Walbrook is perhaps best known for his roles in the original British film of Gaslight, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The Red Shoes and Victoria the Great (as Prince Albert).

[7] Although RKO convinced the Jewish organizations to lift the boycott by pointing out Walbrook's actual ethnic heritage, the damage was done.

He "steer[ed] away from the dangerously sexy screen persona of his German career to the image of a passionate spokesman for pan-European liberalism.

[12] In 1952 he appeared at the Coliseum as Cosmo Constantine in Call Me Madam, also participating alongside Billie Worth, Jeff Warren and Shani Wallis on the EMI cast recording.

One of Walbrook's most unusual films was Dickinson's The Queen of Spades (1949), a Gothic thriller based on the Alexander Pushkin short story, in which he co-starred with Edith Evans.

In The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) he played the role of the dashing, intense military officer Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff, a sympathetic German refugee from the Nazi regime.

His Red Shoes co-star Moira Shearer recalled Walbrook was a loner on set, often wearing dark glasses, as in his character costume in the film, and eating alone.

[7] American director Wes Anderson is a great fan of The Red Shoes, and once boasted that he knew all of Walbrook's dialogue in that film by heart.