Classic Movie 10: Peter Lorre Films

Classic horror has its own set of icons, with stars like Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, and Christopher Lee serving as some of its most beloved A-listers, but Peter Lorre deserves a spot among them, as well, even though he made far fewer horror movies than the others, partly due to his poor health and early death at the age of 59. While Lorre's work in horror is more limited than most people might realize, his saucer eyes and slightly sinister look made him a perfect fit for the genre, and he was also often cast as oily, suspicious characters in less gruesome fare. 

Born in Austria-Hungary in 1904, Lorre worked in Germany until the rise of the Nazis, which caused the Jewish stage and screen actor to depart and eventually relocate to Hollywood, where he continued to appear in films right up until his passing in 1964. Between 1937 and 1939, Lorre starred as the title character in a series of Mr. Moto mysteries, but the yellowface casting of Lorre as the Japanese detective makes those movies a complicated legacy. Because Lorre's death cut his career short, my list is divided between his horror and other genre roles, with five for each. Mix and match some favorites with others you haven't seen before to appreciate Lorre's unique screen presence!

Five Peter Lorre Horror Films 

1) MAD LOVE (1935)

Lorre's first American horror movie is a Grand Guignol spectacle that recycles the story of the 1920 novel and 1924 silent adaptation of The Hands of Orlac. Lorre plays the brilliant but deranged surgeon who replaces the mangled hands of a gifted pianist (Colin Clive) with those of a recently executed killer.

2) ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (1944)*

This fan-favorite from director Frank Capra is a delightful mix of screwball comedy, crime, and horror, with Lorre in a supporting role as the plastic surgeon who assists dangerous criminal Jonathan Brewster (Raymond Massey). Cary Grant stars as Jonathan's brother, Mortimer, who finds himself surrounded by the criminally insane on Halloween, just as he's trying to tie the knot with his sweetheart (Priscilla Lane).   

3) THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS (1946)

Lorre plays a psychologically distressed secretary who is haunted by the appearance of his dead employer's murderous severed hand in this entertaining chiller with great special effects work. Fans of Thing in The Addams Family TV shows and movies will not want to miss this one!

4) TALES OF TERROR (1962)

Lorre appears in the second segment of this Poe-inspired anthology film from director Roger Corman, which is a loose adaptation of "The Black Cat" combined with other Poe story elements. Vincent Price stars in all three stories, and Basil Rathbone co-stars in the third. Lorre also appears with Price and Karloff in Corman's 1963 horror comedy, The Raven. 

5) THE COMEDY OF TERRORS (1963)

This Jacques Tourneur horror-comedy, co-starring Vincent Price, Basil Rathbone, and Boris Karloff, was the last Lorre picture to be released before his death. Lorre plays the long-suffering assistant to Price's homicidal undertaker, with Rathbone as one of their intended victims.

 

Five Peter Lorre Non-Horror Films

1) M (1931)*

This German thriller from director Fritz Lang made Lorre a movie star even though it also cast him as a serial killer who targets children. Lorre gives a riveting performance as the title character, but it's a disturbing picture and not for the faint of heart, even today. 

2) THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)

The quintessential American detective tale starring Humphrey Bogart is certainly one of the most iconic films to feature Lorre, and it helped to cement his reputation for playing sly, unscrupulous characters. Lorre plays Joel Cairo, one of several criminals scheming to get their hands on the fabled falcon statue. Lorre's scenes with Sydney Greenstreet were so good that the pair appeared in numerous movies together, including Passage to Marseille (1944), The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), Three Strangers (1946), and, of course, Casablanca (1942).

3) CASABLANCA (1942)

Along with The Maltese Falcon, this is probably the film where most people see and remember Peter Lorre, even though he has a relatively small role that quickly ends with his character's death. Humphrey Bogart's world-weary Rick doesn't like Lorre's larcenous Ugarte, but Ugarte trusts Rick partly because of that, which is how the bar owner ends up with the coveted letters of transit that drive the main plot.

4) BLACK ANGEL (1946)

Lorre plays a nightclub owner in this film noir that also stars Dan Duryea and June Vincent. Directed by Roy William Neill, the story comes from a novel by noir great Cornell Woolrich. It's a good follow-up to The Maltese Falcon if you want to see more of Lorre's noir roles, along with The Chase (1946), Rope of Sand (1949), and Quicksand (1950).

