Victor Varconi

Acting

Victor Varconi

Born — Died

1891-03-30 — 1976-06-06

Place of birth

Kisvárda, Austria-Hungary

Known for

Acting

Credits

62 titles

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Victor Varconi (born Mihály Várkonyi, 31 March 1891 – 6 June 1976) was a highly successful silent film actor in Hungary. Born in Kisvárda, Austria-Hungary, Varconi was the first Hungarian actor to make a film in the United States. His normal speaking accent sounded almost exactly like that of Transylvanian Bela Lugosi. He worked under contract to Cecil B. DeMille, and played Pontius Pilate in DeMille's 1927 production of The King of Kings. Because of his accent, Varconi's popularity waned with the advent of sound films and he was cast in smaller parts, often playing Hispanic characters. He worked on the New York City stage and wrote for radio. He di…

Known for

Film credits

1940s · 14 titles

Samson and Delilah poster
6.6

When strongman Samson rejects the love of the beautiful Philistine woman Delilah, she seeks vengeance that brings horrible consequences they both regret.

Samson and Delilah

1949

The Sea Hawk poster
7.2

Dashing pirate Geoffrey Thorpe plunders Spanish ships for Queen Elizabeth I and falls in love with Dona Maria, a beautiful Spanish royal he captures.

The Sea Hawk

1940

For Whom the Bell Tolls poster
6.5

Spain in the 1930s is the place to be for a man of action like Robert Jordan. There is a civil war going on and Jordan—who has joined up on the side that appeals most to idealists of that era—has been given a high-risk assignment up in the mountains. He awaits the right time to blow up a crucial bridge in order to halt the enemy's progress.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

1943

Unconquered poster
6.5

England, 1763. After being convicted of a crime, the young and beautiful Abigail Hale agrees, to escape the gallows, to serve fourteen years as a slave in the colony of Virginia, whose inhabitants begin to hear and fear the sinister song of the threatening drums of war that resound in the wild Ohio valley.

Unconquered

1947

Reap the Wild Wind poster
6.3

The Florida Keys in 1840, where the implacable hurricanes of the Caribbean scream, where the salvagers of Key West, like the intrepid and beautiful Loxi Claiborne and her crew, reap, aboard frail schooners, the harvest of the wild wind, facing the shark teeth of the reefs to rescue the sailors and the cargo from the shipwrecks caused by the scavengers of the sea.

Reap the Wild Wind

1942

Strange Cargo poster
7.0

Convicts escaping from Devil's Island come under the influence of a strange Christ-like figure.

Strange Cargo

1940

My Favorite Blonde poster
6.5

Larry Haines, a mediocre vaudeville entertainer, boards a train for Los Angeles. Aboard, he meets an attractive, blonde British agent carrying a coded message hidden in a brooch—and is being pursued by Nazi agents.

My Favorite Blonde

1942

Where There's Life poster
6.4

In a far off country, their king is critically wounded after an assassination attempt and the only heir is a timid New York radio personality, Michael Valentine (Bob Hope). After reluctantly traveling to his father's homeland, Michael is not happy that he's become the target of the same terrorist organization that attacked the king.

Where There's Life

1947

The Hitler Gang poster
6.3

The Hitler Gang adopts the style of a gangster film as it charts Adolf Hitler’s rise from small-time politico to dictator of Germany.

The Hitler Gang

1944

Undercover: How to Operate Behind Enemy Lines poster
6.0

A training film for OSS agents who are to be dropped behind enemy lines.

Undercover: How to Operate Behind Enemy Lines

1943

They Raid by Night poster
5.3

The British Commandos send Bob Owen to Norway to prepare for a raid. His mission also includes freeing General Heden who is being held by the Nazis. His aides include Eric Falken and Harry. Inga, a Norwegian girl to whom Falken was once engaged but who has become the sweetheart of Oberst Von Ritter, betrays their hiding place.

They Raid by Night

1942

Scotland Yard Investigator poster
6.5

A London curator loses the Mona Lisa to a collector, who discovers it's a fake.

Scotland Yard Investigator

1945

Forced Landing poster
6.0

On faraway Mosaque, an American pilot finds that he is in a desperate struggle with a military officer intent on sabotaging a local fort.

Forced Landing

1941

Pirates of Monterey poster
5.6

A woman journeys to Spanish California to marry a Spanish officer, but on the way she meets and falls in love with an American adventurer who is part of a movement to overthrow the Spanish in California.

