Lorre began his stage life in Vienna, still within the old Austro‑Hungarian world, before moving on to Germany, where he worked first in the theater and then in Berlin’s burgeoning film scene of the late 1920s and early ’30s. He broke through with an international jolt in Fritz Lang’s Weimar‑era masterpiece M (1931), delivering a chilling portrait of a child‑killer that instantly marked him as a singular screen presence. Over the years, his timidly sly characters, his unmistakable features, and that haunted, accented voice made him an easy target for caricature — during his lifetime and long after.
In The Beast with Five Fingers, Lorre played astrologer Hilary Cummins, who serves as personal assistant to Francis Ingram (Victor Francen), an eccentric, mostly paralyzed pianist living in an Italian villa, tended also by nurse Julie Holden (Andrea King). Ingram plays solely with his intact left hand until, after a visit from a smooth‑talking grifter (Robert Alda), he tumbles down the staircase to his death. What follows is a run of uncanny incidents, all traced back to the pianist’s severed, and seemingly vengeful, left hand.
