Three Strangers (1946)
Directed by Jean Negulesco

Film Review

When he first wrote the storyline for The Three Strangers after a stay in London, John Huston conceived it as a direct sequel to his earlier film The Maltese Falcon (1941). with Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet and Mary Astor reprising each of their respective roles.  Things did not work out as planned - Warner Brothers had by this stage lost the rights to Dashiell Hammett's characters and, owing to his military obligations, Huston was unavailable to direct the film.  In Huston's absence, the directing duties fell to Jean Negulesco, who was shaping up to be one of the studio's most successful directors in the crime-mystery genre.  Huston may not have directed the film but he (in collaboration with Howard Koch) furnished it with a superlative script which, with its plot convolutions and assortment of colourful and interesting characters, can hardly fail to sustain our interest.  The Three Strangers is unquestionably one of Warner Brothers' more enjoyable (and eccentric) excursions into film noir territory, and if only Huston had been around to direct it (with his usual flair for atmosphere and twisted irony)  it might even have been a masterpiece.

As on his previous crime-mystery offering, The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), Negulesco was blessed with having Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, two of the most distinguished (and certainly most recognisable) character actors working in Hollywood at the time, in the principal male roles.  In the last but one of their memorable screen pairings (the two first appeared together on the set of The Maltese Falcon), Greenstreet and Lorre form a wonderfully weird double act.  In the film's most memorable scene towards the end (with Greenstreet going completely off the rails and Lorre looking scarily calm), they spark off each other as if they had been working together for decades.  Here Lorre is cast against type as the romantic lead, in an unusually sympathetic role which allows him to reveal a side to his persona that is very different from the one we are more familiar with.  Lorre's scenes with Joan Lorring (well-suited to play his adoring girlfriend) are especially poignant and are among the most touching in his entire repertoire. 

Greenstreet is on far more familiar ground as a money-obsessed scoundrel, but again he is cast more as a victim of circumstances than an outright villain, becoming increasingly funny and increasingly tragic as his world collapses around him.  Despite going outrageously over the top in some scenes, Greenstreet never fails to hold onto our sympathies, and if we have any contempt and loathing, we reserve these for the savagely heartless femme fatale of the piece, played to perfection by Geraldine Fitzgerald (probably the only actress who could get into a cat fight with Joan Crawford and stand any chance of surviving).   Despite a deliciously wicked turn from Fitzgerald the film is mercilessly stolen by Lorre and Greenstreet in its final tragi-comic act.  This magnificent duo would work together on one more film, Don Siegel's debut feature The Verdict (1946), bringing to an end one of Hollywood's finest and most unlikely screen partnerships.

Film Synopsis

London, 1938.  Crystal Shackleford, a mysterious young woman, lures two complete strangers - solicitor Jerome K. Arbutny and small-time crook Johnny West - back to her apartment so that she can offer them a fantastic proposal.  Crystal possesses a statuette of the Chinese goddess Kwan Yin which, she claims will grant them a shared wish that evening, at the start of the Chinese New Year.  The only thing the three people have in common is an urgent need for money, so Crystal has purchased a sweepstake ticket for a horse race which, if Kwan Yin does her work, will make the three strangers fabulously wealthy.  But events are fast conspiring against all three of them.  Crystal's husband is planning to start a new life with another woman and is tempted to kill her if she does not agree to a divorce.  Arbutny faces ruin and disgrace when some dodgy speculations backfire and leave him with a huge financial shortfall.  Johnny is in greatest peril - wrongly arrested for murdering a policeman, he is likely to be hanged in a few days' time.  It seems that all three strangers are set on a course for destruction from which there is no escape, but not so.  The inscrutable Kwan Yin has a few surprises in store...