“I should think,” said Dimitrios. “that in the end one is always defeated by stupidity. If it is not one’s own it is the stupidity of others.” His face changed. “Five Million, monsieur,” he shouted angrily. “Is it not enough or do you want this carrion to kill me?”
    Lorre usually played baddies, and often monsters, but not always. He teamed with the gargantuan  Sidney Greenstreet to make a number of nifty thrillers, of which my personal favourite was Three Strangers, if only because Lorre played the good guy. In Face Behind the Mask, he wore a scary Peter Lorre mask to hide his disfigured face and rather neatly took revenge on all who had betrayed him. But his strongest film was one he made himself, Der Verlorene in Germany with a parallel English version, called The Lost One, in which he was a scientist increasingly obliged to work for the Nazis who finds suicide the only possibility in the end. The extraordinary last scene in which he stands on the railway track with his hand over his face while in the background the speeding locomotive bears down upon him was the most horrifying thing I’d ever seen in the movies.
    But why Peter Lorre? Given the possibilities, it seemed a most disappointing choice. Certainly, everyone I knew thought so, to such a degree that I hardly dared confess it. The only other clue I can offer is that, for the last couple of decades, my permanent favourite has been Woody Allen. The connection seems to be obvious, but becomes a lot less so the more you think about it. Personally, I’ll just shake my head in puzzlement once more, and carry on.