Peter Lorre

A group of stranded swindlers in an Italian port wait for a ship to East Africa, where they plan to corner the uranium market. Humphrey Bogart leads an international cast through John Huston's sly parody of the caper films he helped invent, with a script shaped by Truman Capote. The film lapsed into the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Crime · Adventure

A 1957 American South Seas adventure directed by Lee Sholem and Elmo Williams, starring Jon Hall — who also produced and narrated — alongside John Carradine, Peter Lorre, and Mike Mazurki. Captain Jim Knight sails the South Sea Islands and discovers a criminal gang that has seized a small island, forcing the native pearl divers to work beyond safe limits. After Knight captures the gang, they escape en route to Tahiti and a corrupt French magistrate joins them when a native boy locates a sunken ship carrying a Burmese king's treasure. The film was compiled from Knight of the South Seas, an unsold 1955 television pilot, and gave Hall ample opportunity to show off the underwater diving footage he loved. It is in the public domain.

Adventure · Action

A baby photographer who dreams of being a private detective gets his chance when a beautiful baroness mistakes him for the real detective next door and drags him into a plot involving a kidnapped uncle and a map to uranium. Bob Hope sends up the noir genre he loved. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Mystery

Dan Brady is a garage mechanic who wants to impress a waitress, so he borrows twenty dollars from the till at work, intending to pay it back before anyone notices. He does not. One small bad choice leads to another, and within a day Dan has stolen a car, robbed a nightclub, and talked himself deeper with every lie. Mickey Rooney plays him as a normal guy who keeps making the wrong decision under pressure, and the film watches a petty theft snowball into serious crime with a kind of grim inevitability. Peter Lorre is the amusement-pier owner who pulls Dan further in. The film was shot on a low budget with Rooney and Lorre helping to finance it themselves. It entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Crime · Noir

An out-of-work veteran takes a job as a chauffeur to a mobster and falls for the gangster's girlfriend, getting swept into a nightmare of murder, mistaken identity, and a dreamlike escape across Cuba. Robert Cummings and Peter Lorre star in this offbeat Cornell Woolrich adaptation. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Noir · Thriller · Crime