What was cut from THE STRANGER? And when?

[mteal]

CONVERSATION FROM ANOTHER THREAD:

Jay:
I thought that The Stranger was completed by Welles and released without any outside interference. I certainly could be mistaken about this, but if it is indeed the case that the film was altered and taken out of Welles' hands, what's the story?

Ray Kelly:
Hi Jay,
Welles did NOT control the editing.
For example, a South America prologue was cut from the film.

Roger Ryan:
Actually, I believe the cut prologue was a dream sequence involving Loretta Young's character that foreshadows much of the action. The dream imagery continued throughout the film which Edward G. Robinson was meant to comment on ironically by wishing Young "sweet dreams" in his closing line. The line doesn't make any sense now since all the dream material was removed. Some of the South American material remains in the film, but much is gone (including a whole section involving the female spy being murdered). As evidence that Welles was not given final cut on THE STRANGER, I'd present how the long tracking shot that follows the female spy down the dock ramp now features a hackneyed dissolve inserted midway through. Presumably, this was an attempt to shorten the action, but there's no way Welles would have planned a shot like that and then deliberately truncated it during editing in that fashion.

mteal:
Welles claims that he shot those South American sequences mentioned, but to my knowledge, no footage or photographs remain of them to prove it. Maybe there is a cutting continuity somewhere, but I think most of the butchering on that film was done at the script level, before the film was shot, including that long Freudian dream sequence (a 'la Hitchcock's SPELLBOUND) which actually came later in the script. I believe there was a pre-credit prologue cut from the film, but it was a copy of the climactic shot of Loretta Young walking through the cemetery to kill Kindler, followed by a shot of someone falling from the tower. Another example of Welles putting the end at the beginning.

Glenn Anders:
By checking our own Wellesnet entry for THE STRANGER, you come across the following statement: "For more details on the missing scenes in The Stranger, check out Bret Wood's article in Video Watchdog, issue #23, May-July 1994, which also contains a similarly themed article on The Lady From Shanghai." I once had a copy of Issue #23, and my memory is that it contained several stills from THE STRANGER, including at least one from the lost South American sequence.

Jay:
Thanks to everyone who provided the info on The Stranger. I had no idea, and I'm glad I do now (even though it's sad news, in that it's another example of outside influences corrupting Welles' vision).

Roger Ryan:
I'm just going off memory, Mike, and I suspect you have a better grasp on this. No doubt much of the cutting was done at the scripting stage. I do think some of the evidence of tampering is on the screen. One can simply tell that the continuity is ragged in the South American sequence; it feels like Welles' intent was to get the audience involved in the foreign intrigue and then switch the locale to small town America with a dramatic change of tone. As it stands, the South American material is hurried along in a way that makes it feel inconsequential to the narrative. The number of dissolves in this section indicate that excerpts are being shown instead of full scenes. I'm not certain how Kindler was supposed to be shown in South America stumbling through baby coffins (as Welles has claimed), but it feels like Meinike (and the audience) is meant to believe that Kindler will be found somewhere in the southern hemisphere. The fact that he is hiding in America is meant to be a shock (note how Meinike pronounces "Connecticut" as if it was an unknown land). This idea remains, of course, but the impact appears to be lessened. Also, given the way Welles shoots the scene of Mary waking up later in the film, it feels like a climax to a longer (dream?) sequence. Again, I suspect that Welles would have come up with a different curtain line for Wilson if all of the dream material had been cut before shooting began. In typical misleading fashion, IMDb lists the U.S. version of THE STRANGER as being 115 minutes (the correct 95 minute length is noted first). Perhaps there is a grain of truth in that timing and that, in preview form, the film once existed with 20 additional minutes of footage.

[mteal]

One can simply tell that the continuity is ragged in the South American sequence; it feels like Welles' intent was to get the audience involved in the foreign intrigue and then switch the locale to small town America with a dramatic change of tone. As it stands, the South American material is hurried along in a way that makes it feel inconsequential to the narrative. The number of dissolves in this section indicate that excerpts are being shown instead of full scenes. I'm not certain how Kindler was supposed to be shown in South America stumbling through baby coffins (as Welles has claimed)...Also, given the way Welles shoots the scene of Mary waking up later in the film, it feels like a climax to a longer (dream?) sequence.

