By RAY KELLY
One of Orson Welles’ most overlooked films, The Stranger, marks a milestone on July 2: the 75th anniversary of its theatrical release.
Some have branded the post-war thriller “lesser Welles,” but a minor entry in the Welles canon typically outshines the work of other filmmakers.
Set immediately after World War II, The Stranger stars Welles as Nazi fugitive Franz Kindler, who is masquerading as a teacher in a small Connecticut town. Kindler marries a Supreme Court justice’s daughter (Loretta Young), but he is in danger of being exposed with the arrival of a war crimes investigator (Edward G. Robinson).
The 1946 thriller was initially intended for director John Huston, who became unavailable. As a result, Welles was given the chance to direct his first film since his ouster from RKO Pictures in 1942.
The man who was given almost carte blanche by RKO Pictures when he arrived in Hollywood found himself agreeing to a deal that included significant financial penalties if he failed to meet his contractual obligations.
Welles said he took on The Stranger “to show people that I didn’t glow in the dark, you know. That I could say ‘action’ and ‘cut’ just like all the other fellas.”
But personal politics may have made the project appealing.
The Stranger was the first Hollywood feature to include documentary footage of the Holocaust. In political columns published before The Stranger‘s release, Welles wrote that the concentration camp footage must be seen by the general public and expressed concern that facism would rear its head in Germany again. The latter point is raised in a memorable dinner sequence in The Stranger.
“The German sees himself as the innocent victim of world hatred and conspired against and put upon by inferior peoples, inferior nations. He cannot admit to error, much less to wrongdoing, not the German. We chose to ignore Ethiopia and Spain, but we learned from our own casualty list the price of looking the other way. Men of truth everywhere have come to know for whom the bell tolled, but not the German.”
The Stranger‘s script was trimmed by editor Ernest J. Nims before filming began and some of Welles’ ideas rejected, like casting Agnes Moorehead in the role that went instead to Robinson.
Russell Metty was the cinematographer on The Stranger. He would reteam with Welles on Touch of Evil in 1958 and win the Oscar for Spartacus two years after that. Citizen Kane associate art director Perry Ferguson was tapped to be the production designer for The Stranger.
Welles delivered The Stranger to International Pictures under budget and a day ahead of schedule. It cost slightly more than $1 million to make and grossed $3.2 million during its initial release. It was the most commercially successful Welles-directed movie during its initial box office run.
Victor Trivas, who wrote the original story, was nominated for an Academy Award. The Stranger was screened at the Venice Film Festival in 1947, where it lost out to Czechoslovakian director Karel Steklý’s The Strike.
Despite its success, International Pictures reneged on a promised four-picture deal, and Welles returned to the stage for the musical Around the World, before directing The Lady from Shanghai for Columbia Pictures in 1947. (Welles took on The Lady from Shanghai in order to obtain needed funds to stage Around the World.)
The Stranger lapsed into public domain and numerous labels have released it on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray over the years.
Though many Wellesians have been dismissive of The Stranger — partly due to Welles’ own take on the movie — it received mostly favorable reviews upon its release.
Variety described it as “a socko melodrama, spinning an intriguing web of thrills and chills.”
“Director Orson Welles gives the production a fast, suspenseful development, drawing every advantage from the hard-hitting script from the Victor Trivas story. … A uniformly excellent cast gives reality to events that transpire,” Variety wrote. “The three stars, Robinson, Young and Welles, turn in some of their best work, the actress being particularly effective as the misled bride.”
TIME magazine called it a “cunning conspiracy to scare the daylights out of you. Adroitly directed by Orson Welles, who also plays the star, it is a Grade A gooseflesh-raiser.”
“The Stranger‘s details — a tight script, murky lighting, feverish camera angles, brooding background music — are deftly synchronized to the prevailing mood of uneasiness. All of the acting is well above par. There is hardly a trace of Little Caesar in Edward G. Robinson’s implacable G-man. Loretta Young is just right as the harassed, threatened bride. Oldtime Vaudevillian Billy House earns some much-needed laughs as the village druggist. And Actor Welles, even though Director Welles has used too much film on shots of the petulant Welles scowl, is a convincing menace who richly deserves hissing.”
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