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00:21And now, as a pleasant diversion, may I please introduce myself.
00:27Well, there was nobody quite like Peter Loretta, there's no doubt about that.
00:32He was the character actor of enormous subtlety.
00:35Thank you, I knew I could trust you.
00:41He was a terrific actor, and a terrific character actor.
00:46And he was a man who knew how to hold a camera's eye, and that was tremendously compelling.
00:52Excuse me, please, I must have expressed myself badly.
00:58Peter Loretta was one of the greatest actors in cinema.
01:03I think we shouldn't underestimate his contribution to world cinema.
01:08Your ability to inspire fear must be a powerful weapon.
01:15One thing's certain. There is, there was, there will be.
01:19No one even remotely like him. He's a one-off.
01:23It's nearly seven. I have some important business to attend, to see you some other time.
01:33Peter Loretta was born Laszlo Lowenstein in Rochehege, Austria-Hungary, on 26th of June, 1984.
01:43They were Jewish family. His mother died giving birth to her third son.
01:48And his father remarried her best friend.
01:52The young Peter Loretta did not get on with the stepmother.
01:56He was left brought up by quite a formidable father, Alawar.
02:03He'd come from a military background.
02:06He was very proper and very fixed in his beliefs.
02:11And, you know, Peter, young, sort of, Laszlo Lowenstein, as he was still then, was not, you know, cut out
02:18to be a military type.
02:19And I think his father found that very difficult.
02:22His father was in the Kaiser's army at one stage and was a military man who wasn't there very much,
02:30travelled quite a lot.
02:31So he was on his own most of the time. And it was a worrying time because it was just
02:38before the First World War and things were not settled.
02:43In 1910, Peter Loretta's family moved to Romania, where Peter and his brother began their schooling.
02:50However, just three years later, war in the Balkans prompted Loretta's father to move the family again.
02:57He was a very, very bright, gifted student.
03:02And they found themselves on the outskirts of Vienna during World War I, which wasn't the safest place for them
03:13to be.
03:14But they lived there and they survived.
03:19Laurie was a gifted student and graduated top of his class.
03:23In 1921, he left home at just 17 years old to pursue his acting ambitions.
03:31His father was a clerk in the drapery business and doing quite well.
03:36And the last thing he wanted was his son to have anything to do with the theatre.
03:40He'd already developed some kind of inkling about the theatre.
03:46Although, because his father was very anti-theatre, he'd never actually been.
03:51He'd never actually seen any theatre.
03:53But what he did was he got a job as in a bank, an exchange bureau during the day.
04:01But at night, he joined a kind of avant-garde improvisational group who basically created theatre and put them on.
04:11He works in foreign exchange.
04:14And he's running the place practically in a couple of months because he's so bright.
04:19But what he really wants to do is be in the theatre.
04:25He landed in Vienna at the right time because the pieces that they were putting together were kind of part
04:30psychotherapy, part drama, part whatever.
04:33Whatever they could pull in, whatever it was the zeitgeist.
04:37And in fact, he got to know Sigmund Freud reasonably well at the time.
04:41So by night, he was doing improvised, sort of extraordinary improvised theatre.
04:47And then by day, he was exhausted in this kind of drudgery of a job as a bank clerk.
04:54And I think it got to the point where one day he didn't show up.
04:58He was so tired from his sort of theatrical pursuits that he missed a day of work and then got
05:04fired.
05:08So without a paying job, deciding to become a full-time actor, of course, was a huge risk.
05:15And for a couple of years, he lived very frugally indeed.
05:19But he was determined to pursue his career.
05:23He took a stage name at this point in time.
05:26And he became Peter Lorre.
05:28Also, unfortunately, at the same time, he had to have his appendix removed.
05:32He got ill.
05:33And he went into hospital.
05:36And we're talking about the 20s in Austria.
05:39And he was given morphine for the pain, obviously.
05:45And he got a liking to it.
05:48And that began troubles for him.
05:51But he carried on and carried on the theatre.
05:56There wasn't a huge amount of work going in the acting profession in Vienna.
06:00So he travelled around Europe.
06:02He went to Berlin where, with some good luck, he encountered Bertolt Brecht.
06:08Berlin in the 1920s is the Weimar Republic.
06:10And it's when, you know, every form of art was being explored in this sort of decadent sort of fallen
06:17empire that existed there.
06:18And it was a wonderful place for the likes of Peter Lorre to arrive in.
06:23It was not surprising that he then fell in very much with that sort of avant-garde theatrical crowd of
06:28Berlin.
06:28And the rise of Bertolt Brecht.
06:31And he got to know Brecht very well.
06:34Lorre appeared in productions for Brecht on the German stage.
06:38And the actor began to steadily gain recognition.