Pirates of Monterey

1947

1930s · 22 titles

The Plainsman poster
6.5

Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, and Buffalo Bill go up against Indians and a gunrunner.

The Plainsman

1936

The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle poster
7.0

In 1911, minor stage comic, Vernon Castle meets the stage-struck Irene Foote. A few misadventures later, they marry and then abandon comedy to attempt a dancing career together. While they're performing in Paris, an agent sees them rehearse and starts them on their brilliant career as the world's foremost ballroom dancers. However, at the height of their fame, World War I begins.

The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle

1939

Safe in Hell poster
6.7

To avoid the rigors of the law, Gilda flees New Orleans and hides on a Caribbean island where the worst criminals can ask for asylum. Besieged by the scum of the earth, Gilda will soon find out that she has found refuge in hell.

Safe in Hell

1931

King of the Newsboys poster
4.8

A poor young man's girlfriend leaves him for a gangster, who has the money and power she wants and the young man doesn't have. Determined to show her that he can be a success--and how much of a mistake she made by leaving him--he starts up a newspaper distribution business that is soon the biggest in the city, but things don't turn out exactly the way he wanted them to.

King of the Newsboys

1938

Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation poster
6.6

Mr. Moto is in Egypt to thwart a criminal mastermind determined to steal the priceless crown of the Queen of Sheba. When the precious treasure is transported to America, Mr. Moto must race against time to unmask the cunning thief who will stop at nothing—not even murder—to get what he wants.

Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation

1939

Big City poster
7.7

Anna and Joe are newly married, playful and deeply in love. Joe is scraping by as cab driver in New York City during a period of corruption, mob control and violence between cab companies.

Big City

1937

Roberta poster
7.1

Football player John Kent tags along as Huck Haines and the Wabash Indianians travel to an engagement in Paris, only to lose it immediately. John and company visit his aunt, owner of a posh fashion house run by her assistant, Stephanie. There they meet the singer Scharwenka (alias Huck's old friend Lizzie), who gets the band a job. Meanwhile, Madame Roberta passes away and leaves the business to John and he goes into partnership with Stephanie.

Roberta

1935

Trouble in Morocco poster
6.5

A newspaperman Paul Cluett (Jack Holt) gets rival reporter Linda Lawrence (Mae Clark) to admit that she is investigating a story that guns are being smuggled illegally into Morocco.

Trouble in Morocco

1937

Men in Her Life poster
6.1

A wealthy ex-bootlegger comes to the rescue of a formerly rich society girl after her gold-digging fiancé leaves her stranded when he finds out she's broke. The bootlegger proposes a deal: he will settle her debts if she teaches him how to be "a gentleman".

Men in Her Life

1931

Suez poster
5.5

Ferdinand de Lesseps, disappointed in love, is sent as a junior diplomat to the Isthmus of Suez, and realizes it's just the place for a canal.

Suez

1938

A Feather in Her Hat poster
7.0

After the woman who raised him claims he's not her son, Richard searches for clues about his identity. Urged on by his mentor, Capt. Randolph Courtney, Richard focuses on Julia Trent Anders, a middle-aged actress who just might be his real mother. But soon, Richard begins to fall for Julia's stepdaughter. Amidst the upheaval, Richard schemes to return Julia to the stage -- but he's in for another big surprise.

A Feather in Her Hat

1935

Doctors' Wives poster
6.0

The trials of being a doctor's wife are presented in this drama. The story centers upon the problematic marriage of one couple. Their troubles begin when the doctor makes a housecall to a seductive woman with designs upon him. His suspicious wife follows him and spies on him. She thinks they are getting romantic when he is actually trying to extricate himself from his predatory patient. She decides to get revenge with his best friend, but nothing happens.

Doctors' Wives

1931

Everything Happens at Night poster
5.3

Two reporters compete to discover a scientist living in hiding and win his daughter.

Everything Happens at Night

1939

Submarine Patrol poster
6.7

A naval officer is demoted for negligence and put in command of a run-down submarine chaser with a motley crew.

Submarine Patrol

1938

The Black Camel poster
6.1

Movie star Shelah Fane is seeing wealthy Alan Jaynes while filming in Honolulu, Hawaii, but won't marry him without consulting famed psychic Tarneverro first. Enter inspector Charlie Chan of the Honolulu Police, investigating the unsolved murder, three years earlier, of a Hollywood actor.

