Peter Lorre: His first starring role was a massive hit and one of the most influential works of art in the history of film — and that was the problem

Peter Lorre, "M" (1931). An unforgettable psychological portrait.

By Paul Parcellin

Renowned character actor Peter Lorre created many indelible roles in groundbreaking noirs, thrillers and films of other genres while achieving greatness in Hollywood. Since June 26th marks the 120th anniversary of his birth, this is a good time to look back at some of his remarkable performances from the 1930s onward.

Born László Löwenstein in 1904 in Austria-Hungary, Peter Lorre began his career in theater on the stages of Vienna and Berlin. But it was his mesmerizing performance as the psychotic child murderer in Fritz Lang’s film “M” (1931) that elevated him to worldwide fame and established Lorre as an actor with a gift for portraying psychologically complex characters. 

Lang had Lorre in mind while working on the script for “M” and did not give him a screen test because he was already convinced that he was perfect for the part. Lorre did not disappoint the notoriously demanding Lang. Of his performance in “M” the director said, “(Lorre) gave one of the best performances in film history and certainly the best in his life.”

Despite a flourishing early career in Germany alongside theatrical giant Bertolt Brecht and Lang, Lorre, a Jew facing Nazi persecution, was forced to flee. London became a temporary haven before he landed in Hollywood.

Despite fluency in several European languages and a continental filmography, he arrived in Britain for a role knowing no English. Faced with director Alfred Hitchcock, Lorre adopted a curious strategy. He simply let Hitchcock talk, using smiles and nods to create the illusion of comprehension. This comedic performance convinced Hitchcock of Lorre's English proficiency, landing him a role in "The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1934). Amusingly, it took Hitchcock two weeks to realize Lorre was a master of silent communication, not the English language. By the film's completion, Lorre's English had miraculously improved, paving the way for his 1934 Hollywood arrival.

With his large, luminous eyes and a voice unlike any other, Peter Lorre cut a striking figure amongst his peers. This, combined with his remarkable acting range, made him a highly sought-after talent in Hollywood. Lorre could effortlessly shift between portraying sympathetic souls and sinister masterminds. He wasn't confined by genre, bringing the same level of skill to villainous roles, comedic sidekicks and even tragic heroes.

From 1941 to ’46 he mainly worked for Warner Bros. His first film at Warner was The Maltese Falcon (1941). It was the first of many films in which he appeared alongside actors Humphrey Bogart and Sydney Greenstreet. 

So instantly recognizable was he, his idiosyncratic screen persona was later caricatured in movies, television and other media. A number of animated cartoons presented highly exaggerated versions of the shady characters he often played onscreen. His characteristic Eastern European accent and wide range of vocal delivery styles, from hyperkinetic to asthmatic, were often parodied. 

Lorre took on roles that poked fun at his screen persona, including alcoholic plastic surgeon Dr. Herman Einstein in “Arsenic and Old Lace” (1944). In “Beat the Devil” (1953) he was Julius O’Hara, a fortune hunter with a Teutonic accent living in Chile since the end of the war — “O’Hara is a common name for German transplants,” he states matter of factly.

He worked to eliminate his accent, but filmmakers often insisted that he speak in the accent of his native land. Still, his dramatic roles, including those in classic noirs, are plentiful and filled with passion, pathos and wry wit. Yet he felt that he was forever a prisoner of the image he created in his earliest starring role as the child killer.

He was able to jettison his all too well known persona, but at the cost of taking on another stereotypical character. Lorre’s first major American success came with the character of Mr. Moto — he made eight "Mr. Moto" movies between 1937 and 1939. Disguised with gold-rimmed glasses, taped eyelids, and a hint of buck teeth, Lorre shed his previous image. Mr. Moto, though ostensibly a champion of law and order, employed unconventional methods. Elaborate disguises and ruthless deception were his tools, with hints of something darker lurking beneath the surface. In at least one instance the line between justice and murder blurred, adding a layer of ambiguity to the character. 

Driven by a desire for more creative control, Lorre formed his own production company. Unfortunately, this ambition coincided with the McCarthy era blacklist, and Lorre found himself unofficially ostracized by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. With dwindling opportunities in Hollywood, he returned to his native Germany in 1950.

There, he attempted to reclaim his artistic voice by co-writing, directing, and starring in the film “Der Verlorene” (The Lost One) (1951), a dark exploration of Germany's recent past. However, German audiences weren't receptive to this introspective look and a disappointed Lorre returned to America. Left with few options, he begrudgingly accepted roles that poked fun at his typecast villainous persona.

