Was Peter Lorre really a HORROR star? in Horror Film Stars Forum

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Was Peter Lorre really a HORROR star?

Author	Comment
telegonus	Re: Shut Out	#21	[-]
Aug 13 06 10:58 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Karloff and most other horror people did seem shut out of mainstream films, though the second tier guys like Atwill and Zucco managed to keep going as character actors despite their mad doctor reputations. In Atwill's case that came to an end with the scandal, but Zucco's resume is impressive to the end. I think that Karloff suffered by his choice of name. Something about it I suspect kept people from taking him seriously. It might have worked early on, enabling him to stand out somewhat, but once typed as a horror player it was probably a millstone around his neck. Lugosi had language problems, Chaney had booze, which in each case probably limited their casting options. One who suffered the most, it seems, was Dwight Frye, who was so typcast post-Renfield as to be reduced to very small parts and bits. I find thus puzzling since Frye was obviously, to put it mildly, an inspired performer. It just doesn't seem fair! Vincent Price seemed to enjoy the most luck. He did get typed in horror but not so exclusively as the others. Even post-House Of Wax he continued to get good parts in mainstream films. Once he got identified with Corman and Poe his non-horror options did seem to dry up,--or was it the money? Price didn't seem in the least disturbed over his reputation as a horror star and continued as a stage performer later on, and of course had that marvelous role in The Whales Of August.
GaryP11111	Peter Lorre - Horror Star	#22	[-]
Aug 31 06 9:23 PM Burgomaster Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Well, Hollywood thought so! While researching something else, I came across this fun little article from the Chicago Tribune dated September 2, 1934. Though you can sense the publicity mill at work, when you read the quotes attributed to Lorre you can hear his voice, strangely enough. His comments about Hitler are prescient. I also have a piece interviewing his wife around the same time and it mirrors some aspects of this article. I'll post it in the future. GARY L. PRANGE "Sic gorgiamus allos subjectos nunc."
CherylMorris	Chicago Papers	#23	[-]
Sep 1 06 1:57 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Thanks for the article, Gary! How did you get access to back issues of the Chicago paper? I'm a member of Godfrey.org, a library out of Connecticut, which used to have the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times through ProQuest -- but several months ago, they were all dropped. Thanks! Cheryl
GaryP11111	Re: Chicago Papers	#24	[-]
Sep 6 06 1:10 AM Burgomaster Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	*Quote:* How did you get access to back issues of the Chicago paper? You guessed right -- through ProQuest. GARY L. PRANGE "Sic gorgiamus allos subjectos nunc."
CherylMorris	ProQuest	#25	[-]
Sep 6 06 11:05 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Thanks, Gary! How can I get access to ProQuest? Cheryl
Lawrence Nepodahl	There SHOULD BE a Lorre/Greenstreet collection!	#26	[-]
Aug 14 08 8:54 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	After watching quite a few films of Lazslo Lowenstein, IE., Peter Lorre (seeing that it was Peter Lorre featured on TCM Stars Of The Month) yesterday, I think they should have a Lorre/ Sidney Greenstreet Collection...REAL SOON! If not that, then at least a Peter Lorre Collection. Added to that some decent extras. With just the Lorre collection you could include that Biography of P.L., which was first shown on A & E. But I would prefer a Greenstreet/Lorre collection, so we could learn more about Syd, that is, if they included an extra of his life. Seeing that everything has to involve PROFIT, I believe this would be a given.
wizcp	Was Peter Lorre really a HORROR star?	#27	[-]
Aug 15 08 12:45 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Thriller an horror,maybe.Though I would have liked to have seen Peter as Baron Frankenstein.
professor liebstrum		#28	[-]
May 10 10 1:59 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	A play was aired on BBC Radio 4 this pm about the early 60s court case between Peter Lorre and the guy who appropriated his name. I only heard a little bit but it sounded interesting. The actor playing Lorre did a pretty good stab at the voice IMO. You can hear it for the next 7 days on BBC i Player if you are interested. Russ By Michael Butt. Towards the end of his unique career, movie star Peter Lorre found himself at the centre of a strange legal case. Incorporating verbatim extracts from the court transcripts, Michael Butt's play wonders what was going through Lorre's troubled mind as he fought to protect his name. Peter Lorre.........Stephen Greif Lester Salkow.......Peter Marinker Helen Hafner.........Helen Longworth Eugene Weingand.....Kenneth Collard Jack Paar/Barclay.....Nathan Osgood Judge Burnett Wolfson..John Rowe Robert Shutan......Kerry Shale Curtis Gemmil......John Chancer Director: Toby Swift. Broadcast on:BBC Radio 4, 2:15pm Monday 10th May 2010 Duration: 45 minutes Available until: 3:02pm Monday 17th May 2010
jplibby		#29	[-]
May 12 10 10:43 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I love good radio drama and Peter Lorre vs Peter Lorre was well done indeed. If you haven't listened to it, I recommend it before BBC4 pulls it off the website in the next few days.
professor liebstrum		#30	[-]
May 13 10 3:41 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Yep, pretty good, esp the scene where the executive explains why they won't be remaking M and Peter responds. Russ
atenolol		#31	[-]
