WILLIAM FARNUM
July 4th, 1876 -- June 5th, 1953

Above: A portrait study of William Farnum, taken in the days when his acting star was second to no one's.

Of the many silent movie stars who moved into the sound cliffhangers, none brought a more impressive list of credits with him than William Farnum. At one time the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, his silent screen roles included Charles Darnay and Sidney Carton in the epic 1917 version of TALE OF TWO CITIES, Jean Valjean in the original LES MISERABLES, and two Zane Grey heroes, Lassiter (RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE) and Buck Duane (LAST OF THE DUANES). On stage he was Ben Hur, Marc Antony, Banquo, and many others; he was truly a talented and versatile actor. Farnum's serial roles never took full advantage of his abilities, but he always excelled in his cliffhangers, generally playing kindly fathers, wise advisers, and benevolent comforters.

William Farnum was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, a well-known stage actor, raised William (and his brothers Dustin and Marshall) up in the family profession. Farnum began stage acting in 1886 at the age of 10; after a long apprenticeship of juvenile roles, he debuted as a leading man in BEN HUR in 1899. After touring in this part for five years, William did other leading roles on stage, but shortly afterwards decided to cast his lot with the new medium of motion pictures. His screen debut was in THE SPOILERS (Fox, 1914) where he played the hero, Roy Glennister. His mammoth fistfight with the villainous McNamara (Tom Santschi) became the set piece for which the film is most remembered, and was re-created in every subsequent version of the movie. SPOILERS was a big hit, and Farnum and Fox quickly followed it up with more good vehicles, including TALE OF TWO CITIES and the other above-mentioned films. A serious injury sustained while working on THE MAN WHO FIGHTS ALONE in 1924 curtailed his film career for a while; he went back to the dramatic stage until 1928. Always of a husky build, he had now gained a considerable amount of weight, which caused him to be relegated to co-starring or supporting roles. He played King Arthur opposite Will Rogers in A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT (1931), and supported Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in MR. ROBINSON CRUSOE (1932).

Above: A very young William Farnum (second from left) with William S. Hart (far right) in a photo from the 1899 stage version of BEN HUR.

Like many other former stars, Farnum found work at Mascot Pictures in the early thirties, appearing in FIGHTING WITH KIT CARSON (Mascot, 1933). I haven't seen this serial myself, but apparently Farnum's part was rather small, as none of the pressbook summaries even mention his character, "Elliott." After this initial cliffhanger role, Farnum returned to A-list movies for the next couple of years, with noticeable roles in such pictures as COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, THE SCARLET LETTER, and CLEOPATRA. Though his starring days were now over, William's standing was such that he was guaranteed minor but credited (and usually important) roles in major films--and big roles in B-westerns and serials--for the rest of his career.

Farnum became a serial regular with his second cliffhanger, UNDERSEA KINGDOM (Republic, 1936). William played Sharad, High Priest of the "Undersea Kingdom", and leader of the White Robes, a group of Atlantean loyalists who fought against tyrant Unga Khan (Monte Blue), and tried to stop his plan of invading the surface world. US Navy officer Ray "Crash"Corrigan arrived in Atlantis via submarine along with Professor Norton (C. Montague Shaw), Billy Norton (Lee Van Atta), and reporter Diana Compton (Lois Wilde). The group quickly became involved in the civil war between the White Robes and Khan's Black Robes. Through a set of circumstances, Crash was captured by the White Robes and mistaken for an enemy soldier. Ordered to fight Black Robe prisoners in Sharad's arena, Crash bested his opponents but refused to kill them, causing Sharad to sentence him to death. However, when two Black Robe prisoners seized Sharad and attempted to escape using the high priest as a hostage, Crash came to his rescue and was appointed supreme commander of the White Robe army by the grateful Sharad. Ultimately, Sharad was killed when his fortress was bombarded by Unga Khan's Volplanes, and his army was wiped out by the Black Robes. To make matters worse, Khan's mammoth expanding tower, crashing through the dome that protected Atlantis from the sea to begin the invasion of the surface world, brought about the destruction of the entire undersea country. Crash's party escaped in the submarine, while Crash and Norton battled Khan's men aboard the tower; they both escaped just before the Navy arrived to blast the tower and Khan out of the ocean. KINGDOM was fast-paced and imaginative, but suffered from hasty construction (it was hurriedly released to capitalize on the success of Universal's FLASH GORDON) as evident from the unnecessarily destructive conclusion. William did his best as Sharad, but was unable to rectify the inconsistencies in the script that made the supposedly peace-loving Sharad order someone killed simply for showing mercy to an opponent.

