I SEE A DARK STRANGER. Individual Pictures/General Films, 1946. US title: The Adventuress. Deborah Kerr, Trevor Howard, Raymond Huntley, Norman Shelley, Garry Marsh, Tom Macaulay. Director: Frank Launder.

   This one was an eye-opener, I’ll tell you that first. In spite of From Here to Eternity, I’d always thought of Deborah Kerr as being the epitome of the pleasant matronly type, even when she was too young to be a matronly type. But when she herself was young, she was a shy but determined spitfire, or at least she could play one, as her role in I See a Dark Stranger most definitely shows.

   And in spite of being Scottish by birth, she could also play a young unsophisticated Irish lass so filled with hatred toward the British that when she was 21, she could travel alone to Dublin from her small village and ask to be signed up to fight them — not realizing that during World War II, Ireland was not exactly fighting the British.

   You noticed the qualification in that last sentence, I’m sure. To appreciate this movie more, you’d have to know that in World War II Ireland was officially neutral, and the Nazis had somewhat realistic hopes of using the enmity between the two countries to their own ends. (See my review of The Private Wound by Nicholas Blake for a mystery novel that also uses this small but hardly insignificant bit of history as its backdrop.)

   Turned down by an old comrade of her father’s in the continuance of her cause, Bridie Quilty turns to a German spy named Miller, played by Raymond Huntley with much worldly panache and aplomb, the cigarette in his mouth bobbing up and down in his mouth as he speaks as if it were alive and trying to escape.

   Fatally attracted to her, however, is Lt. David Baynes (Trevor Howard), who follows her clear across England and back to Ireland, hoping to (first of all) discover why she is acting so strangely — having to dispose of a dead body in the middle of the night will do that for a girl — and then try to extricate her from the troubles she finds herself up to her pretty neck in.

   Back when there was a long discussion on this blog about the definition of noir when it comes to films or books, a question was asked whether there was a satisfactory combination of noir with screwball comedy in the same movie. The Big Clock comes close (reviewed here), but here is another one.

   Or at least it is if two conditions are satisfied. First of all, that there are sufficient dark and sinister elements in this film that it could be actually be called noir. It’s currently described that way on many blogs, including Steve-O’s Noir of the Week blog, but I’m not so sure. It’s borderline at best — nor do I think the comedy is of the screwball variety.

   And this is where the movie went off the tracks, as far as I was concerned. The ending is pure slapstick, with pratfalls into a bathtub the highlight of all of the happy hijinks of the final reel. Till then, though, up to the point where both Bridie and Lt. Baynes are captured by German agents, it’s an exciting tale of espionage laced with humor, with the latter emphasized by Bridie’s complete wide-eyed seriousness. She’s determined to fight the British, and nothing will stop her.

   Strangely enough, she doesn’t have red hair. It’s brown, and she’s young and naive, and she has blue eyes, and if nothing else, she’s a sight for sore eyes, that is for sure. The large ensemble of British movie actors and actresses behind her, a stalwart group indeed, only adds in making this a very entertaining film, noir or no. (And make that whether the ending matches the rest of the film, or not.)