May 14 10 1:52 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Peter Lorre had what I call the X factor of "weirdness" or "creepiness" to such a degree that he became identified with horror despite few horror roles. Objectively, Claude Rains was probably the more central horror star. But Rains came across as largely normal (except as The Invisible Man in which an unseen Rains delivers really over-the-top unhinged dialogue with matchless gusto) most of the time and so is not really thought of as a horror icon like Lorre.
Southern Beau		#32	[-]
May 15 10 4:27 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I feel like Peter Lorre was, in some respects, a fill in for Bela Lugosi during the revival of then old horror films during the 1960's (with Carradine also filling that gap). Just to add something a bit off topic, as mentioned earlier, Boris was hurt on the typing (preventing a lot of mainstream work). However, I think he would have made great casting in Rosemary's Baby as Roman Castevet (no disrespect intended towards Sidney Blackmer).
telegonus	That's It	#33	[-]
May 16 10 12:35 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	That's it, Atenolol: Lorre frightened people with his voice and manner, wasn't really a horror player. I think that Lorre's radio work, which emphasized that voice, so suggestive of madness, depravity and unwholesome thoughts, was a big factor in Lorre being regarded as scary. Also, those Warner Brothers cartoons featuring a Peter Lorre character are or appear to be stamped in the memories of many people, and the likeness of Lorre in those cartoons is a creepy one. Lorre on screen could be benign, even charming in his way (in Mask Of Dimitrios, for instance), however it's often the caricatures, whether voice impressionists,--Lorre was a fave of nightclub comedians--or in cartoons, that make Lorre seem so frightening and weird. In films he could be quite droll, funny and self-aware, which is to say the antithesis of scary, an old familiar face, like an eccentric uncle or neighbor.
DonM435		#34	[-]
May 16 10 11:25 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Can anyone find Forry Ackerman's eulogy-in-verse to Lorre in the old Famous Monsters? It was a frightening piece of poetry, as I recall.
atenolol		#35	[-]
May 18 10 12:03 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	TomWeaver999 wrote: Because Lorre was in MALTESE FALCON, CASABLANCA, lots of top classics, I too feel funny thinking of him as a "horror star" the way I do Karloff, Lugosi, etc. Which, in a way I guess, is me saying to myself, "Apparently part of my personal definition of 'horror star' is a guy that REAL moviemakers, the top moviemakers, rarely or never hire for high-class movies. Lorre WAS in high-class movies sooooo ... mainstream Hollywood must not have put him in the 'horror star' category so maybe I shouldn't either." As I've posted here before, mainstream (non-horror) Hollywood seems to have had more use for Lon Chaney Jr. than they did Karloff. He was also a "prestige" actor even before he made a true horror movie. He had starred for Fritz Lang and Alfred Hitchcock. I remember reading a puff piece from 1935 which described him as the world's greatest actor. In comparision, Lugosi and Karloff were journeyman actors before their big monster breaks. And, as you pointed out, he was never just a "B" horror man, even though he did appear in some low-budget shockers. He was also doing character work in movies with Gable, Crawford, Bogart, Boyer, and the like. One point, though. I think Lorre's career after he left Warners in the late forties was basically undistinguished. Yes, he got roles in an occasional biggie such as 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, but his roles were secondary and generally he make little impact. I haven't seen LEAGUES in a year of two, but I remember Mason, Douglas, and even dull old Paul Lukas. Try as I might, I can't remember much about Lorre in that movie.
TomWeaver999		#36	[-]
May 18 10 12:10 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I remember more of what he does in VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA than in 20000 LEAGUES. In 20000 LEAGUES, he's just ballast.
Joe Karlosi		#37	[-]
May 18 10 12:30 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've never considered Lorre a Horror Star. And that's part of the reason he seems so out of place and in mixed company to me during that ROUTE 66 episode with Karloff and Chaney. Lugosi would have been more appropriate, had he lived.
TomWeaver999		#38	[-]
May 19 10 7:40 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The original plan for THE SHE-CREATURE was Edward Arnold and Peter Lorre (re-teamed after CRIME AND PUNISHMENT), and Arnold was all set. And Lorre's agent promised AIP that Lorre would do it (AIP even created a poster or something with Lorre's name on it). But when Lorre read the script, he thought it was a piece of ++++ and hit the roof that his agent had committed him to it. Furious, he fired the agent and adamantly refused to do the picture. And then Edward Arnold died, so the whole plan went out the window.
thehorrorboy		#39	[-]
May 19 10 7:53 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	TomWeaver999 wrote: when Lorre read the script, he thought it was a piece of ++++ That's not really too far off the mark, is it?
atenolol		#40	[-]
May 19 10 9:42 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	TomWeaver999 wrote: The original plan for THE SHE-CREATURE was Edward Arnold and Peter Lorre (re-teamed after CRIME AND PUNISHMENT), and Arnold was all set. And Lorre's agent promised AIP that Lorre would do it (AIP even created a poster or something with Lorre's name on it). But when Lorre read the script, he thought it was a piece of ++++ and hit the roof that his agent had committed him to it. Furious, he fired the agent and adamantly refused to do the picture. And then Edward Arnold died, so the whole plan went out the window. "when Lorre read the script, he thought it was a piece of ++++" I am glad most actors are not that fastidious or many of my favorite movies would never have been made.

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Was Peter Lorre really a HORROR star?