Ring Out 2011 with Peter Lorre

2011 ends with a Peter Lorre triple feature on Turner Classic Movies and a showing of Peter’s episode of The Jack Benny Show.

And then continues on with TCM’s annual 31 Days of Oscar.

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

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December, 2011

Dec. 27 (Tues.), 6 am, Turner Classic Movies channel – Passage to Marseille (1944)

Dec. 27 (Tues), 10:30 am, TCM – The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Dec. 27 (Tues), 12:15 pm, TCM – Casablanca (1942)

Dec. 31 (Sat.), 7:30 pm, Antenna TV – The Jack Benny Show, originally airing Jan. 22, 1963

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January, 2012

Jan. 9 (Mon.), 1:30 am, Antenna TV – Alfred Hitchcock Presents, "Man from the South". Originally scheduled to air Jan. 3, 1960, this episode was considered too gruesome for the holiday season and postponed until Mar. 13.

Jan. 22 (Sun.), 3 pm, TCM – Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

Jan. 30 (Mon.), 10 pm, TCM – The Constant Nymph (1943)

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February, 2012

TCM presents their annual “31 Days of Oscar”, Feb. 1 through March 2. This year's theme is "Around the World with Oscar", with movies grouped together by their setting.

Feb. 10 (Fri.), 2 pm, TCM – Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956), with the afternoon's theme of "Nevada”.

Feb. 15 (Wed.), 11 pm, TCM – Casablanca (1942). The theme tonight is “Africa”.

Feb. 25 (Sat.), 12:30 pm, TCM – The Maltese Falcon (1941). The afternoon's theme is "California".

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March, 2012

Mar. 2 (Fri.), 10:45 am, TCM – Around the World in 80 Days (1956). "All Over" is the theme for movies this morning.

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

Happy viewing!

SiriusXM Radio Pays Tribute to Harry Morgan, "Voice of Mystery"

Radio Classics, channel 82 on the satellite radio providers XM and Sirius, will present a tribute this week to Harry Morgan, who passed on Dec. 7, 2011.

Included will be "The Queen of Spades" and "The Black Cat" from Peter Lorre’s 1947 summer series Mystery in the Air (1947) – for which Harry Morgan was the narrator – and a 1950 episode of This is Your FBI.

Peggy Webber, who played Peter’s love interest in many Mystery in the Air episodes, will join Radio Classics host Greg Bell by telephone with her recollections of working with the two actors on the series.

The “Wild About Harry” tribute will air these dates and times:

Sunday, Dec. 11:
5 am Pacific, 8 am Eastern
5 pm Pacific, 8 pm Eastern

Tuesday, Dec. 13:
11 pm Pacific only

Wednesday, Dec. 14:
1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern

Radio Classics will then kick off a schedule filled with Christmas episodes from various old-time radio series. Included is the Suspense episode “Back for Christmas” (Dec. 23, 1943), starring Peter Lorre as hen-pecked husband Hubert Schumacher, who discovers a way to dispose of his shrewish wife.

"Back for Christmas" will air on these dates and times:

Monday, Dec. 12:
11 pm Pacific

Tuesday, Dec. 13:
2 am Eastern
11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern

Friday, Dec. 16:
1 am Pacific, 4 am Eastern
1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern

Saturday, Dec. 17:
3 pm Pacific, 6 pm Eastern

XM and Sirius radio subscribers may also listen to the programs over the internet. Log-in with your User ID and password. Not a subscriber? A free 30-day trial is also available through the XM radio website.

The Lorre radio programs airing this week are available through many merchants, including Radio Showcase. The Appendix of The Lost One lists Peter’s many radio credits – as well as his appearances on stage, in movies, and on television.

Published in 2005 through University Press of Kentucky, The Lost One is now available in paperback, and as an eBook on Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s Nook.

"Voice of Mystery" Stilled

The film, radio, television, and stage actor Harry Morgan passed away on Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011. He was 96.

As “The Voice of Mystery”, Morgan acted as narrator on Peter Lorre’s radio series Mystery in the Air, a replacement series for The Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Show in the summer of 1947.

Mystery in the Air presented tales of suspense “culled from the four corners of world literature”, adapted from such famous tales as Alexander Pushkin’s “The Queen of Spades” and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat”, as well as original radio dramas.

The final eight episodes are widely available through many dealers in old-time radio programs, as well as audio download on Amazon.com.

Morgan hosted all 13 episodes, beginning with “The Tell-Tale Heart” on July 3 and continuing to the final program, “Crime and Punishment”, adapted from Peter’s 1935 Columbia Studios film, on Sept. 25.

