Happy 131st birthday Boris Karloff. You loved cricket and were married five times. Everyone knows your horror greats (if you don't you should) but for procrastination reasons I thought I'd do a Karloff non-horror top ten.
1) Scarface (1931) - Boris plays a gangster memorably killed in a bowling alley
2) The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1967) - part Scooby Doo, part Beach Party - he was too ill to stand so spends the whole movie in a coffin (it's a comedy)
3) Targets (1968) - horrific because it's about a spree killer with a gun but not a horror - Karloff plays a character based on himself - a superb film one of the best debut features from a director
4) The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932) - Karloff did a lot of yellow face acting back in the day but he's very effective as a mastermind and it's a fast paced thriller
5) The Lost Patrol (1934) - he's a religious maniac who goes mad in a shooting-gallery-plot film directed by John Ford
6)The Criminal Code (1931) - his performance as a murderous convict led to his casting as Frankenstein's monster
7) Charlie Chan at the Opera (1935) - he plays someone who escapes from a lunatic asylum admittedly but it's not a horror film, one of the best Charlie Chans
8) The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) - he's the baddy in a Danny Kaye comedy
9) How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966) - narrator of a classic TV show
10) "The Emperor Jones" done for radio for Theatre Guild of the Air (1945) with Karloff really good - Canada Lee plays the lead
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