The Stranger - 1946 film review

The Stranger is an intriguing film noir from 1946. It's really a story of a cat-and-mouse relationship between a Nazi hunter called Wilson (Edward G. Robinson) and a superficially charming professor (Orson Welles, who also directed and co-wrote the film) who is actually Kindler, a Nazi who has escaped to the United States and reinvented himself as a plausible academic who marries a judge's daughter (Loretta Young).

Despite the fact that The Stranger was made so soon after the war ended, it gives a powerful sense of the horror of the Holocaust, even if the details of Kindler's backstory are rather vague. The story begins with a reformed ex-associate of Kindler's making contact with him - on the day that the villian of the piece is due to get married - unaware that Wilson is on his case. The wedding does take place, but Kindler also finds time to kill his former crony. There is a great scene in the woods which involves Kindler hiding the body and risking discovery when a bunch of his students run through the woods on a paper chase.

The principal writer is Anthony Veiller, whose other work included The List of Adrian Messenger. In many ways, though, it is the visual ingredients of the film rather than the storyline - tense as it is - which make it worth watching. The climactic scene, which takes place at the top of a clock tower (Kindler is obsessed with clocks) is especially memorable. 

Orson Welles was a towering figure in the film world, even if his achievements were somewhat mixed. I liked his performance as Kindler, even though it's by no means his most acclaimed role. The Stranger isn't a masterpiece, but it's not mundane, either. Well worth a watch.

Three Cases of Murder - film/DVD review

Three Cases of Murder, a film dating from 1955, was released a while back on DVD. It isn't an especially renowned film, even though Orson Welles appears in it, but it really ought to be. I think it bears comparison with Dead of Night, that classic chiller, which scared me when I was eleven years old, and watched it for the first time. Like Dead of Night, this one is a portmanteau film, comprising three distinct stories (apparently, the origiinal plan was for there to be five stories, but budget pressures forced a cut-back; even so, it's a very watchable film.)

The linking device between the stories is different from that in Dead of Night, and less powerful. In fact, it now seems rather odd. Each story is introduced by, of all people, Eamonn Andrews. Perhaps the film shoudl have been called This is Your Death. I'm afraid Eamoon doesn't add a lot of value; the film succeeds in spite of his presence, rather than thanks to it.

The first of the three stories, "In the Picture", is the most memorable. It's a very macabre story written by Roderick Wilson, yet I've been unable to find out anything about Wilson; does anyone reading this blog know anything about him? The tale begins quite jauntily, with some rather intrusive background music, but soon settles into something different, and disturbing. It's worth watching the movie for this segment alone.

"You Killed Elizabeth" is based on a story by Brett Halliday (real name David Dresser), who was at one time married to the admirable Helen McCloy. It's a short, competent whodunit, featuring John Gregson in his pre-George Gideon days. "Lord Mountdrago", based on a story by Somerset Maugham, stars Welles as a nasty Foreign Secretary who is haunted by his enemy, a Kinnock-esque politician played by the excellent Alan Badel, who also has key roles in the other two segments. The DVD also contains as a bonus an Irish ghost story which again features Welles. I was expecting something okay from this film, but found I was watching something truly enjoyable. Strongly recommended.

The Third Man

Watching Carol Reed’s superb 1949 film The Third Man again, not long after reading Eric Ambler’s novel of ten years earlier, The Mask of  Dimitrios, I was struck by the similarities between the novel and Graham Greene’s screenplay. Both feature an apparently dead villain whose story is sought after by a rather naive popular novelist, and the two story-lines develop (despite many differences) in a broadly comparable way.

There can be little doubting Ambler’s influence on Greene, yet The Third Man remains a distinctive and enjoyable piece of work, and it is, I think, a very good example of how one story-teller can properly borrow from another, and yet still make his work very much his own. 

The setting in post-war Vienna is highly atmospheric, and of course the famous sewer sequence, as well as the scenes shot near to the Wiener Reisenrad, which long pre-dates The Millennium Wheel, are intensely memorable. The cinematography is complemented by Anton Karas’ zither music, and “The Harry Lime Theme” became an international hit.

Greene’s narrative has plenty of pleasing twists and turns, as well as a downbeat ending, and he and director Carol Reed are extremely well served by the cast. This includes those British stalwarts Trevor Howard, Bernard Lee and Wilfred Hyde-White, as well as Joseph Cotten and, best of all, Orson Welles. It is, at heart, a story about friendship and betrayal, and is a first rate example of how a tale that is very much of its time can nevertheless stand the test of time.

Ten Little Indians movie review

To be perfectly honest, I was expecting to hate the 1965 movie version of Agatha Christie's masterpiece And Then There Were None. Which is why I've managed to avoid watching it until now. But I decided to bite the bullet, and to my surprise found the film surpassed my admittedly low expectations.

The setting is a country house, of course, but this one is to be found at the top of an Alpine mountain accessible only by sleigh and cable car. The servants who greet the guests who have been invited by the mysterious U.N. Owen are locals, and when Owen's voice is played on a tape recording, I discovered that the uncredited actor who spoke the words was Christopher Lee (in a later version of the film, Orson Welles did the same job.)

The cast is pretty good, including Stanley Holloway, Dennis Price and Wilfrid Hyde White, as well as the ultra-glamorous ex-Bond girl Shirley Eaton, who gets to play a sex scene, albeit mild in the extreme, with Hugh O'Brian.

A notable feature of the movie is the 'whodunit break', an updated version of the Challenge to the Reader introduced in the Golden Age by Ellery Queen and also used by the likes of Rupert Penny and Anthony Berkeley. A gimmick, yes, but a pleasing one, at least to my mind. I enjoyed this film more than I should have done, perhaps. It ain't Martin Scorsese, but as light entertainment, it ain't that bad, either.

Trent's Last Case

Trent’s Last Case, by E.C. Bentley, is properly regarded as one of the landmark books in the history of crime fiction. The first two film versions left Bentley unimpressed, but the third, shot in 1952, was better and I’ve just watched a DVD of the movie that I received as a welcome Christmas present.

The stars were Michael Wilding (one of Elizabeth Taylor’s many husbands), Margaret Lockwood (whose many other films include that classic The Lady Vanishes), Orson Welles, no less, as Sigsbee Manderson, and Miles Malleson, who had a rather more important role than usual in his prolific career.

I thought it was a decent film. Famously, whodunits are tricky to film; you can understand why Hitchcock generally favoured suspense rather than a heavily plotted mystery. But this one remains perfectly watchable.

The book was greatly admired by Sayers and Christie, among others, and it was a formative influence on their writing careers. Sayers later became a good friend of ‘Jack’ Bentley, so much so that she even rhapsodised over the belated follow-up, Trent’s Own Case, though in truth it was a relatively minor work. Bentley never came close to surpassing his debut novel.

Compulsion

The Leopold-Loeb case is one of the most famous American crimes. Two students – intelligent, but not as intelligent as they believed themselves to be – abducted and murdered a young man as a Nietzschean ‘experiment’ in committing the perfect crime in 1924. Of course, it was far from perfect. They were duly caught and convicted, but Clarence Darrow’s advocacy saved them from execution. Loeb was murdered by a fellow prisoner, but Leopold was released after 33 years and died in 1971.

The story inspired Patrick Hamilton to write the famous play ‘Rope’, filmed equally famously by Alfred Hitchcock. Meyer Levin based his book and play Compulsion on the story, and I’ve just watched the film of the same title, starring Orson Welles as Darrow, made in 1959. Apparently, Leopold tried to prevent the film’s release, arguing that it breached his privacy. This may be why the characters are named Steiner and Strauss rather than Leopold and Loeb.

Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman do a good job as the selfish young men, and convey the gay undercurrents of their relationship reasonably well, given the constraints that existed at the time the film was made. But it has to be said that they are unappealing characters, and although their motivation was fascinating, it is less than fully explored. The abduction and murder of the victim is not shown at al, and I felt that was a structural weakness since the central horror of the story is dealt with at one remove. I do not suggest that the crime should have been depicted graphically – that would also have been a mistake – but to omit it altogether struck me as odd, though it is a reminder that the focus of the film is different from that of most crime-based movies. Further weaknesses are the duo’s attempts to avoid arrest are puerile, and the action is rather slow at times.

However, Welles gives a towering performance as Jonathan Wilk (the Darrow equivalent) and his passionate opposition to capital punishment is so effectively conveyed that it is the highlight of the film and the reason why, more than half a century after it was made, it remains well worth watching to this day.