06:41In 1931, he was spotted by one of Germany's most famous film directors.
06:47When he was in Berlin, he made another good connection with the film director Fritz Lang, who was invited to
06:54see him in rehearsals.
06:55As a result of that first encounter, Lang took a bit of a gamble, I have to say, and cast
07:03him as the child murderer in M, which was the making of everyone.
07:10It was certainly the making of Lorre.
07:12It was actually his fourth film.
07:14He had made some before, but M was the one that put him on the international map.
07:32He's cast by Fritz Lang in one of the most controversial movies ever made, and one of the greatest movies
07:41ever made, and that's M.
07:42M is an enormously significant film, and a wonderful piece of German expressionist cinema.
07:50It's one of the first sound movies.
07:52And within it, it portrays, very loosely based on a real story, a child killer who's loose in Dusseldorf.
07:59And the idea of the film is that we would follow the exploits of the killer.
08:05And we would also follow the exploits of the fact that the underground, the mob, the criminal world,
08:10almost sort of team up with the police to track down and hunt this vile killer of children.
08:16But because Lang was a highly intuitive and sort of penetrating director,
08:24and because he saw in Peter Lorre that idea of exploring a character, no matter how obscene or what horrid
08:32they might be,
08:33that it was a perfect sort of meeting of minds to create in M the character this kind of hideous
08:42killer that you feel sorry for.
08:44And it's an extraordinary piece of acting, full of kind of these kind of pained expressions
08:50that sort of defined the Peter Lorre character in many ways right from the beginning of his career,
08:55decided that he could draw out in us a sympathy for the devil.
09:13It was an extraordinary film and it had an extraordinary impact.
09:16It won the top best foreign film on the American Board of Review.
09:22Peter Lorre continued to act in German film productions.
09:26However, political tensions in the country were rising.
09:30By 1933 and the emergence of Hitler and the Nazi movement,
09:36it was kind of like an expunging of that kind of vibrant kind of intellectual universe
09:41that had been the Weimar Republic in Berlin.
09:43But Goebbels, certainly at that point, in 1933, was still a huge film fan and knew of Lorre and liked
09:52his work.
09:54Enough that Goebbels said, get out of Berlin, flee.
09:58Whether Goebbels would have been quite so compassionate, shall we say, later on in his career with Hitler, I don't
10:04know.
10:04But at that point, he was the one who warned Peter Lorre.
10:08He decides to go, or I should say, flee to Paris.
10:13And Alfred Hitchcock invites him to London.
10:16And in 1934, Hitchcock cast him in The Man Who Knew Too Much.
10:24I hope you weren't very rough with him.
10:26You see, he's subject to apoplexy.
10:30Who?
10:30Who?
10:31Who were all George Barber down at Watson?
10:36Is it all right in here?
10:38I think he'll...
10:40I ought to have mentioned it to you, perhaps.
10:43You should learn to control your fatherly feelings.
10:47And not drop things on the floor, please.
10:52Hitchcock liked the look of him.
10:53In fact, he was originally cast as the assassin in the film, which was a very small role,
10:58but he decided to give him another role, which was the crime ringleader,
11:04just because he wanted as much of his presence on the screen as he could.
11:07It's actually not a huge role, but Hitch, like many other directors after him,
11:13saw that a little of Lorre went a very, very long way.
11:17He didn't know English, though he could speak German and several other languages.
11:20He didn't know English at the time he made The Man He Knew Too Much.
11:24So, in meeting Hitchcock to begin with, there's this story that he had to kind of decipher
11:29what the sort of brilliant storytelling Hitch was saying and work out exactly when the laugh was appropriate.
11:35And I think he obviously was clever enough to get it right because Hitchcock loved him and frequently tell him
11:40stories.
11:41But he would learn the lines phonetically.
11:44And obviously, I think that adds something to the delivery.
11:46There's something sort of precise and deliberate and sort of mathematical about how the lines are sort of relayed,
11:53as if he's sort of searching out their meaning as he says them.
11:56You know, to a man with a heart, his softest mind has nothing sweeter than a touching scene.
12:02Such as?
12:03Such as a father saying goodbye to his child.
12:07Yeah, goodbye for the last time.
12:09What could be more touching than that?
12:12I'm afraid if you expect a scene from me, you're going to be disappointed.
12:15You shall see.
12:16This picture, The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1934, also won the Top Foreign Film Award in the National Board
12:24of Review.
12:25The Man Who Knew Too
12:41In 1935, Peter Lorre relocated to California after the actor had received offers from Hollywood Studios.
12:49So with the success of his first Hitchcock thriller, he then comes to Hollywood and is signed up by Columbia,
12:59by Harry Cohn.
13:01And at the time, the kind of the ambitious lorry came to Harry Cohn and said,
13:05How do you feel about making an adaptation of Crime and Punishment, the Dostoyevsky novel?
