Word: greenstreet
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...story itself sounds like an old Greenstreet-Lorre situation, and had those two lions of the art of cinematic suspense been on hand for No Sun in Venice the film would have been much more entertaining than it was. It would appear, however, that the particular cops-and-robber types in No Sun have been reading their Graham Greene and consequently have all sorts of fascinating psychological monkeys on their backs...
...late thirties and early forties, Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre starred in a series of exceptional mystery films. The Mask of Dimitrios, like The Maltese Falcon, On Green Dolphin Street and Casablanca, follows modern fairy-tale characters through intriguing morasses of international espionage, murder, and blackmail with a charm that remains fresh...
Lorre is not alone in his search for information: mountainous Sidney Greenstreet, as Petersen, an international smuggler, turns up to heave his scene-stealing bulk in revenge after Makropoulos, who years ago ratted on Petersen and the fellows...
...actors play their parts at once wholeheartedly, and with a bit of tongue-in-cheek. Lorre's bulge-eyed gulp in the muzzle of a Luger pointed at him is an exaggeration of all fears of death, and so very ludicrous and excrutiatingly funny. Humor in humorless situations, as Greenstreet waddles at top speed through the Metro to escape a gunman, and then safely aboard a train doffs his hat to the killer, keep the story moving at high speed, always fascinating...
Rick's Cafe Americain, whose proprietor wears a white dinner jacket, speaks with a faint lisp, and drinks a great deal when unhappy, sports an odd assortment of minor characters; they are bit parts, from which the actors have squeezed everything. Fat Sidney Greenstreet, with fez, is Farrari, the jovial "leader of all illegal activities in Casablanca." Peter Lorre is a funny, intense worm who sells blackmarket visas to refugees stranded in the unoccupied French city; the producers could afford to lead him off screaming after fifteen minutes: but in that time he created a lasting figure...