 He played sympathetically an impoverished composer-pianist in "Tales of Manhattan" (1942) and starred in an updated version of Oscar Wilde's "The Canterville Ghost" in 1944.Laughton appeared in two comedies with Deanna Durbin, "It Started with Eve" (1941) and "Because of Him" (1946).He portrayed a bloodthirsty pirate in "Captain Kidd" (1945) and a malevolent judge in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Paradine Case" (1947).