The Stranger (1946)

(On Cable TV, October 2019) In Orson Welles’s filmography, The Stranger is often regarded as one of his least remarkable efforts. An early film noir set in a small town where a Nazi-hunter comes to investigate, it was (at the time) an attempt by the disgraced Welles to prove that he could be counted upon as a dependable actor/director, free from the drama that punctuated the first few years of his career. We all know how Welles’s career eventually turned out when driven away from Hollywood, but he was successful in turning out a competent and profitable result with The Stranger. Alas, this work-for-hire means that the film has far fewer of the distinctive touches we associate with Welles at his best: while highly watchable, the result seems rote. The action moves efficiently through stock characters, and Welles even at his most commercial is still a cut above most directors of the time. The dialogue has some great moments (such as the magnificent speech about the nature of Germans, as horribly stereotyped as it may feel now) but the film’s biggest distinction is how closely it engages with the immediate aftermath of WW2: Never mind the film’s interest in escaped Nazis living in the States: it also features then-new graphic footage of concentration camps … including a pile of bodies. Just to make it clear what this is about. You can certainly see in The Stranger a transition film in between the domestic thrillers of the early-1940s and the more fully realized noir aesthetics of the end of the decade. The result is still worth a look, not least for the compelling performances of Welles, Loretta Young and Edward G. Robinson. It’s a striking illustration of what happens when a great artist is given familiar material.