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Edward G. Robinson uncovers another killer, but this time he’s after a Nazi mass murderer, not an insurance salesman. Orson Welles’ most conventional thriller is a masterpiece of style and judgment, with a good sense of time and place – and a lot of expressive shadows. How does this new Blu-ray shape up in comparison to earlier presentations?

The Stranger

Blu-ray

Olive Films

1946 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 95 min. / Street Date August 29, 2017 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98

Starring: Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Orson Welles, Philip Merivale, Richard Long, Konstantin Shayne, Billy House.

Cinematography: Russell Metty

Production Design: Perry Ferguson

Art Direction: Albert S. D’Agostino

Film Editor: Ernest Nims

Original Music: Bronislau Kaper

Written by Anthony Veiller, Decla Dunning, Victor Trivas

Produced by Sam Spiegel

Directed by Orson Welles

Up pops Olive Films with another Blu-ray of Orson Welles’ impressive The Stranger, for the first time an HD scan...

I guess Howard Hughes wanted to go easy on Minnesota Nazis. William Cameron Menzies directs a Cold War thriller about an insidious germ warfare conspiracy -- it's an early paranoid suspense tale with apocalyptic consequences. But the story behind the movie's making -- and then remaking -- is even more fantastic. The Whip Hand DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1951 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 82 min. / Street Date February 16, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 18.59 Starring Elliott Reid, Raymond Burr, Carla Balenda, Edgar Barrier, Otto Waldis, Michael Steele, Lurene Tuttle, Peter Brocco, Lewis Martin, Frank Darien, Olive Carey, George Chandler, Gregory Gaye. Cinematography Nicholas Musuraca Film Editor Robert Golden Original Music Music by Paul Sawtell Written by George Bricker, Frank L. Moss, Ray Hamilton Produced by Louis J. Rachmil Directed by William Cameron Menzies

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Film writers Bill Warren and Tom Weaver have reported extensively on the unusual production story...

William Cameron Menzies. William Cameron Menzies movies on TCM: Murderous Joan Fontaine, deadly Nazi Communists Best known as an art director/production designer, William Cameron Menzies was a jack-of-all-trades. It seems like the only things Menzies didn't do was act and tap dance in front of the camera. He designed and/or wrote, directed, produced, etc., dozens of films – titles ranged from The Thief of Bagdad to Invaders from Mars – from the late 1910s all the way to the mid-1950s. Among Menzies' most notable efforts as an art director/production designer are: Ernst Lubitsch's first Hollywood movie, the Mary Pickford star vehicle Rosita (1923). Herbert Brenon's British-set father-son drama Sorrell and Son (1927). David O. Selznick's mammoth production of Gone with the Wind, which earned Menzies an Honorary Oscar. The Sam Wood movies Our Town (1940), Kings Row (1942), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943). H.C. Potter's Mr. Lucky...

A Mercury Theater player turned comic actor, Elliott Reid may be best known as the thorn in Fred MacMurray's side in The Absent-minded Professor (1961) and Son Of Flubber (1963). Reid starred in director William Cameron Menzies' Cold War sci-fi thriller The Whip Hand (1951), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), Inherit The Wind (1960), The Thrill Of It All (1963), The Wheeler Dealers (1963), Move Over, Darling (1963), Who's Been Sleeping In My Bed? (1963), Blackbeard's Ghost (1968) and Some Kind Of A Nut (1969). Reid also made countless TV appearances, notably Design For Loving, a classic 1958 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents based on a story by Ray Bradbury. Reid last appeared onscreen in a 1992 episode of Seinfeld and in a 1995 episode of Maybe This Time with Bette White.- Harvey Chartrand 

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