User reviews

Three Strangers is not a typical Hollywood film. Dark and philosophical, it introduces the viewer to three people, strangers to one another, and then follows their sad, desperate lives. While one reviewer on this site says it's a shame they don't make movies like this anymore, the fact is, they almost never made movies like this back then. This is far less neat and more philosophical than your typical 40s flick, a movie about strange twists of fate and the ways in which people fail to take responsibility for their actions.

The cast is excellent, with Peter Lorre particularly impressive in one of the best performances of his career as an alcoholic who thinks too much and does too little. I was also quite taken by Joan Lorring's touchingly vulnerable performance as a girl in with the wrong crowd.

Admittedly the ending ties things up in a neat little bow, yet for the most part this movie is far closer in spirit to the indie movies of the 1990s than to the film noirs of the 1940s it could be mistaken for.

One of the most unusual facets of the movie that struck me was the gowns/dresses designed for the lead actress--they stood out in this black and white movie making a not-so-tall Geraldine Fitzgerald look tall and elegant. Very few films have costume designs that out-do the performances--this film is one that achieves this unusual distinction.

Equally unusual was the written prologue for the film on the statue. It wreaked of populist myths of the Orient and then ended with the statement that the film's location was London. One expected British mannerisms and accents and its distinctive transport--but the only reasons for the choice of the locations seemed to be the legal system, the law on Trusts, the pubs, the mention of Canada being far away, the South African mines, and the solicitor's office. The rest was distinctly American. Curious stuff.

The film was equally curious for another factor: two women Icey and Janet look disturbingly similar, two men look considerably alike Mr Shackleford and Mr Fallon, save for their difference in height. Was there some reason for this or was this a coincidence.

Apart from these details, the film provided much of the fare that "The Maltese Falcon" made cinema history--John Huston's screenplay and the enigmatic performances of Greenstreet and Lorre. Greenstreet did not have the brilliant lines of "Falcon" to aid him but his chortling performance is nevertheless fascinating. Lorre on the other hand provides the best performance because the grey cocktail of good and bad touches the viewer. Similarly the lead character of Fitzgerald leaves the viewer wondering whether the character deserves our sympathy or not.

At the end, the viewer is forced to see ourselves in the mirror--we are but pawns of a mightier force, and none of us is either a villain or a saint. The film quite unwittingly makes the viewer think about life. That is probably why this film ought to rate better than "The Maltese Falcon" which no doubt has more catchy dialogues but less substance.

It was over 20 years ago that I first encountered this small cinematic treasure, on the now-defunct indie KHJ-TV, channel 9 in Los Angeles, but it was not at all by accident. Having been enthralled by the magic that is "Casablanca" some years before, I had been seeking out other films like it made by Warner Bros. in the late 30s, 40s and early 50s. Specifically I was after more work by that classic's storied supporting cast: Paul Henried, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Claude Rains, S.Z. Sakall and Joy Page, among others.

"Three Strangers" gathers two of those and weaves them into a unexpectedly amoral tale of the cost of reversing fortune. Lorre plays a fallen gentleman who fallen into a bottle and thus into some dicey company, while Greenstreet plays a solicitor who's been a tad too speculative with his trust accounts. The underregarded Geraldine Fitzgerald joins them as the mysterious woman who randomly gathers the other two off a London street to see if they'll take a chance on an ancient Chinese proverb coming true.

"Three Strangers" if anything goes "Casablanca" and that other Huston/Lorre/Greenstreet classic, "The Maltese Falcon," one better in the world-weariness department, with moral ambiguities and ambivalent characters straight out of films noir made five years later. Unlike those other two films, though, there's little likability to be found in the lead characters' roguishness --- save perhaps for Lorre, who gets redeemed by a "good" woman's love at the end.

Yet that very fact makes "Three Strangers" play out like a much more modern film (like one from the early 1970s, say), rendering it an intriguing admixture of old-style character-driven plotting and contemporary moral waywardness and antiheroism.

