An investigator from the War Crimes Commission travels to Connecticut to find an infamous Nazi, who may be hiding out in a small town in the guise of a distinguished professor engaged to the Supreme Court Justice’s daughter.
Edward G. Robinson Loretta Young Orson Welles Philip Merivale Richard Long Konstantin Shayne Byron Keith Billy House Martha Wentworth David Bond John Brown Neal Dodd Nancy Evans Adolph Faylauer Fred Godoy Theodore Gottlieb Joseph Granby Ethan Laidlaw Ruth Lee Lillian Molieri Isabel O'Madigan Gabriel Peralta Gerald Pierce Robert Raison Rebel Randall Johnny Sands Erskine Sanford Pietro Sosso Josephine Victor
El extraño, El extranjero, Die Spur eines Fremden, Die Spur des Fremden, 이방인, De Vreemdeling, Främlingen, Svetimšalis, Le Criminel, Date With Destiny, ストレンジャー, ストレンジャー／謎のストレンジャー, 오손 웰스의 이방인, Lo straniero, Yabancı, Der Fremde, 陌生人, O Estrangeiro, הזר, Az óra körbejár, Intruz, Чужденецът, Чужестранец, Muukalainen katosi, Незнайомець, O Estranho, Străinul, Įsibrovėlis, Den Fremmede, غریبه, El desconegut, オーソン・ウェルズINストレンジャー
PortugalM/12
Denmark15
USANR
USA
FinlandK-16
Sweden15
USA
Italy
FranceTP
Poland12
Germany12
Spain12
PortugalM/12
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Italy
Poland
Portugal
Spain
Sweden
USA
“No! He still follows his warrior gods marching to Wagnerian strains, his eyes still fixed upon the firey sword of Siegfried, and he knows subterranean meeting places that you don't believe in. The German's dream world comes alive when he takes his place in shining armor beneath the banners of the Teutonic knights. Mankind is waiting for the Messiah, but for the German, the Messiah is not the Prince of Peace. No, he's... another Barbarossa... another Hitler.”
Only Orson Welles could deliver a line like this. Welles was never able to play the ‘little man’ like James Stewart or Henry Fonda could. He always portrayed the larger than life, emperor like roles – even when he plays a Nazi war…
Not the most formally impressive work from Welles who appears to have taken on the project because he saw it as a chance to prove he could deliver a typical identity thriller/Huston noir on time and on budget but the cinematography by Russell Metty makes very effective use of shadows and Welles clearly relishes the opportunity to play a manifestation of fascism's deceptively charming, chameleon qualities that can hide within them; engaging in a number of incredible cat-and-mouse psychological and verbal confrontations with Edward G. Robinson who is trying to expose him as an ex-Nazi hiding out in small-town Connecticut. Anyway, what Welles thought of as his worst movie would be considered a lot of filmmaker's best movie I think.
Stranger Danger!
I like how he killed a guy then threw some leaves on top of him like that was a sufficient way to hide a body.
tag urself i’m the guy who wanted to charge orson welles with murder bc he poisoned a dog
Orson Welles was a goddamn visionary, both as a director and actor, and no one can convince me otherwise.
Taking the directorial chair as well as center stage as ruthless Nazi and antisemite Franz Kindler, who stops at nothing (least of all murder) to cover his tracks and avoid getting caught, and making a movie about him in 1946(!) was one hell of a venture on Welles' part, but as was the case with all his other projects, he jaw-droppingly pulled this one off.
The sheer technicality of every scene he ever directed is nothing short of amazing and his well-polished sequences shine with luminous fervor in The Stranger too. That tracking shot he incorporated into one long take of…
"Who but a Nazi would deny that Karl Marx was a German because he was a Jew?"
Fascinatingly unique noir from the legend Orson Welles, even if a slightly uninvolving one. Part of the reason it's fascinating is its minor twist on the classic existential doom of the film noir genre. Traditionally you get some sort of detective-type character who is driven to such extremes that he ends up putting his own life at stake. In The Stranger, there's both a detective character and a doomed character, but they're not the same person.
Part of the reason I'm so attracted to film noir is the sympathy it offers for these self-destructive character types. I recognize something of myself in them—not…
FILM SCHOOL DROPOUT: A 2017 year-long movie challenge
My list | Disgustipated's master list
Week 12: Orson Welles
Ah, genius youth -- is there any greater curse? After a charmed early career in which he could literally do no wrong, first in live theater (where among other accolades he produced the first-ever all-black Shakespeare production on Broadway), and then radio (where his infamously realistic modern updating of War of the Worlds caused a national panic), the 24-year-old Welles then hit Hollywood like a tornado with his very first film, Citizen Kane, still rightly considered by many to be the very best movie ever made in human history. But that's when Welles learned that when you finally start having success in…
"Well, as a historian, I must remind you that the world hasn't had much trouble from Carthage in the past 2,000 years" - Charles Rankin,
- 5X5 Director's Challenge ( boxd.it/3IUJC ) Orson Welles (1/5)
Man, knowing nazis were hiding everywhere in America must have been terrifying. Good thing America has nothing like that at all going on now and everything is amazing.
Orson Welles is the shit! What they're doing here is hunting nazis. Agent Wilson (Eugene Robinson) is trying to find the escaped Franz Kindler (Welles), the organizer of the Holocaust. Kinder is hiding in plain sight but will Agent Wilson figure it out and be able to prove it? This came out right after the end of…
This is really, really great. There’s just something about New England in autumn that serves as the perfect backdrop to this film— the picturesque small town covered in fallen leaves, a place where one can be concealed by the commonness of the setting. Orson Welles is such a visual filmmaker, and the black and white imagery in this film—although not exactly subtle— is incredibly memorable and striking. I think this is perhaps my favorite film of his now, because the story, the setting, the length are all so perfectly contained in a single vision, and they all appeal to me the most.
(This is also one of the few films of the 1940s that I’ve watched that has directly addressed the absolute horrors of the holocaust, instead of just briefly mentioning “concentration camps” and swiftly moving along.)
4.1/5
