'The Maltese Falcon' is a mystery classic

The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Gladys George, and Elisha Cook Jr.
Director: John Huston
Rating: Ten of Ten Starts

When private detective Sam Spade (Bogart) tries to solve the mystery surrounding the murder of his partner, he finds himself drawn into a struggle between eccentric treasure hunters (Greenstreet and Lorre) and a beautiful con artist who may or may not also be a coldhearted killer (Astor). At stake is the Maltese Falcon, a treasure of almost unimaginable value.

"The Maltese Falcon" is one of the few movies that truly deserves the label "classic." It's a perfectly paced detective story, with just the right mix of suspense and humor to bring out the maximum effectiveness of both elements as they play off each other.

The characters are quirky and unpredictable to the point where the final outcome of the story remains in question until the final few minutes of the film, and each actor is perfectly cast in their role. Even better, every line of dialogue is perfectly crafted and delivered with spot-on timing.

In fact, everything in this film is about as perfect as a film could possibly be. If you're a fan of the hardboiled detective genre or mysteries in general and you haven't yet seen this masterpiece, you owe it to yourself to change that.

Humphrey Bogart as the deeply flawed hero Sam Spade is particularly excellent in the part, as a man with questionable moral values yet a firm personal code of honor who finds a woman (Mary Astor's Brigid O'Shaughnessy) who at first seems capable of bringing out the best in him, but who ultimately may end up bringing out the absolute worst in him. While Spade is constantly fighting verbally and physically with the Lorre, Cook and Greenstreet's villains, it is Brigid who is Spade's main foil and she turns out to be one of the screen's greatest femme fatales, because Astor brings a vulnerability to a character who may be the hardest of any of the hard cases that populate this story that goes a long way to keeping the mysteries swirling through the plot open questions until the very end. As amusing and dramatic as Lorre and Greenstreet's performances are, it is Astor who is the true driver of the story, providing a great portrayal of a character that is almost as important as Bogart's Sam Spade when it comes to the success of this film.

There are only a handful of movies that I've watched more than once. "The Maltese Falcon" is one of those. Check it out, and I'm sure you'll see why.






Trivia: "The Maltese Falcon" was the third adaptation of the Hammett novel by the same title. This goes to show that not all remakes are bad. Some are even improvements on the original film. (Although, by all accounts, the 1931 and 1936 versions are pretty good, too, with the 19365 version being a spoof. I haven't seen either of those older movies yet, but both other versions are included in the DVD edition I've linked to above while the Blue-Ray edition only includes the 1936 comedy version, "Satan Met a Lady".)

A rarely thought-of Halloween classic

October is here, and ghosts and goblins and creepy crawlies will soon be showing up all over the place. I'll be celebrating the Month of Monsters with reviews of some of the very best Creature Features to ever grace the silver screen all this month at Terror Titans--click here to check them out--and with a special series of Halloween-themed images on Picture Perfect Wednesdays, here.

However, I'm kicking it all off with one of the best yet often-overlooked Halloween-themed pictures I'm aware of.

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
Starring: Cary Grant, Jane Adair, Josephine Hull, Peter Lorre, Raymond Massey, Pricilla Lane, and John Alexander
Director: Frank Capra
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

It's October 31, and on the very day celebrity theatre critic Mortimor Brewster (Grant) is to secretly marry his fiance (Lane), everything that can go wrong does go wrong. He discovers his spinster aunts (Adair and Hull) are serial killers who have been murdering lonely old men out of what they consider kindness, and that his uncle (Alexander), who believes he is Teddy Roosevelt, has been burying the bodies of in the Panama Canal he is burying in the basement. To make matters even worse, Mortimor's homicidal brother (Massey) shows up, along his unscrupulous plastic surgeon (Lorre) partner-in-crime.


"Arsenic and Old Lace" is one of the best comedies ever made. It's a dark screwball comedy that's driven by its sharp, witty dialogue and characters so loveable you forgive them for being insane serial killers.

Technically, the film is also a masterpiece of direction and staging. The multi-layered routines that take place at several points in the film are gut-busting hilarious, with the one where Grant is describing a bad play he once reviewed to Lorre, while the action of the plot he is relating unfolds behind him. It's even more spectacular the way the film hits the ground running and never stops to catch its breath until the final, snicker-worthy scene. It also doesn't let the audience catch their breath, but keeps viewers giggling and laughing as the film's pace grows more and more frenetic.