5) 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1954)

Disney made this live-action adaptation of the 1870 Jules Verne adventure tale with a host of big stars, including Kirk Douglas, James Mason, and Lorre. It's a rare foray into family fare for Lorre, who plays the assistant to Professor Aronnax (Paul Lukas). The movie was a big hit when it appeared, becoming the third highest-grossing picture of the year.

Peter Lorre trivia: The worm character, Maggot (voiced by Enn Reitel), in Tim Burton's 2005 film, Corpse Bride, is very clearly inspired by Lorre's typical movie persona. 

* These films don't have links to other posts because my original discussions were included in my 2012 book, Beyond Casablanca: 100 Classic Movies Worth Watching (still available as an ebook on Amazon Kindle). 

The Small Town Hell of WIDOW'S BAY (2026)

Widow's Bay, the 2026 horror-comedy series on Apple TV, gives viewers plenty of reasons to shudder with its darkly funny evocation of 70s and 80s horror tropes, and fans of classic horror movies from those decades can revel in the tributes to Stephen King, John Carpenter, and Jaws (1975), among many others. Over the course of the first season's ten episodes, the monsters range from immortal serial killers, hungry demonic entities, and sea hags to the locals themselves, who might be willing to do anything to break the curse that grips their island. The unfolding of the larger plot pulls the series further into absolute horror as we learn more about the nature and history of that curse, but one of the scariest things about Widow's Bay - both the show and the setting - is the lifelong isolation of anyone unlucky enough to be born on the island. Like the Hotel California, Widow's Bay is a place where you can check out, but if you're a native, you can never, ever leave. While many horror movies focus on the insular, corrupted nature of small town life, Widow's Bay imagines a small town whose inescapable borders make it an especially chilling image of hell on earth.

All of the show's characters are forced to grapple with the implications of this particular element of the island's cursed nature. The series stars Matthew Rhys as Tom Loftis, who was not born in Widow's Bay but spent his summers there as a child and now lives on the island as the town's mayor. His dead wife, however, was a native, as is their restless teenage son, Evan (Kingston Rumi Southwick). Tom wants to bring tourists to the island even though he should know better, and his efforts are forcefully criticized by local Wyck Crawford (Stephen Root), who was also born in the town. The sheriff, Bechir Clemmons (Kevin Carroll), is a recent arrival, and he soon gets fed up with the creepy events taking place, but if his wife, Chelle (Sipiwe Moyo), gives birth to their first child in Widow's Bay, the sheriff's family will also become permanent residents whether they like it or not.

The trope of "there's something horribly wrong with this small town" is extremely common in horror, with Widow's Bay drawing particular inspiration from John Carpenter's 1980 classic, The Fog, in which the sins of the founders literally come back to haunt the community's present day inhabitants, but also Halloween (1978) and The Shining (1980), among others. There's a strong evocation of Jaws, too, thanks to the mayor's willingness to put both residents and tourists at risk, with the connection to Spielberg's iconic blockbuster made especially obvious in the seventh episode, "Seasickness." There are, in fact, lots of things horribly wrong with Widow's Bay, and we only get full episodes about some of them in the first season. There's a haunted hotel, a predatory sea hag, a serial killer called The Boogeyman, the town's cursed founder, an ominous church bell that shouldn't be able to ring, and a mysterious underground chamber, just to name a few of the more prominently featured terrors. Casually tossed lines from locals hint at centuries of similar weirdness, from the catastrophe-filled genealogy recited by Rosemary (Dale Dickey) to comments from the elderly Ruth (K Callan), who talks about the bizarre fates met by her family members and friends over the decades. (I really hope we're going to get a second season episode about the guy who was bitten by an animal and then became that animal.) Whatever can be scary and wrong with a small town, Widow's Bay has it, so much so that part of the dark comedy stems from the sheer variety of horrors one little island can contain.

