spy. After playing a bit part in David and Bathsheba (1951), Zucco undertook a role in The Desert Fox , but suffered a stroke one day on the set, and never significantly recovered (he was replaced by Cedric Hardwicke ). He suffered from stroke-induced dementia for

162-541: The boys that the information clearing Terry came from him. When Doris and Jim finally manage to contact Geoff, he refuses to go back to his crooked life, and tells them he is going to sail on the Queen Mary . Since the stolen necklace is too well known in England, Jim sews it inside Geoff's coat when Geoff is not looking, and books passage aboard the Queen Mary , bound for America. Briggs selects Terry and Geoff to join

180-736: The cabinet of Léon Bourgeois (November 1, 1895 to April 29, 1896). He was again Minister of War in the Brisson cabinet from June 28 to September 5, 1898. In July 1898, he told the French National Assembly of documents incriminating Captain Alfred Dreyfus . Cavaignac's investigator, Captain Louis Cuignet, later discovered that the critical document was a forgery by Colonel Henry , who admitted his crime when he

198-401: The crew of the Queen Mary . The necklace is found at the school, forcing Geoff to choose between conflicting loyalties. He chooses wisely, but Doris and Jim are nowhere to be found. Geoff is taken in for questioning by the police, meaning he will miss the sea voyage. Luckily, one of his schoolmates recognizes the crooked couple on the Queen Mary , and they are arrested in time for Geoff to board

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216-596: The opposite way in the 1937 film The Life of Emile Zola in which he is depicted as the person who finally discovers the truth and demands the resignation of all those responsible for incriminating Dreyfus.) He also was an energetic supporter of the Ligue de la Patrie Française . In 1899, Cavaignac was an unsuccessful candidate for French President . He had announced his intention of retiring from political life when he died at his country home near Flée (Sarthe) on September 25, 1905, aged 52. He wrote an important book on

234-400: The other boys takes its toll on Geoff, although he doesn't want to show it. He learns several life lessons under the mentoring of kindly and wise instructor "Crusty" Jelks ( Herbert Mundin ). Geoff confesses his runaway attempt to Captain Briggs, knowing it could mean being sent to the reformatory, so that Terry might possibly be reinstated for the Queen Mary . He asks Captain Briggs not to tell

252-631: The rest of his life, and he died on 27 May 1960 from pneumonia in a nursing facility in Hollywood , aged 74. He and his wife, Stella Francis, had a daughter, Frances (1931–1962), who died of throat cancer at age 30, and a grandson, George Zucco (né Canto). Stella Zucco died from natural causes on May 11, 1999, aged 99, in Woodland Hills, California . Eug%C3%A8ne Godefroy Cavaignac Jacques Marie Eugène Godefroy Cavaignac (May 21, 1853 – September 25, 1905), known as Godefroy Cavaignac,

270-1194: The right arm in France. When the war ended, he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and later taught there. He became a leading stage actor of the 1920s, and made his film debut as Eugène Godefroy Cavaignac in The Dreyfus Case (1931), a British film dramatising the Dreyfus Affair . Zucco returned to the United States in 1935 to play Benjamin Disraeli in Victoria Regina , and appeared with Gary Cooper and George Raft in Souls at Sea (1937). He played Professor Moriarty in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), opposite Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson . Zucco earned

288-583: The ship and join Terry. George Zucco George Zucco (11 January 1886 – 27 May 1960) was a British character actor who appeared in plays and 96 films, mostly American-made, during a career spanning over two decades, from the 1920s to 1951. In his films, he often played a suave villain, a member of nobility, or a mad doctor . George Desylla Zucco was born in Manchester , Lancashire , on 11 January 1886. His mother Marian (née Rintoul) ran

306-725: Was a French politician . Born in Paris , he was the son of Louis Eugène Cavaignac . He made public profession of his republican principles as a schoolboy at the Lycée Charlemagne by refusing in 1867 to receive a prize at the Sorbonne from the hand of the Prince Imperial . He received the military medal for service in the Franco-Prussian War and in 1872 entered the École Polytechnique . He served as

324-473: Was questioned on August 30 by Cavaignac. Still, Cavaignac refused to concur with his colleagues in a revision of the Dreyfus prosecution , which would have been the logical outcome of his own exposure of the forgery. Resigning his portfolio, he continued to declare his conviction of Dreyfus's guilt and joined the nationalist group in the chamber of which he became one of its leaders. (He is portrayed in precisely

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