Who were the great hams of the classic era?

Two come to mind, mostly because I've been thinking of '30s horrors of late:

Tod Slaughter



and

Carlos Villarias



Then, of course, Lionel Barrymore popped into my head, though he's an amiable old ham whose performances I've defended of late.

Lebowskidoo 🎄😷🎄

I love Tod Slaughter's movies. He is, quite frankly, an awful actor, but that's what makes the movies all the more enjoyable, in my opinion. The pictures are so over-the-top and wild, and so much fun. And--my God!--the "Slaughter" part of his name was actually his real name. Unbelievable.

Carlos Villarias played Dracula in the Spanish-language version of the '31 Dracula (the English-language version starred Bela Lugosi, of course). The "Spanish version," as it's usually called (though it was made mostly for the Central American market), is really an excellent movie, but the most important performances--the Count himself and his arch-nemesis, Prof. Van Helsing--are far weaker than their counterparts in the English-language version. Still, it is to a great extent superior than the tedium of the English-language version, even if Villarias overacts wildly. (By the way, Lupita Tovar, an excellent and beautiful actress whose performance as the heroine was hugely superior to Helen Chandler's in the "English version," only passed away a few months ago, at the age of 106.)

Traditional THWAP for that one !