THE STRANGER
(contains spoilers)
Orson Welles made a habit out of playing unpleasant characters. No matter if you recall Kane, or Harry Lime, or the police chief in Touch of Evil, there is a degree of vulgarity and viciousness to the roles. Welles specialty is rogues that can make you smile before you realise the scope of their degraded villainy. The devil, as he mentioned in one of his lengthy to camera pieces later, should be able to come to your house and be charming and make you forget he is the devil. You can see this in his on screen roles.
(contains spoilers)
Orson Welles made a habit out of playing unpleasant characters. No matter if you recall Kane, or Harry Lime, or the police chief in Touch of Evil, there is a degree of vulgarity and viciousness to the roles. Welles specialty is rogues that can make you smile before you realise the scope of their degraded villainy. The devil, as he mentioned in one of his lengthy to camera pieces later, should be able to come to your house and be charming and make you forget he is the devil. You can see this in his on screen roles.
Add to this long list of rogues Franz Kindler. Of course, he doesn’t
want to be known as that, hence his bumping off of red shirt Nazi
Meinike, the only man who can recognise him. For Welles, despite being
the “architect of genocide” in Nazi Germany, has escaped to the US, and
is marrying the daughter of a Supreme Court Judge. Who happens to be the
only person to know Meinike (the dead) came to see her husband. Which
puts her next in line to be murdered. Unless Edward G Robinson, showing
far more athletic ability to bound up those church steps than I’d
hitherto given him credit for, can catch Welles in his pseudonym lie.
The Stranger was Welles third directed film after Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. As with most of his back catalogue, it is stunningly well filmed, with great use of framing and tone of shot. It focuses on the concept of good and evil, but more so on the route men take to become immoral. This may be forgotten next to the twin master pieces of Welles directorial life – Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil – but it’s a remarkable little film. It encompasses large world moments (Robinsons search for the Nazi warlord reminds of Wiesenthal and other’s search in real life) while focusing on the domestic. The scenes where Loretta Young struggles with the knowledge her new husband is a killer, and how it effects her, is straight out of Hitchcock, and filmed just as well.
Crisp, eerie and well cast, The Stranger is a worthy addition to the Welles pantheon.
Warning – the film contains newsreel footage of the holocauste.
The Stranger was Welles third directed film after Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. As with most of his back catalogue, it is stunningly well filmed, with great use of framing and tone of shot. It focuses on the concept of good and evil, but more so on the route men take to become immoral. This may be forgotten next to the twin master pieces of Welles directorial life – Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil – but it’s a remarkable little film. It encompasses large world moments (Robinsons search for the Nazi warlord reminds of Wiesenthal and other’s search in real life) while focusing on the domestic. The scenes where Loretta Young struggles with the knowledge her new husband is a killer, and how it effects her, is straight out of Hitchcock, and filmed just as well.
Crisp, eerie and well cast, The Stranger is a worthy addition to the Welles pantheon.
Warning – the film contains newsreel footage of the holocauste.
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