A lesser-known aspect of Lorre's life is his struggle with chronic pain and addiction. A burst appendix at age 21 left him with persistent stomach issues, treated by doctors with the highly addictive morphine. This treatment likely sparked a lifelong battle with opiates.

Biographer Stephen Youngkin's "The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre" suggests the addiction played a role in the breakdown of Lorre's three marriages and contributed to his financial struggles later in life.

By the 1950s, with television offering new opportunities, Lorre found himself still typecast, often a comedic reflection of his past menacing roles. Living in a tiny Hollywood apartment, he passed away from a stroke in 1964. A complex performer forever linked to a specific on-screen persona, it’s open to speculation what he might have accomplished had his creative powers gone unhindered by his early success.

Here’s a sampling of Peter Lorre’s noirs and thrillers with a few words about each:

“M” (1931)

A cornered killer.

Child killer Hans Beckert (Lorre) stalks young girls in Berlin and is powerless to fight his compulsion to murder. Director Fritz Lang’s masterwork is a portrait of how a city reacts to a wave of heinous crimes, from the police, politicians, ordinary citizens to the members of the city’s underworld. Lorre’s character is a mass of uncontrolled psychotic impulses who holds the city at bay as he methodically seeks out and terminates young victims. 

The killer is a childlike psychotic who kindly offers his young female victims candy before killing them. Lorre manages to make the tormented Beckert sympathetic as his world collapses around him. He’s a monster, tortured by his impulses and unable to stop his dark deeds. Eventually, the underworld, not the police or courts, catch up with him. 

It’s not the killings, per se, that inspire the criminal element to capture and try him. His terrible acts have upset the natural order of things and brought extra police scrutiny down upon the city’s underworld. The outlaws want to dispose of the matter and go about their business once again and only a swift verdict and brutal justice will do.  

This, his first starring role, gave Lorre a career boost, but it typecast him as a villain after having previously played largely comedic roles.

“The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1934)

The streak of white in his hair makes espionage agent Abbot (Lorre) seem feral and cunning as he leads a troupe of terrorists on a mission to assassinate a foreign diplomat visiting London. Lorre’s natural European accent lends the right touch of spookiness to the grinning Abbot, as he tries to out-gentleman the ultra-refined British gent Bob Lawrence (Leslie Banks). 

Abbot and his associates kidnap Lawrence’s young daughter and are holding her hostage. They aim to prevent Lawrence from spilling details of the assassination plot that he stumbled on. When they finally meet, both men exercise an exaggerated etiquette normally reserved for high tea at the Savoy. 

Abbot, the smiling spy master, is ruthless, although British authorities suggest that Lawrence might consider revealing to them the information he knows despite the fact that the youngster held hostage would likely be killed. Lawrence doesn’t cave in to either side, and fortunately his sharpshooter wife, Jill (Edna Best), proves she can do more than shatter flying skeet.

“Secret Agent” (1936)

“The General” (Lorre) is an enigmatic character also known by some as the “hairless Mexican.” He’s neither hairless, Mexican nor a general. Rather, he’s a killer for hire who affects a jolly, carefree manner as he performs his freelance occupation. British agent Capt. Edgar Brodie (John Gielgud) is tasked with eliminating a German spy holed up in Switzerland. 

Brodie has been provided with a new identity and an attractive wife, Elsa Carrington (Madeleine Carroll), to further mask his true identity. He contracts the General to help accomplish his mission, but the hired killer’s carefree attitude toward murder sticks in the craw of both Brodie and Elsa, especially after a significant mistake is made. 

The General is utterly without remorse and capable of dispatching anyone for the right price. Lorre gives him the tinge of mental instability beneath his jovial demeanor. He howls with laughter when an innocent victim is killed in error, and when it’s time for him to go to work he does so with efficiency and a lack of compunction. His is a personality whose qualities, taken as a whole, don’t seem to add up. Yet, he’s somehow quite convincing and not just a little disturbing.   

“Stranger on the Third Floor” (1940)

Margaret Tallichet, Peter Lorre,
"Stranger on the Third Floor.

Aspiring news reporter Michael Ward (John McGuire) is the key witness at the murder trial of a young taxi driver Joe briggs (Elisha Cook Jr.) accused of cutting a café owner's throat and is soon accused of a similar crime himself.

