"20000-leagues-under-the-sea"

Submarines perform wonderfully as containers for high-tension drama as the challenges of close quarters, the inability to see what’s going on above, and the vulnerability of sailors working at many fathoms beneath the sea become as compressed as the oxygen they breathe.

Early in 1973, producer David Brown was scanning the literature section of Cosmopolitan, a magazine edited by his wife, Helen Gurley Brown. His eyes fell upon a brief plot description of an upcoming novel by Peter Benchley called “Jaws,” which concerned an immense great white shark terrorizing a summer resort community in New England. The book editor ended his summary as follows: “Might make a good movie.”

It seems Peter Lorre was born to be sinister. Though small in stature (just under 5'4"), his oversized, sleepy eyes seemed to pierce right into your soul. His soft, eerie voice, though imitated countless times by comedians, never failed to chill. Lorre sometimes belittled his own talent, describing himself as "a face maker." But what a face! Lorre's creepy presence was surprisingly flexible, allowing him to appear in everything from horror films, to comedies, to film noir.