even more german newspaper articles about peter lorre (plus ads for his movies and drawings!)
warning: SUPER long post incoming this is pretty much all i got from the german archive i found, at least until the 50s.
i like her writing style its very flowery in a way. you can almost imagine yourself being there with them. i used google translate but had to do a lot of tweeking to get the right tone so it took a while 😭 but im happy with it. also that mouth and expression look amazing - no notes lmao.
"Peter Lorre, the Person and the Artist.
Many would surely have had a similar experience to mine; when I contacted Peter Lorre, I was overcome by a slight shudder, a feeling I thought long gone, reminiscent of my childhood. Is it really possible to identify an actor so strongly with his suggestively portrayed character that one feels — in this blatant case — afraid of the murderer from Fritz Lang's sound film "M"? The answer is indicative of Lorre: Behind the powerful impact of this performance lies his artistic personality, his fundamental presence and long-lastingness… Transitioning to the impression of Peter Lorre in his private life is like moving from darkness into light. One needs a moment to get one's bearings before settling into the small scene of the late morning: meeting at the café at the Kurfürstendamm. A short, stocky man, his soft hat sitting casually, a bit tilted on his head, hurries in, looks around, and greets me… Lorre, "the murderer" — Peter Lorre, a very trustworthy seeming man in private. As becomes clear at the start of our conversation, he is a profoundly intelligent person who, despite his youth — he is 28 years old — takes his profession and life seriously, like someone who has matured over decades. This, as he explains, is due to years of his life that have counted double and triple…
Let's turn on the good old "vision" of the silent film, the visual recollection of significant events. The image fades in… The son of a big landowner in the Carpathians runs away — driven by the urge to become an actor. He comes to Vienna, starves and starves for the sake of his ideals, performs improvisational theater in some studio with a friend in the evening, loses himself in fantastical experiments, sleeps in the Prater* at night, and the next day the hunger begins anew. He falls ill, has to lie still for a long, long time, quiet and alone… and this time gives him the peace and composure that others struggle for in the maelstrom of experiences, consciously and unconsciously. Recovered, he takes up the fight all the more stubbornly and tenaciously. By chance, he finds himself in the theater in Breslau and from there, three years ago, to Aufricht in Berlin. Fade out - fade in: before me sits Peter Lorre, the son of a big landowner — our established Berlin actor. Three years were enough to secure him a place in the front rank of stage artists.
His great, unique talent is permeated by a conscious economy of his means. He avoids fully revealing his "people," plucking at a single string of their character's instrument and guiding the audience's empathy toward an individual understanding of the portrayed man, his presumed motives, his past and future development. Nothing seems less artistic to him than depicting the "cliché" of a prototype. With a delicate touch, he imparts the right dose of human variations. It might have been easier to portray the hunchback in the new UFA sound film "The White Demon" as grotesque and uncanny simply because of his physical disability. Lorre plays him — the drug dealer and criminal — with the all-too-human vanity of the cripple who, under no circumstances wants to be such, who spends his money having suits tailor-made to conceal, and whose need for recognition makes him settle at best with a slightly crooked shoulder. That is remarkable in a way, something that compels reflection: where does the impetus for crime lie, where the guilt that makes this poor man guilty? Lorre's art rests on a broad psychoanalytic foundation because he is a true actor of humans**.
Lorre has since appeared in a number of latest films, for example, the comically sleepy photojournalist in F.P.I.
Just recently, he appeared in the UFA sound film "Schuß im Morgengrauen," this time alongside Karl Ludwig Diehl, Ery Bos, and Theodor Loos, in a major new role. This new crime film was directed by Alfred Zeisler, one of our best crime film directors. The film depicts, in a gripping plot, the fight against jewel smuggling. In this smuggling gang, Peter Lorre plays the role of Kloz, a good-natured but notoriously alcoholic "jewelry expert". Even the preparations for Lorre's new role gave rise to various incidents. So, during rehearsals, Lorre claims to his director that in "his young years" he hasn't yet developed enough experience to know what it's like to live life in a completely "drowsy" state. This observation amused Lorre, not least because his director's anti-alcohol stance before and during filming is proverbial.
He loves the barracks-like atmosphere of the studios in Neubabelsberg, the absolute seclusion of the studios there, and speaks enthusiastically of the solidarity during filming, the shared commitment of everyone to the project. He recounts their cheerful, congenial little travel group on the UFA sound film "The White Demon," the fantastic days on the ship at the pier, the trip to Portugal, the picturesque impressions, and the most colorfully vibrant harbor atmosphere captured in the film.
However, he did have a heated argument with Hans Albers during the voyage (according to the script, of course!). But why does he dare approach the blond Hans's sister with morphine, anyway? You wouldn't think him capable of it, looking so harmless and with an almost gullible expression on his face – on a late summer morning in the café…"
*amusement park in vienna
**is that grammatically correct? Does that make sense? 🤷♀️
and now i REALLY want to watch schuß im morgengrauen
movie that lorre wrote himself but never got made, he wanted to play kaspar hauser. honestly i see the resemblance.
napoleon news and yet another film that never came to be: lorre as the good soldier svejk. they wanted to get charlie chaplin as director, too!
lorre and him were very close friends and would greet each other enthusiastically . he would use his friendship with chaplin to impress others by staging "surprise" meetings with him when taking walks.
according to a poll done by england's "film weekly" the top 10 best actors included three germans (who fled berlin) conrad veidt, oscar homolka and peter lorre.
some more ads and a really cute drawing of peter
