150 Word Review: 'The Face Behind the Mask' (1941)
Ooh, somebody stop me
It’s hard to describe Hungarian actor Peter Lorre to a modern audience: gentle, timid, bug-eyed. He was short, his voice sing-songy. Often cast as heavily-accented villains or a fool, he was, in fact, a richly complex actor.
In the morally black and white noir The Man Behind The Mask, Lorre explores his inner rage and sorrows as a hopeful, skilled immigrant whose face is horribly burned in a fire at the fleabitten hotel where he hoped to start a new life.
Florey’s direction is straightforward; the operatic scene where the bandages come off and Lorre sees himself for the first time is cleverly edited. Lorre’s outcast is too grotesque to find work in polite society, and all is lost until he meets a small-time crook who doesn’t judge a book by its disfigured cover. Lorre’s Hungarian go-getter has a knack for crime, and with the spoils, he buys a mask.
He was an absolutely unforgettable screen presence. And animators got a lot of use out of him back in the day and now, too. The number of characters channeling his face, voice and mannerisms is a long list.