Yes, I believe that's exactly the way it was originally designed. According to Clinton Heylin, the dream sequence was still on the schedule three quarters of the way through shooting, but may have been cancelled shortly before it was ever filmed. I agree with you about the South Amerca scenes, that section does seem too rushed. More of it's darkness would indeed have been a great contrast with the Harper scenes. I have two scripts for the film, but found no evidence of any scene where Kindler steps on a bay coffin. Would have been a great macabre moment, though.

Glenn, Bret Wood's STRANGER article is great reading, and contains a wonderful description of an early South American scene (where Mieneke is drugged with truth serum at a facility for training attack dogs) that reads like something out of a cutting continuity, but Wood does not list his source for the info. I suspect most of his article came from a perusal of the script. I did not see any South American photos from the Wood article after taking a look at it last night.

Here's Jaime Marzol from another thread:

I don't think any footage was cut out of the stranger. What watchdog may have printed are the scene breakdown sheets, which have all the scenes that were written in the final shooting script, 9/24/1945. Before filming began, the scenes that are considered missing scenes along with scenes that were filmed and are in the film today, were crossed out of the shooting schedule. The continuity script, which is done for legal reasons, is exactly as the film stands today. I do not think these missing scenes were ever filmed. I know 2 respected books say the scenes were filmed, but i researched in the same place one of those books researched, and i didn't any proof.

i've seen that picture of meineke against the stucko building, i think it's a publicity shot. looks like it was shot on that set with the archways.

the stranger evolution according to what i have found:

8/9/1945 bitching temporary draft written by veiller, huston and welles

nimms and speigel tamper with the bitching temporary draft, cut out a bunch of scenes, and this edited version became the final shooting script, 9/24/45.

secretary types the scene breakdown sheets from the 9/24/45 final shooting script.

producer types shooting schedule from the scene breakdown sheets.

before filming began, scenes were crossed out of shooting schedule. so now both drafts of the screenplay have a bunch of scenes that are not in the film.

some of the scenes crossed out of the shooting schedule are in the film today, the majority are not.

what they mostly cut out is the geography of the film. both rankin and mary tool around town in open roadsters. they cut out rankin meeting and courting mary. they cut out a bunch of south america stuff. they cut out another demented speech in the church tower by rankin. the curch confession happens in a speeding roadster. too bad. it could have been an incredible movie as written.

the continuity script is written from the release version of the film. continuity is exactly as the film stands in the roan dvd.

in the 9/24 draft welles had a lot of the cut out scenes trimmed down and as alternate scenes, but none are in the film today.

[Glenn Anders]

Thanks, Mike for bringing all these references together: The photo I referred to may be the one of Meineke in front of a Latin American-looking building that Jaime notes.

Orson Welles seems to have been aware of the deals being made by American Intelligence with the Nazi infrastructure at the end of World War II -- long before, decades before, the evidence of such an association was pointed out to the American Public. I'm not even sure our Government ever acknowledged the extent of our involvement; it became instead a keystone for our "Let's Move on Policy," which has excused a steadily mounting body of allegations of clandestine wrong doing on our part. That body of allegations climaxes for the moment in our tacit admission that much of our foreign and domestic policy for at least the last thirty years has been driven by a desire to mount a Worldwide political-economic hegemony, a great Multinational corporate structure designed to control the planet -- a Fourth Reich, in Franz Kindler's sense of the term -- The New World Order.

In that regard, I recently had occasion to re-read a review of mine about Charles Vidor's GILDA, starring Welles' wife, Rita Hayworth, and extensively re-written for her, it is said, by Welles. I was struck by how much "Baron Ballin Mundson" (George Macready) in the picture resembles Franz Kindler in THE STRANGER. [Macready, incidentally, was a professional colleague of Welles.] How the plot, though less complex, resembles that of THE STRANGER. [If one plays around with the genders a little more, there is even a hint of THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI (1947).] And Baron Mundson's secret, documents, deeds, and plans for a Worldwide "Cartel" based in strategic metals and materials, looks suspiciously like the goal of American Foreign Policy in recent years. My review was written in 2000, and I've revised it slightly for Red Room, highlighting the Wellsian New World Order theme:

http://redroom.com/member/alex-fraser/w ... es-in-1946



Glenn

[mteal]

Good article on GILDA, Glenn. Haven't seen that that film in a long time. Haven't seen Hitchcock's NOTORIOUS - another great film with a fairly similar plot - in a long time either.

I took another look at that Bret Wood article. Now that you mention it, the building Mieneke is standing in front of does have a slightly decadent look to it, not like something out of Harper. I'll post it the next time I get access to a scanner.