The Passing Stranger

Lee Patterson rents a room in the cafe run by Diane Cilento and her sister, Olive Gregg. He's a deserter from the US Army and on the run, hooking into some underworld operators for the cash to get back to America without papers. Miss Cilento and he fall in love, and decide to run away together.

Cinematographer Walter Lassally shoots Miss Cilento to her advantage, and Patterson looks good in a t-shirt, but this movie doesn't offer any sympathy to Patterson, especially after it stops dead for ten minutes for a flashback to fill in his story. Perhaps it's my middle-class attitude and advanced years, but I feel no sympathy for the leads; if Patterson wants out, he should have slugged an officer and taken the two years at Fort Leavenworth, and if she wants out of her cafe, it turns out that London is an hour's drive away. I feel more sympathy for Duncan Lamont, who has had an understanding with Miss Cilento for some years, but she has insisted on some financial stability, while she's ready to run off and live an underground life with Patterson. Erratic pacing doesn't help.