A woman entices two strangers to her home to fulfill an unusual Chinese prophecy, granting a wish... in this case, a horse race ticket that they hope to be a winner. With a screenplay by John Huston and appearances by Lorre and Greenstreet, and a figurine as a major plot device, you might expect a MALTESE FALCON retread. But this is a very different story. I hesitate to call it noir, although it does have some of the visual stylization and explores some of man's darker impulses. But it's really more of a triptych character study. The three represent different moral stances: Fitzgerald is conniving and ruthless, Greenstreet does something wrong but at least has enough decency to be conflicted about it, and Lorre is simply a carefree drunk who trusts the wrong people. I didn't count the minutes, but it felt like Lorre got the most screen time, and deservedly so. I don't know if I've ever seen a better performance from him, certainly not a more likable one. He's a charming character with a thoughtful outlook on life. His story also has the benefit of wonderful turns by Peter Whitney and especially Joan Lorring, a very appealing actress I've never seen before, but I'm delighted to see appears in a few more noirs I intended to see. Greenstreet's and Fitzgerald's plot threads are interesting as well, and the way all they come together and resolve at the end is satisfying. It's a quirky film with a very good script, quite fulfilling.

"Three Strangers" has long been a favorite film of mine, with its fascinating reference to the statue of the goddess Kwan Yin, who, in Chinese legend, opens her eyes and grants a wish to three strangers on the Chinese New Year. Geraldine Fitzgerald, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre are the above-mentioned strangers, each with an agenda that can be easily pursued by money. So the wish is that their sweepstakes ticket win, and the agreement is that it then be entered into the horse race that follows.

Geraldine Fitzgerald's character seems sympathetic, but she reveals herself as quite obsessive and delusional as the film progresses. Greenstreet plays a crooked solicitor, and Lorre portrays a small time criminal - he's the most sympathetic character and, to my mind, gives the most memorable performance.

The film asks the question - did the meeting of the three strangers change their lives, or did events proceed as they would have? This is an unusual, absorbing, and entertaining film. I highly recommend it.

The time is 1938 London before the World War. A woman of mystery, Geraldine Fitzgerald, invites two perfect strangers played by Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet up to her apartment. She's a believer in the ancient Chinese god of Kwan Lin and it's said that if Three Strangers wish on that deity and their's is the same wish it will be granted. In this case the wish is money and it's in the form of a sweepstakes ticket that Peter Lorre has purchased and who gives two thirds away to Fitzgerald and Greenstreet in the hope of fortune coming their way.

After this we see a glimpse of the lives of the three people. Lorre is a petty criminal who's gotten himself into a beautiful jackpot being accused of a murder that he didn't commit. Fitzgerald is a shrewish wife who stays married to an unhappy Alan Napier who just wants to be free to marry Marjorie Riordan. This is a harbinger of a role that Fitzgerald really perfected a dozen years later in Ten North Frederick. As for Greenstreet, he's a solicitor, an attorney of no great significance in the legal profession, an English version of a man whose name I was once threatened with named Abe Hecht. It's now become a synonym for cheap shysters with me. Anyway Greenstreet's the trustee of an estate he's been dipping into. He wants to make a financial killing real bad because he thinks that money will buy him respectability which he craves like nothing else.

The film is like a 90 minute version of a Twilight Zone episode, but that's not a putdown because some really classic stuff was done on that program. The script was written by Howard Koch and John Huston and directed by Jean Negulesco. I'm surprised Huston did not want to direct this one himself, but Jean Negulesco got some of the best performances that members of the cast ever gave on screen, especially from the three leads.

Notice no really big movie names are in this cast, no leading men screen legends. That may have been an asset to the film because it concentrates on the story and the characters created. The ironic fates of all three of the sweepstakes ticket sharers could have come right out of the imaginative mind of Rod Serling. And Peter Lorre is actually allowed a little romance in a movie. That alone makes Three Strangers absolutely priceless.

