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Peter Lorre
(encyclopedia extract)
- "For almost thirty years Peter Lorre provided films with one of their most memorable villians. He was a whispering menace, with an indefinable European accent, moving silently into view with a deceptively friendly smile. There was nothing, however, very welcoming about that; his eyes remained sad. He was a man resigned to the follies of others, clasping to himself his own fastidiousness like a fetish. He occasionally played a hero or a good man, but one never quite warmed to him in that guise. He did not know how to make goodness interesting. There have been claims that he was limited by Hollywood's type-casting, but he seems rather to have been limited by his small stature and his individuality. He wanted to play better parts--but then, so did most of those other outstanding bogey-men. Perhaps by doing what they were made to do they left a more indelible mark on the movies of that era than the leading men.
- "Lorre was born Lazlo Löwenstein in Rosenberg, Hungary, in 1904; the family, a properous one, moved to Vienna. He left his studies at 17 to join a theatrical troupe, and except for a brief spell as a bank clerk, made a living for a while by entertaining in cafés and in one-man performances and readings. In 1924 he acted in repertory in Breslau, and appeared in Zürich playing an old man in a production of Galsworthy's 'Loyalties'. He arrived in Berlin in 1929, reputedly with only ten marks in his pocket, and apparently had little difficulty in getting the lead in 'Die Pioniere von Inglostadt', as a sex maniac. He also appeared in Wedekind's 'Spring Awakening', and, among other plays, Breccht's 'Happy End' and 'Mann ist Mann'. There have been reports that he appeared in the film of the Wedekind play, but he isn't listed among the cast. His first film would seem to be M (31), in the lead-- chosen by Fritz Lang on the strength of his work in the Wedekind. He played a psychopathic child-killer hounded by police and public, and finally tried by a kangaroo court: a subtle study in degeneracy (based on fact), with the cops-and-robbers conventions of the period. The film assured him a degree of success, and he made several more movies [snip].
- "After the Nazis came into power, he declined to make any more films for UFA; he was the favourite actor of Goebbels, who made representations to him to continue--this, despite the fact that he was a Jew (as a Hungarian citizen, he enjoyed immunity). He left voluntarily for Vienna, where he made Schuss im Morgengrauen, produced by another refugee from Berlin, Sam Spiegel; but when there was no more work to be had there, went on to Paris, where he appeared in Pabst's De Haut en Bas (34), with Jean Gabin. He arrived, and left, broke. The world-wide success of M had brought offers from Hollywood to play similar roles, but he wasn't interested.
- "He accepted an offer from Alfred Hitchcock in Britian to play the inhuman professional assassin in The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Hitchcock built the part up (years later, Hitchcock recalled his 'sharp sense of humour'; earlier, Lorre had said that his English wasn't good enough to understand Hitchcock's jokes, but he laughed anyway). When he had learnt English, he sailed for the States. For eight months he sifted through offers before agreeing to do Karl Freund's remake of The Hands of Orlac at MGM, called Mad Love (35). Between them they managed a Gothic eeriness, and, as expected from former cameraman Freund, it was visually impressive. Lorre's obsessed doctor, gleamingly pated and dandified, was a villian for connoisseurs. His second American film also met his standards; von Sternberg's elementary version of Crime and Punishment. He was too old as Raskolnikov, but suggested both the amplitutde and the guilt-racked nerves. His pursuer, the inspector, was Edward Arnold. A French version with Pierre Blanchar and Harry Baur was seen in New York some months previously, and the American one suffered by comparision. Columbia, who produced, looked upon it solely as a prestige item; and offered Lorre a five-year contract at $1,000 a week. He refused, and returned to Britain for another Hitchcock film, Secret Agent (36), with John Gielgud, as another agent--disguised as a mad Mexican general. Back in Hollywood, he was fun as the hypersensitive chief of a spy-ring (after the plans of a new airliner) in Crack-Up--and the plot did just that too. 20th produced, and offered Lorre a three-year contract. This time, no doubt from expediency, he accepted.
- "He had a good role in an efficient melodrama about a kidnapping, Nancy Steele is Missing (37), as Victor McLaglen's cell-mate, a professor with homicidal tendencies. Then 20th put him into what was intended as the first of a series, Think Fast Mr Moto, as a wily and humorous Japanese detective, Mr Moto. The character had been invented by novelist John P. Marquand: 20th were interested in the books because they had another popular B series at that time, about a Chinese dectective, Charlie Chan. (Monogram also had an Oriental detective, a Mr Wong.) After Lancer Spy, in which he played a German officer, there were three more: Thank You Mr Moto, perhaps the best of the series; Mr Moto's Gamble (38); and Mr Moto Takes a Chance. The second of this trio had begun as a Charlie Chan vehicle, but was made over for Lorre when the current Chan--Warner Oland--died, though retaining Keye Luke in his usual role as Lee Chan. It was directed by James Tinling, though Norman Foster was the usual director. Lorre then played with Warner Baxter in the remake of an Italian film written by Cesare Zavattini and Giaci Mondaini, I'll Give a Million, the two of them millionaries disguised as hobos on the Riviera. Then there were some more in the series: The Mysterious Mr Moto, Mr Moto's Last Warning (39), Mr Moto on Danger Island and Mr Moto takes a Vacation.
