Germans in Hollywood

Apropos of the recent discussions on the blog about the American career of Fritz Lang and German influence on American Film Noirs (check out the comment sections of this, this and this) I recently came across this seemingly encyclopaedic website called The German Hollywood Connection about all kinds of information about Germans who have worked in Hollywood. Of course they use "Germans" a little freely, to include the central Europeans and people from the former Austro-Hungarian empire too. Specially interesting their separate page on noir. The left sidebar contains links to alphabetic listing. (It is quite encyclopaedic actually, they have included even Leonardo DiCaprio because his mother is a German and he speaks German too.) The still above has a German connection too but only at the story level (I think). I love the shot and I love the film. That's why it is there.

Now that I am on the topic of Germans in Hollywood, I always wanted to plug this post about the acting career of Peter Lorre aka Ladislav Lowenstein (a Hungarian actually) on the house next door blog. He was one classic scene stealer. There is even a nice Peter Lorre song:

When I grow up, I want to be Peter Lorre,
I want to snivel and sneer in a nasal whine.
I want to cring and curse, and maybe threaten worse --
(in Lorre Voice)
-- And if that doesn't work, I've got a laugh that'll petrify your spine!

A few of those nasal snivelling scenes on youtube -

"You Imbecile, You bloated Idiot!" from The Maltese Falcon (*Spoiler Scene*)

"You despise me, don't you?" from Casablanca

and my favourite, the hilarious Dr. Einstein from Arsenic and Old Lace though in this scene Cary Grant steals the show.