13:10And Harry Cohn said, well, okay, he's kind of interested, said,
13:14Will you do me a favor, first of all? I'm going to rent you out to MGM to make this
13:18film Mad Love.
13:20And Mad Love is probably everything that Peter Lorre didn't want to get typecasters doing.
13:26That's his own composition, you know.
13:29Very modern music.
13:31We've been married a year, but he's been on tour and I've been busy with theatre.
13:35So you see, this is really going to be our honeymoon.
13:38You know, I've come to depend on seeing you every night.
13:42But I'm going to England.
13:45But I must see you again. I must.
13:51At the time of Mad Love, he was sharing house with Billy Wilder, of all people.
13:55So can you imagine, that must have been an absolute hoot.
13:58In 1935, he makes his first American film, and it's called Mad Love.
14:04And he plays an obsessed surgeon, obsessed with a woman.
14:10He's bald-headed in it. He plays a kind of mad surgeon.
14:14It's a kind of chip off the kind of universal horrors of the era.
14:17It's wildly melodramatic and over the top.
14:20And it's quite splendid.
14:22It's everything Peter Lorre can do really well.
14:24Rasping, snivelling, conducting evil experiments,
14:29and being wildly over the top, while still being wonderfully compelling and charismatic.
14:34I, a poor peasant, have conquered science.
14:38Why can't I conquer love?
14:41Don't you understand?
14:42You must be mine, not his.
14:47You are mine.
14:49Liar! Hypocrite!
14:51You disgust me!
14:53Mad Love was the film that really defined Laurie's relationship with Hollywood.
14:58He was the villain.
15:00What use is that money to her?
15:02It could save a hundred lives like yours and mine.
15:05It's plain arithmetic.
15:06You could use some of her money, couldn't you?
15:10What will you do if you don't find her over?
15:12She ought to be stamped out.
15:15You shouldn't say things like that.
15:19Black Beetle squatting up there on her money box.
15:22It would be a service to humanity.
15:24Crime would be a strange way of serving humanity.
15:28Crime and Punishment, Dostoev, his novel, was a film that he'd always wanted to make
15:33and to play Raskolnikov.
15:35He eventually managed to do it when he was given a very low budget in which to do it.
15:38It wasn't a success.
15:40I think he made the mistake of having Joseph von Sternberg direct it
15:44because he didn't have the right feel for it.
15:47There's nothing wrong with Laurie's performance,
15:50but the film does not actually rise to the occasion.
15:53It's not as good as his performance.
15:55For Laurie, it really was an attempt to show he was a leading man and a great actor.
16:00But I think it's true that Laurie, who was very headstrong
16:04and felt he knew what was what, would naturally clash with von Sternberg.
16:08And given both their backgrounds, you know, these kind of Germanic origins that they kind of have,
16:13they both probably have a good idea of what they want to do with Dostoevsky.
16:17I can imagine it's an argument about shadows and lights and all sorts of things.
16:21But yes, they definitely fell out.
16:23I wonder how many poor devils have found an answer to their questions down there.
16:29If only the dead could ever come back.
16:35They have.
16:36It wasn't one of von Sternberg's great films, but it was certainly brilliantly made.
16:44And his performance of Rostehelnikov was much admired.
16:49So he'd now appeared in German, British and American films and was getting into known,
16:58not only nationally, but internationally too.
17:02Hitchcock again called on Peter Laurie to star in his mystery thriller Secret Agent.
17:08Not so neat after all.
17:10Big struggle before he died.
17:12Me better, much better.
17:14Gee, stir up with me.
17:16The man who owned business with the man who killed him.
17:19Yes, sir.
17:20Listen here.
17:21Also, he's the man we are looking for to find.
17:24You're right.
17:25That's the motive.
17:27Hmm.
17:27One way of stopping a fellow's mouth.
17:30Look, I've got someone coming.
17:31He returns to London to rejoin with Hitchcock.
17:35Hitchcock really liked him and liked what he could do for his films.
17:38And The Secret Agent is based on a Somerset Maugham novel.
17:42And actually, it's one of the weaker of Hitchcock's British thrillers of the time.
17:47But it does have that great bit of casting that is Peter Laurie.
17:51And it does sort of show what Peter Laurie brought to roles.
17:55And he's kind of an unnamed assassin called the General.
17:58Again, it's a sort of role that he could easily do and was to a certain extent typecast in.
18:05I think he was very aware of this, but he still brings an enormous amount of sort of charisma to
18:13it.
18:14Which is exactly what takes the film into a slightly different dimension.
18:18Peter, at this point, was buying things for himself.
18:21Vehicles, you call it.
18:23So, he bought the rights from Somerset Maugham.
