Welles Marathon: The Stranger (1946)

After a slight hiatus caused partially due to the fact that the MLB playoffs were happening and I think I just forgot about this last week, this feature is back.  I have just four more Orson Welles movies to cover.  Unfortunately, I haven't seen three of those movies in about a month, so my shoddy memory is going to have to be relied upon.  I'll make sure to put this disclaimer for each of the three where it applies.

I had certain expectations for most Welles movies - he has a ton of movies that he's either made or been in that are part of lists that I follow to determine classic movies to watch.  This is a double-edged sword.  Expectations are not necessarily the greatest thing to have when watching a movie, at least not in my case, because they tend to influence my opinion of the film for better or worse.  

If you go in expecting a classic, and the movie has some flaws, you are disappointed.  And it is very rare to find an older movie - from around Welles time - that is without flaws.  If you can watch a movie blind, which is a different type of risk, you and the movie are on neutral ground.

I bring all that up because I had never heard of The Stranger.  The Stranger, by all accounts, is a run-of-the-mill film noir, or so I was guessing.  It's not on any "Best of" lists whether that be all-time, the specific year it was made, or even within its own genre of film noir.  I had no real reason to expect much when I started this film.

So maybe it was that, but this is probably the film that surprised me the most in this marathon.  I liked this better than The Lady from Shanghai and I liked it better than The Touch of Evil.  I will not deny that both of those films are perhaps better from a filmmaking perspective - more innovative and whatnot.

But the brass tacks of actually making a good movie?  I think this is more effective.  The Stranger, on the heels of the end of World War II, is about an investigator who follows a famous Nazi into a small town in Connecticut to arrest him for war crimes.

It's not a chase movie despite the beginning premise.  The Nazi blends into the small town, and the investigator needs to learn who it is.  We learn who it is immediately.  That's how simple the premise is.  The investigator is played by Edward G Robinson, usually more well-known as a gangster tough guy.  He does what's needed for role, which is simply to be invested in him catching the Nazi, played by Welles.  

Welles has the harder part and he steps up to the challenge.  He needs to convince us how he's able to infiltrate the town - he does so by seeming to be normal, but there is just enough off about his performance that he's never completely lost the Nazi side of him.  And when he takes off the mask, so to speak, it's not completely disconnected from the rest of his performance.

The cast is rounded out by Loretta Young, Welles new bride, Phillip Mervale, a judge and the father of the bride, and Richard Long, the bride's brother.  But the real stars of the movie are Robinson and Welles, and the others are just there to support them.  (Young does get a bit more to do than I'm suggesting)

The Stranger is notable for two reasons.  The first is that it was the first film to feature footage of Nazi concentration camps following World War II, which maybe doesn't seem as shocking to us as it did at the time, but just for that fact alone, I'm surprised this movie isn't more well-known.  The second is that it's the only movie of Welles to show a profit in its original release.  So it was a fairly popular movie at the time.

If you're looking for a good film noir, you can't do much worse than The Stranger.  Hopefully, I haven't built up your expectations too much so that you don't suffer the same fate as I have with other Welles' projects.

4/4 stars