Greenstreet/Lorre: The Verdict (1946)

We’ve come to the end of June, with five films starring Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, and if we’ve learned anything, it’s this – the whole of the Greenstreet/Lorre partnership is truly greater than the sum of its parts. Aside from The Maltese Falcon (and excepting Casablanca, in which they share no scenes), it’s safe to say that Lorre and Greenstreet cement their reputations in spite of, not because of, the films they headlined together. When you think of these two, you’ll sooner think of the net effect of their personae than of any one film of theirs. Case in point: The Verdict, which is neither very engaging nor is it generous toward its stars, who more often than not seem bored with the whole affair.

Sydney Greenstreet stars as George Edward Grodman, late of Scotland Yard but dismissed when an innocent man is hanged after his alibi arrives too late for the courts. Grodman slinks into ignominious retirement across the street from his best friend, the artist Victor Emmric (Peter Lorre). But when a locked-door murder mystery confounds Grodman’s replacement (George Coulouris), Grodman and Emmric find the opportunity to clear the former superintendent’s name while putting the new inspector in his place.

 

Locked-door mysteries are always a treat, and I will say that the solution in The Verdict is ingenious – inherently unsolvable, yes, but a clever trick. It’s a bit of a cheat on the audience (who may or may not predict the ending simply by random supposition among the suspects), but without spoiling I’ll say that The Verdict did keep me guessing until the mystery was solved, as Aristotle would want it, in a manner that was both surprising and inevitable. But it’s that surprise element that nags at me, leading me to believe that the film’s relative disinterest in follow-along sleuthing might better position The Verdict as Victorian noir rather than as a Victorian detective story. Poirot, this ain’t.

 

Greenstreet’s Grodman is the quintessential down-on-his-luck gumshoe, aiming to clear his name by solving One Last Case. The Verdict is very nearly worth the price of admission for Greenstreet’s sideburns, which are almost as large as he is. But something in Greenstreet’s performance seems lackadaisical, not quite sleepwalking but certainly drowsy and a bit disinterested. There’s something of that attitude intrinsic to the character, who is worn out and loathing retirement; like some aspiring writers, he dreads the prospect of composing and of finishing his book. However, that ennui doesn’t quite connect with the audience in the way of, say, Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep. More often than not, Greensteet seems only to need a nap.

 

Lorre, too, plays a bit more droopy-eyed than usual. Compared to his more dynamic writer in The Mask of Dimitrios, this artist seems disaffected, animated only by the prospect of helping his friend get revenge of a sort on the man who edged him out of Scotland Yard. Though he is an artist by trade, he too spends little time on his craft, apparently welcoming the distraction. Lorre’s best scene is one of the last in the film, in which it appears he’s about to confess to the film’s central murder. He doesn’t, alas, one of the film’s many red herrings, but Lorre sells the very intimation of a confession with his guilty behavior and stooped posture. When he tells Grodman how tired he is, you don’t just believe him – you feel it. 

 

What I didn’t feel during the film, however, was captivated. I found myself wishing I were watching The Maltese Falcon instead, reminding myself of just how fully good Lorre and Greenstreet could be. Often the still images of the pair are fodder for my wild imagination, while the films themselves never quite live up to the productions in my own head. I suppose that’s partially my fault, especially since Peter Lorre is my all-time favorite actor; having seen how good he can be, I tend to imagine that his vehicles are always as engaging as, say, Arsenic and Old Lace or Mad Love. Similarly, Greenstreet can make a meal of a monologue, but it seems that the five films this month were content simply to rest on his reputation without giving him much opportunity to spread his ample wings and do something astonishing.

 

Theirs was an archetypal camaraderie, a Laurel & Hardy for the graveyard crowd. It’s sublimely grotesque when Greenstreet supervises the exhumation of a corpse in The Verdict, with Lorre peering over his shoulder to declare, “I have always had a suppressed desire to see a grave opened... especially at night.” It’s a line so creepy that you might expect it to have come from a Lorre impersonator, but to their credit Lorre and Greenstreet always knew their lanes, never afraid to play to their strengths and embrace the risk of caricature. Indeed, their cameo in Hollywood Canteen, a brief sequence in which they play themselves, is unmissable for its laser-focused blend of menace and mischief. Sometimes, just the idea of them is enough.

 

It’s certainly been enough to get me through this month. Even though the films themselves may not be classics, it’s impossible to imagine any fan of either actor not seeking these flicks out at one point or another. At an impressionable age, I pored over The Films of Peter Lorre with obsessive devotion, repeatedly renting it from the library to the point that I’m surprised the librarians didn’t just give me the book. I knew these two actors were capable of greatness, and we’ve proven as much over the past five weeks. But I also imagined what it would be like to see more great films with Lorre and Greenstreet. After this month, I suppose I’m still imagining.

