Sunday, November 6, 2011

Carl Boehm Or Not Carl Boehm, That Is The Question

I came across the black and white photo on the right during a search of a photo archive that listed it as, "Hamlet, unknown actor."*  I'd swear that's Carl Boehm, or Karlheinz, as his peeps call him.  I don't know if it is or isn't (I did a perfunctory search, as in "half-assed google search," and came up with nothing and, as seen below, it's probably, most definitely someone else) but no matter because, somehow, he seems a perfect fit for Hamlet.  Or maybe he wouldn't be.  Maybe I'm just reading too much of the weird Mark Lewis character he played in Peeping Tom into it.   Or maybe the fact that his dad, renowned conductor Karl Bohm, sent him to Switzerland during World War II so he would never be associated with Nazis while dad stayed with ... um... the Nazis.  But he didn't like them.  Or did he?  Who the hell knows?  Hey, we got a great Peeping Tom performance out of it, right?  Maybe I'm asking too much to believe the Nazi-sympathizer-dad thing could have played out for a great performance of Hamlet, too.

*In the comments, Vanwall Green thinks it might be Innotenki Smoktunovsky, renowned for playing Hamlet.  Stills from the production would bear this out.  I still think Boehm could have played a great Hamlet.  As for Boehm and Smoktunosky, are they candidates for "Switched at Birth" or what?

4 comments:

Vanwall said...

Innokenty Smoktunovsky, the great Russian actor? Did a helluva Hamlet.

Greg said...

Vanwall, when I put the picture in Google (what a great feature, by the way), that was one of the pics that came up. Boehm did, too. And a lot of others. Probably is Smoktunovsky but I like to imagine Boehm doing Hamlet and playing it the same way he played Mark Lewis.

Vanwall said...

If you ever get a chance, watch Smoktunovsky's Hamlet, it's possibly the best movie adaptation of it.

Greg said...

I will, if I can. Just checked Amazon and Netflix and couldn't find it. I'll keep looking.