Peter Lorre in fiction
So after all these years, I finally got around to reading Pandaemonium, a sweeping novel of decadent golden-age Hollywood, her community of displaced Europeans in exile, and an ambitious director’s doomed plan to turn a routine B picture into a Greek tragedy, in more ways than one. Narrated by Peter Lorre.
I’m not kidding about that.
Lorre is our viewpoint character for most of the narrative. Or at least, he is some manner of expy, an exported fictional version of Peter, who seems more heavily based on his creepier movie roles than any semblance of real life. And it’s really a shame because—it pains me to say this—as written, Peter’s narration doesn’t actually need to be here. He does provide his usual sardonic sense of humor, which is much appreciated. I can easily hear his voice, as it were, in much of the text. But there’s a weird obsession with his Mr. Moto character for some reason (not even a mention of Mad Love anywhere?) as if that’s the only thing that audiences would recognize him for in 1938. European audiences, at that! I doubt Europe ever saw distribution of a Moto film. No, they would know him best for M, or if they somehow missed that explosive sensation, at least they would know him from a string of musical comedies. Not that it really matters. This is all a fictional timeline, and the real Lorre did not set foot anywhere near Europe in 1938 for reasons that should be obvious.
DISCLAIMER: I have only finished part 1 of this novel so far, and these are just my initial impressions without having read the full work yet. But already I’m honestly not sure why author Leslie Epstein (son and nephew respectively of the famous screenwriter Epstein brothers, Philip and Julius) would choose such a dynamic, fluid, fascinating personage as Peter Lorre to be our narrator only to turn him into a tiny-dicked kreep and a pervert, forever trying and failing to entice women to reach into his pockets for a “present.” I’m not saying Peter didn’t flirt outrageously with every woman he met (he did) but I’m pretty sure he didn’t go about it so creepily. The running gag seems to be that every time Lorre finds himself near a woman, he starts sweating buckets, which releases his powerful natural odor of… almonds. Um. Ha-ha? If there’s a joke here I don’t really get it. I have no doubt Peter was one sweaty boi, if his impassioned performances onscreen were any indication (I sympathize, being one sweaty girl myself) but if he did smell like almonds, this trait has gone unrecorded by history.
Minor tangent because I cannot ever let things go: what’s so bad about the smell of almonds, anyway? I can think of worse things to smell like. Why almonds? Is he suffering cyanide poisoning? Is it some side-effect of his cocaine habit? And of course here I must clear my throat and put the nerd glasses on because ahem, ackshually, the real Peter had a morphine addiction, at least get the details right if you’re going to impugn his character like this, gawd. X) Or is this all part of the author’s barely disguised fetish, whatever that is? Not judging or anything, I’m just so confused.
If that didn’t confuse me enough, there’s an unusual mix of real-life names sprinkled among the fictitious characters, and I’m having a devil of a time trying to figure out why it was done this way. Lorre is referred to by name, even his original name Laszlo Loewenstein (or Löwenstein in real life but the former is how it appears in the text). But the director Rudolf von Beckmann and his star actress Magdalena Mezaray are expies of… several people? As far as I can tell. At first I thought they were meant to be parodies of Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich, but later on, von Sternberg and Dietrich were referred to by name, existing alongside their own parodies in this world, it would seem. Then, certain details emerge about the von Beckmann character, as he is called in front of Dr. Goebbels for some life-threatening accusations (a masterful scene, actually), which made me think he was loosely based on some mix of Fritz Lang and Bertolt Brecht. He’s certainly a Brechtian figure, what with his weak heart and unwavering disdain for the studio system, and the little fiction of being called up personally by Goebbels was a story Lang retold for years, to say nothing of his hidden Jewish heritage.
Anyway, all this aside… believe it or not, I’m actually enjoying the story (so far). The way it’s written is really quite cinematic (not surprising, coming from the son of a screenwriter) and is easily imagined as an old film, which is something I can appreciate. It’s how I like to envision my own writing as well: an imagined film that might exist in the past, but never did. I’ve heard from past reviews that Pandaemonium starts out strong before descending into nonsense, but we shall see. I’ll let you know if things get any worse. :P
