Review – The Stranger

Though actor/director Orson Welles is rumored to have hated this picture, it isn’t all that bad. A Nazi war criminal (Welles) hiding in the United States tries to keep an investigator (Edward G. Robinson) from ruining his idyllic new life, particularly his marriage to a Supreme Court justice’s daughter (Loretta Young). To be sure, the production has problems. For starters, 1946 is a little early for one of the architects of the Final Solution to have decided to flee, fled, made his way to America, assumed a new identity and gotten close to the family of a prominent politician. And technically the picture is occasionally too “Welles-y,” with all the high key lighting, low angle shots and moving camera takes that sometimes throw off the focus. But the story is solid, particularly for a thriller from the era. If you share my natural distrust of ladders then the clock tower sequences will probably make you itch. What more can you ask of a movie? Mildly amusing