Table Menace

Mr. Wong, when he stayed in Hong Kong,
Would go wrong when he played some Mahjong
Charlie Chan drew a joker
In a hand of strip poker
Serving strong, Moto slayed at Ping Pong.



Peter Lorre plays table tennis with Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, who apparently don't understand the finer points of the game. Ah, those were the days of studio publicity.

The day Bogie gave Lorre a Noogie

Our look back in limericks at Peter Lorre will resume on Monday.

Lizabeth Scott, R.I.P.

Yes, sultry she was, über alles
This femme fatale groomed by Hal Wallis
But stardom eluded
'Cause no charm exuded
When not playing tramps who were lawless.

Martin Pasko

Lizabeth Scott (September 29, 1922 – January 31, 2015); Image: Scott gets a light from Humphrey Bogart in Dead Reckoning (1947). Groomed by producer Hal Wallis, Scott starred in films noir as The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), Desert Fury (1947), I Walk Alone (1948), Pitfall (1948), Too Late for Tears (1948), and Dark City (1950). You'll find our previous limericks on the actress and her films here.

Falcon Quest

This rat pack, deterred, has long lusted
For this statue, a bird, jewel-encrusted
No ifs, ands, or buts,
They're a little bit nuts
And that means their word can't be trusted. 

Sam Spade, Joel Cairo, Brigid O'Shaughnessy, and Kasper Gutman all want the black bird: Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Mary Astor, and Sydney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon (John Huston; 1941).

Double Act of Violence

One's portly, one's slender and slight
Fat and courtly or gender-bent mite?
They are Kasper and Joel
The clasper, the mole
Let's deport both offenders outright.

David Cairns

Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) and Kasper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet) are two of the characters in search of The Maltese Falcon (John Huston;1941). Members of the Warner Brothers stock company in the 1940s, Lorre and Greenstreet appeared together in 9 films.

Knockout of the Past

Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) socks Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) in The Maltese Falcon (John Huston; 1941). Lorre and LimerWrecks will be back in action on Monday.

Smell Man Syndrome

Like a rat through the back way he's sneaking
With a gat he'll attack, fragrance reeking
His demeanor demented,
With gardenia he's scented
It's the statue in black that he's seeking.

Peter Lorre plays petulant, gardenia-scented Joel Cairo, and Humphrey Bogart is private eye Sam Spade, in The Maltese Falcon (John Huston;1941). Title by odoriferous David Cairns.

Heaven Scent, Hell Bent

His card with bouquet is perfumed
This charlatan's gay, it's assumed
Joel Cairo has flair
But it's buyer beware
He's a varlet, dear Spade, though well-groomed.

David Cairns with Surly Hack



Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) calls on Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) in The Maltese Falcon (John Huston;1941).

Beat the Devils

Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre on the set of Beat the Devil, 1953. Photo by Robert Capa. LimerWrecks and Lorre will return on Monday.

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.

Dark Passage Beneath the Sea

When the sea spewed a briny new threat
Film noir he-men grew shiny with sweat
All their guns couldn't hit
The big undersea "it"
And they'd need a strong line and a net.



This mash-up was inspired by two films which both use the Golden Gate Bridge. Pictured are Humphrey Bogart and Clifton Young in Dark Passage (Delmer Daves; 1947), and a bit of Ray Harryhausen's monstrous stop-motion mollusk in It Came from Beneath the Sea (Robert Gordon; 1955).

Maltese Falcon Crest

The shamus named Samuel Spade
by dames didn't like to be played
It's a cinch this one's lying
and Sam isn't buying
There's a pinch, not a clinch, at the fade



Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor bring author Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and Brigid O'Shaughnessy to life in The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941). Please help the Film Noir Foundation in its efforts to preserve and promote film noir. Just go to their donation page.

Hairdo or Die

A fashion that seems to have spread
is wearing a streak on the head
This hep two-tone 'do
suits Pepé Le Pew
as well as two guys that were dead



Boris Karloff in The Walking Dead (Michael Curtiz, 1936) and Humphrey Bogart in The Return of Doctor X (Vincent Sherman, 1939). Both play characters that mad science brings back from the dead, apparently to share a hair stylist.

Eddie When You Are

"Was you ever bit by a bee?
A dead one that's marked R.I.P.?"
When dead bees attack
he'd sting 'em right back
Alas, no such stinger has he


Walter Brennan, as "Eddie", with Bacall and Bogart
in To Have and Have Not (Howard Hawks, 1944).

Drive, She Said

A trucker hauls freight late at night
The daylight, it seems, is too bright
He speeds and he swerves
'round feminine curves
till one tries to frame him from spite



Ida Lupino is driven crazy by jealousy and steals the show
from George Raft, leggy Ann Sheridan and Humphrey Bogart
in the Raoul Walsh classic, They Drive By Night (1940).

Bedtime For Bogie

Doctor Macro

The slumber they call The Big Sleep
is long and unusually deep
Before lying down
you might fool around
Count nymphos--forget about sheep


martinsfilmnoir.com

The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946) is bursting with gorgeous women, all
available to private eye Phillip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart). One is nymphomaniac
Carmen Sternwood (Martha Vickers), who literally
fell into Marlowe's arms (below).