Everyone in the cast is perfect, with the interplay between Grant and the two murderous little old ladies--with Grant becoming increasingly agitated and panicky, and Adair & Hull growing increasingly confused because they see nothing wrong in what they do--being particularly hilarious. In fact, Grant's comic timing was probably never more perfect than in this film, and that even includes the one I rank as my favorite comedy starring him, "Bringing Up Baby".

Special mention also needs to go to Lorre, who mumbles his way through his part with hilarious, drunken obliviousness; and to Massey, who manages to be funny and menacing at the same time, in his Boris Karloff-spoofing role.

With its October 31 setting, its dark subject matter, its intelligent script, its perfect staging, and top-notch performances by some great actors, "Arsenic and Old Lace" is great Halloween viewing no matter what sort of movies you're into. (I don't think it makes for good party viewing/background noise, as it's a film that deserves and requires your attention, but it's a definate must-see.)

Nelson, Barry Nelson: The first James Bond

Casino Royale (1954)
Starring: Barry Nelson, Linda Christian, Peter Lorre and Michael Pate
Director: William H. Brown Jr.
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When allied intelligence agencies learn that a key Soviet operative (Lorre) has been funding his gambling habit with KGB money, secret agent James Bond (Nelson) is charged with beating him at one final high-stakes card game and then expose his theft and force the Soviet spymasters to kill him in order to save face. When one of Bond's former lovers (Christian) turns up in the employ of the enemy, the mission becomes far more complicated and dangerous.


I did not make a mistake in the plot summary above. In this, the very first screen adventure of Ian Fleming's James Bond, Britain's super-spy isn't British at all. It's a little known fact that the very first James Bond adaptation was made by American producers and directed at an American television audience. They decided that Bond needed to be an American so they could relate better to him. While it feels a bit odd to have James Bond presented as an American, Barry Nelson does a decent job with the character, being at least the equal of the other one-shot James Bond, George Lazenby from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".

As would be expected from a 1950s television drama, Bond more a man of romance than randiness. Also, as would be expected from a 1950s television drama, especially when one considers that it was performed and broadcast live, the adventure is not as wild as any of the "official" Bond pictures that followed. What is very unexpected, however, is the cold brutality of the villain, La Chiffe. He is as vicious and brutal as any Bond villain that follows. In fact, I don't think Bond was tortured in such a straight-forward manner as he is in this film until the Pierce Brosnan-starring "Die Another Day" in 2002.

Cast-wise, the film is also better than expected. As mentioned, Barry Nelson plays a very good Bond, while Peter Lorre is likewise the equal of any actor who portrayed a Bond villain in the 25 other cinematic Bond adventures in the 50+ years since this was filmed. Even Linda Christian is good--perhaps she is better in live performances than traditional filmmaking, because I never would have thought she could act based on other performances I've seen from her.

If you like spy thrillers, I think this movie is worth checking out. That goes double if you're a big-time Bond fan, as this historical curiosity shows that there has been more than one "reboot" of the James Bond "franchise" since its beginning.

(This version of "Casino Royale" is included as a bonus feature on the 2002 edition of the David Niven- and Ursula Andress-starring "Casino Royale" from 1967. (I will be reviewing that version eventually on the Watching the Detectives blog.)

The Invisible Man takes on the Nazis!

It's 65 years since Nazi Germany was broken and tossed on the scrapheap of history. I'm marking that great acheivement with a mini-blogathon.

Invisible Agent (1942)
Starring: Jon Hall, Cedric Hardwicke, Ilona Massey, Peter Lorre, and J. Edward Bomberg
Director: Edwin L.Marin
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

After he is threatened by Axis agents, Frank (Hall) decides to put the invisibility formula invented by his grandfather to use in the War Effort. He parachutes into Germany, teams up with a beautiful allied spy (Massey) and sets about destroying the organizers of a Fifth Column operation in the United States (Hardwicke and Lorre).


"Invisible Agent" is the second real sequel to "The Invisible Man". It's also an average WW2 propaganda film that shows the the Axis to be as foolish, evil and treacherous as can be imagined, while the Allies are brilliant and right-minded. Sort of.

While the Nazis are as nefarious as possible--decietful, backstabbing Hitler-worshipping sycophantic cowards every last one of them--our hero is also a bit hard to root for. Frank, as the invisible super-spy, is either dumb as a post or the invisibility forumula has a different effect on him than it had on those how used it in "The Invisible Man" and "The Invisible Man Returns". Instead of turning into the sort of megalomaniac who would try to get to Hitler and replace him as the leader of the Riech (which Griffin from the original film would almost certainly have done), Frank instead plays pranks on the Nazis at inopportune times--endangering both himself and deep-cover double-agent Massey--and falls into deep, coma-like sleeps at even worse times. Is it the invisibility formula at work, is Frank a moron, or is it just bad writing? Whatever the explanation, the Invisible Agent isn't much of a hero to root for... unless you're a 13 year old (who are probably the target audience for the film).