Lorre plays the stranger living in a rooming house who, despite the conviction, is suspected of committing the crime. Like his Hans Beckert in “M,” Lorre’s unnamed “stranger” has reptilian bulging, anxious eyes and contorted, fearful facial expressions that suggest genuine terror. He’s mysterious, menacing and may be a cold blooded murderer.

Novelist Nathaniel West did an uncredited revision on the script, an unconventional telling of the story featuring flashbacks within flashbacks. In it, the broken-hearted characters who populate a tawdry rooming house are like the residents of a cheap hotel at which West worked on the night shift as he wrote during the day. His published works include “Day of the Locust” and “Miss Lonelyhearts,” stories of tormented individuals living on society’s fringes and other outsiders, much like those of “Stranger on the Third Floor.” 

“I Was an Adventuress” (1940)

Mild mannered kleptomaniac Polo (Lorre) is a member of a trio who travel about Europe, fleecing the well heeled. With hair pasted to his scalp and remarkably bad dental work, Polo pretends to be a scholar of antiquities, assuring the dupes that the phony artifacts they purchase are of the genuine articles. Lurking beneath his nerdish surface lies a dedicated thief. 

While helping to bilk a greedy collector he can’t restrain himself from also lifting an ambassador’s wallet. When gang ringleader Andre Desormeaux (Erich von Stroheim ) scolds him for his unsanctioned thievery, he laments, “I guess I’m just a pathological case,” adding, almost proudly, “I am a weak character. So is my whole family.”

Polo is teamed up with Desormeaux and phony countess Tanya Vronsky (Vera Zorina), who winds up falling in love with one of their would-be victims, Paul Vernay (Richard Greene). This throws a wrench into Desormeaux’s plans and he later blackmails, by then, the happily married Tanya. But she’s not about to take the matter lying down.

“The Face Behind the Mask” (1941)

Hungarian watch maker Janos “Johnnie” Szabo (Lorre) is a naive, child-like immigrant who arrives in Manhattan and soon gets schooled in the tough breaks one faces in the big city. Caught in a hotel fire, his face is disfigured and he can’t find honest work. Despondent, he’s set to jump off of the docks when a stranger, Dinky (George E. Stone), stops him. Dinky splits the cash he pilfers from a bystander’s wallet with Johnnie, giving the greenhorn a first taste of the fruits of lawlessness. 

Destitute, Johnnie later commits a crime to help heal a sick friend, then plays ball with some mobsters in hope of earning enough for plastic surgery. His mechanical genius serves him well as a thief. He dispatches alarm systems with unusual dexterity, skills that could be used in honest employment if society would only let him into the workforce.

Flush with cash, Johnnie is fitted with a custom made mask resembling his face prior to the accident, and he plans to save his money for a more costly operation. The mask gives him a stern, unsmiling countenance that contrasts greatly with his fresh faced look before the disfigurement. His outlook has also changed markedly. He’s hardened to the ways of the new world and his enthusiasm, naïveté and youthful vigor have died. 

Lorre does a remarkable job of navigating the emotional range of the once optimistic Johnnie who has morphed into an unflinching cynic.

“The Maltese Falcon” (1941)

Sydney Greenstreet, Lorre.

World traveler and international criminal Joel Cairo (Lorre) is after the storied Maltese Falcon, a jewel encrusted statue worth a vast fortune, but he must compete with others of similar ambition, including rotund adventurer Kasper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet) — it’s one of the most enduring Lorre-Greenstreet on-screen pairings. 

Meanwhile, San Francisco private detective Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) takes on a case that involves Cairo, Gutman, Wilmer Cook (Elisha Cook Jr.) and femme fatale Ruth Wonderly (Mary Astor), all of whom want the statue and are each willing to cut the other’s throat to get it. They call a truce and decide to join forces, but how long will their good will last? In all, Lorre made five films with Bogart.

Lorre’s Cairo is vain, ruthless and conniving, but makes the mistake of scrapping with Wonderly, and she draws blood. 

This impromptu band of fortune hunters is like a school of piranha, madly scrambling for the “dingus” as Spade calls it, and ready to betray one another and draw blood in a heartbeat. Their pursuit of the legendary statue is an obsession, and the fortune it could bring the owner is beside the point. It becomes a struggle for the upper hand and the supposed glory of becoming the prize’s sole possessor. In the end, the taste of victory turns to ashes in their mouths. Still, a more entertaining assembly of offbeat characters in this or any other genre is hard to come by.