Above: Lane Chandler (left) and William Farnum view attacking Volplanes from the window of Farnum's palace in UNDERSEA KINGDOM (Republic, 1936).

Farnum's next serial was THE CLUTCHING HAND (Stage and Screen, 1936), an entertaining but somewhat incomprehensible mystery serial with sleuth Jack Mulhall trying to track down the title mystery villain despite interference from countless shady suspects, including Reed Howes, Mae Busch, Bryant Washburn, and Charles Locher (later Jon Hall). William was Police Inspector Gordon Gaunt, staunch ally to Mulhall's "Craig Kennedy" and one of the few characters in the plotline you felt you could actually trust. CLUTCHING HAND allowed Farnum to display his quiet strength and dignity better than any of his previous serials had.

Above: Jack Mulhall (right) and William Farnum examine some clues in THE CLUTCHING HAND (Stage and Screen, 1936).

CUSTER'S LAST STAND, released by Stage and Screen immediately after CLUTCHING HAND, featured many of the same actors, including William, Jack Mulhall, and Reed Howes. Farnum was cast as evil frontier trader Jim Fitzpatrick, out to find a priceless Indian gold cache and careless of triggering hostilities between the Indians and the settlers in the process. Renegade Tom Blade (Howes) was also after the gold, as was frontier scout Kit Cardigan (Rex Lease) determined to prevent war from breaking out. Featuring a huge cast of silent screen greats (besides Farnum, Howes, and Mulhall, William Desmond, Josef Swickard, George Chesebro, and Lona Andre were also featured) and a lot of pseudo-historical plotting, CUSTER was a bit too "jam-packed" for any one actor to stand out, but Farnum was very good in his atypically nasty role.

Above: William Farnum (left) plots with Reed Howes in CUSTER'S LAST STAND (Stage and Screen, 1936).

Farnum's fourth and final serial for 1936 was THE VIGILANTES ARE COMING over at Republic. He played the wise priest Father Jose, who aided Don Loring (Robert Livingston) in avenging the murder of his father and brother and overthrowing Jason Burr (Fred Kohler), a renegade American general who had taken over Spanish California with the intention of selling it to the Russians. Livingston battled Kohler's forces in the guise of the masked Eagle, posing as a timid organist in Farnum's mission church to throw the villains off the scent. William also helped the Eagle by providing him with a secret room beneath the mission to store his steed and garments in, and continued to provide him with support throughout. This role was tailor-made for Farnum, allowing him to be wise, gentle, and stalwart all at once.

Above: William Farnum, Kay Hughes, and Bob Livingston (at the organ) in THE VIGILANTES ARE COMING (Republic, 1936).

After the hectic schedule of 1936, Farnum took a short break from serials and films in general, only making four movie appearances throughout 1937. In 1938 he was back for SECRET OF TREASURE ISLAND (Columbia, 1938), produced by the same men who did CLUTCHING HAND and CUSTER'S LAST STAND: the Weiss Brothers, who had moved their serial outfit from Stage and Screen over to Columbia. With a higher budget, TREASURE ISLAND proved to be much better than the brothers' other releases; it was a thrilling mystery with lots of location work and unusual plot twists. Farnum played George Brennan Westmore, editor of a large California newspaper, who sent reporter Larry Kent to the mysterious Treasure Island in search of another reporter who had disappeared there a while ago. On arriving on the island, Kent became involved in a whole lot of frantic action, battling villains Grant Withers and Walter Miller, a mysterious pirate ghost, and the underground dwellers known as the "Mole Men." Toni Morrell (Gwen Gaze) shared Kent's adventures, while searching for her missing father, who proved to be none other than Westmore, who had thought his daughter dead in a shipwreck. In the final chapter, Kent, Toni, Westmore, and island character Captain Cuttle (George Rosener) escaped through an exploding tunnel as the island collapsed around the villains, and made it to the mainland just in time.