The target audience might also be the reason why it feels like a couple of punches were being pulled in this movie. While the Nazis are definately decadent scum in this movie, their evil doesn't even come close to approaching that displayed in indepdent productions from the time like "Hitler, Dead or Alive" or "Beast of Berlin", films that share many thematic and propaganda-content elements to this movie. Either, the fantastic elements of an invisible spy led Universal to choose to target it at a younger audience--and thus toned down some of the more unpleasant aspects of the Nazis--or maybe the very fact that Universal was a major film studio and corporation with international interests even in the 1940s and the two other films I mentioned were made by small operations limited the studio's desire to make a film that savaged the Axis as fully as it deserved.

The film is fun enough and the invisible man effects are decent--as is the idea that the invisible man here chooses to make himself visible using cold cream and a towel draped over his head instead of somehow finding yards worth of bandages everywhere he goes. The actors also give good performances, with only Peter Lorre failing to convince; he plays a Japanese intelligence agent and he is about as unconvincing as I would be if cast in the part of a Somali pirate captain. I can only imagine how bad the "Mr. Moto" films must be....

'The Man Who Knew Too Much'is worth knowing

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
Starring: Leslie Banks, Peter Lorre, Edna Best, and Nova Pilbeam
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When Bob and Jill Lawrence (Banks and Best) become aware of an impending political assassination, the leader of the terror ring, Abbott (Lorre), has their daughter(Pilbeam) kidnapped. Abbott hoped the threat to the daughter would keep the couple frightened and silent until the deed was done, but he underestimates the courage and tenacity of these parents who will go to any length not only to rescue their child, but to see the terror ring destroyed.


"The Man Who Knew Too Much" may not be Hitchcock's greatest film, but it is still an exciting piece of work, and the family dynamics presented are very nice, particularly between the characters of Bob and Jill Lawrence. Lorre also portrays a villain who manages to come across as charming and supremely creepy at the same time.

One thing that I noticed about this film is that the characters seemed different than what seem to be the mainstays of Hitchcock's movies... they seemed to be more apt to openly accept and embrace adventure; most of the central characters in his movies seem to be unwilling heroes at best. However, I recently learned that the script was originally supposed to be a Bulldog Drummond film, set years after he and Phillys Clavering were married. Hitchcock was unable to get the rights to those characters, so the script was redrafted to remove all references to Hugh Drummond and friends.

Faster paced than just about any other Hitchcock movie, and with more witty banter that even in "The Lady Vanishes", "The Man Who Knew Too Much" is a fine way to spend an hour and a half.

Peter Lorre lends a hand in the name of 'Mad Love'

Mad Love (aka "The Hands of Orlac") (1935)
Starring: Frances Drake, Peter Lorre, and Colin Clive
Director: Karl Freund
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Dr. Gogol (Lorre), a brilliant but mentally unstable surgeon (Lorre) becomes obsessed with the beautiful actress Yvonne Orlac (Drake)--obsessed to the point where he has a wax statue of her installed in his music room. When Yvonne's husband's (Clive) hands are crushed in an accident, Orlac saves them using a revolutionary surgery technique to save them... but then turns to the task of driving Orloc insane, so he can claim Yvonne as his own.


"Mad Love" is a slightly muddled movie with a confused plot (made more-so by the obnoxious comic relief character of an American newspaper reporter (played by Ted Healey). However, the film is well-acted and filmed on impressively lit sets--Gogol's large, empty house/clinic becomes a great metaphor for his his hollow soul, as shadows play throughout it--and its mixture of romance and horror is bound to entertain lovers of early horror movies. The climactic scenes are particularly chilling, as the depths of Gogol's psychopathy becomes crystal clear.

(It may even serve as part of the lineup for a Bad Movie Nite, although it's by no means a bad movie. Some of the more melodramatic elements may tickle the fancy of certain kinds of movie lovers, especially Dr. Gogol's disguise at one point in the film. It's one of those rare cinematic moments that's both scary and hilarious.)

Although not necessarily considered one of the "founding" films of the horror genre, it is certainly the first "transplanted hands take on a life of their own" movies. I can think of at least three others I've seen over the years with very similar plots. (And I think there's a fourth one lurking in my Review Pile.)