 

The Verdict is not rated. Directed by Don Siegel. Written by Peter Milne. Based on the novel The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill. Starring Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Joan Lorring, George Coulouris, and Rosalind Ivan.

Greenstreet/Lorre: Three Strangers (1946)

After a few weeks of Casablanca knockoffs, it’s refreshing to arrive at Three Strangers and find that it is instead an off-brand version of The Maltese Falcon, with three unsavory characters who find their lives changed by their obsession with a bronze statue. Aside from the headlining duo of Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, Three Strangers has a number of other tangential connections to The Maltese Falcon, but it’s ultimately a pale imitation of a greater film with good performances nonetheless from the usual suspects.

Crystal Shackleford (Geraldine Fitzgerald) invites two strangers to her apartment with an unlikely offer: her bronze statue of the goddess Kwan Yin will grant them all one wish at the stroke of midnight. The three strangers pool their resources on a sweepstakes ticket; charismatic drunk Johnny West (Peter Lorre) is charmed by the idea, but solicitor Jerome Arbutny (Sydney Greenstreet) is doubtful that he’ll see any money out of the affair. When the three part, their personal lives begin to crumble, but the looming promise of their joint ticket is never far from their minds.

 

Three Strangers is never quite a Maltese Falcon remake, though the connections are surprisingly myriad. You have the cast, yes, and the fixation with a mysterious statue, but you also have a screenplay co-written by John Huston. Director Jean Negulesco (who also helmed last week’s Mask of Dimitrios) had done some preproduction work on The Maltese Falcon before Huston claimed the project, while Geraldine Fitzgerald was an early contender for the Falcon role that eventually went to Mary Astor. Meanwhile, Three Strangers very nearly starred Humphrey Bogart in the Peter Lorre role, but Bogart was committed to The Big Sleep. Perhaps it’s just a big game of “six degrees on the Warner lot,” but it seems there is an unnatural tether between Three Strangers and its more perfect antecedent.

 

The greatest challenge in Three Strangers is that the three strangers spend most of the film estranged from one another. That is, aside from the opening and closing sequences, Greenstreet and Fitzgerald and Lorre never interact, which is both surprising and disappointing. One might expect, for example, that the strangers might find themselves in actuality tied to one another – particularly since one is a solicitor and another becomes involved in a murder trial. Instead, the plots branch off and never meet until the very ending scene at Crystal’s apartment, and consequently there are large sections of the movie that just aren’t very interesting. As has been the case all month, the few moments between Greenstreet and Lorre are so engaging that you’ll wish the whole movie had been made up of them. Apologies to Bogart, but they are the stuff dreams are made of.

 

Three Strangers is almost like watching three separate films that only tie together at the very end. Geraldine Fitzgerald’s subplot starts off with a bombshell but smolders away until nothing quite happens. Sydney Greenstreet gets the unusual opportunity to play a man driven mad by ambition and shortsighted greed; for a performer usually known as the coolest cat in the room, Greenstreet is clearly reveling in the opportunity to mug for the camera. But it’s Lorre who is the most dynamic actor in the film; he too gets to play against type, here headlining as the ostensible romantic lead of Three Strangers. Lorre is eminently charming as Johnny West, just about the only truly sympathetic character the film has, and Lorre plays him like an empathetic and decidedly less psychotic Raskolnikov, a likeable sort who may or may not have simply fallen in with the wrong crowd.

 

I wonder if Three Strangers would fare better on rewatch, since my principal objection to the film seems to be that it wasn’t the film I was expecting. Negulesco is highly competent, and there are some sequences that are undeniably arresting in their tension. Huston, meanwhile, is a gifted storyteller, and he makes his point quite eloquently that human life is a combination of chance and choice. Huston’s message seems to border on nihilism, but one senses also a strong moral compass in the film; the thieves and the philanderers get what’s coming to them, while the innocent get put through the wringer but emerge with a clearer sense of what truly matters in life.

 

It's only a shame that Three Strangers gets really good right at the end, but then I suspect that most audiences will remember that moment, the moment when the film goes from a slice-of-life to a Twilight Zone episode. It’s the kind of poetic justice that Rod Serling adored, and it’s the first film this month that hasn’t seemed to demand a sequel. Perhaps that’s a remarkable achievement in itself – these characters have run their narrative course. We left even The Maltese Falcon wishing for a sequel (and, in the case of Across the Pacific, very nearly got our wish), but Three Strangers wraps up nicely. Moreover, it cautions us to be careful what you wish for; longing for a sequel may not, the film suggests, be in our best interests.

 

Three Strangers is not rated. Directed by Jean Negulesco. Written by John Huston and Howard Koch. Starring Sydney Greenstreet, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Peter Lorre, Joan Lorring, and Alan Napier.