August 31, 2018

Buffalo Movie Expo Includes Two Lorre Films

The annual Western New York Movie Expo, held in Buffalo, New York, always includes a Lorre film in its schedule of classic silent and sound movies of the 1920s, '30s, '40s, and '50s. Lorre fans attending this year, however, can enjoy two Lorre films – Island of Doomed Men (1940) and Three Strangers (1945) over the Labor Day weekend.

The Expo begins on Friday, Aug. 31, and ends on Monday, Sept. 3, 2018.

Island of Doomed Men will be shown at 8:15 pm on Friday, Aug. 31, in the Main Screening Room.

Three Strangers will be shown at 3:45 pm on Sunday, Sept. 2, in the Main Screening Room.

Admission is $40 for the full weekend. Daily admission on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday is $12 for general admission, and $10 for students with proper ID. On Monday, admission is $6 for everyone. More information about tickets is available on the Expo's website.

Admission includes three screening rooms, as well as a large dealers’ room, filled with posters and autographs, records and magazines, cameras and projectors, and more. The full schedule of documentaries, silent and sound movies, short subjects, and special presentations is available on the Movie Expo’s website.

The Western New York Movie Expo will be held at the Adam’s Mark Hotel and Event Center, located at 120 Church Street, in Buffalo, New York. Room discounts are available for Expo attendees staying at the hotel. More information about the hotel, as well as directions, is available on the Expo’s website.

Parking is available at the Adam’s Mark Hotel. A parking fee of $10 per day will be charged.

Lorre Film Festival in Minneapolis

On Friday, Aug. 31, 2018, the Trylon Cinema, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, will kick off a 5-week salute to Peter Lorre. Titled "The Malice and Vulnerability of Peter Lorre", the series presents five of Peter’s best-known films – The Maltese Falcon (1941), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Mad Love (1935), Beat the Devil (1954), and M (1931).

The series will run from Friday, Aug. 31, to Sunday, Sept. 30, 2018.

Films will be shown on these dates and times ~

The Maltese Falcon, in 35mm ~
Friday, Aug. 31 – 7 pm and 9:15 pm
Saturday, Sept. 1 – 7 pm and 9:15 pm
Sunday, Sept. 2 – 3 pm and 5:15 pm

Arsenic and Old Lace, in 35mm ~
Friday, Sept. 7 – 7 pm and 9:30 pm
Saturday, Sept. 8 – 7 pm and 9:30 pm
Sunday, Sept. 9 – 3 pm and 5:30 pm

Mad Love, in 35mm ~
Friday, Sept. 14 – 7 pm and 8:30 pm
Saturday, Sept. 15 – 7 pm and 8:30 pm
Sunday, Sept. 16 – 3 pm and 4:30 pm

Beat the Devil, in Digital Projection ~
Friday, Sept. 21 – 7 pm and 9 pm
Saturday, Sept. 22 – 7 pm and 9 pm
Sunday, Sept. 23 – 3 pm and 5 pm

M, in Digital Projection ~
Friday, Sept. 28 – 7 pm and 9:15 pm
Saturday, Sept. 29 – 7 pm and 9:15 pm
Sunday, Sept. 30 – 3 pm and 5:15 pm

Admission for each movie is $8 for all seats. Tickets may be purchased at the box-office before showtime. Tickets may also be purchased on-line through the Trylon website. Tickets ordered on-line will be held at the “Will Call” window for pick-up.

The Trylon Cinema is located at 2820 East 33rd Street, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Parking is available on the streets surrounding the theater.

For more information, please contact the cinema at 612-424-5468.

In the pages of The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre, Stephen D. Youngkin discusses the making of the films in this Lorre fest, through interviews with the directors, cast and crew who worked with Peter.

The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre may be purchased from Amazon U.S., Amazon Canada, and Amazon U.K, as well as other booksellers.

August 30, 2018

Historic North Tonawanda Cinema Presents Casablanca

As part of their "M and T Bank Throwback Thursday Film Series", the historic Riviera Theatre, built in 1926 and located in North Tonawanda, New York, will present Casablanca (1942) on Thursday, August 30, 2018.

The film begins at 7 pm.

Admission is $3 for all seats.

Tickets may be purchased at the cinema box-office, which opens at 6:30 pm. Tickets may also be purchased online through the cinema website. A ticketing fee, as well as a handling fee, will be added to all tickets purchased on-line.

The Riviera Theatre is located at 67 Webster Street near the western end of the Erie Canal, in downtown North Tonawanda, New York.

