The Lost One
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60 “a genius who … of his director”: Greene, “Genius of Peter Lorre.”
60 “I did not … I did understand”: Service, “Women Scream.”
61 “Create your own … work for you”: Sonia Moore, Stanislavski System, p. xvi.
61 “a very emotional … of his emotions”: C. Lorre, interviews.
61 “You can’t portray … in the role”: “Hollywood By-The-Way.”
61 “Lorre brings a … problems Lang avoided”: St., “Tonfilme: ‘M,’” Deutsche Filmzeitung (Berlin) 33 (1931).
61 “contradictions of existence”: Benjamin, Understanding Brecht, p. 8.
61 “psychological operation”: Brecht, “Short Description,” p. 137.
61 “interruptions and jumps”: Brecht, “The Question of Criteria,” p. 55.
61 “never guided actors … to overdo it”: Bienert, interview.
61 “more simply, in his own way”: Lovksy, interview, Oct. 14, 1973.
61 “the feelings of a person”: Fritz Lang, “Creating a Motion Picture,” in Hochman, From Quasimodo to Scarlett O’Hara, p. 386.
61 “the viewpoint of … thinks with him”: Bogdanovich, Who the Devil Made It, p. 217.
62 “sympathetic grasp”: Greene, “Genius of Peter Lorre.”
62 “If you could … an overwhelming pity”: Buchanan, “REAL and UNREAL Horror.”
62 “In M … you become weak”: C. Barton, interview.
63 “Mr. Lang, this … make any cuts”: “Fritz Lang Seminar.”
63 “a gruesome mockery … amusing or satirical”: Herbert Jhering, “M,” Berliner Börsen Courier, May 12, 1931, reprinted in Jhering, Von Reinhardt bis Brecht, vol. 3, 1930–1932, pp. 342–43.
63 “only ever peeps … a mere ‘sensational’”: Hardy, Grierson on the Movies, pp. 66–67.
63 “the first film … aspects of crime”: Lang, “Some Random Notes about M.”
64 “the film is … so we progress”: Bruce Blevin, New Republic, April 19, 1933.
64 “with delicacy and fine feeling”: “Das geheimnisvolle ‘M,’” Filmwelt (Berlin), no. 21, May 24, 1931.
64 “every attempt to … of his punishment”: K.E., “Klassiker des Films: Gedanken zur Neuaufführung des Fritz-Lang-Films ‘M,’” Hannoversche Presse (Hannover), April 16, 1960.
64 “old-fashioned”: Marsh, “Lorre’s Stage Experience.”
64 “remains as fresh … of its release”: K.E., “Klassiker des Films.”
64 “one of the … in his life”: Lang, interview.
64 “The murderer Peter … the moving touch”: “Fritz Lang’s Tonfilm.”
64 “the scarcely comprehensible … Unbelievable”: Dr. Hans Wollenberg, “M,” Lichtbildbühne (Berlin), May 12, 1931.
64 “For the crystallization … the tragic hero”: William Troy, “Tragedy and the Screen,” Nation, April 19, 1933.
65 “nerve-tickling”: Tölle, “‘M’ Tonfilm von Fritz Lang,” Arbeiterbühne und Film (Berlin) 6 (1931).
65 “on the whole … diminishes the impression”: Heinz Pol, “Fritz Langs Film vom Kindermörder,” Vossische Zeitung (Berlin), May 13, 1931.
65 “physiognomically he is … by the beggars”: Jhering, Von Reinhardt bis Brecht, 3:343.
65 “To show you … in Lang’s M”: Marsh, “Lorre’s Stage Experience.”
65 “Do you realize … in that performance”: St. Joseph, interview.
65 “My trouble is … any other part”: Rose Pelswick, “Crime and Punishment, His New Film, Due at Radio City Thursday,” New York Evening Journal, Nov. 19, 1935.
65 “eerie … I become uncomfortable”: Inge Landgut to author, May 6, 1985.
66 “never before so … in the morning”: Eggebrecht, Der halbe Weg, pp. 255–56.
66 “Terrible letters came … I tell you”: Rosalind Shaffer, “Star’s Success as a Monster Was His Trap!” New York Sunday News, Sept. 2, 1934.
66 “Obsessed with the … kill the actor”: “Lorre’s Realism a Danger to His Life,” Secret Agent, pressbook, 1936.
66 “it was a … a tough guy”: Fraenkel, interview.
66 “a schoolteacher … in the school”: Goff, interview, July 31, 1978.
67 “in order to quiet his nerves”: Aufricht, Erzähle, p. 120.
67 “suggestive voice”: Monty Jacobs, “Savoirs Dompteur,” Vossische Zeitung (Berlin), March 31, 1931.
67 “mask and play, truest circus”: Stx, “Spiel um eine Idee,” Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, March 31, 1931.