18:26He then sold the rights to Hitchcock.
18:29The picture was made.
18:31And again, one top foreign picture in the National Board of Film Review.
18:39Where's my regular steward?
18:41Haven't you heard?
18:42Carson's disappeared.
18:44Disappeared?
18:45Yes, sir.
18:46Didn't sleep in his bunk last night.
18:48Oh, so?
18:49That is too bad.
18:50An accident, perhaps.
18:52Well, that's what the skipper thinks, but I got my own idea.
18:55Yes?
18:56Carson probably jumped overboard.
18:57He was a bit cracked, sir.
19:00And I hadn't tipped him yet.
19:02That is very sad.
19:05You might as well have it.
19:07Oh, yes, sir.
19:08Thank you, sir.
19:09He moves on to 20th Century Fox, the big mobile Daryl Zanuck, who asks him to play a Japanese detective
19:17called Mr. Moto.
19:19Mr. Moto was a Japanese detective.
19:23He didn't have much makeup on.
19:25He just slicked his hair back and put on glasses.
19:28And Mr. Moto followed criminals all around the world and was the first series of films in America, extremely popular,
19:38and made him a virtually household name.
19:40And the reason he decided to do these films was he'd just come out of rehab for his morphine addiction,
19:45and he really needed to work.
19:48What is that you wrote, Mr. Moto?
19:50Oh, this?
19:51Hmm.
19:52Hmm.
19:52An ancient Japanese poem, called Haig.
19:56Must be exactly 17 syllables.
19:58Very difficult.
20:01Furui keni kawazu.
20:04Tobikomu mizu no otu.
20:07Very nice sentiment.
20:10You won't mind if I desert you for a short time?
20:13Oh, no, indeed.
20:13Perhaps you might persuade Miss Liu to dance.
20:16Shall we go, Mr. Marvel?
20:18So they were sort of splendid matinee films, but typical of Laurie's desire to always be proving himself and moving
20:27on, he tired of them.
20:30Although they were big hits and, you know, they were kind of the making of him within Hollywood, he would
20:36get bored by the idea of it, and he would get dragged back in to make the next Mr. Moto
20:42film.
20:43And I think he very, by the last two or three, and he made, I think, eight of them, he
20:49admitted that he'd had enough and he wanted something else, and it wasn't a character he appreciated playing.
20:56These were your boys, they are mine now.
21:00We still all can work together.
21:04We all can be friends if you want to play friendly.
21:07It's up to you.
21:09I'll cut you in starting with the steel.
21:12And Jeff, I think that's being very generous.
21:17Well, what do you say?
21:18The face behind the mask is interesting, because this is around the time within Hollywood, the sort of the germs
21:26or the seeds of film noir were starting to emerge, with the sort of emigrants coming over and the kind
21:33of shadows were building within the film community.
21:35It wasn't sort of fully flourished film noir yet.
21:37Laurie was a great tool for that kind of style.
21:40It's the story of an immigrant.
21:42It's also sort of a burn-scarred character played by Laurie.
21:47He really suffered with the prosthetics and didn't enjoy that side of it at all.
21:51But I think what's more interesting with that, and some of the films he began to make for Warner Brothers
21:57at this time, was that he sort of was an emergent and important figure in what would become film noir.
22:02It's very, very interesting and very frightening performance.
22:20See, Mr. Spade, I'm trying to recover an ornament that, shall we say, has been mislaid.
22:27Uh-huh.
22:28I thought and hoped you could assist me.
22:30The ornament is a statuette, black figure of a bird.
22:35I am prepared to pay on behalf of the figure's rightful owner the sum of $5,000 for its recovery.
22:42I am prepared to promise that, what is the phrase, no questions will be asked.
22:49The serendipity would bless Laurie with some of his greatest relationships when the young John Huston went to Warner and
22:59said the time is right for another version of the Maltese Falcon.
23:02I think he'd got a sense of sort of the changing tone in films, that while a war was going
23:08on in the world, people didn't want sort of fluffy escapism.
23:13They were kind of getting interested in darker themes and, you know, exploring darker moods.
23:18And I think Huston felt this was a great time to do another version of Maltese Falcon and being two
23:23previously.
23:24Joel Cairo is an extraordinary creature, a role for which he should forever be remembered.
23:31I think that John Huston, when he said that Peter Lorre was one of the finest and most subtle actors
23:37with whom it ever worked, knew something.
23:40He got it right.
23:42Then where is it?
23:44Where Floyd hid it.
23:46Floyd...
23:47And you know where he hid it?
23:48Then why do we have to wait a week?
23:50Well, perhaps not a whole week.
23:51And why, if I may ask another question, are you willing to sell it to me?
23:56Because I'm afraid.
23:59After what happened to Floyd, I'm afraid to touch it except to turn it over to somebody else.