Most people, of course, wouldn't choose to stay in such an awful and dangerous place, but the real knife-twist of Widow's Bay is that native-born islanders cannot physically leave without dying as a result. For every person who has ever escaped their own personal small town hell, this component of the horror story is by far the most disturbing. Like a lot of ambitious youngsters from the rural South, I left the small town where I grew up as soon as possible and would never move back, so the idea that I couldn't leave a place like that is absolute nightmare fuel. I wasn't even born in the town I longed to escape, but still the show's depiction of permanent imprisonment in an isolated community fills me with dread. In most horror stories, the survivors escape the cursed location, but Widow's Bay never lets its children break away, as we see depicted in several tragic incidents over the course of the season. Tom's foolhardy desire to bring tourism to the island is partly the result of his knowledge that his son is a prisoner there, and Tom thinks he can improve Evan's life by getting a little more of the outside world to come to him. That, however, ends up being more of a "misery loves company" situation, as the tourists inevitably encounter some of the island's terrors in the episodes "Beach Reads" and "Emergency Shelter." They, at least, can depart the island and never return, but it remains to be seen if locals like Evan and Wyck will ever be able to say goodbye to Widow's Bay. The show will undoubtedly maintain this worst and most central aspect of the town's cursed nature until the very end so that viewers and characters alike continue to experience the claustrophobic terror of being trapped in a place that wants to destroy them. My fellow small town escapees might find those future seasons easier to experience far from their own personal hells, preferably in the safe harbors of their own choosing.

If you've enjoyed the first season of Widow's Bay, be sure to check out some of the horror movies that inspired it, starting with The Fog. Kate Dippold, the creator and showrunner of Widow's Bay, co-wrote the 2016 Ghostbusters movie and wrote the 2023 horror-comedy treatment of Haunted Mansion, which I did think was a big improvement over the 2003 version starring Eddie Murphy. For a truly terrifying story about a small town nobody can escape, read the original version or see the 1961 Twilight Zone adaptation of Jerome Bixby's short story, "It's a Good Life." Peaksville, Ohio, almost makes Widow's Bay look cozy in comparison, but we'll have to wait to see what's actually inhabiting that strange container in the underground chamber.

Classic Movie 10: Close Encounters with the Third Reich

The theme for my spring lifetime learning series was "Close Encounters with the Third Reich," featuring four classic movies where the protagonists get up close and personal in their confrontations with Nazis. With World War II dominating the headlines in the 1940s, it's no surprise that many films from that era examine the threats posed by Hitler's followers, but the Nazis have continued to fascinate and horrify us in movies ever since, with the Indiana Jones trilogy being a particularly familiar example. More recently, we've seen films like Jojo Rabbit (2019) revisit the fascist regime and the suffering it inflicted. If you want to stick with Golden Age Hollywood classics, however, here are ten movies featuring close encounters with the Third Reich and the dangers of fascism.

 

THE GREAT DICTATOR (1940) - One of the greatest anti-fascist films of all time, Charlie Chaplin's masterpiece blends comedy and pathos in its story of a Jewish barber who impersonates a cruel dictator (named Adenoid Hynkel but very obviously parodying Hitler). Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the picture, which earned five Academy Award nominations. It's still a powerful cinematic statement today, and well worth watching even if you aren't normally a Chaplin fan.

MAN HUNT (1941) - Adapted from Geoffrey Household's 1939 novel, Rogue Male, this political thriller sees Walter Pidgeon as a big game hunter on the run from the Nazis and his own government after he is caught aiming his rifle at Hitler. The movie also stars Joan Bennett, George Sanders, John Carradine, and Roddy McDowall. Director Fritz Lang, who left his native Germany in the 1930s, made other anti-Nazi films, as well, including Hangmen Also Die! (1943), Ministry of Fear (1944), and Cloak and Dagger (1946). Rogue Male was adapted again in 1976, with Peter O'Toole in the starring role.

CASABLANCA (1942) - We'll always have Paris, and we'll always have the outstanding ensemble cast of immigrants who give this Humphrey Bogart favorite its enduring power, many of whom had their own real-life close encounters with the Nazis. Bogart's jaded bar owner, Rick, rediscovers his principles after his lost love (Ingrid Bergman) appears in Casablanca on the arm of a freedom fighter (Paul Henreid) being hunted by the Nazis. Casablanca was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won three, including the Oscars for Best Picture, Director (Michael Curtiz), and Screenplay. 

TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1942) - Ernst Lubitsch directs this wartime comedy with a serious message, which stars Jack Benny and Carole Lombard as married actors in Warsaw who end up using their skills to fight the Nazis in their own way. Although the movie was only nominated for one Academy Award (Best Music/Score), it's a brilliant picture that pairs perfectly with The Great Dictator. In 1983, Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft starred in a remake that also earned a single Oscar nod, this time for Charles Durning as Best Supporting Actor.  

DESPERATE JOURNEY (1942) - Not nearly as desperate as the title suggests, this WWII action picture directed by Raoul Walsh mixes heroics, comedy, and some tragedy in its tale of RAF airmen trying to escape from behind enemy lines. It stars Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, Alan Hale Sr., Arthur Kennedy, and Ronald Sinclair as the brave Allies on the run from Nazi forces, including Raymond Massey as their most dogged pursuer. The movie earned its sole Oscar nomination for Best Special Effects, but it's a great choice for fans of Captain America: The First Avenger (2011).

LIFEBOAT (1944) - Alfred Hitchcock directs a tense thriller set entirely in a small lifeboat, where the survivors of a U-boat attack find themselves in very close quarters with a Nazi German from the same boat that sank theirs. Stage icon Tallulah Bankhead gives her best film performance as an American reporter, and Walter Slezak is mesmerizing as the German. John Hodiak, William Bendix, Hume Cronyn, Heather Angel, Mary Anderson, Canada Lee, and Henry Hull also star. Lifeboat earned three Oscar nominations, including a nomination for John Steinbeck for Best Story.

NOTORIOUS (1946) -  Hitchcock offers a more domestic entanglement with Nazis in this celebrated thriller, which stars Ingrid Bergman as a young woman who agrees to infiltrate a group of South American Nazis and eventually marries one of them while continuing to spy for the United States. Cary Grant plays her handler/love interest, and Claude Rains takes the role of the Nazi husband, but the scene stealer of the film is Leopoldine Konstantin as a truly terrifying mother-in-law. Notorious earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Rains and a nod for Ben Hecht for Original Screenplay.

THE STRANGER (1946) - This Orson Welles thriller appeared the same year as Notorious and also features a woman who marries a Nazi, but Loretta Young's character is completely unaware of her groom's true identity until a determined Nazi hunter (Edward G. Robinson) reveals the terrible truth. Welles directs and also plays the Nazi who will do anything to keep his secret, even murder his wife. The Stranger is in the public domain, so you can easily find places to watch it on streaming services or online. For yet another "I married a Nazi" story, add the 1940 film, The Man I Married, starring Joan Bennett and Francis Lederer.

STALAG 17 (1953) - William Holden stars in this story of prisoners in a German POW camp, and his performance as a cynical American prisoner earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor. Billy Wilder directs a cast that also includes Otto Preminger, Sig Ruman, Don Taylor, and Peter Graves. Stalag 17 earned additional Oscar nominations for Wilder as Best Director and Robert Strauss as Best Supporting Actor. For a double feature that presages the hit TV series Hogan's Heroes, pair Stalag 17 with Desperate Journey. 

THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965) - How do you solve a problem like the Nazis? This beloved musical starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer offers romance, catchy songs, and a fight against fascism, with Plummer's Captain von Trapp memorably (and meme-ably) tearing up a Nazi flag. Young Liesl von Trapp (Charmian Carr) has the most intimate experience with a Nazi when her love interest, Rolf (Daniel Truhitte), embraces fascism. The Sound of Music won five of its ten Academy Award nominations, with Oscars for Best Picture, Director (Robert Wise), Film Editing, Score, and Sound.

If you want to recreate my series for the lifetime learners, we watched Casablanca, Desperate Journey, Lifeboat, and The Stranger. 

Trivia Time!

German native and character actor Sig Ruman appears in three of the movie on this list and plays a Nazi in each: To Be or Not to Be, Desperate Journey, and Stalag 17.

2025 Movie Log in Review

Happy New Year! As is traditional, I start the new year off with a review of all the movies I watched in the previous year. Often these are movies I have seen before, especially seasonal family favorites that we return to every year, but you'll also find the list sprinkled with new releases, classics I watched for the first time this year, and lots of movies from the last few decades that I decided to revisit. I keep the log in a notebook throughout the year so that I can keep track of what I watched and when, and I now have a complete list going all the way back to 2010. I know there are lots of websites people use to track their film viewing, but I enjoy the old-school method of keeping a physical journal. This year the annual report has been delayed due to travel, weather, and family obligations in January, but here's the log report for 2025!

