Wed 7 Nov 2018
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: THE STRANGER (1946).
Posted by Steve under Films: Drama/Romance , Reviews[19] Comments
THE STRANGER. RKO Radio Pictures, 1946. Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Orson Welles, Philip Merivale, Richard Long. Director: Orson Welles.
Orson Welles’ The Stranger, the auteur’s most commercially successful production, is a movie about evil. More specifically, it’s a film about the capacity of evil to mask itself in respectable bourgeois garb, to hide inconspicuously in plain sight.
Although linear in its narrative, The Stranger makes ample use of unique camera movements and stylistic flourishes commonly associated with film noir. And as in films noir, Welles’s choice of non-traditional camera angles and use of shadows and lighting to convey impending menace serves to give the film a semi-nightmarish feeling, one that conveys to the viewer that there is something fundamentally not quite right with post-war American and its norms of surface level respectability.
As an actor in the film, Welles is on less solid ground. While his portrayal of the Nazi war criminal Franz Kindler, now hiding in Connecticut under the name Charles Rankin, is captivating in its depiction of how seemingly ordinary men can be capable of committing atrocities, it’s also fundamentally flawed. Welles is just a bit too American in his mannerisms throughout as well as in his desperate fear of being caught by the Nazi hunter Wilson (Edward G. Robinson).
This prevents him from fully disappearing into his character. To be fair, Welles was portraying a Nazi war criminal that was merely pretending to be nothing more than a respectable teacher at a New England boys’ school, one who married the daughter (Loretta Young) of one of the town’s leading public figures.
There’s much more I could say about The Stranger, but I hesitate to say too much without viewing the film for a second, or even perhaps third, time. There’s a lot going on in the film, much more than I suspect movie audiences saw in 1946 or that I saw upon my first viewing of the Kino Classics DVD version.
That said, two aspects of the film bear mentioning. The first is the scene in which there is a film within the film. It takes place in a typical upper class Connecticut home in which Mr. Wilson (Robinson) shows both the town judge and his daughter footage from the Nazi concentration camps. This was actual footage and was taken from Death Mills (1945), a documentary film on the Holocaust produced by director Billy Wilder, who himself lost his mother in Auschwitz. This was the first time actual footage of the Holocaust was utilized in Hollywood film.
The second concerns a quirky aspect of Orson Welles’ character, namely his obsession with clocks. It’s a recurring theme throughout the film and one that Welles, as director, utilizes skillfully to dramatize the fact that as Nazi hunter Wilson closes in on him, time is running out for Franz Kindler and his perverted notion of restoring the Third Reich.
November 7th, 2018 at 4:52 pm
This has always seemed like a lesser work to me, without the flair of LADY FROM SHANGHAI or JOURNEY INTO FEAR, but still worth seeing.
November 7th, 2018 at 6:10 pm
I need to see this one again myself. I thought the film was well done, but I also remember the entire movie being a little bit “off” to me. But even right after I watched it I couldn’t even begin to tell anyone what I meant by “off.”
November 7th, 2018 at 7:01 pm
The idea of a Nazi hiding in plain sight in Post War America quite so easily as Welles character is the hardest part of the plot to get over, and frankly I don’t think the script really sells it all that well, but once you buy the premise, which is true of many thrillers and suspense films, there are numerous pleasures.
If Welles the actor is not on the firmest ground, Robinson is wonderful as the soft spoken nemesis, very close to the same basic role he played in CONFESSIONS OF A NAZI SPY, his slow steady net closing more tightly around Welles neck creating an odd sort of sympathy for Welles increasingly desperate character even as we root for Robinson.
Loretta Young’s transformation here from a young but sheltered woman enamored by Welles brilliant professor to a strong woman capable of summoning both the strength and courage to take down a Nazi war criminal makes good use of her screen persona and style. As she emerges from hysteria to cool calculated revenge she goes from simpering ingenue to vengeful angel convincingly. One of the films real pleasures is just how strong her character becomes by films end. Quite a bit about her character is suggested by small things we learn along the way and just at the point she seems about to lose herself in hysteria the steel emerges.
And while it is a thankless role I have always thought Richard Long does quite well as the younger brother who becomes ally and agent of Robinson’s character. It could easily be a throwaway role and Long manages to convey a certain strength as he tries to protect his sister.
Welles is fairly subtly saying something about both the vulnerability and strengths of democracy. Insular and naive Americans are presented as easy targets for the sophisticated Nazi and yet at the same time he is brought down by his ultimate inability to hide from them who and what he is.
