Peter Lorre was a Hungarian and American actor, active first in Europe and later in the United States. He began his stage career in Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, before moving to Germany where he worked first on the stage, then in film in Berlin in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Lorre caused an international sensation in the Weimar Republic–era film M (1931), directed by Fritz Lang, in which he portrayed a serial killer who preys on little girls. Known for his timidly devious characters, his appearance, and his accented voice, Lorre was frequently caricaturized during and after his lifetime and the cultural legacy of his persona remains in media today.
Robert Florey was a French-American director, screenwriter, film journalist and actor.
The year 1941 in film involved some significant events, in particular the release of a film consistently rated as one of the greatest of all time, Citizen Kane.
Sydney Hughes Greenstreet was a British and American actor. While he did not begin his career in films until the age of 61, he had a run of significant motion pictures in a Hollywood career lasting through the 1940s. He is best remembered for the three Warner Bros. films - The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), and Passage to Marseille (1944) - with both Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre. He portrayed Nero Wolfe on radio during 1950 and 1951. He became an American citizen in 1925.
Eric Clifford Ambler OBE was an English author of thrillers, in particular spy novels, who introduced a new realism to the genre. Also working as a screenwriter, Ambler used the pseudonym Eliot Reed for books co-written with Charles Rodda.
Paul Henreid was an Austrian-American actor, director, producer, and writer. He is best remembered for two film roles: Victor Laszlo in Casablanca and Jerry Durrance in Now, Voyager, both released in 1942.
Zachary Scott was an American actor who was known for his roles as villains and "mystery men".
Journey into Fear is a 1940 spy thriller novel by Eric Ambler. Film adaptations were released in 1943 and 1975.
Faye Margaret Emerson was an American film and stage actress and television interviewer who gained fame as a film actress in the 1940s before transitioning to television in the 1950s and hosting her own talk show.
Nobody Lives Forever is a 1946 American crime film noir directed by Jean Negulesco and based on the novel I Wasn't Born Yesterday by W. R. Burnett. It stars John Garfield and Geraldine Fitzgerald and features Walter Brennan, Faye Emerson, George Coulouris and George Tobias.
Steven Geray was a Hungarian-born American film actor who appeared in over 100 films and dozens of television programs. Geray appeared in numerous famed A-pictures, including Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) and To Catch a Thief (1955), Joseph L. Mankiewicz's All About Eve (1950), and Howard Hawks' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). However, it was in film noir that be became a fixture, being cast in over a dozen pictures in the genre. Among them were The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), Gilda (1946), The Unfaithful (1947), In a Lonely Place (1950), and The House on Telegraph Hill (1951).
Between Two Worlds is a 1944 American World War II fantasy drama film starring John Garfield, Paul Henreid, Sydney Greenstreet, and Eleanor Parker. It is a remake of the film Outward Bound (1930), itself based on the 1923 play Outward Bound by Sutton Vane. It is not, as is sometimes claimed, a remake of Fritz Lang's Destiny.
The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 American film noir in which a San Francisco private detective deals with three unscrupulous adventurers, all seeking a jewel-encrusted falcon statuette. Written and directed by John Huston in his directorial debut, the film was based on the 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett and is a remake of the 1931 film of the same name. It stars Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade, Mary Astor as his femme fatale client, and as villains Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet.
Hotel Berlin is an American drama film set in Berlin near the close of World War II, made by Warner Bros. in late 1944 to early 1945. Directed by Peter Godfrey, it stars Faye Emerson, Helmut Dantine, Raymond Massey and Andrea King. It is based on the novel Hotel Berlin by Vicki Baum, a sequel to Menschen im Hotel, which was itself adapted to film as Grand Hotel (1932).
Passage to Marseille, also known as Message to Marseille, is a 1944 American war film made by Warner Brothers, directed by Michael Curtiz. The screenplay was by Casey Robinson and Jack Moffitt from the novel Sans Patrie by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. The music score was by Max Steiner and the cinematography was by James Wong Howe.
On the Riviera is a 1951 Technicolor musical comedy film made by 20th Century Fox. Directed by Walter Lang and produced by Sol C. Siegel from a screenplay by Valentine Davies and Phoebe and Henry Ephron, it is the studio's fourth film based on the 1934 play The Red Cat by Rudolph Lothar and Hans Adler. This version stars Danny Kaye, Gene Tierney and Corinne Calvet, with Marcel Dalio, Henri Letondal and Sig Ruman.
Victor Francen was a Belgian-born actor with a long career in French cinema and in Hollywood.
The Conspirators is a 1944 American film noir, World War II, drama, spy, and thriller film directed by Jean Negulesco. It stars Hedy Lamarr and Paul Henreid, features Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre in supporting roles, and has a cameo of Aurora Miranda singing a Fado. The Conspirators reunites several performers who appeared in Casablanca (1942).
Uncommon Danger is the second novel by British thriller writer Eric Ambler, published in 1937. It was published in the United States as Background To Danger. In his autobiography, Here Lies Eric Ambler, Ambler explains that "Background To Danger" was the original title, but his British publisher disliked the word 'background', so it was published in all English-speaking countries except the US as Uncommon Danger.
The Mask of Dimitrios is a 1939 novel by Eric Ambler. In the United States it was published as A Coffin for Dimitrios.
