"I don’t believe in imitation. My trick is to imagine. I live the role." -Peter Lorre // Adult she/her | Children's book & adult sci-fi/fantasy author | But also! Exploratory fiction on AO3 as brobillaird
This is exactly what I needed to see (and hear) at this moment.
Peter Lorre's beautiful voice curling out at that moment - and that smile!
I FOUND IT I FOUND IT
Ok so remember the Warner Brothers annual blooper reels of Breakdowns and Blow-Ups? For some reason, this tiny outtake from "The Beast with Five Fingers" was always missing from online collections. I knew it existed as an extra on one DVD or another, but I did not know which. However, thanks to "The Lost One" bio, I found another place where this was shown: a 1991 documentary called Here's Looking at You, Warner Bros. Thank you, Internet Archive. I'm not sure why this one had French subtitles burned in but it's somehow funnier this way.
My brain is staring at "Lewis's serious dramatic debut" and just can't get past the words into picturing how it might be.
Also, what the hell, Library of Congress, go out and get Die verschwundene Frau or dig up Schuß im Morgengrauen (which has to be somewhere, I know it does) - arrgh!
I see they're not screening that film anymore, because of Reasons.
And anyway, yes - Peter as Morgan Heywood in drag, with that absolutely beautiful contemptuous, bodes-no-good-for-anyone-in-his-path expression, is all I need of "The Patsy."
Peter Lorre in drag again, this time it’s Morgan Heywood from The Patsy, who I’m certain, having been a Broadway executive, may have indulged in once in a while. He's angry because he has to work with Jerry Lewis.
I was thinking that, too! All that traveling, all those smiles, and it all looked genuine, not just because they were exceptional actors putting on an image for a camera.
I actually put this set together because Amok Time was on TV and I happened to turn it on just as Celia's T'Pau was speaking, and it just got me going right down my borrowed memory lane, thinking of Peter and Celia together, and how much better it could have been for him - though probably not for her - if they'd stayed married. She had a right to her own life and Peter was a grown up, and yet. And yet.
Awww! What a sweet couple, they are too damn cute together. 🥰 They always looked so happy traveling around the world and making a new start in Hollywood.
Peter Lorre and Celia Lovsky in the Black Forest of southwestern Germany, December. (Peter proposed to Celia at Christmas that year!)
1932
Peter and Celia back in the Black Forest, on holiday.
Peter and Celia motor-boating on der Wannsee, in the southwestern Berlin borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf.
1934
Marriage time!
July 18, leaving London for Hollywood.
Peter and Celia aboard the Cunard White Star Liner Majestic bound for New York, mid-July.
I'm not sure if the above is a 1934 picture or not, but they did have to take a train again once they got off the oceanliner...
More under the cut
On the way to Hollywood in July, Peter and Celia changed trains in Chicago and took time to visit the 1933-34 World’s Fair. Peter is pretending to light his cigarette from a snowman in the Black Forest Village.
Also in July, Peter and Celia rented a house on 326 Adelaide Drive in Santa Monica. Whether or not they're really going to play badminton at that moment, that eyebrow steals the show.
But they did like to play!
1935
Peter and Celia taking a walk in the hills outside Santa Monica. His head was shaved for his role as Dr. Gogol in "Mad Love."
Peter and Celia arriving on the 20th Century.
Peter and Celia - I am not sure where they are.
Peter and Celia.
Peter and Celia, Columbia photoshoot.
The above three pics are Peter and Celia at a premiere, possibly for a Shirley Temple movie. Or something else.
Peter and Celia arriving in Southhampton, England, Nov 7.
1936
Celia, Peter, and German screenwriter and film director Berthold Viertel arrive in New York aboard the S.S. Washington, April 29, after "Secret Agent" was done filming.
Peter and Celia arriving in Hollywood.
Happy New Year
I don't know which new year it is, but it seems fitting to end this set with it:
I would love to see this as a theatre poster for an actual showing of the movie! (Either version.)
I haven’t made a Stenberg Brothers style poster in ages, so here’s one for Narcotics, the 1932 German film with Peter Lorre starring as a bald drug dealer, that was also remade as the French Stupéfiants (with Lorre reprising the role). I used one of its alternate titles, Opium because that fit better
Haha! Oh, this could be a really fun story to write. And 🔥🔥 too, given his repressed proclivities...
But like, he had his PLAN, see, written out all nicely, but lately he's been going back to it and scribbling angry notes and there are Xs crossing things out and directional arrows, and I can't adequately do all that in text, but:
Stephen Danel's Plan for Island Domination
Buy island. ✔️
Bribe government. ✔️
Get shipments of prisoners ✔️
Give prisoners lots of things to do!!! ✔️
Marry nice lady. ✔️ ✖️✖️✖️ Lorraine is so mean to me
Be known as beneficial tyrant. nobody likes me and I don't know whyyy
Prisoners put on a skit for my birthday!! i found the singing this year to be lackluster and the skit lacking clarity and originality
Island Christmas Party is the BEST EVER, there's a waitlist from other prisoner islands to come over. 😡😡😡 nobody came i hate everyone
Make costume parties a thing. I was the only one who dressed up, fuck these guys
Stephen Danel but he’s wearing something different than usual
His expression is just - I love how no matter what he's wearing, he still has that face of "Do I have to do EVERYTHING myself" because he can never quite figure out why things don't go the way he wants them to and he thinks it's because he's hired incompetent people
When really it's because his whole island idea is unsustainable, but he just won't be told
Stephen Danel but he’s wearing something different than usual
I am exceedingly happy to have this proof that Gruning and the General are one & the same
IT'S CANON NOW, BABY
I have a headcanon that the character Major Sigfried Gruning from Lancer Spy eventually becomes the General in the Secret Agent, mostly because Lorre plays both roles and he has a wee little wispy mustache and because I think they didn't give him enough to do in Lancer Spy, so this is payback, babey
Wonderful drawing of Peter Lorre by Schlockluster_Video, from one of the behind-the-scenes comedy stills during production of "The Beast With Five Fingers."
I first pounced on this picture because of Peter Lorre's devastatingly soulful gaze, but after I put it together with the following one, I noticed he's wearing a blurred but ultimately chevron-y tie. . .
Which you can see much better here:
This glimpse may also be chevron-y - or may belong to the next set - leopard-print!
Leopard print (very -ish) tie:
Then there's the polka-dotted tie (which you'll also see in "All Through the Night", "Double Confessions," when he's out with Bogie and Bacall, and this Warner Bros set, just to name a few):
Look at that darling! The winsome face, the choirboy eyes, the earnestness.
Stage Door Canteen (CBS, Dec. 17, 1942). 30 min. Bert Lytell, host. Guests: Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Peter Lorre (“Footnote for Tomorrow”), Grace Moore, Jane Cowl, Milton Berle, Helen Menken.
Need this episode!
Peter with Grace Moore in a Stage Door Canteen radio broadcast.