Parking is available in the public parking lot located on Manhattan Street, with a pedestrian walk that leads to the cinema. Free parking is also available on Webster Street, as well as the nearby streets of Main and Tremont.

More information about parking, as well as directions to the cinema, is available on the Riviera website.

For more information, please contact the cinema at 716-692-2413.

Galway Cinema Presents Casablanca

Lorre fans in the area of Galway, Ireland, will have the opportunity to catch Peter on the big screen when Casablanca (1942) kicks off a new series called “I can’t believe you haven’t seen . . .” at the Pálás Cinema on Thursday, August 30, 2018.

The program begins at 19:00 hours, or 7 pm.

Admission is €11.00 for adults, €8.50 for college students (with valid ID) and seniors (age 65 and over). Member prices are €10.00 for Legends, and €8.00 for Student and Senior members.

Tickets may be purchased at the cinema box-office. Tickets may also be booked online through the cinema website, or booked over the telephone. A nominal fee for online or telephone booking will be charged – however, members may book for free. More information about ticket prices is available on the cinema website.

The Pálás Cinema is located at 15 Merchants Road Lower, in Galway, Ireland.

Parking is available in the Park Rite Hynes Yard Car Park, located at 35 Merchants Road. Car park tickets may be validated at the cinema. Please present both your car-park ticket and your movie ticket at the cinema box-office.

More information about parking, as well as directions to the cinema, is available on the Pálás website.

August 25, 2018

Disney Classic at Fox Theatre in Tucson, Arizona

The Walt Disney classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), starring Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Peter Lorre, and Paul Lukas, will be shown at the Fox Tucson Theatre in Tucson, Arizona, on Saturday, August 25, 2018.

The film begins at 7:30 pm.

Ticket prices are $5 for regular admission and $4 for students, seniors, and active military. Members of the Fox Theatre and children age 12 and under are admitted free of charge.

Tickets may be purchased at the cinema box-office. Tickets may also be purchased at online through the Fox Theatre website. Tickets purchased online will be held at the “Will Call” window for pick-up.

The Fox Tucson Theatre is located at 17 West Congress Street, between Stone and Church avenues, in Tucson, Arizona.

Parking is available at the Pueblo Parking Garage, located at 41 East Congress Street, between Stone and Scott avenues, in Tucson, Arizona. More information on parking is available on the cinema’s website.

August 23, 2018

Peter Lorre’s Day on TCM, August 24, 2018

Every August, the Turner Classic Movies channel holds their “Summer Under the Stars” film festival. For 24 hours, TCM devotes the day’s movies to one actor, usually a leading player.

For most of his film career, Hollywood studios considered Peter Lorre a character actor, cast in support of stars such as Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Cary Grant, all of whom have enjoyed many a “Day” of their own during the August festival.

However, this year, Peter has a “Day” of his own – Friday, August 24, 2018 – and a selection of 13 movies, some of them seldom shown on the TCM channel, and one completely new to TCM.

The Lorre marathon will begin at 6 am on the East Coast, 5 am Central time, 4 am Mountain time, and 3 am Pacific time. The films include ~

6 am – The Face Behind the Mask (1941). Peter plays Hungarian watchmaker Janos Szabo, a new immigrant to the United States, who finds his hopes of a wonderful life in America destroyed by a terrible rooming-house fire that irreparably burns his face.

7:30 am – Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). As Dr. Einstein, personal plastic surgeon to the murderous Jonathan Brewster (Raymond Massey), Peter was not yet under contract to Warner Bros., the studio at which he would achieve the high point of his personal and professional lives.

9:45 am – Silk Stockings (1957). This musical remake of Greta Garbo’s 1939 film Ninotchka features Peter as Brankov, one of three Russian commissars sent to Paris to retrieve a famous Russian composer (Wim Sonneveld) hired to write the music for an American film and end up discovering the joys of Paris nightlife.

12 noon – You’ll Find Out (1940). Radio performer Kay Kyser and his band are hired to provide the entertainment at debutante Janis Bellacrest’s (Helen Parrish) 21st birthday party. As Professor Fenninger, supposed debunker of phony spiritualists, Peter appeared for the first and only time on film with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. The three actors also made a guest appearance with Kyser on his radio show Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge.

2 pm – All Through the Night (1942). As Pepi, a German Nazi working undercover in New York City, Peter appeared for the second time with his Maltese Falcon pal Humphrey Bogart – and with Kaaren Verne, who would soon become the second Mrs. Peter Lorre.