The Black Camel

1931

Dancing Pirate poster
5.7

Jonathan Pride is a mild-mannered dance instructor in 1820 Boston. En route to visit relatives, Jonathan is shanghaied by a band of zany pirates and forced to work as a galley boy. When the pirate vessel arrives at the port of Las Palomas, Jonathan, clad in buccaneer's garb, makes his escape. Everyone in Las Palomas, including Governor Alcalde (Frank Morgan) and fetching senorita Serafina (Steffi Duna), assumes that Jonathan is the pirate chieftain, leading to a series of typical comic-opera complications.

Dancing Pirate

1936

Men in Exile poster
5.0

An ex-con takes flight after he's framed for a jewelry store robbery and murder.

Men in Exile

1937

Mister Dynamite poster
7.0

A gambler hires a detective to investigate when a murder is committed in his casino.

Mister Dynamite

1935

Captain Thunder poster
4.4

A notorious Mexican bandit goes all soft and mushy when he falls for a beautiful senorita. Warner Bros.' Captain Thunder contains some of the darndest Mexican accents you've ever heard in your life. The star is Hungarian-born Victor Varconi, portraying a legendary south of the border outlaw who tries to force Canadian senorita Fay Wray to marry a rival rustler whom she despises. She pleads with the bandito so pathetically that he is moved to grant her a single wish. Without hesitation she chooses her poor but true love. The bandit king, being a somewhat honorable fellow grants the wish and without a twitch, guns down the wicked cattle thief. Fortunately the film was played for comedy, a wise decision since it probably would have garnered laughs as a straight drama anyway.

Captain Thunder

1930

Disputed Passage poster
7.0

A doctor's medical studies are threatened by his infatuation with a Chinese girl. The girl returns to China, but complications ensue when she runs into him in Nanking during a Japanese bombing raid.

Disputed Passage

1939

The Rebel poster
6.0

A young medical student returns to his Tyrolean home to find out that Napoleon's troops have taken over the area and that his mother and sister have been murdered.

The Rebel

1932

The Doomed Battalion poster
9.0

Shortly before the First World War, an Italian and an Austrian mountain guides take part in a mountaineering expedition together. Not long afterwards they find themselves fighting on different sides in the same area in the Dolomites, fighting to conquer the same high pass (Col Alto). When the war is over, they meet again. Their friendship has survived the war. American version of the film Berge in Flammen. It uses some scenes from the original German-French version. There is a third version of the film titled Les Monts en Flammes, shot the same year in French.

The Doomed Battalion

1932

1920s · 14 titles

The King of Kings poster
6.4

The King of Kings is the Greatest Story Ever Told as only Cecil B. DeMille could tell it. In 1927, working with one of the biggest budgets in Hollywood history, DeMille spun the life and Passion of Christ into a silent-era blockbuster. Featuring text drawn directly from the Bible, a cast of thousands, and the great showman’s singular cinematic bag of tricks, The King of Kings is at once spectacular and deeply reverent—part Gospel, part Technicolor epic.

The King of Kings

1927

The Volga Boatman poster
6.5

During the Russian Revolution Princess Vera, though betrothed to Prince Dimitri, is attracted to the peasant Feodor.

The Volga Boatman

1926

Sodom and Gomorrah poster
6.1

Exposed to bad influences since childhood, Mary, a young girl is pushed by her mother to approach an elderly banker by the name of Harber. After almost driving her fiancee to suicide and seducing his mentally-ill son, she realizes through a metaphorical dream the scope of her negligence. Sentenced to prison for incitement to murder Harber, she sees herself as a parallel figure to Lea, Lot's wife in Sodom, where the Angel of the Lord warns the sinful citizens of the city of their impending doom. Lea oppresses the angel and eventually turns it over to the pagan priests when her sexual advances to it are rejected. In another dream sequence, Mary becomes the Queen of Syria, whose oppressed people turn against her and who, in turn, condemns a young man who loves her to death. Finally, her dream returns to the present time and when she awakens, she runs back to her former lover.

Sodom and Gomorrah

1922

Chicago poster
5.9

Based on a true story, two-timing boozing wife Roxie Hart kills her lover in cold blood after he leaves her, and finagles her way out being indicted.

Chicago

1927

The Red Peacock poster
10.0

A modern adaptation of Dumas' Camille.