'Beat the Devil' is quirky fun

Beat the Devil (1954)
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Robert Morley, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lorre, Edward Underdown, and Ivor Barnard
Director: John Huston
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A down-and-out, formerly wealthy couple (Bogart and Lollobrigida) hook up with a group of international criminals who wish to use their reputation in order to facilitate a scam in British East Africa involving the acquisition of land rich in uranium. They befriend an English couple (Jones and Underdown) who will be traveling with them on the same tramp freighter to Africa, but their new friends aren't quite what they seem.


"Beat the Devil" is a low-key comedy that spoofs the crime dramas so popular in the '40s and '50s and that holds your attention with its fast-moving plot and witty dialogue. The characters featured are all seemingly stock characters from those movies--and the lead actors playing them have done exactly these types of characters in other films--but as the movie progresses, we discover they've all been given slight twists that turn them into mildly comic versions of their stock counterparts. (The exception is Bogart, who remains the straight man throughout, as the other characters have their ludicrous sides exposed and he tries to keep his ticket back to wealth from collapsing.)

Particuarly fun are Morley, who portrays a gullible and inept criminal mastermind; Lorre, who plays an escaped Nazi who now goes by the name of O'Hara, despite his accent marking him as anything but Irish; Barnard, who portrays the homicidal British ex-Army officer who thinks the defeat of Hitler has sent the world into a downward spiral; and Jones, who plays the wide-eyed British subject abroad but whose unending pathelogical lying (and her inability to keep her stories straight or even tell the same lie twice) serves as the catalyst that sows distrust and chaos among the story's characters. And things are all the more hilarious, because everyone is playing their parts straight and taking things as seriously as you'd expect them to in any other crime drama.

With an all-star cast giving fine performances, powered by John Huston's skilled direction and Truman Capote's sharp and witty script, "Beat the Devil" is another one of those classics that is seen too rarely.

If you decide to check this movie out, I want to warn you away from the version released by Passion Productions--it's got an orange cover with black-and-white images of Bogart, Jones, and Lollobrigida on the cover. The dialogue is out of sync for a good portion of the film, and it's very distracting.

Three horror greats and a novelty band in a time capsule

You'll Find Out (aka "Wild Wild Spookhouse") (1940)
Starring: Kay Kyser and His Orchestra, Dennis O'Keefe, Peter Lorre, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, M.A. Bogue, Helen Parrish and Ginny Simms
Director: David Butler
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Kay Kyser (Keyser) and the wacky musicians and singers that make up his orchestra are booked to play at the 21st birthday party of their manager's heiress girlfriend (Parrish). Swing music, high-jinx, and attempted murder follow as Keyser must team with a renowned debunker of psychics also invited to the party (Lorre) who has also been invited to the event in order to reveal the true nature of a phoney spiritualist (Lugosi), who has been bleeding money from the young lady's gullable guardian.


"You'll Find Out" is interesting viewing for two reasons.

First of all, it's the only film where Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre appear together. The three actors don't have alot of screen time, but their parts are meaty and they get to show their best sides; even Lugosi has a decent part, something that was becoming increasingly rare for him at this point. (In a meta-critical sense, their appearance is an almost Three Fates and/or The Stages of Man sort of affair--Lorre is on the verge of acheiving super-stardom, Karloff is at the pinnacle of his career, and Lugosi is slipping from twilight and into darkness.)

Second, it's an example of the fleeting nature of fame. While Karloff, Lugosi and Lorre have some presence in the minds of virtually every movie fan--even if their names might be a bit vague--how many know who Kay Kyser is? And this despite the fact that Kay Kyser was every bit as big a star as Karloff and Lugosi in his time, the leader of a very popular novelty band that had numerous Billboard-charting hit records, was the centerpiece of their own weekly network radio show, and starred in seven movies, including this one. Some 65 years after retiring from show business during World War II, Kyser and his band are completely forgotten by all. You can watch this movie to see what place Slim Shadey will hold in the public conciousness in sixty years... not to mention what "8 Miles" will look and sound like.

As for the film itself, it's more corny than suspenseful, which is fitting given that it was not a vehicle for the three horror actors but for Kyser's orchestra. Some viewers might be dissapointed at this, but I've always enjoyed Bela Lugosi's comedic turns. Lorre also has some very funny scenes with Kyser, sometimes being the straight man, sometimes being the deliverer of the jokes... and doing an equally good job in either role. (You may notice by now that I've not said much about Karloff. That's because there isn't much to say. He plays a dignified, slightly sinister lawyer and he delivers his lines on cue. It's a decent part and it's key to the story, but there's not much else to say other than, "Look... Boris Karloff!"

