The Stranger (1946)

“There’s nothing to be afraid of in Harper.” Mary Rankin

The movie opens with a meeting between Allied War Crimes representatives somewhere in Europe. Edward G. Robinson (Scarlet Street, Soylent Green) barks, “Leave the cell door open! Let him escape!” Apparently this is done because we see a furtive figure traveling, always shadowed by somebody, and particularly by a pipe-smoking man.

Somewhere in South America, probably Buenos Aires, the fugitive obtains a new passport and demands the location of Franz Kindler, overpowering the photographer with the force of his personality. He learns the person he seeks is in Harper, Connecticut, in America… A picture postcard shot of a church steeple dissolves to a shot of the same…

The fugitive, a small downtrodden-appearing man who is capable of adopting a forceful attitude revealing past authority, finds his target, but first encounters the storekeeper and fiancée (Loretta Young) of the hidden Nazi, who is a professor at an ivy league prep school. When the little man disappears, nobody seems to care much, although this becomes a major point as the story unwinds.

The story concerns a highly placed Nazi, The Stranger, who has burrowed in to American society after the war. Unlike most of the big fish who were publicity hounds and loved their picture in the paper, this man, likely based on Martin Bormann, is a faceless enigma. We learn he was the architect of “The Final Solution,” and is wanted for the wholesale killing of Jews and others The Third Reich branded as undesirables.

We are introduced to the Nazi right off, so the suspense does not originate from that point. Where the suspense is built is how can the pipe smoking Nazi hunter Edward G. Robinson unmask this fellow in the midst of all the good will exhibited by the citizens of Harper?

As a history buff, I think this film is quite underrated because it illustrates attitudes that have disappeared from the American psyche, but were typical for the times. The truth about the Holocaust was not generally known, as we know it today, and our cynicism, where we routinely distrust everything the government tells us, had not been awakened yet.

The story is good, and the actors, led by Orson Welles (Professor Rankin), Edward G. Robinson (Mr. Wilson), and luminously beautiful Loretta Young (Mary Rankin) do their jobs with aplomb, with probably the most thankless task thrust on Ms. Young, who must serve as bait for Wilson’s scheme. Supporting cast includes Billy House as the garrulous and nosy storekeeper, Potter, who provides broad comic relief with his self service store and Richard Long (The Big Valley) as Loretta Young‘s brother and a confederate of Wilson‘s.

Dark low angle cinematography by Russell Metty (Touch of Evil, Spartacus) provides the images to fuel director Orson Welles’ storytelling and is full of trademark Welles shots.

Music score, by Bronislau Kaper, does the job, but with a heavy hand. His scoring complements the psychological turnings of the story to a degree but the snatches are not as solidly mated with the visuals as they could be. Some of the ascending and descending runs sound a little inappropriately light-hearted, to me.

Among critics, there are several schools of thought about The Stranger: some lament the fact that RKO re-edited Welles’ product and mourn the missing footage. Others, like myself, look at the film for what it is and, objectively speaking, it is all there. Yes, a few characters could be fleshed out a bit more, and that would be welcome, but what is actually there is enough to make a slam-bang good thriller in the film noir style. Rather than wishing for the missing footage that will probably never be found, I prefer to watch The Stranger and marvel at how economically and well Orson Welles told his story. There is a lesson in that, I think, as many films both then and now have too much superfluous footage. A good application of the editor’s scissors would measurably improve such films and return some of the “art” to a medium that has almost become an assembly line for inferior product.

Four stars.

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Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening