Peter Lorre, 1904-1964

A production still from Mad Love (1935)

Today marks the birth anniversary of Peter Lorre, whom you'll probably recall from Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon among a whole host of great movies. But I'd prefer to mark his birthday by posting a few photos from performances that aren't quite so well known. First above is Mad Love, in which Lorre plays a mad scientist doctor who give pianist Colin Clive a hand transplant, only for those hands, taken from a knife thrower, to go back to their own life.



Peter Lorre had a smaller role in Arsenic and Old Lace. It's a movie you're more likely to remember for Cary Grant's manic antics, or for the two aunts who poison lonely old men to take them out of their misery. Lorre plays another doctor, this time performing plastic surgery on Grant's brother (Raymond Massey, in the center of the photo) who is also a fugitive from the law.