The Stranger (1946)
The Stranger is a 1946 American thriller film noir directed and co-written by Orson Welles, starring Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young and Orson Welles. Welles’s third completed feature film as director and his first film noir, it centers on a war crimes investigator tracking a high-ranking Nazi fugitive to a Connecticut town. It is the first Hollywood film to present documentary footage of the Holocaust. The film was nominated for the Golden Lion (then-called the ‘Grand International Prize’) at the 8th Venice International Film Festival. Screenwriter Victor Trivas received an Oscar nomination for Best Story.
Director – Orson Welles
Writers – Anthony Veiller (screenplay), Victor Trivas (adaptation), Decla Dunning (adaptation)
Cast –
Orson Welles as Franz Kindler/Professor Charles Rankin
Edward G. Robinson as Mr. Wilson
Loretta Young as Mary Longstreet Rankin
Philip Merivale as Judge Adam Longstreet
Richard Long as Noah Longstreet
Konstantin Shayne as Konrad Meinike
Byron Keith as Dr. Jeffrey Lawrence
Billy House as Mr. Potter
Martha Wentworth as Sara
Isabel O’Madigan as Mrs. Lawrence
Pietro Sosso as Mr. Peabody
Erskine Sanford as Party Guest
Theodore Gottlieb as Farbright (not in released version)
Watch “The Stranger” (1946)
Plot
Mr. Wilson is an agent of the United Nations War Crimes Commission who is hunting for Nazi fugitive Franz Kindler, a war criminal who has erased all evidence which might identify him. He has left no clue to his identity except “a hobby that almost amounts to a mania—clocks.”
Wilson releases Kindler’s former associate Meinike, hoping the man will lead him to Kindler. Wilson follows Meinike to a small town in Connecticut, but loses him before he meets with Kindler. Kindler has assumed a new identity as “Charles Rankin”, and has become a teacher at a local prep school. He is about to marry Mary Longstreet, daughter of Supreme Court Justice Adam Longstreet, and is involved in repairing the town’s 400-year-old Habrecht-style clock mechanism with religious automata that crowns the belfry of a church in the town square.
Meinike attacks Wilson, leaving him for dead, and meets Kindler. Meinike is repentant and has become a Christian, and begs Kindler to confess his own crimes. Instead, Kindler strangles Meinike, who might expose him.
Wilson begins investigating newcomers to the small town. Due to Rankin and Mary’s marriage, he does not suspect Rankin—until Rankin says conversationally that since Karl Marx was a Jew, he was not a German. Even so, not having witnessed the meeting with Meinike, he still has no proof. Only Mary knows that Meinike came to meet her husband. To get her to admit this, Wilson must convince her that her husband is a criminal—before Kindler decides to eliminate the threat to him by killing her. Kindler’s facade begins to unravel when Red, the family dog, discovers Meinike’s body. To further protect his secret, Kindler poisons Red.
Meanwhile, Mary begins to suspect her husband is not being honest with her. He admits to killing Meinike and Red, but claims Meinike was in town to blackmail her and her father. Mary still loves him and wants to protect him in any way she can; she helps by lying about Meinike. Then Wilson shows her graphic footage of Nazi concentration camps and explains how Kindler developed the idea of genocide. She is torn between her love and her desire to learn the truth. Meanwhile, Kindler tries to arrange a fatal “accident” for Mary, but she discovers the plot. Finally accepting the truth, she dares her husband to kill her face to face. Kindler tries, but is prevented by the arrival of Wilson and Mary’s brother, and escapes from the house.
Kindler flees into the church belfry, followed by Mary and then Wilson. Meanwhile most of the town, hearing the repaired clock bell, has arrived outside the building. At the top of the tower, Kindler pulls a gun and a struggle ensues. Mary ends up with the gun and fires. The clock is damaged and begins running away; Kindler is shot. He staggers outside to the belfry’s clock face, and is impaled by the sword of one of the moving clock figures. Weakened by his injuries, he falls to his death.