24:02What exactly did happen to Floyd?
24:05Huston's brilliance was to take the Dashiell Hammett novel
24:08and to cast the extraordinary Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, Private Eye,
24:13and to team up Peter Lorre with Sidney Greenstreet, who was this kind of great character actor.
24:19And there were these fantastic sort of textures within this brilliant sort of early noir detective thriller about everyone trying
24:27to hunt for the Maltese Falcon.
24:29In fact, it was the first of eight films he made with Sidney Greenstreet and several with Humphrey Bogart too.
24:36And Huston was much admiring and admiring of his performance.
24:42Give them Cairo.
24:44Well, by guess.
24:45And suppose we give them you and Mr. Shaughnessy, how about that, huh?
24:48You want the Falcon, I've got it.
24:50The Fall Guy's part of the price I'm asking.
24:52As for Mr. Shaughnessy, if you think she can be rigged for the part, I'm perfectly willing to discuss it
24:57with you.
24:58You seem to forget that you are not in a position at all to insist upon anything.
25:01Now come, gentlemen, let's keep our discussion on a friendly.
25:05It was an unbelievable hit.
25:08People were just shocked at this picture.
25:11It is a classic.
25:12It still stands up.
25:16What follows, I think, from Maltese Falcon is a very healthy period in Peter Lorre's career, a very productive one
25:23that he signs up with Warner Brothers.
25:26And now they're very eager to make the kind of thrillers in which Peter Lorre would thrive.
25:31In 1942, he then joined the extraordinary ensemble cast of one of the most beloved films of all time, Casablanca.
25:42You know, Rick, watching you just now with the Deutsche Bank, one would think you've been doing this all your
25:47life.
25:47What makes you think I haven't?
25:48Oh, nothing.
25:50But when you first came to Casablanca, I thought...
25:52You thought what?
25:54What right do I have to think?
25:57When Warner Brothers came to put Casablanca together, I think they imagined it no more than just a kind of
26:02second-tier studio film to sort of keep the kind of schedules full.
26:06But something, you know, some magic happened in its making, turned an ordinary film into a miracle of the film.
26:14As everyone knows, it's all set in the town of Casablanca, where Rick, the character played by Humphrey Bogart, runs
26:21this cafe, Rick's Cafe.
26:23Which is a kind of a meeting point of these disparate souls who are, you know, exiled or on the
26:30run or hiding out.
26:33You know, they're kind of the detritus of the war, they're kind of washed up in this bar.
26:37He plays Ugarte, the sort of villainous, slippery guy who's got the visas, the Nazi visas that will get people
26:46out.
26:47It's a small but it's a telling role.
26:48He makes his mark, he comes in, he does his stuff.
26:52You can tell the guy's a rogue, but at the same time, he's got these sort of visas that will
26:59actually help refugees escape.
27:00Oh, you object to the kind of business I do, huh?
27:04But think of all those poor refugees who must rot in this place if I didn't help them.
27:09Well, that's not so bad through ways of my own, I provide them with exit visas.
27:14For a price, Ugarte, for a price.
27:18But think of all the poor devils who can't be to a nose price.
27:21Oh, I get it for them for half.
27:22Is that so parasitic?
27:24I don't mind a parasite, I object to a cut-rate one.
27:28He was part of a marvellous cast including Humphrey Burgos, of course, Ingrid Bergman.
27:34And the smaller parts were all played by faces who would be known by filmgoers in America and Europe.
27:43Although he had a small role, it was noticed.
27:46And indeed, however small his role was, however big it was, he seemed like he could do no wrong with
27:53the critics.
27:54I don't think they gave him one bad notice so far in his whole career.
28:01Well, speak up, Grandpère, it's your canoe.
28:03That's right. If it wasn't for Grandpère, none of us would be going.
28:06What did you speak to first? Not to you, you weren't even there.
28:09What's that got to do with it? I'm smaller than any of you.
28:12Even Garou weighs a good ten pounds more than I do.
28:14You weigh enough to lighten the canule that's needed.
28:17Yeah, and who got the word to Matrac?
28:18Shut up the bunch of you, you...
28:20Well, Grandpère.
28:23Off the back of now The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca,
28:26I think Warner Brothers felt they had a winning formula.
28:29This was almost like a company of actors and artists who they could move around
28:34and sort of almost just do simile-themed films.
28:38Passage to Marseille really is an echo of the sort of Casablanca formula.
28:43In 1944, he's reunited with Humphrey Bogart in Passage to Marseille.
28:50Not as big a picture in any way as Maltese Falcon or Casablanca,
28:55but that was their partnership and people came to the cinema to see those two on the screen again.
29:01Well, you forgive me, Mr. Peters, but I don't understand what you're talking about.