 

January (11)

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most  Foul (2024)

The Major and the Minor (1942)

The Princess Comes Across (1936)

 The Flame of New Orleans (1941)

Wicked Little Letters (2023)*

Mean Girls (20204)*

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)*

Lisa Frankenstein (2024)*

Rope (1948)

Saturday Night (2024)

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

* all watched on planes to and from London

 

February (10)

Girl Haunts Boy (2024)

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957)

Down with Love (2003)

Captains Courageous (1937)

The Fall Guy (2024)

Miss Congeniality (2000)

Deathtrap (1982)

The Nice Guys (2016)

Torch Singer (1933)

 

March (9)

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Ed Wood (1994)

Them! (1954)

Shockproof (1949)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)

Supernatural (1933)

High Spirits (1988)

To Catch a Thief (1955)

Noises Off (1992)

 

April (5)

Woman of the Year (1942)

Forbidden Planet (1956)

Smokey & the Bandit (1977)

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Foul (2024) - 2nd watch this year

Alias Nick Beal (1949)

 

May (5)

Thunderbolts (2025)

The Big Clock (1948)

Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948)

Adam's Rib (1949)

Ordeal by Innocence (1985)

 

June (3) 

Dial M for Murder (1954)

Love Hurts (2025)

Addams Family Values (1993)

 

July (10)

Jurassic Park (1993)

Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)

Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025)

Jaws (1965)

Jaws 2 (1978)

Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

Superman (2025)

Rear Window (1954)

Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

Star Trek: Section 31 (2025)

 

August (16)

Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)

Psycho Beach Party (2000)

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

To Catch a Thief (1955) - 2nd watch this year

Desperate Journey (1942)

Mystery Street (1950)

House by the River (1950)

You Never Can Tell (1951)

The Wasp Woman (1959)

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

America's Sweethearts (2001)

Start Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)

Mallrats (1995) - not nearly as funny as I remembered from seeing it in 1995

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

 

September (5)

She Done Him Wrong (1933)

Village of the Damned (1960)

Mad Love (1935)

Bugsy Malone (1976)

The Thursday Murder Club (2025) - great cast but the books are much better

 

October (15)

Hold Your Man (1933)

Back to the Future (1985)*

Back to the Future II (1989)*

Back to the Future III (1990)*

Night Monster (1942)

Operation Mincemeat (2021) - delightful WWII story based on real events

Hangover Square (1945)

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Timestalker (2024) - very weird but fascinating indie British comedy

Murder, He Says (1945)

The Fog (1980)

Christine (1983)

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)

Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters (2024)

KPop Demon Hunters (2025)

*We saw the stage musical of BTTF and rewatched the trilogy as a result

 

November (8)

The Mummy (1932)

Isn't It Romantic (2019) - a meta rom com about rom com tropes

The Wrong Paris (2025) - surprisingly hilarious rom com about reality dating shows

 Baby Face (1933)

The Ladykillers (1955)

Zero Effect (1988) - still a brilliant revision of the Holmes/Watson/Adler dynamic

The Decoy Bride (2011)

Just Like a Christmas Movie (2023) - more meta rom com but very low budget

 

December (9)

Oceans Eight (2018)

Jingle Bell Heist (2025)

Queen Christina (1933)

Wake Up Dead Man (2025)

The Thin Man (1934)

White Christmas (1954)*

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)*

Die Hard (1988)*

Scrooged  (1987)*

*Every year or it's not Christmas!

 

This year's total was 106 movies. I saw very few new releases in the theater (true since Covid started in 2020), and all 3 were summer blockbusters. I watched a lot of movies on the Criterion Channel and streamed some on Netflix or Kanopy, while the rest were from my physical media collection. I've been making more time to read in 2025 and hopefully 2026, as well, which reduces my movie viewing time but has helped me reclaim my attention span and ability to focus after Covid and the general state of things wrecked my mental health. If you make any New Year's resolutions, making time for the things that bring you joy is always a good one!