The Mask of Dimitrios is loads of fun, offering not only a chance to spend time with cinema's best little-and-large duo (sorry, Arnold and Danny DeVito), but also a spectacular film debut from Zachary Scott, who plays the titular villain. It's slickly made and a breeze to watch, the kind of great-looking, well made feature that Warner Bros churned out by the handful during its heyday.It's incredible how good Scott is here — there's no sign that he'd never been on screen before (he'd been signed on the strength of his stage work, after Jack L. Warner saw him perform), and his alluring, smarmy magnetism is already at full power. Particularly noticeable here is the habit his characters have of making firm, satisfied eye contact while they destroy people, something which Dimitrios does triumphantly several times. He's a character without morals and utterly irredeemable — a thief, a spy, a murderer, and a man happy to send innocents to their deaths as long as he survives — and yet it's thrilling every time he appears on screen. Those moments with Dimitrios are doled out with irritating restraint, with the film making us go almost too long between them before giving us another wonderfully awful fix. The stretches between fixes are far more pleasant that they would be in lesser films, however, because they're largely spent with Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, who would be droll and delightful just folding laundry together. Here they are, as usual, a mismatched pair of sorta allies, a relationship which allows the pair ample room to showcase their outrageous chemistry, and the easy, joyful way in which they work together. TL;DR: It's 95 minutes of happiness (albeit with murder and espionage) — maybe put it in your back pocket for a bad day?
This one’s going out, slightly belatedly, to Sydney Hughes Greenstreet, born December 27, 1879.“I find a murderer in a detective story much more sympathetic than a real murderer.”The Mask of Dimitrios represents a Warner attempt to recapture some of the magic of The Maltese Falcon, and while it’s no masterpiece, it’s a fairly diverting minor noir. Shady character Mr. Peters (Sydney Greenstreet) enlists the aid of Dutch crime novelist Cornelius Leyden (Peter Lorre) to track down the mystery of notorious criminal Dimitrios Makropoulos (Zachary Scott) whose supposed corpse has been seen by the writer. What exactly Peters is after, other than determining that Dimitrios is still alive, is never quite clear, but the quest is a lot of fun because of Syd and Pete.With atmospheric noir lighting by Arthur Edeson and a moody score by Adolph Deutsch, Mask looks and sounds a lot like The Maltese Falcon. Director Jean Negulesco, whose Road House is one of my favorite noirs, shoots up at Greenstreet in much the same way John Huston does in the earlier film. Peters’ desperate quest ends with his unwrapping a package, just as in Falcon. “That’s the trouble with this world. There’s not enough kindness.”Greenstreet’s performance is much like his Kasper Gutman, making Peters devious, mysterious, and occasionally amusing, though he does get to do an unexpected bit of action at the end. No one does stunned and bewildered quite like our Sydney. Lorre, with a quite unlikely Dutch accent, is more low-key than usual, being along for the ride with his frequent costar, but he still displays his distinctive charm. Although the opening credits list the cast order as Greenstreet, Scott, Faye Emerson, as Dimitrios’s former sweetie, and Lorre, our Pete has the largest role, followed by Zach and then Syd. As for Scott, he could do cads in his sleep and is at his best when Dimitrios is being mean to others.The story is told in flashbacks, looking at various crimes in the past of Dimitrios, and one of them, when he is enlisted as a spy, goes on a bit too long, but it does offer the great character actor Steven Geray a showcase as Dimitrios’s dupe. Glamorous starlet Marjorie Hoshelle, later Mrs. Jeff Chandler, also gets to shine as the unlikely wife of Geray’s wimpy character. Negulesco’s direction is elegant at times. As with Otto Preminger, if he can move the camera rather than cut, he’ll do it. Random thoughts:Although Greenstreet is best known for his pairings with Lorre and Humphrey Bogart, he worked two more times with Scott, including Edgar Ulmer’s Ruthless.According to Michael Feeney Callan’s Robert Redford bio, when little Bobby was growing up in Los Angeles, he and other neighborhood kiddies were sometimes driven to school by neighbors Zachary Scott or Cesar “Butch” Romero.According to Stephen Youngkin’s excellent Peter Lorre bio, Pete and Jean Negulesco became pals, and Lorre would retreat to Jean’s mansion on weekends to get away from his wife and cavort with cuties.Although Faye Emerson never had much of a career as an actress, she was a ubiquitous presence on TV in the 50s and early 60s, especially on game shows such as I’ve Got a Secret, on which she appeared 84 times. My generation didn’t even realize she had once been an actress.Watched on TCM.Favorite Films of 1944
I think I saw this before, and I think I enjoyed it, but so far back this was basically my first time with Negulesco's wartime noir. And it IS enjoyable!For starters seeing Lorre play the straight man is a positive, the man deserved the occasional star turn. He and trusty partner Sydney Greenstreet play off their stereotypes in a very enjoyable way. The spoof isn't too heavy-handed and the film never forgets there's an actual story to tell. Plus, Lorre & Greenstreet are well-supported, in particular by two actors I definitely didn't come to this for:A) This is probably my favourite Zach Scott performance to date, with no hint of the deer-in-the-headlights doofus that can sometimes get under my skin. Instead we have a to-the-bones sleazebucket with not an ounce of empathy for anyone, and the charm and smarts to sucker folks into thinking otherwise. What a delightful villain, and Negulesco smartly holds him back from us until we're well into this, building him up à la Harry Lime.B) Faye Emerson plays one of those suckers Scott destroyed along the way, now much sadder and wiser, looking like life has a run a few trucks over her. Sleuthing Lorre & Greenstreet, following leads that will take them to our charismatic grifter, track her down in a 'house of ill repute', and frankly I was amazed by how much she oozes defeat and bitterness. Generally just a lot of fun with all the requisite noir bits but delivered in a lighter tone than some others of the time, with Lorre & Greenstreet finally getting to play the heroes with no Bogie to cast shadow on them.For what it matters Lorre's accent is nowhere near the Dutch one he's supposed to be presenting. Maybe that's why they felt the need for a credibility boost, by way of changing his character's name to that of a Dutch city - Leyden! (It's Latimer in Eric Ambler's source novel from 1939).
