Lorre, Peter b.June 26, 1904; Rosenberg, Slovakia (Austria-Hungary) d. March 23, 1964; Los Angeles, California
German actor who emigrated to the United States in 1935 and became famous for his part as a Japanese detective in the Mr. Moto series. One of the most intense actors in film history, who appeared in some eighty movies, Peter Lorre was unfor
gettable in his first leading role for Fritz Lang’s thriller titled M (1931), in which he played the murdering pedophile.
Lorre was born Laszlo Lowenstein (or Ladislav Loewenstein as in some accounts). A small man with a round face and bulging eyes, Lorre began his theater acting career onstage in Zurich, Vienna, and Breslau during the 1920s. The actor made his film debut in Germany in 1928. He became famous for his role in Lang’s M, which left him with the popular image of a psychotic man with a cherubic, pale face. Lorre’s character in the film always whistled before committing a crime, but Lorre apparently was unable to whistle at all. An anecdote has it that while shooting M, director Fritz Lang had to “dub” Lorre’s whistle by himself whistling into a microphone! The success of that film made both Lang and Lorre respected in the United States and known worldwide.As many Jewish artists, Lorre left Germany in 1933. He went first to Paris, where he played with Jean Gabin in a comedy directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst, titled Du haut en bas (From Upstairs to Downstairs, 1933), and in Les Requins du petrole (The Oil Sharks, 1933), before going to London. After two years in England, where he notably played in Alfred Hitchcock’s first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and Secret Agent (1935), Lorre emigrated to the United States in 1935. In Hollywood, Lorre played a tormented musician in a remake of Robert Wiene’s Olrac’s Hande (Mad Love, 1935). The same year, Josef von Sternberg gave Lorre the role of Raskolnikov in his adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s famous novel Crime and Punishment (1935).
His strange physical appearance even allowed Lorre to play a Japanese detective in an eight-film series produced by Twentieth Century Fox, titled Mr. Moto (1936—1939). Titles in the series include The Mysterious Mr. Moto, Mr. Moto Takes a Chance, Mr. Moto on Danger Island, and Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation.During his American period, Lorre’s most famous appearances were sustaining roles in two movies with Humphrey Bogart: in John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon (1941) and his short part in Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca (1943). Among other roles in postwar productions, Lorre played a police detective in the second U.S. remake of an important French film, Julien Duvivier’s Pepe leMoko (Casbah, 1937); the third version was a musical, also titled Casbah (1949). Lorre also appeared in Rope of Sand (1949), directed by William Dieterle. During a short return to West Germany, Lorre directed an anti-Nazi film in which he played the main role titled Der Verlorene (The Lost One, 1951). On location in Italy, he appeared again with Humphrey Bogart in John Huston’s Beat the Devil (1954). Shortly thereafter, back in the United States, Lorre was part of many transatlantic projects, as a supporting actor in Richard Fleischer’s adaptation of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1954). He also had a small part in Around the World in 80 Days (Michael Anderson, 1956) and one of the leading parts in Five Weeks in a Balloon (Irwin Allen, 1962).
Although he was often asked to play villains and madmen in horror movies (The Boogie Man Will Get You, 1943), Lorre’s talent made him valuable in other genres: melodramas (Island of Doomed Men, 1940), and even comedies (Lorre played “Skeeter the clown” in the movie The Big Circus, 1959), and musicals (Silk Stockings, 1957). Roger Corman recognized Lorre’s talent and hired him for his Edgar Allan Poe adaptations: Tales of Terror (1962) and The Raven (1963). Lorre’s last appearance in a movie was in Jerry Lewis’s comedy, The Patsy (1964).
Yves Laberge
See also Dieterle, William; German Film, U.S. Influence in; Intellectual Exile; Lang, Fritz; Sternberg, Josef von
References and Further Reading
The German-Hollywood Connection. Peter Lorre: Films & Links. http://www.germanhollywood.com/lorre_2.html (accessed May 11, 2005).
Kaes, Anton. M. London: British Film Institute, 1999.
Nationmaster Encyclopedia. Entry on Peter Lorre. http://www.nationmaster.com /encyclopedia/Peter-Lorre (accessed May 11, 2005).