“The Mask of Dimitrios” (1944)

Mystery writer Cornelius Leyden (Lorre) is intrigued by a violent career criminal whose murdered body washes up on an Istanbul beach. He meets smuggler Mr. Peters (Sydney Greenstreet) who is also interested in the drowned criminal, Dimitrios Makropoulos (Zachary Scott). 

Skeptical that the lawbreaker met his doom, Peters plans to blackmail Makropoulos after a smuggling scheme the two worked on went wrong. Makropoulos is now a respectable banker and details of his sordid past would ruin him. Leyden goes on a journey around Europe to learn more about the story behind the supposedly deceased master criminal.

Lorre’s Leyden is not the sinister character that he often played on screen. In fact, he’s more the detective trying to fit the pieces of a puzzle together because he senses that the facts will make a great novel. Much of the story is told in flashback as Leyden interviews those who know, or knew, Makropoulos, a la “Citizen Kane.” Greenstreet’s Peters is Leyden’s corrupt foil, and both have a deep interest in the same criminal for very different reasons. 

Peters needs Leyden’s help to pull of his blackmail scheme, since the mystery writer was one of the few who saw Makropoulos’s body in the morgue. They are to meet in Paris, where Peters will attempt to extract a million francs from Makropoulos, if he’s still alive. Of course, things don’t work out as Peters had hoped.

“The Chase” (1946)

Gino (Lorre), the tight-lipped right hand man to Miami gangster Eddie Roman (Steve Cochran) is brutal and intimidating for a man of his physical stature. Chuck Scott (Robert Cummings) gets a job as Eddie Roman’s chauffeur, and he risks everything by getting involved with the gangster’s nervous wife, Lorna (Michèle Morgan). Gino is as cold blooded as his boss and has no second thoughts about killing whoever must be gotten rid of. 

Needless to say, Scott realizes, albeit too late, that he’s working for a maniac. Roman has a set of controls in the back seat of his limo that let him take command of the car’s gas pedal and the brake, much to Scott’s terror. They have a close call with death as Scott’s nerves are tested. Roman pushes the accelerator to the floor, but it’s all a ruse and Roman approves of Scott’s clear headed driving while under great pressure. Gino, also in the back seat, is scared out of his wits, although he’s no stranger to his boss’s savagely deranged sense of humor.

Adapted from the Cornell Woolrich novel, “The Black Path of Fear,” the chase moves from the sunny shores of Miami to Cuba. Scott and Lorna run off to Havana after he agrees to help her get away from Roman — not a wise decision for anyone who hopes to die of natural causes.

“Black Angel” (1946)

Lorre, Dan Duryea.

Nightclub manager Marko (Lorre) has a permanent hangdog expression and an air of effortless control over his underlings. He moves at a lethargic pace — and even the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth seems to droop under a heavy weight. It’s a classic Lorre performance that demonstrates yet another variation on his seemingly infinite storehouse of shady characters. 

Marko is somehow connected to a murder mystery that’s the heart of the story, another Cornell Woolrich adaptation.

When Kirk Bennett (John Phillips) is convicted of a singer's murder, his wife, Catherine (June Vincent), tries to prove him innocent. Teaming up with the victim's ex-husband, pianist Martin Blair (Dan Duryea), they land a job performing in Marko’s club.

It turns out that Blair spotted Marko going into the dead girl’s apartment on the night she was murdered, and he’s a top suspect in the killing. But the pianist is a heavy drinker and was intoxicated on the night in question. He still carried a torch for his ex-missus, and was lurking outside of her building when the slaying by strangulation occurred. 

Catherine is convinced that her wandering husband is innocent of the crime and is determined to save him from the death house. But the clock is ticking.

“Three Strangers” (1946)

Another Lorre-Greenstreet paring, this time in a story with a supernatural bent. Johnny West (Lorre) is a boozy, good natured gent who has a chance encounter with two others, the conniving Crystal Shackleford (Geraldine Fitzgerald) and solicitor Jerome K. Arbutny (Sydney Greenstreet). 

They make a bargain involving a Chinese idol and a sweepstakes ticket for the Grand National horse race. Through some hocus-pocus they end up winning. But both Crystal and Arbutny make some underhanded maneuvers that cause their dreams to go up in flames.

If “Three Strangers” feels a bit like “The Maltese Falcon” it’s no coincidence. At one point it was envisioned as a sequel to that film starring Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet and Mary Astor, but it turned out that the rights to those characters had reverted back to Dashiell Hammett. 