67 “I wanted to … to be short”: Reynolds, “Reluctant Menace.”
67 “cannibalistic innuendo”: Falkenberg, interview.
67 “Now people began … a horror actor”: Reynolds, “Reluctant Menace.”
68 “glimmer-magic”: Felix Dassel, “Tuchfühlung der Seele,” Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, July 18, 1931.
68 “lyrical frivolity, sexual … the right place”: Herbert Jhering, “Bomben auf Monte Carlo,” Berlin Börsen Courier, Sept. 1, 1931, reprinted in Jhering, Von Reinhardt bis Brecht, 3:357.
68 “It is amusing … love and guile”: unidentified review, Cinémathèque Français, Paris.
69 “Nothing has any … in our blood”: Kenworthy, Georg Kaiser, pp. 66–67.
69 “goes down the … historical reminiscence”: Norbert Falk, “Georg Kaisers Nebeneinander,” Berliner Zeitung, Sept. 17, 1931.
69 “too stale, too strange”: ibid.
69 “without the shine … a life winner”: Monty Jacobs, “Kaisers Nebeneinander,” Vossische Zeitung, Sept. 19, 1931.
69 “hopelessly drowning in … empty tragic tirades”: Paul Fechter, “Georg Kaisers Nebeneinander,” Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Sept. 17, 1931.
69 “streaking like a shot out of a gun”: Jacobs, “Kaisers Nebeneinander.”
69 “the mask of … and imposed sentimentality”: Max Hochdorf, “Georg Kaiser: Nebeneinander,” Vörwarts, Sept. 17, 1931.
69 “able, intensive performance … a monotone lament”: Emil Faktor, “Nebeneinander,” Berliner Börsen Courier, Sept. 17, 1931.
70 “Playing more out … old clothes shop”: Norbert Falk, “Georg Kaisers Nebeneinander,” Berliner Zeitung, Sept. 17, 1931.
70 “sweet kitsch … sour kitsch”: Herbert Jhering, “Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald,” Berliner Börsen Courier, Nov. 3, 1931, reprinted in Jhering, Von Reinhardt bis Brecht, 3:198.
70 “mistakes and vices”: Gregor, Der Schauspielerführer, 7:183.
70 “for whose immeasurably … borders on innocence”: Max Osborn, “Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald,” Berliner Morgenpost, Nov. 3, 1931.
72 “in a time … a modern actor”: Herbert Jhering, “Peter Lorre,” Berliner Börsen Courier, June 24, 1932, reprinted in “Porträts und Charakteristiken,” in Jhering, Von Reinhardt bis Brecht, 3:19–20.
72 “underwritten … any unsuspecting bottom”: Rudolph Cartier (Katscher) to author, Dec. 29, 1980.
73 “off the rack”: E.H.T., “Schuss im Morgengrauen,” Filmwoche (Berlin), Aug. 3, 1932.
73 “splendid acting”: J.R., “Schuss im Morgengrauen,” unidentified review, Bundesarchiv, Berlin.
73 “horribly grotesque”: E.H.T., “Schuss im Morgengrauen.”
73 “a heavy science … with beautiful timing”: Reisch, interview.
74 “the human dynamo … heart of gold”: Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler, p. 214.
74 “Ufa’s greatest picture of this year”: “F.P.1 Antwortet Nicht,” Variety, Jan. 17, 1933.
74 “Peter Lorre easily … into the background”: “F.P.1 macht das Rennen,” Kinematograph (Berlin), Dec. 23, 1932.
74 “The most complete … possible in reality”: “F.P.1 antwortet nicht,” Arbeiter-Zeitung, Jan. 8, 1933.
74 “anti-Semitic accent … the back door”: Hollstein, Antisemitische Filmpropaganda, pp. 30–1.
75 “Lorre creates the … a moral imprint”: Der weisse Dämon, pressbook, 1932.
76 “haunts like a … a unique portrayal”: Hawa, “Der we
isse Dämon,” Lichtbildbühne, Nov. 27, 1932.
76 “people just demand … and over again”: Lorre, interview by Paar.
76 “in so singing … his enthusiastic intonation”: Gustav Fröhlich to author, Jan. 12, 1980.
76 “completely different than … funny, happily contented”: “Was Frauen träumen,” Lichtbildbühne, April 21, 1933.
77 “picture [that] makes … force look ridiculous”: “Was Frauen träumen,” Variety, April 4, 1933.
77 “strange tale of … novel and thesis”: George, “Peter Lorre Returns.”
77 “He wasn’t telling … on your forehead”: Joseph, interview.
78 “Why not … expresses all ages”: Eisner, “Peter Lorre le Meurtrier.”
78 “similar half-funny, half-sinister part”: Rudolph Cartier (Katscher) to author, Nov. 16, 1980.
