Crime Street presents The Stranger (1946)

Director - Orson Welles
 

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Plot
Review
Cast and Production Credits

The Plot

A war crimes investigator (Edward G. Robinson) arrives in a small New England town hunting for a Nazi war criminal who just might be one of the town's respected citizens. The criminal is Orson Welles. His new bride is Loretta Young.

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Film Notes

The Stranger is not often mentioned as one of Orson Welles' better efforts. It is usually considered as just a quick standard Hollywood studio job Welles' took on to pay the bills and prove to the powers-that-be that he could work efficiently. Indeed, the studio cut 30 minutes out of the final film, and Welles himself disowned it.

Yet a closer look reveals a film with schizophrenic artistic tendencies. Though the basic plot moves predictably, there are many individual moments and a few scenes that break through the mediocrity and rank with the best Wellesian touches.

What you should look for are:

• Kindler and Meinke in the woods
• Children playing while Kindler buries a body
• Concentration Camp montage (among the first Holocaust footage seen in the USA)
• Dinner scene with Welles monologue on Germany history
• Extreme camera angles
• Stylized close-ups
• Innovative sound effects and music
• Kindler's gothic death

Another subliminal highlight lost on today's audience, at the time of its release, there was also a perverseness to the idea of Loretta Young (an immensely popular symbol of American purity) literally in bed with a Nazi.

In the realm of trivia, look for a very young Richard Long (Bourbon Street Beat, Nanny and the Professor) as Loretta Young's young brother.

– Ed Schneider - Alameda TV

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Cast

Production Credits

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On the surface level The Stranger bears a resemblance to Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt

For more on Orson Welles:
Citizen Kane (1941)
Touch of Evil (1959)
Othello (1947)
Third Man (1947)

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