The Stranger

It's quite interesting to see two acting legends like Orson Welles and Edward G. Robinson working together, and with a cast that includes those two plus Loretta Young, along with an interesting story, "The Stranger" is a pretty good thriller.

Welles and Robinson play an interesting cat-and-mouse game in the search for a former Nazi who is hiding out in a peaceful Connecticut town. It's fair to point out, as others have done, that the dialogue at times leaves a little to be desired, but Welles and Robinson have more than enough ability to carry it off anyway.

Loretta Young has a difficult role as the wife of Welles's character. The script does her no favors, either, but she gives a creditable performance as a character who is important to the story. Among the supporting cast, Billy House particularly stands out, getting surprisingly good mileage out of his role as the store-keeper.

Perhaps the most creative aspect of the movie is the effective use of the clock tower, both as a plot device and as an idea, along with the related themes of clocks and time. The tense climax makes good use of all of these elements.

Welles and Robinson were both parts of so many outstanding movies that sometimes their merely good movies can seem to suffer by comparison. As long as you don't try to compare "The Stranger" with some other film, but just watch it for itself, it's a good thriller and an entertaining movie.

Who says that fear of terrorism is a new development, post 9/11. Imagine the fears and exposed nerve endings of the average towns person living in the shadow of World War II. There was the fear of infiltration by the Nazis with their secret agents, blending in with our everyday citizens. Orson Welles plays just such a guy. He is kind, pleasant, quiet, and very dangerous. He even sets about marrying a woman as part of his secret plot. Edward G. Robinson, who normally would have been the heavy, plays a tired, hard working investigator who is leaving no stone unturned. The plot is intricate, though predictable, and the whole thing is hard to take your eyes off. Welles was a great director, but perhaps an even better actor. He keeps this thing going, raising it above the common fair of the time. The writing keeps the good guys at bay, but the clues continue to sit there, ripe for discovery. The clock tower is a great symbol, continuing to remind us of the urgency of everything. The dramatic irony presented makes us continually uncomfortable. We are treated to the movements and activities of the villain, and being let in, it makes everything more enjoyable. See this if you can.

The reason people talk about "The Stranger" 60 years later is because it was Orson Welles' first directorial effort after he was evicted from the Mercury Theater cocoon which gave us "Citizen Kane" as well as its worthy follow-ups "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "It's All True." The reason "The Stranger" is worth talking about is because it features one of the greatest performances by that criminally-ignored actor, Edward G. Robinson.

Robinson plays Mr. Wilson, an anti-Nazi hot on the trail of a war-crimes-tribunal escapee Wilson hopes will lead him to Franz Kindler, architect of the Final Solution. Kindler, we quickly discover, has set himself up as a history teacher, Mr. Rankin, at a Connecticut prep school. There he is about to marry Mary Longstreet, the daughter of a U.S. Supreme Court justice, "a liberal," Kindler relates with chilling amusement.

As Kindler, Welles gives a weak performance. There's a scene where he chews on more than his dinner as he gives himself away, by saying Marx was not a German because he was a Jew. Actually, I'd say the jig was up when he revealed his novel notions of reconstruction. The scenes between him and Loretta Young, who plays his too-trusting bride, are uncomfortably clichéd.

But Robinson is a marvel throughout the film. Of course, he is best remembered for playing a gangster, but he shone playing good guys, too. "Double Indemnity" is the best of them, though "Confessions Of A Nazi Spy" is good, too, and somewhat to the point here as it features Robinson playing a role similar to "The Stranger," though at the beginning of World War II rather than the end.

Robinson's character here, Mr. Wilson, might in fact be "the stranger" of the title, though it seems to refer to Kindler. Frankly, Kindler may be a Nazi bent on killing innocents, but Wilson is about as coldblooded a character. From the beginning, he seems to be half-playing a game with the Nazi he is chasing, smoking his pipe and staring directly into the eyes of his fearful prey. Perhaps the war crimes he has immersed himself in investigating have stripped him of any human kindness. The way he works on Mary's brother Noah and his father the judge is remarkable for Wilson's lack of humane concern, perhaps necessary, but still bone-chilling. He's like that all the way to the end. Just think for a moment about that final line he says to Mary, after all she's just been through. He's on the side of the angels, but Robinson turns in one of his most devilish performances.

There are nice scenes in and around the town of Harper, and I agree with those viewers who see shades of "Shadow Of A Doubt" in its depiction of small-town life, even though that took place in California and this is happening in Connecticut. Billy House as Mr. Potter dominates the scenes he is in with his amiable whimsy and the eyeshade he dons when he's in the middle of a serious checkers game (quarter stakes).

But "The Stranger" never really gels as a movie. Welles as director is strangely ill at ease with Wells as star. Too many cow-eyed portentous stares, not enough subtle moments like that low-key moment with Mr. Potter when he pays for a soda after finding out Mr. Wilson's hot on his trail. Young may have been a fine actress, but she doesn't get much help from a script that serves up every frail female stereotype in the book. Her every reaction seems more suited to soap opera.

Yet there's more to like here than dislike. Take the satisfying conclusion, where Kindler/Rankin has his moment of truth in the church tower where he has been working on the clock. It's the one effective scene between him and Mary, and very gripping. Welles was a gifted artist, but a superb craftsman, too, and if "The Stranger" offers more evidence of the latter, who are we to quibble? Pleasant dreams

A little much in parts, particularly the use of headlight direction that Welles loves to employ, nevertheless, this is a film that rates three stars in the Wellesian collection.

Edward G. Robinson is superb as the laid-back, all-knowing, in-your-face detective and Loretta Young scores as Orson's wife but it's big Billy House who is the real scene-stealer. House plays the man who owns the self-service store in town who likes playing checkers with his customers.

Welles, who looks a little strange--no doubt to match up with the title-provides a commanding performance throughout in a film that reflects the era's revulsion with the Nazi dream.

Stylish noir trading on public's concern with escaped Nazis following WWII. First part is especially intriguing since we can't be sure what's happening or who Franz Kindler is. The atmosphere is typically Wellesian— shadows galore, imaginative camera set-ups, along with dramatic use of sound. Two features, however, standout for me.

Once the plot comes into focus, we know Kindler (Welles) must do away with Meinicke (Shayne), but how. The forest scene is inspired, more menacing I think than the finale. The two men are on bended knee, in apparent communion with the forces of good, except one of them is not.

Second is Welles' depiction of small town America through druggist Potter (House, in a splendid performance). Grossly over-weight, he sits all day in front of his checkerboard, hoping to entice some sucker into a game, so he can cheat them out of a quarter. Worse, he makes customers serve themselves, apparently so he won't have to move his bulk. Not exactly the neighborly small town of Shadow of a Doubt (1943), for example.

Given the movie's many arresting features, I'm not sure why its profile isn't higher among both noirs and the Welles canon. My best guess concerns a general absence of ambiguity among both characters and situations. Instead, the screenplay is a straight pursuit film of good vs. evil that makes good use of cat and mouse, and of atmosphere, but is unexceptional in storyline. So if you're looking for stylish suspense without tricky moral complications, this is a movie to catch.