29:05Not that it makes any difference whether I do or not, but...
29:08Oh, I think I'm tired.
29:10Yeah, I'm very tired. I want to go to bed.
29:15One million, huh?
29:17No, Mr. Peters.
29:19Well, I suppose there's no reason why I shouldn't tell you what my interest in Demetrius is.
29:25It certainly isn't money.
29:26I make a decent living. As you know, detective stories sell very well.
29:31Detective stories.
29:33In 1944, he makes a film called The Mask of Demetrius,
29:38which has really gained a lot of respect as the years go by.
29:43It's a Laurie film in which he plays a writer,
29:47who happens upon, you know, through various contexts, researching a novel,
29:51and happens with this dead body of a character called Demetrius,
29:54and becomes fascinated by how he ended up, you know, in the Bosporus.
29:59And it's another one of those kind of, uh, sort of stories
30:03in which he's kind of, he follows a path through a Europe
30:05that's ambiguous and full of kind of amoral characters.
30:10This is a film that didn't do very well.
30:12People, critics didn't like it, and it did okay in the box office.
30:16I have to say, it's one of my favourites,
30:18if only because Laurie himself is not playing a villain,
30:23he plays a novelist.
30:25He is wonderful in it.
30:27When I was in Istanbul, I heard some very interesting things
30:30about the end of those smugglers.
30:32Somebody there said that Demetrius betrayed all of you.
30:35He sent a dossier to the police, I think, anonymously.
30:39Is that true?
30:40Demetrius behaved very badly to us all.
30:43And it's really nice, actually, a nice, it's a great novel,
30:46but it's also a nice sort of bit of chance for people to lorry
30:49to be a slightly more complicated lead character again.
30:52You know, Doctor, I've completely lost track of Mr Spinelzo.
30:56Wait, who's this Mr Spinelzo?
30:58A friend of ours Johnny was looking for.
31:02Don't you bring anyone else in here, now come on, beat it, both of you!
31:04It's all right, Johnny. While we are packing, I'll tell you about him.
31:10Arctic and Old Lace, which of course is based on the famous Castle Ring play,
31:14is a wonderful sort of black, black comedy involving murderous aunts
31:19and wonders on British stage.
31:21And I think for Peter Lorre, it offered a chance for once to show that he could be very comic.
31:27He's the kind of plastic surgeon who's completely dimentical, Dr Einstein.
31:32But he really sort of gets the spirit of the piece.
31:41Tell me, don't those plays you see all the time teach you anything?
31:44Oh, stop it. Don't get me on the subject of plays.
31:46I've got a lot on my mind now. I've got to wait here for Mr Witherspoon.
31:48At least people in plays act like they got sense.
31:51Oh, you think so? Did you ever see anybody in a play act like they got intelligence?
31:54How can somebody be so stupid?
31:55You want to have my job for a few nights. Listen to me, brother.
31:57A change of turn for him, Peter Lorre himself, in quite a major role in the film,
32:04was certainly praised once again above most others.
32:09He actually asked Cary Grant off the screen,
32:12which is not an easy thing to do by anybody's definition.
32:16You remember Peter Lorre. You don't remember Cary Grant that much.
32:20But Peter Lorre, you remember in this one.
32:38Please don't. If you go, what will happen to my work?
32:42What is my going away to do with your work?
32:44Don't you see, Julie, since you begin looking after him,
32:48he's forgotten about me. I've had time for my studies.
32:51But if I go, he'll have another nurse to look after him.
32:53No, if you leave, he won't let me out of his side.
32:56I need every minute of the day for my work.
32:59I have to stay right here in his library.
33:01And his books and his shelves are the great secrets I'm after.
33:06The Beast with Five Fingers was his last film with Warner Brothers.
33:10It's a story of this sort of Italian recluse
33:14who hides himself away and studies these kind of weird occult books.
33:18And all the kind of people who then come for the inheritance when he dies.
33:24Peter Lorre is this old friend of his
33:25who is desperate to get his hands on this kind of occult library.
33:29And so he works his way in.
33:30And, of course, the hand of this character, who's a pianist,
33:33has stayed alive by the mysterious machinations of the plot.
33:37So most of the film requires poor Peter Lorre to kind of play it straight
33:42opposite sort of a hand dashing about and being ludicrous.
33:46And the puppetry actually is fairly impressive.
33:48The only reason to see this film is to see Peter Lorre
33:52and to watch his reactions whenever he encounters the hand in question.
33:57There is an incredibly long scene where he's alone in a room
34:01and the thing starts sort of crawling around.
34:05To watch his reactions, there is absolutely no dialogue whatsoever,
34:09is to see a masterclass in reaction.
34:14In 1948, Peter Lorre was subpoenaed to appear before the House of Un-American Activities Committee.
