Peter Unprincipled

Cast in horror or crime-ridden thriller,
Ghastly Lorre's sublime as a killer
He may jest or get mad,
But he's best when he's bad
He's adorable slime -- and no pillar.

Peter Lorre in All Through the Night (Vincent Sherman; 1941). Title by David Cairns, the principal of limericks titles. From The Bogie Film Blog: Lorre plays Pepi, the Nazi hitman and sometimes piano accompanist to Kaaren Verne’s Leda Hamilton. Pepi kicks off the storyline by murdering “Gloves” Donahue’s (Humphrey Bogart) favorite cheesecake baker, setting off a chain of events that leads New York’s most notorious gangsters up against the Third Reich in this comedy thriller.

Lorre enters the film walking through the door of a baker’s shop, eerily humming a tune before teasing the poor baker and then beating him to death. Referred to as “the goggle-eyed little rat,” by ‘Gloves,’ Lorre is wonderful, and one of the true highlights of the film.