Film Review
After the epic scale and heavy stylisation of
Citizen Kane (1941) and
The Magnificent Ambersons
(1942),
The Stranger feels
like something of a come down for Orson Welles. It was the poor
box office showing of these earlier films that compelled Welles to make
a more conventional film, one that would achieve a healthy return,
thereby redeeming himself in the eyes of his profit-hungry producers in
Hollywood.
The Stranger
may not be Welles' most inspired or technically laudable film, but it
is a respectable film noir thriller which achieved what it was intended
to do, to attract and entertain a large mainstream cinema audience.
Welles claimed that he disliked making
The Stranger and admitted that
there was little in the project to enthuse him. This is
surprising given that the film bears many of his stylistic motifs,
notably the expressionistic use of shadows and oblique camera
angles. Uncharacteristically for Welles, the narrative is
doggedly linear, avoiding flashbacks, a key Wellesian device, but this
adds to the film's realism, making this one of the director's most
naturalistic works.
One of the reasons why Welles found making this film so difficult was
having to work opposite Edward G. Robinson, who was foisted on him by
International Pictures producer Sam Spiegel. Welles had
originally intended that the part of the war crimes investigator would
go to Agnes Moorehead, who had featured in his earlier film
The Magnificent Ambersons
(1942). Spiegel was adamant that Moorehead was not a sufficient
box office draw to make the film a success and so hired the far more
bankable Robinson. Although Robinson gives a great performance,
he had a poor working relationship with his co-star/director and the
atmosphere on the set was often poisoned with acrimony.
The main strength of
The Stranger
is Welles' utterly chilling portrayal of a Nazi fugitive. This is
noteworthy because the actor tacitly avoids the stereotypical image of
Nazi officials that was prevalent in cinema at the time, that of the
single-minded power-crazed mad man. Instead, Welles portrays war
criminal Franz Kindler in a way that is far more convincing and
sinister - as a quietly calculating man who has committed himself
wholesale to Nazi ideology and who has his own sincerely held views of
morality and justice. It is a role that prefigures
Welles' most famous, that of the unscrupulous Harry Lime in
The
Third Man (1949).
© James Travers 2008
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Orson Welles film:
The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
Film Synopsis
Immediately after WWII, a war crimes investigator named Wilson is
assigned to track down the notorious Nazi war criminal Franz
Kindler. Although he played a significant part in the holocaust,
Kindler managed to keep a low profile, allowing him to flee his country
unnoticed as Germany fell to the Allies. To uncover
Kindler's present whereabouts, Wilson has another former Nazi official,
Meinik, released from prison. Sure enough, Meinik leads Wilson to
the place where Kindler now lives, a small Connecticut town,
Harper. Here, Kindler has assumed a new identity, Charles Rankin
- a high school teacher who has married the daughter of a Supreme Court
Judge. To unmask Kindler and bring him to justice, Wilson appeals
to his wife, but she is reluctant to believe what he tells her...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.