review of a new Peter Lorre bio--

"For as long as Lorre is on the screen, you find you can�t look anywhere else. This was partly because of his quite deliberate scene-stealing manoeuvres. Robert Alda, the father of Alan, acted with Lorre in a horror film which has since become a cult called The Beast with Five Fingers. You �had to be prepared� for his �little tricks� all the time, Alda claimed. When other actors had turned away, you could safely assume they were out of the scene. �Not Peter. He would turn his back on you and his hands would be going behind his back, and he would have things to do with his back pocket, or that famous trick of his of unleashing his collar from the front, or those hands were giving themselves a self-manicure, or anything to keep the camera�s eye on him.� If you keep your eyes on him you see him deliberately making too much play with some sugar tongs or lighting cigarette after cigarette in an ostentatious manner."