In the image above, Morgan (in black suit) stands, looking over Hans Conried’s shoulder at his script, with Peter Lorre at the microphone.

On March 14, 1979, author Stephen Youngkin took an interview with Harry Morgan for his Lorre biography, The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre, published in Sept. 2005 through University Press of Kentucky. Morgan recalled working with Lorre on Mystery in the Air, describing the intensity of Peter’s performances as he played to the microphone, not the studio audience.

Rest in peace, Mr. Morgan. Like Peter Lorre, you live on through the recordings of your many radio, movie and television roles.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at the Red Barn, Dec. 6, 2011

John Hardy will host a showing of the Walt Disney classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) at the Red Barn Theater on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2011.

The program begins at 7 p.m. The suggested donation is $5 at the door. Free popcorn is provided by the local Saugatuck company CNJ Popcorn Co. Other concessions are $1.

For more information, please call the theater at (269) 857-5300 or contact through eMail at lakeshorearts@comcast.net.

The Red Barn Theater is located in Saugatuck, Michigan, at 3657 63rd Street. Directions may be found on the theater’s website.

The filming of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is detailed in the pages of Stephen Youngkin’s Lorre biography The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre. The author interviewed director Richard Fleischer and art director Harper Goff, as well as stars James Mason and Kirk Douglas, on their remembrances of working on the movie.

At a time when most filmmakers wanted only to trade on his character type of villain, Peter appreciated his casting against type and the opportunity to play a hero – as well as provide the film’s comic moments.

Peter also hoped he would win new fans with the movie’s release . . .

The Maltese Falcon Kicks Off Film Series in Ponte Vedra Beach

On Wednesday, Nov. 30, the Bogart mystery film The Maltese Falcon (1941) will be the initial offering in the Hollywood Legends 4-week series of classic movies at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall.

The program begins at 7 p.m., with the doors opening at 6 p.m. From 6 to 7 p.m., David Luckin will provide music. Luckin is the host of the local PBS station WJCT’s Electro Lounge.

Admission is $5 at the door, and any dollar amount over the requested $5 will be matched by an anonymous donor towards the support of the WJCT radio station 89.9 FM. Tickets may also be purchased on-line through Ticket Master by clicking the “Buy Tickets” button on the Maltese Falcon entry on the Events page.

The Ponte Vedra Concert Hall is located at 1050 A1A North in the heart of Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Directions can be found on the venue’s website.

Parking is available on-site. The fee for this ticketed event is $5.

In his Peter Lorre biography, The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre, Stephen Youngkin details the making of The Maltese Falcon at Warner Bros. in the summer of 1941 through interviews with director John Huston and others who worked on the film. For Peter Lorre, the experience led to a contract with the studio and a lifelong friendship with star Humphrey Bogart.

The Lost One is now available in both paperback and e-Book formats, as well as hard-bound.

My Favorite Brunette at the Key West Public Library, Saturday, Nov. 5

The Key West Public Library will host a showing of My Favorite Brunette (1947) on Saturday, November 5, 2011.

The program begins at 10 a.m.

The library is located at 700 Fleming Street, Key West, Florida. For more information, please contact Robin Henderson, reference librarian, at (305) 809-5253.

To publicize the release of My Favorite Brunette (April 4, 1947), Peter Lorre appeared as a guest on Bob Hope’s radio program The Pepsodent Show on May 13. “How about a little creep music, Desi?” Bob Hope asks his bandleader, Desi Arnaz (real-life husband of Lucille Ball) – and Bob and Peter offered their own version of Inner Sanctum Mysteries.

The radio program is available for MP3 download through Amazon.com:

The Maltese Falcon at the Lark, Oct. 3, 2011

John Huston biographer Jeffrey Meyers will introduce a special showing of The Maltese Falcon at the historic Lark Theater, Monday evening on Oct. 3, 2011, in Larkspur, California. Autographed copies of John Huston: Courage and Art, available from Book Passage Bookstore and Café (Corte Madera, CA), will be on sale in the cinema lobby.

The program begins at 7 pm. For more information, please call (415) 924-5111.

Tickets are $10 for all seats and may be purchased at the box office or in advance by fax. Fax orders are accepted until 9 pm the day before the event; a fax order form may be downloaded from the theater’s website and sent to (415) 924-5459.

Parking is available on the streets near the theater.

The Lark Theater is located at 549 Magnolia Avenue in the Marin County town of Larkspur, California.