Is "You'll Find Out" a classic? No, "Ghostbreakers" this is not. However, it holds up a little better than many other pieces of disposable cinema made for no purpose other than to cash in on a cross-marketing opportunity of a musician.

'The Chase' is an interesting, if incomplete, experiment

The Chase (1946)
Starring: Robert Cummings, Peter Lorre, Michele Moran, and Steve Cochran
Director: Arthur Ripley
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Chuck (Cummings), a down-on-his-luck WW2 vet, is hired as a driver for a psychopathic gangster (Cochran) and his morose, penny-pinching sidekick (Lorre). When Chuck takes pity on the gangster's wife (Moran) and helps her flee to Cuba, he finds himself framed for her murder. Or does he?


"The Chase" is an interesting experiment in filmmaking and storytelling that will draw you in with its moody lighting, quirky characters, and good acting. The film will then confuse you when it takes a sudden turn, revealing that part or all of what you've just witnessed was a fantasy had by someone in the throws of a psychotic break. Finally, it will frustrate you by muddling the lines between the film's reality and the dream sequence, and completely blowing the ending with one cop-out piled upon another.

The end result is a film that's worth seeing, even if the experience will be somewhat dissapointing. It teeters on the brink between a 5 and 4 rating, mostly because of the botched ending. If a stronger finale than a car crash and a stronger resolution of Chuck's mental situation had been offered, this could have been a 6 or perhaps even a 7, because everything leading up to the end is pretty good. Lorre's performance is particularly noteworthy. Watch him closely during the scenes in the car for a demonstration of how little a good actor needs to do to establish a character's feelings.

Karloff and Lorre carry this mild comedy

The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942)
Starring: Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Jeff Donnell, Larry Parks and Max Rosenbloom
Director: Lew Landers
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

With true never-say-die spirit, Dr. Billings (Karloff) continues to work on creating super-soldiers that will help win the war against the Axis. However, the never-say-die spirit doesn't extend to his test subjects who are stacking up like cordwood in the basement. But will the new influx of visitors to his home--that is being converted to a bed-and-breakfast by an adventurous divorcee (Donnell)--bring more test subjects or the revelation of his failures?


"The Boogie Man Will Get You" is a dark comedy with screwball overtones. The script is so-so, and it unfolds along predictable lines until a series of amusing twists at the end. However, the comic antics of Boris Karloff--as a senile mad doctor--and Peter Lorre--as a corrupt small town mayor/doctor/animal control officer/sheriff/whathaveyou--are entertaining enough to carry viewers through.

If you've only seen Karloff do drama or horror, this film is well worth checking out. In it, he shows himself more than capable of doing comedy... and he and Lorre make a great comedic duo. The film isn't the best, but Karloff excels, with he and Lorre making a fabulous comedic duo.

The film is one of four included in the Boris Karloff entry for Columbia's "Icons of Horror" DVD multipack series. As such, it serves as harmless filler, supplementing the three far better films in the set.

Early spy thriller from Alfred Hitchcock disappoints

Secret Agent (1936)
Starring: John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll and Robert Young
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

British Intelligence fakes the death of author Edgar Brodie (Gielgud) so he can be sent to Switzerland on a mission to find and assassinate a German spy at the height of World War I. He is assisted by the coldhearted General (Lorre) and the gung-ho newbie spy Elsa (Carroll), and together they find the rewards of being spies are hardly ever worth the dangers and damage to conscience and morals the work demands.


"Secret Agent" is a mess of a movie. It's got some fine actors performing great characters; it's captures the moral ambiguity of patriotism and duty to country when it is performed in the shadowy world of secret intelligence work; and it has several thrilling and/or incredibly well-staged sequences--with the meeting at the church, the mountain hike, and the chocolate factory chase being foremost among these. What the film doesn't have is a coherent script. Its many great elements never quite come together, we never quite get a sense that anything in the film really matters, much of it doesn't make any sense--starting with Brodie's recruitment by British Intelligence, which means the entire movie is standing on a trembling foundation--and to say the ending feels rushed is a massive understatement.

This is the first Hitchcock film I've seen that actually disappointed me. I'm sure there will be others, but I was surprised at how weak this one is overall, given the relative high regard others seem to hold it in. Out of the Hitchcock films I've seen, this is the first one I feel I should recommend viewers to stay away from.