34:22Lorry had to sort of drop below the radar for a while
34:26after the House of Un-American Activities came a-call in.
34:31He did, in fact, issue some names.
34:35He came out of it and he classified himself as being grey-listed
34:40for about sort of ten years within Hollywood.
34:43And he would flee back toward Germany.
34:45He moved out of the country and he made what was, in fact,
34:50his only film as a director called The Lost One,
34:54which actually is a very fine film indeed.
34:57The only problem with it is that it addresses German guilt over World War II.
35:04And it was rather too soon after the war.
35:08So I'm afraid it failed.
35:10So at this point, coming out of The Lost One,
35:12he was virtually destitute, he had no money,
35:16and didn't know which way to turn.
35:18And the person who needed to save him or to come to his rescue
35:21was John Huston again.
35:22And he said, well, come back, I'm making this film called Beat the Devil,
35:24and I think I've got a part for you.
35:26And really, he saved Lorry's career at that point.
35:30Billy, good morning.
35:32What's our white-eyed Irish leprechaun doing outside my door?
35:36Why do you always make jokes about my name, huh?
35:39In Chile, the name of O'Hara is a tip-top name.
35:43Many Germans in Chile have become to be called O'Hara.
35:46Good morning, Mr. O'Hara.
35:48Madam, my respects.
35:50Perhaps Mr. O'Hara would like something to drink?
35:53Yes, maybe perhaps a little whiskey, huh?
35:58Very weak, please.
36:001953 comes Beat the Devil with Humphrey Bogart
36:04and a rising star called Gina Dola Brigitta.
36:07Peter has a part as a former Chilean Nazi,
36:11and they're all going to Africa.
36:13It's John Huston's kind of, I guess we would call larky picture,
36:18in the sense that these are his, this is his gang, Bogart and Lorry.
36:25And it's funny. It's a funny picture.
36:28And it's grown in stature because you start to see
36:31the sort of wittiness and irony of the relationship
36:35that Peter Lorry had with Humphrey Bogart, a very difficult guy.
36:40But they found the humor with each other.
36:44You lost.
36:46Huh?
36:46You lost a fortune.
36:48Oh, I still have 23.
36:49But now he can afford to lose.
36:51I may win.
36:53Sir, the bank is broke.
36:54Continue.
36:56Just a moment.
37:00He returned to Hollywood with the John Huston film
37:03and saw that to make money, I think television was a good opportunity.
37:07But he has the honor in screen history
37:10of being the first man to play a Bond villain.
37:12This is a version of Casino Royale,
37:14the first Fleming Bond book done for television
37:17with Barry Nelson playing Jimmy Bond, as you like to call him.
37:21So it's a bit of a novelty more than anything.
37:25It's not very good.
37:26But what is interesting is that Le Chiffre is very well played by Lorry
37:31and he's very well cast.
37:32He's a good Bond villain.
37:34He's exactly what you kind of want.
37:35Peter Lorry is wonderful.
37:37He's sinister.
37:38He's everything you think.
37:39And has never ever said that he was the first Bond villain.
37:42But he was.
37:44Flying way to go hunting.
37:46I knew there'd be a catch to this.
37:48Seems you can't do anything on this boat without getting wet.
37:51Hey.
37:52I feel like I'm keeping a fish out of work.
37:57Hey, wait a minute.
37:58Wait a minute.
37:58Where are you going with it?
37:59Back in Hollywood, Peter Lorry has made his peace with the fact that from now on,
38:04he was sensibly cast as versions of Peter Lorry in films
38:07and endeavoured to play Peter Lorry to the best of Peter Lorry's ability.
38:12And amongst them were some great, some classic sort of movies of the time.
38:16And there's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which of course is the great Disney adaptation of Jules Verne's wonderful
38:22novel.
38:22This is about a boat, a submarine basically.
38:26It is exploring everything.
38:28It's got all the monsters, all the stuff that we take for granted.
38:32Now all of these different characters.
38:34And he plays someone called Conce.
38:37And it's a James Mason picture with Kirk Douglas singing and dancing in, if you can believe it.
38:44And Peter Lorry as this scientist, this wise man.
38:48It was basically a picture about special effects, what we would call special effects.
38:53And it's also a picture about color.
38:56Captain, I wondered as long as the professor is not going as sure if I could go in his place.
39:02I'd like to collect some specimens and take some notes.
39:05You feel qualified?
39:07Qualified?
39:08Why, for years the professor and I have been working together.
39:11And I can roast, sir.
39:12Got a strong back.
39:13And a strong desire to escape.
39:15Who, me?
39:16I'm no deserter.
39:17Happy to be aboard, sir.
39:19But it still stands up.
39:20It's quite an amazing picture.
39:23Quite an amazing picture that all of them were in it.