4 pm – The Comedy of Terrors (1964). In his final movie with Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, and Basil Rathbone, Peter plays Felix Gillie, assistant to undertaker Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price), in 1800s New England. Unable to get paying “customers”, the two begin drumming up a little business by suffocating elderly men in town.

5:45 pm – Scent of Mystery (1960). Long thought lost, this movie turned up in the 1980s and was shown on the independent San Francisco channel KOFY, followed a few years later by a broadcast on MTV. Peter plays Smiley, a cabbie who chauffeurs around an Englishman (Denholm Elliott), hoping to rescue an attractive tourist from murder. The “Scent” in the title refers to the Smell-o-Vision process of piping various odors, such as perfume, coffee, and tobacco, into the theater during the film’s presentation.

8 pm – M (1931). In his first sound movie, Peter plays one of the characters he is most famous for – Hans Beckert, murderer of children in Berlin, Germany.

10 pm – Crime and Punishment (1935). To play Roderick Raskolnikov, the student of crime who murders a pawnbroker, Peter had to agree to play Dr. Gogol in the MGM horror film Mad Love (1935), to be shown later this evening.

11:45 pm – The Mask of Dimitrios (1944). Peter Lorre plays Cornelius Latimer Leyden, a Dutch mathematics professor turned mystery writer, who becomes interested in the life and nefarious career of international criminal Dimitrios (Zachary Scott), and while researching Dimitrios’ past, meets up with a Mr. Peters (Sydney Greenstreet), who holds a secret leading to blackmail.

1:30 am – The Verdict (1946). Peter teams up again with Sydney Greenstreet in the last of their nine movies together. He plays Victor Emmric, artist, man about town, and best friend to Superintendent Grodman (Greenstreet). When another of their friends is murdered in a locked room in Victor’s lodging house, Emmric and Grodman do some investigating on their own.

3:15 am – Mad Love (1935). Peter agreed to be loaned to MGM for his first American role, famed Parisian surgeon Dr. Gogol, in order to get the part he really desired – Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, shown earlier in tonight’s festival.

4:30 am – Island of Doomed Men (1940). “Peter Lorre Day” comes to an end with one of Peter’s few leading roles – Stephen Danel, owner of a private island with a diamond mine and a crew of paroled convicts to dig out the mine’s treasures.

In between the Lorre movies are sprinkled these short subjects ~
  • 7:16 am – So You Think You’re Allergic (1945), one of the famous Joe McDoakes comedy shorts from the Warner Bros
  • 9:33 am – Getting’ Glamour (1946)
  • 11:47 am – That’s the Spirit (1933)
  • 1:49 pm – Night Life in Chicago (1948)
  • 7:38 pm – The Symphony Murder Mystery (1932)
  • 3:05 am – The Operation (1930)
  • 5:40 am – Night Descends on Treasure Island (1940)
In the pages of The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre, Stephen D. Youngkin discusses the making of these and all of Peter’s movies through interviews with the directors, actors, and crew, Lorre friends and family members.

In the book’s appendix, a full list of Peter’s filmography, as well as his theater, radio, and television credits, is also available.

The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre may be purchased from Amazon U.S., Amazon Canada, and Amazon U.K, as well as other booksellers.

Happy viewing!

August 2, 2018

Summer into Fall with Lorre on TV

As summer ends and fall begins, Lorre fans have many of Peter’s movies to look forward to on television and Turner Classic Movies – with an extra special treat for in August.

All times shown are Eastern Standard.

Peter Lorre's page on the TV Guide Channel website lists the Lorre films scheduled on various television channels over a 2-week period.



August, 2018

August brings the annual “Summer on the Stars” film festival on Turner Classic Movies – and this year, Peter Lorre is among the stars with a full day devoted to his movies.

Aug. 24 (Fri), Turner Classic Movies channel – It’s “Peter Lorre Day” in the “Summer Under the Stars” fest, and the following movies are on the schedule ~
  • 6 am – The Face Behind the Mask (1941)
  • 7:30 am – Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
  • 9:45 am – Silk Stockings (1957)
  • 12 noon – You’ll Find Out (1940)
  • 2 pm – All Through the Night (1942)
  • 4 pm – The Comedy of Terrors (1964)
  • 5:45 pm – Scent of Mystery (1960)
  • 8 pm – M (1931)
  • 10 pm – Crime and Punishment (1935)
  • 11:45 pm – The Mask of Dimitrios (1944)
  • 1:30 am – The Verdict (1946)
  • 3:15 am – Mad Love (1935)
  • 4:30 am – Island of Doomed Men (1940)
Aug. 27 (Mon), 12:15 pm, TCM – Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956). It’s “Agnes Moorehead Day” on TCM, and included is this Dan Dailey and Cyd Charisse musical, with a cameo by Peter Lorre as a blackjack player.