The Red Peacock

1920

The Last Days of Pompeii poster
5.8

Carmine Gallone and Amleto Palermi’s The Last Days of Pompeii 1926 stages in sumptuous colour tinting the epic fall of the ancient city buried by Mount Vesuvius’ eruption. Adapted from Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s love story, the film was innovative in its special effects and an early major box-office hit. A beautiful tinted restoration print was prepared using photochemical processes by Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia-Cineteca Nazionale in the mid-1990s and the premiere screening of the restoration print was held in the amphitheatre in Pompeii, followed by a screening at the major restoration festival ‘Il Cinema Ritrovato’ in Bologna in 1998.

The Last Days of Pompeii

1926

Her Dancing Partner poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Her Dancing Partner

1925

For Wives Only poster
10.0

Dr. Josef Rittenhaus, a popular young society physician of Vienna, at the behest of his friend Waldstein, goes to consider a proposal by Countess von Nessa to donate a site and funds for the erection of a new sanitarium. His wife, Laura, piqued by his apparent indifference, is left in the hands of Carl Tanzer, supposedly the doctor's best friend, whose advances she rejects. Laura contrives to make her husband jealous with a bogus letter, but to no avail; later, escaping from a masher, she meets her husband's friend Fritz Schwerman, from whom she escapes after accepting a luncheon offer. While Laura tries to vamp her husband's other friends at a card game, the countess tries to make love to the doctor. Rittenhaus returns home in disgust and is happily reconciled with his wife.

For Wives Only

1926

The Divine Lady poster
5.3

Lady Hamilton's love affair with Admiral Horatio Nelson rocks the British Empire.

The Divine Lady

1928

No artwork available
NR

Early Hungarian silent version of Franz Lehar operetta about a soldier ordered to return a rich widow to her native country, in order to protect its economy.

The Merry Widow

1920

The Angel of Broadway poster
10.0

Babe Scott, a cabaret dancer who is constantly searching for sensational material to shock her customers, conceives of burlesquing a Salvation Army girl and attends mission meetings on the East Side for atmosphere. There she meets Jerry Wilson, an honest truckdriver and friend of the Army captain. Although the act is a success, Babe is disillusioned to find Lonnie, a fellow worker who has been romancing her, stealing her money and making overtures to Big Bertha, the hard-boiled club hostess.

The Angel of Broadway

1927

No artwork available
8.0

A Habsburg archduke enlists as an ordinary seaman. Based on the novel Serpoletto by Lajos Bíró.

Eine versunkene Welt

1922

Changing Husbands poster
7.0

A bored rich housewife wants to go on the stage, but her husband won't let her. When she meets a despairing actress who looks exactly like her, she suggests they swap places for a little while, giving the actress a break while the rich husband is out of town. But the rich husband comes back early, causing havoc for the actress, plus the rich housewife is finding herself attracted to the actress's boyfriend.

Changing Husbands

1924

Eternal Love poster
5.8

In the Swiss Alps of the early 19th century, a couple forced into loveless marriages struggle to find happiness with one another.

Eternal Love

1929

1910s · 8 titles

The Devil poster
NR

The Devil, in the guise of a human, meets a young couple who remark upon looking at a Renaissance painting of a martyr that Evil could never triumph over Good.

The Devil

1918

Mágia poster
7.0

Count Merlin pursues an alchemical quest requiring the blood of young men to complete his rituals. An early version of the vampire on film.

Mágia

1917

The Yellow Foal poster
7.0

Márton Csorba chases the officer who has approached his wife. András Bakaj is on his way to fetch a doctor for his sick daughter, but the fleeing officer tries to take his horse. In the scuffle, a gun accidentally goes off, wounding the officer to death, who is robbed by a beggar. The bailiff arrests Csorba, who arrives on the scene. Bakaj does not have the strength to give himself up because of his sick daughter, so Csorba is sentenced to 15 years for murder.

The Yellow Foal

1914

The Scorpion poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

The Scorpion

1918

Magic Waltz poster
NR

Early Curtiz feature

Magic Waltz

1918

99 poster
NR

Early Curtiz feature.

99

1918

Mágnás Miska poster
NR

Based on a popular stage musical comedy by Károly Bakonyi and Andor Gábor, the film tells the story of a young engineer who tries to construct a railway in his hometown, helped by the Count's daughter, Marcsa (Lili Berky).

Mágnás Miska

1917

The Undesirable poster
4.6

A young woman living in the country is told by her dying father that he is really her uncle and raised her as his own when her mother was sent to prison for killing her husband. Alone and not knowing her mother’s fate, Betty travels to the city in search of work. There she finds employment as a maid in the house of a wealthy couple and their dashing son, Nick, with whom she falls in love...

The Undesirable

1915

Series credits