Three Strangers is a B picture gem, one of those low budget sleepers that Hollywood puts out to great critical acclaim that turn a profit because of the low budget. And this review is dedicated to that attorney Abe Hecht whom I never met and to his idiot brother-in-law Morris Stetch who threatened me with him back in 1979. To see if Greenstreet obtains the status of a Clarence Darrow and rises from Abe Hechtdom, don't miss Three Strangers.

This is a solid and well made movie about 3 bad people who all go through bad lives after making a pact to share the winnings of a lottery ticket. There are no characters to root for but a nice dark ending that makes this a fun watch. Lorre gets a chance to play something other than a bad guy and does a good job. Hardly a classic, but worth tracking down.

This is one fine made movie. It has a greatly written script and a top-notch cast. It sounds like a cliché of course but it's a real shame that movies like these aren't being made and written anymore. At least not on such a commercially large scale and with such fine big name actors in it. Movies like this aren't made anymore simply because movies like this don't really sell, unless they are being made exceptionally good. It's not really a film-noir, although the movie certainly shows similarities to the atmosphere and the story also shows noir tendencies. The movie in the end is perhaps a bit too 'light' to consider it a real film-noir, also because it features quite an amount of subtle black comedy. The story is solidly constructed and focuses on three different characters and plot-lines that of course are all still connected to each other. The fine script was written by Hollywood legend John Huston. It features lots of deeper themes such as greed and jealousy. You really start to care about the characters and their problems. Something that isn't too common for a '40's genre movie. It's not always an easy movie to watch and follow so make sure you watch this movie with a clear head. The dialog might be a bit overlong by todays standards but its so fine written and delivered by the actors that you tend to look past this. The movie gets really carried by the three main characters, that equally share the screen time. I was especially impressed by Sydney Greenstreet, which also might due to the fact that he had the best- or at least most credible plot line. Peter Lorre also played a great role and gave a fine performance. Geraldine Fitzgerald was definitely the least of the three actors and she tended to overact a bit in some of the dramatic sequences. But overall her role was also really a solid one and it says something about the quality of the acting from Lorre and Greenstreet to say that Fitzgerald gave the lesser performance of the movie. Alan Napier also plays a small role. Oh man, it really seems to be that this guy is in about every 'old' movie that I watch lately. Napier received his most fame for playing the butler Alfred in the Adam West "Batman" series from the '60's. The editing of the movie was also surprisingly good and fast. Instead of long single camera sequences, the movie cuts back and forth between different camera positions in the same sequence rapidly. It gives the story speed and helps to keep you interest even during the more slow and dull moments of the movie. The fine little musical score was from acclaimed composer Adolph Deutsch, whose music suited this movie and its atmosphere really well. It's a fine good old fashioned quality movie, made with limited resources but with fine experts involved. 8/10

It's Always a joy to watch Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, and they both are in top form in THREE STRANGERS. It's a Pretty good story by John Huston. A must for film noir lovers

"It has always been man's desire to invent idols on whom he can place the responsibility for his own actions. Perhaps these three strangers in this story, whose lives have really nothing to do with each other, would never have met except for a very ancient idol: the Chinese goddess, Kwan Yin. And perhaps their separate stories might have been different except for what happened that night. And then again, perhaps not." (OPENING TITLE SCREEN)

And so begins THREE STRANGERS. It sounded interesting enough.

But in the end, I didn't particularly care for this film. That mostly stems from the fact that it's based on the lives of selfish, self-absorbed people looking to change their fortunes.

It looks rather low budget as nothing really impressed me with the sets or the cinematography. The acting was adequate, but ultimately couldn't overcome the problem for me with the characters in general.

Mostly, it was a film full of unlikeable people - with the exception of Peter Lorre's character. He was the least offensive of the three main characters although still a drunken crook - but he seemed less harmful.

In the end, I couldn't have cared less what happened with any of the people in this film. I think the premise could have been interesting - the idea of 3 people's lives intertwined because of a winning lottery ticket. But ultimately, it failed to deliver.