78 “passionate attention”: Mann and Mann, Escape to Life, p. 271.
79 “German films must … the German people”: Hull, Film in the Third Reich, p. 23.
79 “a sign of … what it could”: Jameson, Wenn ich mich recht erinnere, pp. 279–81.
80 “better not be … suddenly became intractable”: Spiegel, interview.
80 “twiddled his hat … hear Oscar’s lines”: Cartier (Katscher) to author, Nov. 16, 1980.
80 “felt no creative joy during work”: H.K.,” Unsichtbare Gegner,” Lichtbildbühne, Sept. 19, 1933.
81“not an extremely … extremely interesting character”: Spiegel, interview.
81 “was frozen and without interest again”: -net., “Unsichtbare Gegner,” Filmwoche, Sept. 27, 1933.
81 “only a double of his earlier films”: H.K., “Unsichtbare Gegner.”
81 “completely colorless”: S-ch, “Die Marquise von O,” Deutschösterreichische Tages-Zeitung (Vienna), March 3, 1933.
81 “beautiful in her … abyss-deepest silence”: Ludwig Ullmann, “Für und gegen Ferdinand Bruckner,” Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung (Vienna), March 3, 1933.
81 “lead back his homeland into the Reich”: speech of April 9, 1938, in Baynes, Speeches of Adolf Hitler, 2:1457.
82 “We were under … as a monster”: Reisch, interview.
83 “to the readers … all is good”: Lorre, “Auf vier Jahre.”
83 “are small, but … want, the Ritz”: Hollaender, Von Kopf bis Fuss, p. 293.
83 “It is necessary … become an actor”: C.R., “Peter Lorre,” quoted in Cinémonde (Paris), ca. March 24, 1964.
84 “Emigrant four on … also cannot sleep”: Hollaender, Von Kopf bis Fuss, p. 294.
84 “There’s an old … to someone else”: A. Lorre, interview, March 21, 1980.
84 “Do you remember … and the psychoanalyst”: George, “Peter Lorre Returns.”
84 “Tell me, where … that name again”: Lovsky, interview, May 12, 1977.
84 “our director one day”: Reuth, Goebbels Tagebücher, p. 68.
84 “darling actor of … room in Germany”: DA, “M war sein Schicksal,” Der Abend (Berlin), March 24, 1964.
85 “all the outside … Signed, Peter Lorre”: Peter Lorre, interview by Hy Gardner, The Hy Gardner Show, March 3, 1963, Hy Gardner Celebrity Archive, BBC, London.
85 “each one toying … of the kill”: Hollander, Those Torn from Earth, p. 93.
85 “In an expressionist … hungry anymore”: Hollaender, Von Kopf bis Fuss, pp. 300–303.
86 “Because of my … of narcotic drugs”: Statement of Peter Lorre, Feb. 27, 1947, USPHS DHHS.
86 “I have to … me the money”: Falkenberg, interview.
86 “Lorre was at … middle of treatment”: Joseph, interview.
87 “life-important … awful situation”: Cecilie Lvovsky to Dr. Oskar Samek, Oct. 10, 1933, in Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek, Karl Kraus contra …, p. 284.
87 “hummed about like … market of illusions”: PEM, Strangers Everywhere, p. 203.
87 “a mixture of … stay-in-bed-disease”: Hollander, Those Torn from Earth, p. 115.
87 “when the monotony … to meet them”: Hollaender, Von Kopf bis Fuss, p. 312.
87 “form of paralysis, this proneness to hibernation”: Hollander, Those Torn from Earth, p. 115.
87 “[that stole] from … longer kept apart”: Hollaender, Von Kopf bis Fuss, p. 313.
87 “False! False! … some honest labor”: Hollander, Those Torn from Earth, pp. 116–17, 119.
88 “Sometimes things look … right to exist”: PEM, Strangers Everywhere, pp. 93, 18.
3. Escape to Life
Epigraph: Peter Lorre, 20th Century–Fox press release, 1939, MHL AMPAS.
1. German émigré and Communist International (Comintern) functionary Otto Katz—later known as André Simone—very possibly learned of Lorre’s availability from Bertolt Brecht, who had accepted Kurt Weill’s invitation to come to Paris in April 1933 to collaborate on a ballet chante built around the biblical seven deadly sins.
2. Der weisse Dämon (1932) was not Lorre’s last, but his third-to-last German film.
3. According to Churchill biographer René Kraus, “At that time London was overrun with international anarchists, chiefly Russian Nihilists…. Peter the Painter … was roaming the underworld of London, stealing, robbing, and heading a gang of Russian fellow-criminals.” Winston Churchill, p. 159. In the “Index to the Work of Alfred Hitchcock,” Special Supplement to Sight and Sound, Index Series no. 18, May 1949, Peter Noble wrote that Lorre “came to England and gave a remarkable study of a character based on the celebrated ‘Peter the Painter.’” Charles Bennett denied any connection between Abbott and Peter the Painter of Sidney Street Siege fame and insisted that “the ‘heavy’ was not only not based on Peter the Painter, it certainly wasn’t written for Peter Lorre.” Charles Bennett to author, Oct. 30, 1977.