- "Which was what Mr Lorre also did. His contract was up; after some months of idleness he returned as a free-lance: Strange Cargo (40), with Clark Gable, as a crawly stool-pigeon, M'sieu Pig; I Was an Adventuress, along with Erich von Stroheim, an accomplice of Vera Zorina; and Island of Doomed Men, in which he owned a Pacific island and listened to Chopin when not flogging his slaves. The New York Times review observed that Hollywood only used 'his tricks but not his talent'. Stranger on the Third Floor--he had the title-role; as a murderer hiding out--might have been better: some ctitics thought it intelligent, some merely pretentious. He was hardly happier in You'll Find Out, with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi as the would-be murderers of band-leader Kay Kyser; or Mr District Attorney, supporting Dennis O'Keefe in this Republic thriller based on a radio series. And he was up to familiar tricks in The Face Behind the Mask (41), directed by Robert Florey, as an immigrant driven to crime to pay for plastic surgery on his face. He was a double-crossing Chinese skipper--with a wispy beard--in They Met in Bombay, again with Gable.
- "Then Warner Brothers asked him to play one of the dubious characters in The Maltese Falcon--not so much dubious as deadly, as long as there's a gun in his hand. Otherwise, cowardly and querulous with his spats and frizzy hair and perfumed calling-card: it's always a surprise (no matter how often you see it) when he turns out to be in league with Sidney Greenstreet. Warners kept him on to do All Through the Night (42), again with Bogart, this time partnering Conrad Veidt in Nazi skilduggery and murder in the US. And they liked him enough to sign him to a five-year contract. Meanwhile, he fulfilled two commitments: The Boogie Man Will Get You, hopefully a horror comedy with Boris Karloff; and Invisible Agent, about an invisible spy in Germany, as a baron.
- "His period at Warners was to be both productive and rewarding. He was, with Sidney Greenstreet, the ace villian of their stock company, but he also played a couple of heroes. He was his usual screen self in Casablanca, as a weasely little man who can get stolen visas ('Now are you impressed with me?') and will be revealed as a murderer; but in The Constant Nymph (43), as a continental musician, he wouldn't be an unworthy aspirant to the hand of the heroine. In Background To Danger, with George Raft, he was a Russian agent; in The Cross of Lorraine, at MGM, a French sergeant; in Passage to Marseilles (44) again French, a fellow con of Bogart. He found himself the hero in The Mask of Dimitrios, a wary thriller-writer who becomes involved with the supposedly dead Dimitrios (Zachary Scott) and the mysterious Mr Roberts (Greenstreet): a good film which, despite war-time difficulties, captures both the cosmopolitan flavour and the sinewy quality of Eric Ambler's novel. He and Greenstreet were partnered again in Conspirators and Hollywood Canteen; he was back on familiar ground in Confidential Agent (45), as a measly Spanish exile who betrays Charles Boyer and is killed by him. He was no stranger to sudden death--or even a lingering one: in Hotel Berlin he was a sickly savant who drank himself to death. He starred, with Greenstreet, in Three Strangers (46), a modest mystery; was loaned out for Black Angel, as a shady saloon-owner, and The Chase, as the sardonic side-kick of gang-leader Steve Cochran. His Warner contract concluded with two starring parts: The Verdict, with Greenstreet, and The Beast With Five Fingers, a good thriller in which he was finally strangled by a dismembered hand--that of pianist Robert Alda.
- "Free-lancing again, he hoped for varied parts to play; but in My Favourite Brunette (47) he was simply one of the baddies (the funniest, and called Kismet) after Bob Hope. He was the police inspector in Casbah (48), a horrendous remake of you-know-what with Yvonne de Carlo, and Tony Martin as a singing (Harold Arlen sang) Pepe. He worked sparingly. In Rope of Sand (49), with Burt Lancaster, he was appropriately called 'Toady'; that year he appeared in vaudeville in New York, at the Paramount. His career at a low ebb, he appeared in a B thriller with Mickey Rooney, Quicksand (50), and in the British Double Confession, a silly thriller with Derek Farr and Joan Hopkins. He returned to Germany, where he wrote, produced and directed Der Verlorene (51), a study of Nazi mentality, and also played the lead--a scientist who becomes a homicidal maniac. It was an abject failure and not exported--some writers suspect that it was in fact too frank for the Germans to encourage its showing.
- "He remained off the screen till persuaded back by John Huston and Bogart, to play perhaps a distant cousin of the Falcon's Joel Cairo, a fat (now) and foppish continental, pettishly insisting his name's O'Hara: Beat the Devil (53). After that he worked fairly regularly, sometimes in quite small roles: Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (54), as Paul Lukas's assistant; Congo Crossing (56), an idiotic 'political' tale with Virginia Mayo, almost saved by his hammy, smiling commander; Around the World in 80 Days, as a Japanese steward; The Buster Keaton Story (57), as a temperamental movie director; Silk Stockings, as a drunken commissar; and The Story of Mankind, as Nero. His career finished, unhappily, in a series of Bs, horror films and Jerry Lewis vehicles: Hell Ship Mutiny, with John Hall; The Sad Sack, with Lewis, as an Arab; The Big Circus (59), with Victor Mature, as a clown; Scent of Mystery, as a devil's advocate; Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (61), as the commodore; Tales of Terror (62), a Roger Corman version of some Poe stories, in 'The Black Cat' (which incorporated 'The Cask of Amontillado'); Five Weeks in a Balloon, again as an Arab; The Raven (63), more Corman-Poe, as a magician; Comedy of Terrors, with Boris Karloff; and The Patsy (64), with Lewis, again as a movie director.
- "In 1959 while filming in Spain he was seriously ill with high blood pressure. He died of a stroke in 1964. He married four times; a divorce was pending at the time of his death."
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