Why is Three Strangers, a 1946 movie, set in the London in 1938? There's nothing in the story that links it to a particular time. But in 1938, Britain had yet to be drawn into the long and arduous war to come, when gallantry and self-sacrifice were the orders of the day. The characters in Three Strangers are mirthlessly ungallant and single-mindedly self-absorbed; relegating them to the fool's paradise of the year before all hell broke loose was a diplomatic courtesy.

But a movie centered around three unappealing characters presents another, more immediate problem: The problems they bring on themselves do not compel much sympathy. The movie opens before midnight as the Chinese New Year is about to strike. Geraldine Fitzgerald has been trolling the streets to bring two strangers (Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre) back to her flat. Her quest is not sexual but ritualistic: The Chinese goddess of fortune, a statue of whom graces her drawing room, requires the gathering of three persons unknown to one another before she will grant her annual wish. When all the conditions and codicils have been duly haggled over, the three agree to wish for a winning sweepstakes ticket.

Then they part ways to return to their separate hells. The grasping, manipulative Fitzgerald has driven away her husband, who returns from Canada with a young woman he wants to marry. The avaricious Greenstreet, a solicitor, has been plundering his clients' accounts to speculate in stocks. The alcoholic Lorre (by default the least offensive of the trio) finds himself on death row for a policeman's murder committed by one of his low-life friends who framed him. Their individual stories unfold and, in ironies reminiscent of de Maupassant or O. Henry, ultimately reconverge. As expected, Jean Negulesco directs handsomely but can't overcome the emotional vacuum in John Huston's script: The fates of these three strangers leave us cold.

Geraldine Fitzgerald, (Crystal Shackleford) strolls down a London street and manages to recruit two strangers named Jerome K. Arbutny, (Sydney Greenstreet) and Johnny West, (Peter Lorre) to her apartment in order to celebrate a Chinese New Year. Crystal has a statue in her apartment named the goddess Kwan Yin which will open her eyes and grant wishes to the three strangers which involves a sweepstakes ticket. The two strangers have some very dark secrets and Jerome Arbutny is a crooked solicitor who steals money from trust funds and Johnny West is a small time criminal who loves to drink all the time. Crystal is a woman who has a husband who just plain left her and found another woman and then he is asking her for a divorce, but Crystal will not give him a divorce. If you liked seeing these actors in previous films you will enjoy viewing this film which is very mysterious with very dark secrets. Enjoy.

Crystal Shackleford (Geraldine Fitzgerald) invites two strangers, Jerome K. Arbutny (Sydney Greenstreet) and Johnny West (Peter Lorre), to her apartment on the night of Chinese New Year in 1938. She has an idol of Kwan Yin and tells them that it would grant them a wish to three people who are strangers to each other. They decide to share a sweepstakes ticket.

This is a very strong opening. It drives a hook right into the audience but the hook slowly slips out. The three characters don't have enough time to build chemistry before scattering to the winds. What would have been stronger is to have them go on a quest together for the night. They could remain strangers until each one of their issues is reveal but with the others present in this way. As it stands, the movie loses my attention as each one of their stories are explained. I try to stay with one story when another story takes over. I just kept waiting for them to reunite. I do have to give this full marks for imaginative story writing and great acting.

A 1946 film noir featuring Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre & Geraldine Fitzgerald. All three meet up in the beginning of the film to go in on a future horse race hoping to win the big payday. Why these three we never find out but each is in their own desperate straits that a windfall w/this much potential can be life altering. Lorre, hanging around the lower echelons of the British criminal underworld, has a youngish girlfriend & is always one step ahead of the rent collector but when an associate is implicated in a murder & his girl is a witness, the noose of implication rests squarely around his neck. Greenstreet is an investment banker who has co-opted a widowed dowager's funds into a high risk/high cash scheme which soon comes crumbling around his ears where marriage to the woman may be a possibility. Fitzgerald is caught in a one sided marriage to Alan Napier (Alfred from TV's Batman) who already has eyes for another but she holds out demented hope she can sway his love back to her. All of these mini & melodramas culminate on the day of the race where Greenstreet is so keen to take care of his money problems, he's already offered the sale of his stake in the ticket to someone who will make him flush but Fitzgerald is adamant they collect the prize as a unit which makes him commit a fatal decision. More O. Henry than out & out noir, this collision of morals really gets going in the last third but one wonders what if their horse lost? Co-written by John Huston, whose directing debut The Maltese Falcon carries some of the same plot elements (& some of the cast as well), is still vital for the nightmarish yarn it weaves.