Built in 1936, the Lark remained a single-screen cinema in downtown Larkspur before threatened by the wrecking ball after years of closure. In 2004, Bernice Baeza and Heidi Hillenbrand led a group of dedicated volunteers in restoring the Lark to its 1936 glory. The Lark is now on the list of National Register of Historic Places and winner of the Art Deco Society Preservation Award.

In his authorized Lorre biography The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre, author Stephen D. Youngkin interviewed director John Huston on the making of The Maltese Falcon in the summer of 1941. Falcon was the first film Peter Lorre made at Warner Brothers. The resulting contract with the studio in 1943 ended Peter’s nomadic existence from studio to studio in the early 1940s – plus a lifelong friendship with Humphrey Bogart and an on-screen 9-film partnership with Sydney Greenstreet.

"The stuff that dreams are made of."

Der Verlorene at the Tribeca, Aug. 23

As part of their “Overdue” series, movie critics Nick Pinkerton and Nic Rapold will introduce Peter Lorre’s only directorial effort Der Verlorene (1951) on Tuesday night, Aug. 23, 2011, at 92YTribeca in New York City.

The program begins at 7 pm.

Tickets may be purchased through the Tribeca website, by fax, by mail, or in person at the box office on Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street, between 9 am and 5 pm. For more information, please call (212) 601-1000.

92YTribeca is located at 200 Hudson Street at Canal Street, convenient to city subway routes. Parking is available at the Varick Street Garage, located at 111 Varick Street, and the Central Parking Garage, 296 Hudson Street.

The making of Der Verlorene (The Lost One) is detailed in Chapter 8, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”, in Stephen D. Youngkin’s authorized biography The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre (University Press of Kentucky, 2005). In November of 2007, Kinowelt Home Entertainment released a 2-disc DVD of the movie, including many extras, available in Region 2 only.

Peter Lorre Movies in the Fall

September and October bring numerous treats to Peter Lorre fans this year – in particular, the Turner Classic Movies channel debut of The Constant Nymph (1943).

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

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September, 2011

Sept. 11 (Sun.), 8 pm, Turner Classic Movies channel – Casablanca (1942). Guest programmers Patrick McNally and Vernon Webb were two of the many responders to the tragedy that Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. McNally selects Casablanca because he and wife Liz were married on Sept. 11 and “As Time Goes By” was their wedding song. For their 20th anniversary in 2001, they had planned a golf date – abruptly cancelled when McNally, Chief of Operations at the New York City Fire Department, got the emergency call to the Twin Towers.

Sept. 28 (Wed.), 8 pm, TCM – The Constant Nymph (1943). TCM salutes the film preservation work of the Library of Congress Film Archive with 13 movies and 6 shorts over 24 hours. Host Robert Osborne is joined by Dr. Patrick Loughney, Chief of Archive’s Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation, located in Culpepper, Virginia.

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October, 2011

Oct. 12 (Wed.), 10:30 am, TCM – Mr. Moto’s Last Warning (1939). The only entry in the 8-film mystery series in the public domain, Mr. Moto’s Last Warning was nonetheless remastered in 2007 and packaged in a DVD set with Mr. Moto’s Gamble, Danger Island, and Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation.

Oct. 15 (Sat.), 9:30 am, TCM – The Beast With Five Fingers (1946).

Oct. 20 (Thurs.), 8 pm, TCM – The Mask of Dimitrios (1944). This first movie for actor Zachary Scott kicks off an evening of Scott-starring films.

Oct. 27 (Thurs.), 4:15 pm, TCM – “No. 5 Checked Out”. This episode of Screen Director’s Playhouse originally aired Jan. 18, 1956 over NBC. Ida Lupino directed Peter Lorre, William Talman, Theresa Wright, and Ralph Moody in this drama involving two crooks on the lam and hiding out in a cabin in a deaf woman’s remote mountain resort.

Oct. 30 (Sun.), 4 am, TCM – Around the World in 80 Days (1956). The final film on TCM's roster for "Star of the Month" Buster Keaton.

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

Happy viewing!

"The flicker of a film is like a heartbeat. Movies are in my blood. They're part of who I am." That's the new opening for TCM weekend host Ben Mankiewicz – and among the film clips is a nice close-up of Peter Lorre as Ugarte in Casablanca!

The Constant Nymph Comes to TCM in September, 2011

Peter Lorre fans have something very special to look forward to next month.

Newly-restored and freed from years of legal limbo, The Constant Nymph (1943) will make its Turner Classic Movies channel debut on Wednesday, September 28, 2011, at 8 pm EST.

The film kicks off an evening of movies in tribute to the Library of Congress Film Archive – including Baby Face (1933) and Two Heads on a Pillow (1934).

No word yet on The Constant Nymph coming to DVD.