The Stranger

Classic films are treasures that continue to age well regardless how many decades has passed. The classic black and white films can start with Chaplin and can go onto Kubrick and many art house films. Many are timeless and are praised as being instant classics. One of the best actors and directors during the black and white era that has remained an undisputed name in cinema and one with the most distinguished voices is Orson Welles.

The man who made a whole small town go nuts with his War of the Worlds radio broadcast and took a huge risk in Citizen Kane, is synonymous with his voice as well as his acting and directing ability. He made RKO pictures a name for when the big studios in the day was Warner Brothers, Columbia and Disney. The man is one of the greatest of all time even when his movies are forgotten and lost to obscurity. The movie we will be talking about is The Stranger. In this movie, Orson plays a villainous Nazi who escaped post war and decides to hide out in Connecticut only to be discovered by the war commission who is on his tail played by Edward G Robinson However, Edward cannot just arrest him without any evidence. The whole movie is Edward plotting to expose Orson and Orson trying to play his game of chess and be one step ahead and avoid capture and arrest. Is this film a hidden classic in the filmography of Orson Welles or is there a reason this film didn't have all the acclaim as other projects? We'll judge this movie based on plot, characters and the suspense/chase of exposing Orson. So, let's sit back, and always remember Nazis are evil and let's enjoy The Stranger.

The movie is all about Orson Welles playing the infamous Franz Kindler, the creator of the concentration camps and escaped Nazi. The story is about Edward G Robinson working for the war crimes commission looking for Franz but Franz was able to destroy everything before the war ended leaving no paper trail. However, with a little manipulation, he got Franz's' right hand man and “released” him so he could lead the government to Franz. The right hand man, named Meineke, leaves Europe and heads to a small town in Connecticut. With him finding Franz, Orson is introduced to us as the Nazi. Orson, knowing that he could be watched or spied upon, ends up murdering Meineke in the woods and buries him there too. Orson is engaged to a woman and during dinner, Robinson invites himself to dinner where the two have a very political talk about the German man (this movie was made in 1947, so, its only been a couple of years since the war ended). From what Orson talked about during dinner, Robinson is completely sure Orson is Kindler but needs the evidence. During the course of the movie, Orson is trying to outwit and manipulate his wife into believing he isn't a Nazi and that it's all been just one big misunderstanding and people want to ruin him. Without giving away different events and spoilers of the movie, Orson and Robinson play off each other very well; Orson with his cunning linguistic skills and mind and Robinson with his no-nonsense bad ass noir style of dialogue. The one downside to the movie, which I won't reveal is the ending. After a whole build up and this suspenseful connection between the two characters, the ending just left me deflated. It didn't build up to more dialogue or anything of substance. It gave me a cheesy line and a fade to black. After everything the audience members went through, it feels cheap and it was like all this build up and you finished with a throwaway. It could've been more with analysis or discovering more information or something. It bothered me with the overall rating or the movie to some extent.

The character work is very good in the movie. Orson is so cunning and has that vernacular that makes you want to like him and root for him even though his character is so evil. Edward Robinson is likable in a gruff New York sort of way. His no nonsense approach is fresh and also, he shows his intellect as well against Orson whom you'd think Orson would mop the flow with him. Those two play chess so well together that it shows that even though he might be gruff, Robinson might be smarter than you think and to never underestimate your opponent (they have a shop keep in the movie who is so competitive in checkers; they underestimated him when they played). The shop keep character was a lot of fun with his love of checkers and being the likable guy who everyone knows in town and he knows everything in town. Orsons' wife was decent as well going through the many stages of denial with Welles being a Nazi. She slowly unravels emotionally and ultimately accepts that she married a Nazi. This movie has good acting overall. There are some stock characters with no personality and doesn't drive the plot. However, for the main characters, they all did a great job with their portrayal.

The unraveling of the discovery is given to us immediately when Meineke exposes Orson as the Nazi. However, the suspense and the build up is all about Robinson exposing Orson to the family and ruining whatever life he might've had in Connecticut. The build up is like the game of checkers they keep referencing in the movie. You start out slow and plant your pieces in certain positions and when your opponent thinks they have messed up and you feel overconfident, that is when you realized you were being setup and you lose all the pieces and ultimately, you have lost everything. This metaphor is perfect for the movie because Robinson has to get himself good with Orson's fiance's family, set some seeds of doubt in the town, and start showing up uninvited just to show Orson he isn't going away and he knows the truth. I like the way Orson tries to brush everything off but slowly starts to overthink and begin his unravel. The beat of the character losing everything is a nice slow build and it fits to the movie extremely well. The movie makes us think Orson is going to snap earlier than usual but its through his pose and control that whenever you think it'll be the end of Orson, he somehow uses his cunning to buy himself some time and keep on living his dream of being free and his escape.

This movie is very good and I think a forgotten classic in many people's eyes. It's really not anything special per-se like a Citizen Kane but it's still a good movie with good acting and a nice location in a studio. The dialogue between Orson and Robinson are very good and you can see they are trying to outwit each other the whole time and it's refreshing to see intellect being used as a weapon instead of just brute force and conviction. Overall, if you could find the movie at the library or at a video store, give it a shot to watch. It'll totally be worth the couple of bucks to spend on this movie that many people have forgotten or never heard of.

I give this movie 4 checker kings out of 5.