A very literate script by John Huston and Howard Koch makes this one worth seeing. Only after the initial intriguing premise is set in motion do we discover to our amusement that all the characters we've become interested in are fairly despicable, particularly Geraldine Fitzgerald as a sociopath and nymphomaniac. With the unusually well observed character details provided by the script and the use of many supporting and bit actors one hasn't seen in lots of other pictures, THREE STRANGERS really has something of the atmosphere of London in 1938 rather than of London-via-Hollywood.

And make no mistake: Despite good direction by Jean Negulesco, John Huston's cynicism, pessimism and misogyny are evident everywhere, and that alone makes this unusual in a '40s picture. Like MALTESE FALCON it is a black comedy about greed, but it has no big stars, no glamor, and only the sliest, cruelest humor. Add the perfectly judged performances of everyone in this film, and it adds up to a neglected near-classic, one that seemed to predict the funnier and more elegant KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS.

As the real star of the film, Peter Lorre is wonderfully wry and quite lovable as one of life's eternal losers. Sydney Greenstreet often played nasty men deliciously but here he takes his character's weakness and pettiness much further than usual, and his scenes of escalating madness are very effective. Geraldine Fitzgerald's portrait of an amoral seductress is different than what she usually played at Warners, and should be considered some kind of '40s milestone in the depiction of depraved women alongside Gene Tierney in LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN and Agnes Moorehead in DARK PASSAGE. She's aided by some very form-fitting Milo Anderson gowns, one of which, a pleated satin negligee, was recycled in black for Patricia Neal in THE FOUNTAINHEAD a few years later. It looks great in both incarnations. In smaller parts Peter Whitney makes an impression as a soft-hearted (and homosexual?) crony of Lorre's, and Rosalind Ivan is memorable as a dotty widow who is much shrewder than she appears. Finally, the casting of Fitzgerald, Marjorie Riordan and Joan Lorring (who looks like a young Irene Selznick) is curious: all three young women have prominent noses, darkly painted lips and very dark, shoulder-length hair which is styled similarly. And as each character descends in economic scale, her looks are heavier and plainer. Another comment on how fickle fortune can be? Anne Sharp's comment below that the characters are meant to illustrate the dark forces that enabled WWII is interesting and valuable.

By the way, the print shown on TCM is rather dim, sketchy and full of harsh contrasts so it's hard to judge what the film was actually meant to look like. Whoever now owns the Warner Bros. library should strike a pristine version of this one.

THREE STRANGERS stake their future fortunes on the whims of Kwan Yin, an ancient Chinese goddess.

The original story behind this tidy little thriller was originally conceived by John Huston as a sequel to THE MALTESE FALCON (1941). That not proving possible, it was shaped into its present form with help from the writer Howard Koch and turned over to the noted director Jean Negulesco.

The film stars Sydney Greenstreet & Peter Lorre in one of their several pairings. Greenstreet, huge and implacable, plays a desperately duplicitous solicitor. Spooky-eyed Lorre, who gets to play a rare romantic role, is a petty criminal on the lam from the police. Their actual screen time together is sparse, but they make the most of it--the nervous little fellow playing perfectly off of the rumbling fat man. Greenstreet, especially, overacts magnificently, descending into melancholia and, eventually, madness, to the delight of the viewer.

Geraldine Fitzgerald is pure vixen as the third member of the trio, a woman so consumed by jealousy, and obsessed with the supposed powers of the goddess Kwan Yin, that she has ceased being influenced by natural love & affection. Every man's nightmare, she is unadulterated malice.

The supporting cast includes the sprightly Joan Lorring as Lorre's loyal girlfriend; Alan Napier as Fitzgerald's estranged husband; Rosalind Ivan as a widowed dowager still in communication with her deceased husband; Arthur Shields as a stern prosecutor; and the always competent Doris Lloyd as Lorre's slovenly landlady.