Aug. 29 (Wed), 4 am, Movies! Network – Quicksand (1950).

Aug. 29 (Wed), 4 am, TCM – Confidential Agent (1945). On “Lauren Bacall Day” on TCM, Bacall was already “Mrs. Humphrey Bogart” when she appeared with Charles Boyer in a spy thriller set in London, including Peter Lorre as an agent supposedly helping Boyer.



September, 2018

September brings a handful of Lorre movies on Turner Classic Movies, including a film new to the channel.

Sept. 4 (Tues), 4 pm, TCM – Hotel Berlin (1945). TCM's daytime theme is "Hotel Happenings", and quite a lot happens in this day of movies set in hotels, including Vicki Baum’s sequel set in a Berlin hotel in the final days of World War 2, with spies, traitors, Underground members, and double-crossers of all sorts.

Sept. 5 (Wed), 9:30 am, TCM – The Big Circus (1959). The daytime theme is "Vincent Price", and in a day of Price movies is this circus film, new to the TCM channel, in which Vincent Price plays the circus ringmaster and Peter Lorre loved playing a clown.

Sept. 7 (Fri), 6 am, Movies! Network – Beat the Devil (1954).

Sept. 18 (Tues), 6:15 am, TCM – Stranger on the Third Floor (1940). The daytime theme is "Cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca", and the cinematography is a highlight in this movie, considered the first film noir.

Sept. 18 (Tues), 4 am, Movies! Network – Beat the Devil (1954).

Sept. 22 (Sat), 6 am, Movies! Network – Quicksand (1950).

Sept. 23 (Sun), 12 noon, TCM – The Constant Nymph (1943).

Sept. 29 (Sat), 8 am, Movies! Network – Beat the Devil (1954).



October, 2018

October means Halloween, horror movies – and actors like Peter Lorre, who counts both horror and non-horror films in his filmography.

Oct. 6 (Sat), 9:30 pm, Antenna TV channel – The Jack Benny Program (CBS, Jan. 22, 1963).

Oct. 7 (Sun), 2 am, MGM HD channel – The Comedy of Terrors (1964).

Oct. 8 (Mon), 6 am, TCM – Silk Stockings (1957). TCM salutes the birthday of director Rouben Mamoulian, who directed Peter as a singer and dancer in this Fred Astaire musical.

Oct. 12 (Fri), 11 am, TCM – Around the World in 80 Days (1956). The TCM daytime theme is "On the Seas", and that's especially true of Peter's cameo in this all-star extravaganza – he plays a Japanese steward on a ship bound for Yokohama.

Oct. 13 (Sat), 6:15 am, TCM – They Met in Bombay (1941).

Oct. 14 (Sun), 1 pm, Movies! Network – Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961).

Oct. 17 (Wed), 3 pm, Movies! Network – Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961).

Oct. 20 (Sat), 3 pm, Movies! Network – Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961).

Oct. 22 (Mon), 2:15 pm, TCM – The Constant Nymph (1943).

Oct. 26 (Fri), 4 am, TCM – The Beast with Five Fingers (1946).

Oct. 29 (Mon), 8 am, Movies! Network – Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961).

Oct. 29 (Mon), 11 pm, TCM – Mad Love (1935). Tonight's theme is "200 Years of Frankenstein". In his first American film, and his only horror film, Peter plays Dr. Gogol, a brilliant Parisian surgeon who loves an actress (Frances Drake) married to a concert pianist (Colin Clive) and tries to help her husband when his hands are injured in a train wreck.



Many of these and other Lorre movies are now available on DVD and Blu-Ray – many remastered and packaged with extra features. For more information on the films of Peter Lorre released to home video, head on over to the DVD – VHS section of The Lost One website.

In The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre, Stephen D. Youngkin discusses the making of Peter’s movies, including interviews with many of the directors, writers, actors, and crew who worked with Peter.

A complete list of Peter’s movies and television credits is available in the book’s Appendix.

The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre may be purchased from Amazon U.S., Amazon Canada, and Amazon U.K, as well as other booksellers.

Happy viewing!