4. According to Hollywood columnist Rosalind Shaffer, Columbia brought Lorre over to “play with Boris Karloff in ‘Black Room Mystery.’” Rosalind Shaffer, “La Davis Gives Husband’s Pals a Big Surprise,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 22, 1934.
5. On April 11 Variety reported that the German-language version had been pulled and an English-dubbed version substituted.
6. Reference to the meeting between Chaplin and Lorre, Celia Lovsky, interview, Oct. 14, 1973; Surmelian, “Sh! Meet PETER LORRE”; Straker, “Modest Murderer.”
7. Reference to Chaplin’s direction of a film version of The Good Soldier Švejk, Louella O. Parsons, “Charlie Chaplin Would Direct Peter Lorre in Modern Classic,” March 20, 1935, unidentified newspaper clipping, PLS.
8. Between 1933 and 1944, 836 émigré actors listed Europe as their last place of residence.
9. Immigration statistics are taken from Morse, While Six Million Died, pp. 136, 144.
10. For a discussion of “Reality and Conditions of Exile in the USA,” see Wächter, Theater im Exil, pp. 134–42.
11. Whether kidding his screen persona or falling behind it, Lorre used his image as it used him. Scene designer Wolfgang Roth remembered one such instance: “We were at Dr. Max Gruenthal’s house on West 79th Street and Lorre was visiting there one evening without Celia. The Gruenthals had a wire-haired dachshund. As it passed by, Lorre played this Hollywood acting, like a bogeyman, and said, ‘I chop you up into sausages.’” Along with the mock-menace in his voice, he added a mincing gesture with his hands, much to everyone’s amusement. Roth, interview. German psychiatrist Max Gruenthal treated Lorre for drug addiction during the 1930s.
12. Reference to Columbia Pictures casting Lorre in “Kasper Hauser,” Variety, Sept. 11, 1934. (Caspar Hauser; oder, Die Tragheit des Herzens, Roman, was first published in Berlin in 1924.)
13. On Feb. 12, 1935, Variety reported that Universal planned to make Crime and Punishment with Lorre. The availability of Josef von Sternberg, who had signed a two-picture contract with Columbia, likely convinced Cohn to keep the prestige picture at home.
14. In an interview conducted on June 1, 1964, by one of Professor Ralph Freud’s students from UCLA’s The
ater Arts Department, Karl Freund unfavorably compared his filmmaking experience in Hollywood to that in Germany: “The director has most to say in Berlin. Here the producer has more to say. Also, in Germany, I didn’t have a picture if I didn’t want to…. Here you have to make the picture regard [sic] you like it or not.” Department of Special Collections, Oral History Program, Charles E. Young Research Library, Univ. of California, Los Angeles.
15. Gregg Toland and Chester Lyons shared screen credit as directors of photography. Tying Toland to the “German tradition,” Pauline Kael, in Raising Kane: The Citizen Kane Book (New York: Bantam Books, 1974), p. 112, credits the cinematographer with breathing Gothic atmosphere into Mad Love and later Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane. Certainly, the films bear visual similarities in lighting and set design. Even “Peter Lorre, bald, with a spoiled-baby face,” wrote Kael, looks “astoundingly like a miniature Orson Welles.” However, given Frances Drake’s observation that “he paid attention mostly to the camera,” it is more likely that Toland functioned as middleman between Karl Freund and Welles, passing on German expressionist traditions in which the director-cinematographer was so well grounded. Drake, interview.
16. Reference to Freund and Lorre visiting the Lutheran Hospital, “Rambling Reporter,” HR, May 2, 1935.
17. Ten years later, when fielding the same question, Lorre used similar language: “In the movies it all depends upon the situation in which an actor finds himself. If the writer and director create the right, sinister atmosphere, a mild-looking, white-haired clergyman could enter the scene and be mistaken for a cold-blooded murderer, and his most innocent gestures and words would take on a homicidal aspect.” Baltimore Sun, March 6, 1949.
18. Just weeks earlier, Lorre admitted that he had appeared in one horror picture, The Beast with Five Fingers: “I don’t want to go down in history as a monster. I’ve never played a frog that swallowed a city or something like that.” Don Alpert, “Lorre Laughs When It Hurts,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 20, 1963.
19. Lorre agreed with Boris Karloff, who received fan mail from youngsters expressing great compassion for the monster in Frankenstein (1931), that the word “horror … seems to have the wrong meaning.” The Hy Gardner Show, March 3, 1963.