Movie mavens will recognize an unbilled Ian Wolfe as a London barrister.

Alfred Hitchcock was interested in directing this, and I can see why. Because it plays out like three intertwined episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Crystal Shackleford (Geraldine Fitzgerald) lures two strangers, solicitor Jerome K. Arbutny (Sydney Greenstreet) and drunkard Johnny West (Peter Lorre) to her London home on Chinese New Year in 1938 because of her belief that if three strangers make the same wish to an idol of Kwan Yin, Chinese goddess of fortune and destiny, the wish will be granted.

They must not know each other's names until after the wish is made, and she has thought this out and believes that the only common wish they could make is for money. So they wish for a sweepstakes ticket to come in, and they all sign their names to it. Crystal says that part of the bargain is that if the ticket wins they will bet it all on the ensuing horserace. Well of course they agree to this, because they don't really think anything will come of it anyways. So they go their own way having thought this episode nothing more than somewhat amusing.

Johnny is mixed up in a robbery that turned to murder even though he was just the look-out and drunk and did not really know what was going on.

Arbutny has embezzled money from a client's estate and the investment goes south, with him having insufficient funds to avoid disgrace and jail.

Crystal wants her husband back, but he is in love with somebody else and is adamant about wanting a divorce. She seems obsessed with winning more than she is in love.

Now I can see how Arbutny's problem would be solved by money. But as for Johnny and Crystal - no amount of money could get them what they want. And it's a strange film where Peter Lorre plays the most well adjusted character, somewhat resigned to whatever fate he gets as destiny.

Then the paths of these three people converge again and the whole thing ends quite ironically. If you are looking for Greenstreet and Lorre together, they really are not for the vast majority of the film, but it still plays to their strengths and I'd recommend it.

With its low-key black and white cinematography, hard-boiled characters of profound weakness and an almost cheerfully subversive story, Jean Negulesco's Three Strangers is undiluted nostalgia of an urbane and cunning variety. Never so far away from rationality that it is an altogether unique yet unmistakably theatrical parable, it makes a shadowy and alluring potboiler, reaching some moments of pure magnetism in a handful of its crucial sequences.

The script by John Huston and his friend Howard Koch is masterful in structure. The film begins in the shadows and fog of the London streets as Geraldine Fitzgerald coaxes two strangers, Sydney Greenstreet's caricatured attorney Jerome K. Arbutney and Peter Lorre's charismatic and cultivated alcoholic Johnny West to her London pad on Chinese New Year at the hand of her doctrine that if three strangers make the same wish to an idol of the Chinese goddess of fortune and destiny, the wish will be fulfilled. Because money will make their dreams come true, the three gamble on a sweepstakes ticket for the Grand National horse race together and concur that they will not sell the ticket if it is selected, and will hold onto it until the race is run. Fitzgerald would use the money to attempt to win her alienated husband back, Arbutny to lay the groundwork for his appointment to the esteemed Barrister's Club, and Johnny to purchase a bar as his home.

After this single, taut, spare and graceful expository dialogue scene, the plot strands of the three strangers are unraveled, demystifying who we began to believe they were in the initial scene. Greenstreet insatiably and uproariously overplays as Arbutney, who we learn has looted a trust fund. Lorre is seamlessly graceful as the drunk who becomes enmeshed in a murder of which he's not guilty, while Fitzgerald is astonishing as a manipulative and truly unpredictable woman, a femme fatale of the highest caliber.

Undeservedly obscure and overlooked, Three Strangers is about the human desire to look to gods and idols to resolve our problems, only to be driven into worse new ones. Mostly owing to the performances and the cynical manipulation of the noir plot, the film resolves as kind of a black comedy. It is an admirable and deftly executed variation on the hopeless and acerbic atmosphere of the film noir. In noir, characters are corrupt fall guys of the universe, brimming with existential distress, just like us all. Why not find a chuckle or two in it?