Malcolm Tod

Tonight and this weekend, EFSP will join the Netherlands Silent Film Festival in the city of Eindhoven. The opening film is the German comedy Saxophon-Susi (Carl Lamac, 1928) starring Anny Ondra and British actor Malcolm Tod(d). Malcolm Tod (1897-1968) was a star of British and European silent cinema of the 1920s. He appeared in more than thirty films from 1921 to 1934.


Italian postcard by Ed. G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 92. Photo: S.A. Stefano Pittaluga. Malcolm Tod in the late silent film Il carnevale di Venezia (Mario Almirante 1928). On Italian postcards, Tod's name was often misspelt.


French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 247. Photo: Production Natan.


French postcard by Cinémagazine-Édition, Paris, no. 68.

Smart, slightly snobbish aristocrats and gentlemen

Malcolm Tod was born in 1897 in Burton-on-Trent, England. He was the son of a brewer. During the First World War, he served on the French front. On 6 September 1917, when serving as 1st lieutenant in the First Black Watch Regiment, he married Margaret Bates.

After the war, he worked as an actor, growing from small 'walk-on' parts and extras in mass scenes to leads. In front of the camera, he convincingly played smart, slightly snobbish aristocrats and gentlemen.

From 1921, he acted in British silent cinema. Tod had a prolific career in the early 1920s as a supporting actor in crime films and detectives for Master Films and Stoll Picture Productions, with leading actors like Victor McLaglen, Ivy Close and Charles Hutchison.

From 1923, he also acted in French silent films, such as the Franco-Austrian coproduction Das Bildnis /The Portrait (Jacques Feyder, 1923) with Arlette Marchal, Victor Vina, Fred Louis Lerch and Armand Dufour, Les puits de Jacob / A Daughter of Israel (Edward José, 1925) with Betty Blythe and Léon Mathot, and Le berceau de dieu / The Cradle of God (Fred Leroy Granville, 1926) with an all-star cast of Mathot plus Stacia Napierkowska, Annette Benson, Joë Hamman, Gabriel Signoret, Musidora, André Roanne, Rachel Devirys, France Dhélia, and Gabriel De Gravone.

He also appeared in Rue de la paix (Henri Diamant-Berger 1927), starring Andrée Lafayette and Suzy Pierson, André Cornelis (Jean Kemm, 1927), in which Tod played both André and Justin Cornelis, opposite Suzy Pierson, Claude France and Georges Lannes, and Mon Paris (Albert Guyot 1928).


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Editore, Milano, no. 4. Photo: Production Pittaluga Film, Torino.


Italian postcard by Ed. G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 91. Photo: S.A. Stefano Pittaluga. Maria Jacobini and Malcolm Tod in Il carnevale di Venezia (Mario Almirante, 1928). Exactly the same location and camera angle were already used five years before by Almirante in his film L'ombra / The Shadow (Mario Almirante, 1923).


Italian postcard by Ed. G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 95. Photo: S.A. Stefano Pittaluga. Maria Jacobini and Malcolm Tod in Il carnevale di Venezia (Mario Almirante, 1928).

Todd, not dead

From 1925, Malcolm Tod also acted in German films, such as Die Stadt der Versuchung / The City of Temptation (Walter Niebuhr, 1925) starring Olga Tschechova, Der Mitternachtswalzer / The Midnight Waltz (Heinz Paul, 1928) with Elisabeth Pinajeff, the comedy Saxophon-Susi / Suzy Saxophone (Carl Lamac, 1928) starring Anny Ondra, and the British-German film Die Siegerin / After the Verdict (Henrik Galeen, 1929) with Olga Tschechova and Warwick Ward.

In Germany, an extra 'd' was added to Tod's last name to avoid associations with death (Tod = death). A visit to Hollywood in 1925 didn't result in a breakthrough, so Tod continued his European career. In Britain, he starred in films like Poppies of Flanders (Arthur Maude, 1925) and The Woman Tempted (Maurice Elvey, 1926).

In 1927-1928, Tod acted in two Italian films by Mario Almirante for Pittaluga. The first film was Addio mia bella Napoli, shot in 1927 but then shelved and only released - quite unsuccessfully - in 1930 in a sonorised version, arranged by Guglielmo Zorzi, as Napoli che canta / The Double Adventure.

The second Italian film was Il carnevale di Venezia / The Carnival of Venice (Mario Almirante, 1928), starring Maria Jacobini, partly shot on location. In the sound era, Tod's career quickly halted. He had two last minor parts in the British films Love's Old Sweet Song (H. Manning Haynes, 1933) starring John Stuart, and in Nine Forty-Five (George King, 1934) starring Binnie Barnes.

In 1931, Malcolm Tod remarried to stage actress Jane Wood. After that, he apparently withdrew from the entertainment world. In 1939, he married his third wife, Pamela Ruth Burrows. His only two children were born of this marriage, Felicity Wendy Tod (born 1940) and April Belle Prunella Tod (1944). April later became a well-known Sports journalist. Malcolm Tod died in 1968 in Pitlochry, Perth and Kinross, Scotland, UK.


Italian postcard by Ed. G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 102. Photo: S.A. Stefano Pittaluga. Maria Jacobini and Malcolm Tod in Il carnevale di Venezia (Mario Almirante, 1928).


Italian postcard by Ed. G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 106. Photo: S.A. Stefano Pittaluga. Maria Jacobini and Malcolm Tod in Il carnevale di Venezia (Mario Almirante, 1928).


Italian postcard by Ed. G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 107. Photo: S.A. Stefano Pittaluga. Maria Jacobini and Malcolm Tod in Il carnevale di Venezia (Mario Almirante, 1928).

Sources: Halson, Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.