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Jason from Mnpp here, delicately fondling every cane in sight in honor of the birth of one of my favorite all-time scene-stealers, Mr. Peter Lorre, who was born on in this day in the year 1904. I, like many of you, probably first knew Lorre without actually knowing him, via his animated likeness always popping up for a quick n creepy gag in Looney Tunes; funny enough my mom wasn't rushing to show me Fritz Lang's masterpiece M as a child. But once I did see M... wowza. And Casablanca. Double wowza! And Hitchcock's original The Man Who Knew Too Much -- wowza squared! And on and on... but for today's "Beauty vs Beast" let's pit him against that other favorite of the Looney Tunes animators, his co-star in John Huston's 1941 classic noir The Maltese Falcon...

Previously I'm sure some of you are still wearing your Nicole Kidman party...

British actress Sarah Marshall, a Tony-nominated veteran who later appeared in memorable episodes of TV’s Star Trek and The Twilight Zone, has died. She was 80. Marshall died Saturday in Los Angeles following a long battle with cancer, her daughter-in-law, Trixie Flynn, said. Marshall was the daughter of noted British actors Herbert Marshall (The Letter, Foreign Correspondent) and Edna Best (The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir). She made her feature film debut opposite Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in the adaptation of William Faulkner’s The Long, Hot Summer (1958), but her most

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Below you will find a list of movie that Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz director Edgar Wright has never seen. Not long ago Wright went out and asked his friends and fans to recommend some movies they thought he may have missed over the last thirty years of his life. He got recommendations from Quentin Tarantino, Daniel Waters, Bill Hader, John Landis, Guillermo Del Toro, Joe Dante, Judd Apatow, Joss Whedon, Greg Mottola, Schwartzman, Doug Benson, Rian Johnson, Larry Karaszeski, Josh Olson, Harry Knowles and hundreds of fans on this blog.

From these recommendations, Wright created a master list of recommended films that were frequently mentioned. The director now wants the fans to choose which of the films on the list he should watch on the big screen.

Wright is holding a film event at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles called Films Edgar Has Never Seen.

Edgar Wright's latest epic project [1] has him partnering with Quentin Tarantino, Judd Apatow, Joss Whedon, Bill Hader, Guillermo Del Toro, Joe Dante, Greg Mottola, Harry Knowles, Rian Johnson and, probably, several of you. Like all of us, Wright has a bunch of classic and cult films he's never seen. Unlike all of us, he has the means to see them for the first time on the big screen and will do just that in December [2] at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles during Films Edgar Has Never Seen. The director of Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World asked both his famous friends (some of which are listed above) and fans to send in their personal must see lists and, from those titles, Wright came up with one mega list from which he'll pick a few movies to watch December 9-16. After the jump check...

Craig here with another Take Three

Today: Peter Lorre

Take One: When you're strange...

Lorre did Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) because he owed Rko Pictures two days work; just enough time to fit in a slippery six-minute cameo role, though top-billed, as the titular stranger. Boris Ingster's B-movie has been long thought to have kick-started Film Noir - though some point to The Maltese Falcon, also starring Lorre - and the long, angular and accusing shadows from M have certainly followed Lorre to '40s New York; he's hiding in them again, under stoops, around stairwells, sporting a foppish white scarf and fixing passers-by with his signature beady glare (think Steve Buscemi playing Quentin Crisp). Lorre's cypher-like stranger could just be the real killer responsible for several throat-slit murders witnessed by reporter Mike Ward (John McGuire), the blame for which has landed at cabbie Joe Briggs' (Elisha Cook Jr.) feet.