The story’s original title was “Three Men and a Girl,” and Bette Davis and George Brent were to star in it before Warner Brothers finally settled on the Lorre-Fitzgerald-Greenstreet cast. 

John Huston, who directed “The Maltese Falcon” and teamed up with Hammett to write the “Falcon” screenplay, co-wrote “Three Strangers” with Howard Koch. It’s not in the same league as “The Maltese Falcon,” but few films are.

“The Verdict” (1946)

A modest Scotland Yard mystery set in the 1880s, “The Verdict” is yet another Lorre-Greenstreet paring — they did nine in all, although I’ve heard that both were extras in another film, so technically it’s 10. They didn’t necessarily share a lot of screen time in all of them, but were a legendary Hollywood duo.

As the story goes, after an innocent man is executed for homicide, a Scotland Yard superintendent investigates the murder of his key witness. Jolly Olde London is mocked up on the Warner lot with pea-soup fog so dense as to be laughable.

Lorre, as artist Victor Emmric, is understated yet ghoulish and darkly comic when he shows up uninvited to a nocturnal exhumation and delivers lines such as, “I’ve always had a suppressed desire to see a grave opened, especially at night.” He’s dangled before us as an obvious suspect in the killing, but is he just a red herring? 

Take note that this is director Don Siegel’s debut, and that Joan Lorring, also in the cast of “Three Strangers,” appears here as showgirl Lottie Rawson.

Burt Lancaster, Lorre amid a field of diamonds.

“Rope of Sand” (1949)

Clad in a white linen suit and Panama hat, fast talker Toady (Lorre) chats up hunting guide Mike Davis (Burt Lancaster). Davis knows where a cache of diamonds are hidden and Toady wants a piece of the action. The story is set in the South African desert, where, in Toady’s words “gems lie just below the surface.” It’s one of the world’s richest diamond fields and sadistic security chief Vogel (Paul Henreid) brutalizes anyone who tries to steal the precious stones.

Toady speaks in purple poetic phrases and his oily lines of patter get under Davis’s skin. “Why do we stay here, plucking at the skirt of this woman, this desert, this heartless courtesan?” he asks Davis, who promptly brushes him off, unmoved by Toady’s self assessment as, “Splendidly corrupt and eager to be of profitable service.”

Hoping to regain his revoked license as a hunting guide, Davis intends to tell the politically powerful mine owner where the missing rocks are hidden. But Vogel assaults him and he decides to steal the diamonds instead — a risky endeavor stacked with long odds against him.

“Quicksand” (1950)

Dan Brady (Mickey Rooney) takes $20 from his employer to go on a date, planning to replace in the next day. Turns out, his date, the marvelously self-serving blonde femme fatale Vera Novak (Jeanne Cagney), brings him to view a a mink coat in a shop window. She’d do anything to get it, she tells Dan.

Next, they go a penny arcade operated by the acerbic and quite sleazy Nick Dramoshag (Lorre). Vera seems to have a romantic past with Nick, and hints to him that she’s still waiting for a mink coat. Dan is slow to realize how much trouble he’s getting himself into — and what kind of woman he’s dating — as he attempts to wheel and deal to pay back his employer. 

Making one bad choice after another, Dan’s life spirals out of control. For an average guy who never got in trouble before, Dan does an efficient job of painting himself into a corner. It’s no wonder — he’s really no match for Vera and Nick.

“Congo Crossing” (1956)

Col. John Miguel Orlando (Lorre) is the weary face of governmental oversight in Congotanga, West Africa, where gangsters are the defacto rulers. The country’s main attraction is that it has no extradition treaties. 

An assortment of lawbreakers on the lam take advantage of the country’s laissez-faire policies. Among the fugitives enjoying safe haven is Louise Whitman (Virginia Mayo), who is fleeing a French murder charge. 

Meanwhile, surveyor David Carr (George Nader) is on a mission to determine the true border of Congotanga, a project on which head gangster Carl Rittner (Tonio Selwart) wants inside information. The land survey could determine that Congotanga belongs to the Belgians, and the transfer of authority would put an end to the rackets there.

Lorre’s Orlando is an ineffectual policeman who walks a tightrope between his official duties and the gangsters’s powerful influence. Orlando double-crosses the surveyor, telling him, “It serves you right for making a deal with someone like me.” Anyone who’s seen the bulk of Lorre’s movies would have guessed that.