39:27Honorable gentleman feeling better this morning.
39:30What are you doing here?
39:34Why?
39:35Why is the hotel moving this way?
39:38What?
39:38Steamship, not hotel.
39:40You're on board of Steamship Canary.
39:44What?
39:45What?
39:45Yes, we go to Shanghai, then we go to Yokohama.
39:49He's still being cast now, but in their sort of big cameo roles.
39:54He gets another role in Around the World in 80 Days.
39:59And, again, we know whenever he's on the screen, you can't take your eyes off him.
40:03The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
40:07So it was a great success for Peter Lorre because of an all-star cast.
40:12But, once again, he only had a small role, but it was noticed critically.
40:17Peter Lorre appeared in a cast that included Vincent Price in the horror parody Tales of Terror.
40:24Unless you were intent on mere rabble-rousing, you have just made a most grave and serious accusation.
40:31An accusation which I'm prepared to follow up with action.
40:37That is, if you care to take the risk.
40:43We will take the risk of...
40:48He then went into a whole series of Roger Corman films.
40:53In the early days, Roger Corman would make a film in about a fortnight,
40:57using young people who had not been used before to make a feature.
41:03Although his glory years were probably behind him by now, Peter Lorre,
41:07he sort of adapted well to the changing times in certain respects.
41:10And he also became very useful to Roger Corman's American International Pictures,
41:15his sort of early version of B-movie filmmaking,
41:19where he wanted to pluck sort of has-been eccentric actors who had a certain cachet
41:24and put them into sort of very melodramatic, semi-comic horror movies
41:31and make hay out of this formula.
41:33And it really worked.
41:35I know you.
41:37You are afraid to face me when I'm sober, huh?
41:42Are you sober?
41:44Sober enough to make a fool of you, you cheap faker, you.
41:49Father.
41:51Dr. Bedlow.
41:52That I did not hear.
41:54We will proceed with our present conversation.
41:57Yes, you are afraid, you miserable coward.
42:00Father in the name of-
42:02Shut your mouth!
42:04His last big hit was The Raven, which was another Roger Corman film
42:09in which he played a magician who had been turned into a raven.
42:12He was playing opposite Vincent Price and very young Jack Nicholson
42:17and it was a typical Corman production.
42:19And lo and behold, it was a huge hit. Everybody loved it.
42:22I mean, it was one of the great drive-in movies of the time.
42:27Well, if you would call a stage about to run over you, a fright...
42:33Yeah, it was a frightened stage, scared.
42:38Also amnesia, shock and frostbite.
42:40I could have had that too, the way I felt.
42:42Look, Jake, the kid is going to be all right.
42:45We just found out something in time, that's all.
42:48Yeah, that we got the wrong guy.
42:51No, we just have to work harder, that's all.
42:54His last film was The Patsy, made by Jerry Lewis.
42:59He regarded it very unfavorably.
43:03He didn't like the story, he didn't like his part
43:07and he didn't get on very well with Jerry Lewis either.
43:09But though the film was not a success,
43:14either with the critics or at the box office,
43:17latterly it's been upgraded as one of the funny comedies of the period.
43:27Just four days after filming ended on The Patsy,
43:31Peter Lorre passed away.
43:33He was 59 years old.
43:53I hope you are more impressed with me now.
43:58Peter Lorre's legacy, I think, is almost appropriately enough a split one,
44:01a split personality.
44:02He is one of the great sort of intellectual actors
44:06and one of the great explorers of psychology of parts.
44:10And then the other half of him is what Hollywood made of that,
44:13for good and bad.
44:14The glorious sort of second-tier character performer,
44:18who played these eccentrics and Europeans and immigrants
44:21and villains and distrustworthy characters which he excelled at.
44:25You see, Mr. Spade, if you know more than I do,
44:29then I shall profit by your knowledge, so will you.
44:35When he had a chance, he was able to give really good performances
44:40in practically any kind of part.
44:43He very, really gave a bad performance.
44:46He is immortal in Casablanca.
44:50He's immortal in The Maltese Falcon.
44:53These films will never die, so therefore, Peter Lorre will never die.
45:00You know, Rick, I had many a friend in Casablanca,
45:02but somehow, just because you despise me, you are the only one I trust.
45:08Peter Lorre's legacy is of a unique actor,
45:12an indelible imprint on each film he made.
45:15He had the most extraordinary delivery.
45:17His voice was easy to imitate, I mean,
45:20and he had the most extraordinary look.
45:22He didn't look like anybody else on the screen.
45:25It means that he has sort of made his mark on cinema history.
45:29Well, bon voyage.
45:38His voice is always happy.
45:38Hit the screen.
45:40He took to stay.
46:03Remember that you died.
46:05I motioned to sit right and enjoy.