November 7th, 2018 at 7:15 pm
This is a good review. Thank you!
“The Stranger” does not always work perfectly. But it is a richly creative film on all levels, including the visuals Jonathan mentions in his review. And every time the film is watched, it reveals new sides and features not seen before.
“The Stranger” echoes Welles’ earlier “The Magnificent Amerbsons” in many ways. And it turn, Welles’ later documentary “Filming the Trial” offers much discussion relevant to “The Stranger”. “Filming the Trial” includes Welles’ further thoughts on the Holocaust. Welles’ ferocious opposition to anti-semitism and racism in general is one of his most admirable features as an artist.
November 7th, 2018 at 7:21 pm
Jonathan, The Stranger is not only Welles’ most commercially successful film, it is the only successful film that he made.
November 7th, 2018 at 7:34 pm
Thanks for the various comments, everyone. I see now the reason I thought the movie was off, to use the word I couldn’t think of a better one to use, was not so much that the movie was off, but that I was. I do need to see it again!
November 7th, 2018 at 9:29 pm
I found the film interesting but do not agree with David about either Welles or Loretta Young. Orson is dull and Young shrill. All the rest of intellectualism coming from the outside. Robinson, Richard Long and Bill House are all wonderful, but if Welles had been allowed by the production company to cast in his own way, Agnes Moorehead would have played Wilson. And then no one would have seen this film, just as no one went to any of his others, relatively speaking. When referring to Orson Welles, always keep in mind that he got chances from RKO, Independent, Columbia, Republic, Universal, and was never invited back by any of them. There are people who list him high up in the pantheon, me too, but he was impossible. Could all these self important pictures have been the inspiration for Last Year At Marienbad, speaking of impossible bores.
November 7th, 2018 at 11:12 pm
More food for thought, but we may have to agree to disagree re Loretta Young, at least for now. Thanks, Barry!
November 7th, 2018 at 11:36 pm
Loretta was awfully good looking, as were her sisters, and that counts. It may be, that I don’t like her part, rather than performance.
November 8th, 2018 at 5:55 am
This was the only Hollywood film on which he agreed to compromise. “To show I don’t glow in the dark.” That it was his only commercial success says more about the audience. He could’ve continued in this Hitchcock/Fritz Lang mode if such acceptance was what he wanted.
November 8th, 2018 at 7:04 am
Is it the first movie about a post-war Nazi persecutor?
November 9th, 2018 at 12:47 am
Johny, I believe that it is, but I haven’t had a chance to research it to be able to say definitively one way or the other.
I’m hoping someone who knows more than I do will stop by and answer your question better than this.
November 9th, 2018 at 1:56 am
Notorious, Hitchcock 1946 with Grant, Bergman and Nazi Claude Rains in Brazil. Same year.
November 9th, 2018 at 8:04 am
It’s true, Barry. It is interesting to see Hitchcock and Welles competing with the same theme.
November 9th, 2018 at 1:50 pm
It may be that Cornered (1945) came in ahead of The Stranger and Notorious, although largely set in Argentina. Dick Powell played the lead, and quite well, with Edward Dmytryk directing.
November 9th, 2018 at 10:01 pm
Barry,
I certainly agree Welles was a huge diva and impossible to work with, whatever magic he brought to the screen as a creator was leavened by how unprofessional he was and how much trouble it was to work with him. The talent may have enjoyed him, but he made life hell for the studios he worked at and cost money. Then, as you mentioned earlier, most of his films lost money. Since movies are business as well as art no one could afford Welles genius.
I was going to say CORNERED too, and I am fairly sure you are right it was the first film to deal with Nazi war criminals, certainly the first major film to use the theme, though QUIET PLEASE, MURDER! has Sidney Blackmer as a never quite identified Nazi operative basically laundering money in this country by buying art to finance his post war life though that isn’t the main theme of the film.
November 9th, 2018 at 10:17 pm
David, I am with you on Quiet Please, Murder. I was fairly certain something under the radar existed. The credits are not as exalted, but Blackmer, George Sanders and Gail Patrick are pretty fine.
November 10th, 2018 at 7:47 am
Great data!
I recently saw “Maldonne” (1969), a French-Italian film by Sergio Gobbi, which deals with a case of Nazi hunting. For some strange reason, it’s not usually included in this subgenre.
November 12th, 2018 at 7:10 pm
GILDA is ’46 too, with George Macready another suggested Nazi war criminal in South America.