Steve Buscemi and Peter Lorre

Two Actors With a Place in the World of Film, But I'm Not Sure Where

by Bruce (October 10, 2001)

He's thin and creepy looking to begin with. In films, he always plays the bad guy's sidekick that seemed to be on his own side the entire time. He was the character that the good guy can't trust but needs to in order to survive. He always got his ass kicked but always got away with the goods. Who am I talking about? Not one, but two of the most gifted character actors of the early and later 20th century: Peter Lorre and Steve Buscemi. Two of the greatest actors who ever played crooked thieves.

For those of you who don't know Peter Lorre go to your local grocery store cereal aisle and pick up a box of Boo-Berry's. Remember the commercial? That throaty-voiced cartoon ghost is based on Peter Lorre. Lorre played the side kick to Sydney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Casablanca (1942). In both films Lorre was the lacky who was willing to turn on his boss for the right price. Later in his career, Lorre made a few comedies and did an episode of Alfred Hitchcock's weekly television show. But Lorre's bad guys of the 1940's film noir were the finest of his career.

The 1990's brought film noir back. Quentin Tarantino's film Reservoir Dogs (1992) gave the world Mr. Pink, a cockroach-like diamond thief who gets beat up by Harvey Keitel but lives through a shootout. The Coen Brothers made Fargo (1997) and cast Buscemi as an unlucky bank robber who gets shot in the face and then goes through a wood chipper.

So what place in the world of film do Lorre and Buscemi have? An important one. The good guy in a movie is only as good as the villain. The villain is only as good as his henchmen. If Tom Hanks is the new Jimmy Stewart, then Steve Buscemi is the new encarnation of Peter Lorre. Peter Lorre is the ancestor of Steve Buscemi. If I had a working Way-Back Machine like Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman had and I was to recast The Maltese Falcon with Buscemi or bring Lorre to the 1990's and cast him for the role of Mr. Pink then the same thing would happen. Wonderfully acted creepy characters.