The Stranger

The Stranger

classified PG

The Magnificence of Orson

Film

Please note: This was screened in July 2015

Director
Orson Welles
Cast
Edward G. Robinson, Orson Welles, Loretta Young
Details
95 mins, 1946, USA

Four years after the release of the bowdlerized The Magnificent Ambersons, an undaunted Orson Welles returned to the director’s chair for this characteristically baroque, noir-soaked thriller about an ex-Nazi war criminal who assumes a new life and identity in suburban America after escaping Germany following World War II.

When Franz Kindler (Welles), a leading Nazi and mastermind behind the extermination camps, escapes justice by changing his identity, War Crimes Commission agent Wilson (Edward G. Robinson) is sent on the trail to track him down. After Wilson releases Kindler's former comrade Meinike, a man racked with guilt over his wartime activities and one of the few people alive who can identify Kindler, he follows him to the town of Harper, Connecticut where Kindler - now known as Professor Charles Rankin - is working as a teacher. But when that plan disappears in the woods, Wilson is left with few clues and little hope of convincing the townspeople, or Kindler's naive new wife, who this stranger in their midst really is.

This was Welles’ most conventional film as director and the only picture he ever directed as a job. But in doing so he proved to the studios that he could make a profitable picture after all whilst at the same time still offer some surprises; not least gutsy incorporation of actual holocaust footage which was a first for Hollywood cinema at the time.


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