THE LONE RANGER (Republic, 1938), released just two days after SECRET OF TREASURE ISLAND, featured William as Father McKim, a kindly, understanding priest very like Father Jose in VIGILANTES ARE COMING. Like Father Jose, Father McKim supported a masked hero (the mysterious Lone Ranger) against a self-appointed despot (Stanley Andrews as Marcus Jeffries, fake Texas finance commissioner). Due to the large cast of good guys (the mysterious Ranger, his partner Tonto, the five heroes who were Ranger "suspects", the heroine and her father, and youngster Sammy McKim) Farnum did not have as much screen time as he had in VIGILANTES, but he provided the serial with an added touch of class.

Above: The Lone Ranger waits to take medicine to an ailing settler as Father McKim (William Farnum) prepares the health-giving potion in THE LONE RANGER (Republic, 1936).

William's last serial was ADVENTURES OF RED RYDER in 1940--one of Republic's all-time classics. Farnum's role was the smallest of his entire serial career; however, it was vitally important to the plot. As Colonel Tom Ryder, respected rancher and father of hero Red Ryder (Donald Barry), Farnum took action against the ruthless outlaws terrorizing the ranches in the Mesquite area by asking the sheriff's permission to organize a band of vigilantes. The sheriff (Lloyd Ingraham) gladly agreed to the idea, but the two old fighters were taken unawares and ruthlessly gunned down in the sheriff's office by order of banker Calvin Drake (Harry Worth), the secret outlaw leader. The wounded Farnum, game to the last, tried to pull a rifle from the wall, but a second bullet downed him for good. When Barry discovered Farnum's body, one of the greatest sequences in serials began, as our hero grimly stalked down the street to deal out justice to the three henchmen responsible for the murder. After summarily ending their careers, Red began to ferret out the higher-ups who had paid them, while battling Drake's schemes to take over his father's ranch and the neighboring ranches. In effect, William's character "handed the torch" to Barry's; unable to finish the crusade against the villains himself, Ryder senior passed it down to his son, who carried it on in a fashion that would have made the fighting Colonel proud.

Above: The principal players in ADVENTURES OF RED RYDER (Republic, 1940) are featured on this great title card. Don Barry, as Red, takes center stage at far left; the other actors are (top row) Noah Beery Sr. as the evil Ace Hanlon, Tommy Cook as the helpful Little Beaver, and Bob Kortman as the sinister One Eye. Along the bottom row are William Farnum as Red's father, Maude Pierce Allen as Red's aunt the Duchess, and Hal Taliaferro as Red's partner Cherokee. Chief villain Harry Worth and leading lady Vivian Coe are not pictured.

Farnum's depth and sensitivity, which had carried him far in silent and sound, now rendered him unsuitable for serial roles as the cliffhanger moved into its 1940s "all action" phase and left the greater character emphasis of the thirties behind. He was still given good roles in B-westerns, and key "featured" roles in A-pictures, throughout the forties and into the fifties. John Wayne's THE SPOILERS in 1942 gave him a supporting role in recognition of his starring in the original, and all his other screen parts acknowledged his stature in similar ways. Cecil B. DeMille cast William as Hedy Lamarr's father in SAMSON AND DELILAH, and he played himself in Roy Rogers's all-star Christmas B-western TRAIL OF ROBIN HOOD. Farnum's final role was as the King in Bud Abbott and Lou Costello's hilarious JACK AND THE BEANSTALK in 1952; though the role was brief, William seemed to get a real kick out it. The next year, Farnum died of cancer at his home in Hollywood; among the many who paid tribute to the great actor at the funeral were Pat O’Brien and Cecil B. DeMille.

One of the first and one of the best Hollywood stars, William Farnum gave us some memorable screen moments in our favorite cliffhangers. William deservedly gets a lot of acclaim from film historians, but by no one loves him more or remembers him better than the Saturday matinee crowd.