Once Upon a Time Out

Sorry for the pause in posts. Work, and real life in general have decided to keep me too busy to keep up with the daily grin--um...output at LimerWrecks. Rest assured that I and my fellow limerwreckers will have more rhymes on Peter Lorre--as well as other oddball stars and weird old movies--coming your way just as soon as we are able. Image: Peter Lorre, in a publicity still for Crime and Punishment (Josef von Sternberg; 1935).

Zombie Flesh Easter

It's Easter, give praise and don't mourn
Your deceased savior's raised and reborn
But these dead, now alive,
Open heads to survive
And will feast on your brains Sunday morn.

Pasty-faced extras lurch through Night of the Living Dead (1968). Our title is by David Cairns, and is a nod to Zombies 2, aka Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979). We're going to hell for reposting this holiday limerick. Just like the living dead, Peter Lorre will return!

A Gutman is Hard to Find

On the screen, Pete's effete and alarming
Yet with Greenstreet completely disarming
Sid is florid and tall
Lorre's horrid and small
But as scene-eating creatures they're charming!

David Cairns

Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet in their first on-screen pairing, as Joel Cairo and Kasper Gutman in The Maltese Falcon (John Huston; 1941).

Wrecking Ball-Buster

These creators know squat about "punny",
Pen clichés only potheads find funny
Rhymes devoid of all sex,
I avoid reading "Wrecks"
You can't pay me -- there's not enough money.

Doug Rice

Peter Lorre is caricatured in the Daffy Duck cartoon Birth of a Notion (Robert McKimson; 1947). Doug Rice didn't actually write this--he just thought it. April Fools!

Ta-Ta, Moto

Farewell to sleuth Moto he bid
Of the smell of "Ah, so" he was rid
To Warners he went,
Where he'd soar in ascent
When gelling with jovial Sid.



During the 1940s, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet became an unlikely but successful team at Warner Brothers. They're shown above in The Mask of Dimitrios (Jean Negulesco; 1944). Top: Lorre as Mr. Moto.